जनै पूर्णिमा किन र कहिले देखी

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h56AigKBbms

The story behind Kwati

Long time ago, Kathmandu valley was all green with very little settlement. And most of the people were farmers working very hard day and night. The farmers were very diligent and loved what they do. But working during monsoon was little tough because of the weather. And to be able to plant rice at the right time, they had to work tirelessly, often even requiring help from other farmers from distant. One monsoon day, a farmer Baucha was waiting for his fellow farmers to finish rice planting. But none of them arrived. Being little annoyed and surprised, he went to their house on the evening.  He asked them the reason behind their absence and mentioned that they would have finished the job as that was the last filed patch left. The fellow farmer begged apology and told that he was sick. Not just him, his wife and whole community is having cough and cold because of monsoon season and unavailability of nutritious food. Baucha was very sad and wanted to help them by feeding some nutritious food. All he could find on his store was nine kinds of bean that he had harvested. He soaked them and next day he cooked half of them and made hot soup. All had the soup , it really worked like a magic. Soon they started to work in paddy field. Next day, hearing the news, people from neighbouring village also requested Baucha to make such soup for them too as they were also feeling sick . Suddenly , yomari remembered about the half of the beans that he had soaked. They were already germinated. He then took the soup to village and fed all the villagers. Later, they gave the name “Kwati” to that soup meaning (Kwa: hot, ti: soup).

Ref. : Facebook/yomari cartoon series

Gaijatra: A festival of cow & humor

‘Gaijatra’, a popular festival in Nepal, is celebrated in the month of Bhadra with great excitement and enthusiasm especially in Kathmandu valley by Newar community. On this day, a cow or a child dressed up as a cow is taken in procession in the name of the dead and it is believed that the cow will help them in the journey of freedom into heaven. Besides sending a child around the city, different other things are done in Bhaktapur e.g. stick dance called “Ghintang Ghising”. People also have fun on this day as they dress up in comic way and the political and social problems are mocked publicly.

In ancient period, people used to celebