Monthly Archives: September 2007

After a Night in Nepalgunj, I am in Jumla

Posted on by
5

After the first ever helicopter ride, I take a first ever walk in Jumla headquarters. There are many firsts.

04 July: By all accounts and activities that I experienced today, it was indeed a historic day. Let me be chronological because histories are recorded that way. I woke up at 06:45 even as I had slept at around 12:30 night. I am talking about this morning in Nepalgunj, in Sneha hotel. That was a nice hotel with the cooler (not AC though) switched on all night which was normal in a super hot place like Nepalgunj. The hotel apparently was occupied by quite a many khaire and khaireni as it has a neighbor called United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN- regional office). The hotel owner told me that eight rooms were occupied by UNMIN folks while a few others by activist and probably doctors of Medicine Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders). Okay, it seems I am stuck into details.

I had never stayed in Nepalgunj before and not certainly shared a room with a word wizard guy called Raj Kumar, a reporter with Nepal One TV who, like me, was in the trip to cover a parliamentary observation of the newly constructed Karnali Highway. The members of Public Account Committee were undertaking a helicopter trip to Jumla to observe the muddy, unpaved and still-under-improvement highway (Jumla-Surkhet). (Read my Highway journey here)

So this guy: Raj Kumar. He is quite a talkative guy with millions of topic to talk about. He talked like hell- I mean everything from hell to heaven to life and death to sports and dreams. The weirdest thing was a weird lump of flesh on this guy’s chest. That was a small, rectangular shaped thing, slightly overgrown from the rest of the chest. What’s that on there? Is that a locket? If that is a locket, why can’t I see the string attached? After I finally managed to ask, he explained me that the ‘locket’ grew up when he suffered some kind of a disease and that remained there ever since. “I love this thing these days,” he said. “I don’t want to remove it [through surgery] though doctors have said it could be removed. Sometime it itches but that’s it.” Continue reading →

About these ads

Harry Potter and Reading Culture in Nepal

Posted on by
2

Thanks to the exposure that the Nepali society has gotten over the last decade and the new trend of marketing the books via glittering advertisement campaign, writers becoming celebrity is becoming a mainstream in Nepali society.

“It’s sad that even after the arrival of the seventh book,” wrote a disgruntled reader from Dolakha in Kantipur after the newspaper published an article about Harry Potter phenomena in the last week of July, “[Not a single] Harry Potter book has been translated into Nepali.”

It’s almost certain that many people will continue to remain sad in the foreseeable future because, despite the entire hype surrounding Potter brand in Nepal, the books will not come in Nepali anytime soon. There is not enough market for that and Potter is all about market. But the lack of translation isn’t stopping many Nepali book lovers to get the pleasure offered by the series.

With the arrival of Potter books, especially the latest and last one, the Nepali book world has turned an important page. People calling a book store to book a copy of a certain book before it gets published or stand in queue to get hold of it or wait for several minutes to receive an autograph from the writer is something that wasn’t in practice until a few years ago. Thanks to the exposure that the Nepali society has gotten over the last decade, thanks to the new trend of marketing the books via glittering advertisement campaign and a big thanks to writers like Samrat Upadhyay, Manjushree Thapa and Narayan Wagle, writers becoming celebrity is becoming a mainstream in Nepali society. Therefore it was really not a big surprise when Educational Book House (EBH), a book store in downtown Kathmandu, said that it had received around 120 orders from curious readers of the book that’s priced at Rs. 1560 a copy.

“It’s a recent development,” said Raman Raut, a staff at the EBH who started working for the book store six years ago. “We started booking since the sixth book [that came in July 2005]. Very few came when fourth book was released. And even I was unaware about this Harry Potter thing before that.” For the Deathly Hallows, as many as 85 people had paid Rs. 100 each two months prior to the book’s official release date. A formal program to launch the book was scheduled to begin at 3 PM on Saturday, 21 July. A crowd of dozens had gathered in the book store. The flight got delayed by two hours and Raman was struggling to calm down the restless Potter fans. “They were in queue and started shouting,” he said. “Then I rushed to the airport and finally brought back the book at 5 PM.” Renowned dramatist and Professor Abhi Subedi launched the book amid clapping ceremony that also saw jubilant fans eating cake that had a picture of their favorite character embedded. The store sold 95 copies within a couple of hours, and another 90 the next day. Other book stores like United Book House, Pilgrims and Mandala Book Point were also selling the books. Aggregate figures collected from different sources put the total sales of Deathly Hallows to 700 copies in the first week of publication in Nepal. And some stores are out of stock and the number of willing buyers is increasing. Continue reading →

What Happened to the BBC World Service in Kathmandu?

Posted on by
4

The 103 Megahertz that used to relay BBC World Service in Kathmandu valley is now starting to air the broadcast of Radio Nepal, the station that rented the 103 MHz to the BBC: समय सधै चलि राख्यो, सुई पो त घुमेनन् (Time always kept moving, just that arms -of the clock- didn’t move)! Is that because of technical problem or something other?

This afternoon, when I tuned in to FM 103 that airs BBC World Service in Kathmandu, I was kind of surprised. A song by a female singer in Maithali language talking about equality between men and women was being played. My instinctive thought was that I was listening to a BBC World Service program about world music. I told myself ‘wow, a Nepali song in the BBC!’ I gave more attention to the lyric and thought who the singer might be. As I listened to the song, I also thought ‘wow they are playing the whole song!’ Suddenly my sixth sense worked and I realized something unusual was happening. Within a second or two, I heard a Nepali voice that was announcing the next song. I soon tuned in to FM 100 Megahertz to see what the station was playing. I heard the same voice. Why I checked the 100 MHz? Because the station belonged to Radio Nepal and I knew that BBC had hired the 103 MHz from the state run radio station. After the royal coup of 2005, the government used to interrupt and censor the BBC World Service broadcast with the Radio Nepal broadcast.

Then another thought came to my mind. What happened to the BBC World Service broadcast? There is no royal government and it’s a democracy. I guessed that the station might have faced some technical problem.

It’s 10:59 PM now and FM 103 is still relaying the FM 100 broadcast. A guy was reading gajal:

आशा गर्ने हैन उब्जाउनुपर्छ आटो आफै
देशको विकाश….

Okay, his name is Tirthaman and he was among the three who won consolation prize in a Gandaki zonal wide gazal competition by Damauli, Tanahun based Gandaki Bangmaya Pratisthan. Is that a satire to me? Is he telling me not to be आशे (Aase-the one who expects)? What do I do? I can’t open a BBC World Service like station now, can I?

I love listening to the World Service as it provides me not only news from around. Since it is available on FM transmission (instead of irritating short wave), it’s easy to get the quality broadcast on the go. More than that, I tune in to the World Service for their programs on various issues and analysis. Just yesterday I heard a wonderful program about rift between two communities in Belgium. I never knew before that the country with the capital of European Union was going through heated debates about partisan. It was actually surprising to learn that people of Belgium are so much divided that splitting the country into two zones (mainly based on language spoken by the people on South and North- French and local version of German. I also get varieties of ideas from the World Service coverage for my reporting purpose. Though I hadn’t listened to the World Service for quite some time because my mobile earphone was broken, I had resumed the habit recently after I bought new earphone at the cost of Rs. 1,100. Frustratingly there is no BBC World Service on FM 103 at this point in time and a Radio Nepal report about a Gazal competition is being aired. Continue reading →

Feel Free To Browse The New York Times

Posted on by
Reply

Yes, now I feel FREE to browse New York Times on the Web! Thanks to NYTimes.com and and best wishes to the site to attract more visitors (to attract more advertisers to have more revenue)

It was disheartening and disappointing to learn about the Maoists drop out from the cabinet today but one news report brought smiles on my face. The headline: Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site. I was reading the web site of New York Times which is one of my favorite news sources on the Internet. But I always have difficulties in accessing some of its contents becasue of the pay service. Most of the time, I just purse my lips and start browsing other links. When I really need or want to do read them, I email the link to one of my friends in California who is a subscriber to the TimesSelect. He then sends article in my inbox. Last time, about a month ago, when I did the same, he sent a blog post instead. The title was: To De-select The Subscription Option Press Escape. The blog post said that the Times was soon eliminating its pay service TimesSelect and there was a link pointed to a New York Post article about the possible Times decision. Since then I was waiting for the official confirmation of that report by the Times. In the meantime, I even though that what if New York Times doesn’t eliminate the TimesSelect jus to prove that New York Post report was false!

I knew about the possible development about TimesSelect via a blog entry and in a letter to readers, Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com say that one of the reasons for the elimination of pay service was the growing influence and impact of blogs or Web 2.0 on the Internet. “Since we launched TimesSelect in 2005, the online landscape has altered significantly. Readers increasingly find news through search, as well as through social networks, blogs and other online sources.”

Paying for news on the web is a tricky issue even for the big players. The only successful pay news site is that of Wall Street Journal (not to be confused with Wagle Street Journal, Wall Street Journal is a world famous American business newspaper!!) Personally, I am very much against it (that is why you are reading this blog post for free ). First, I don’t have I money to pay. Second, I don’t have credit card. Even if I get one, buying news is not in my priority. By the way, to own a credit card, with lots of money in the account, is one of my unfulfilled dreams (one of them, owning an iPod was fulfilled some months back). The first thing I will do after getting hold my own credit card is log on to ebay.com and take part in auction and go to Amazon.com and order a book.

For people like me who are living in a third world country like Nepal, to log on to the site of New York Times is equivalent to taking part in the pay services like TimesSelect though I know I am not really the kind of audience that the Times is produced for or targeted for. It’s not cheap to have Internet connection on the first place. Still, being in a Third World country has its own advantages as well. For example, I didn’t buy any of the software that I am using on this computer for the last couple of years. We take software for granted as we think buying a computer (hardware) itself is a big thing for us and we think by computer it should mean both hardware and necessary software packaged into one. That’s why free things are welcome.

On Microsoft verdict in Europe

Another news report that caught my attention in the past couple of days was about the Microsoft by the second highest court in European Union. I had a kind of mixed reaction to the verdict that Microsoft had abused its market power by adding a digital media player to Windows, undercutting the early leader, Real Networks, New York Times reported. The court also ordered Microsoft to obey a March 2004 commission order to share confidential computer code with competitors. The court also upheld the record fine levied against the company, 497.2 million euros ($689.4 million).

My first reaction was: Why can’t Microsoft do what it was doing? After all, they made the Windows, not the Real Player or Apple. Why can’t Microsoft add a feature in their product? And why on Earth, or in the computer rather, should Microsoft share confidential code with competitors? Why? If people can’t compete, so be it. Let Microsoft rule the computer.

Second thought: well, may be Microsoft can’t dominate the computers like they are doing now! I know this thought isn’t very much convincing and I would be more than happy if some accidental readers of this post explain me. I also think that such feeling (first thought) might have come to me as I haven’t bought any software yet and have no idea about monopoly in software pricing.

Back to the TimesSelect: I want to say Thank You to New York Times for not just eliminating the pay service but also making available the archive for free. Another provision that really pisses me off that in the Times website is its free-only-for-seven-days policy. I not only get information from the Times articles and news but also learn about various aspects of journalism and writing skills. They also provide me important reporting tips and ideas.

I also hope that NYTimes.com will experience a surge in visitors, page views and overall traffic which will help the site to attract more advertisers which in turn will help the site and the newspaper to present more news and information from around the world to its readers around the world. That’s why I am linking to the standard first page of the article on NYTimes.com instead of one that displays the printable of the page that doesn’t contain advertisement. I will also continue linking to printable version as well for those like me who don’t always have fast internet connection. Didn’t get what I am talking about? Try this standard and this printable version of the same New York Times article about Microsoft verdict to find the difference!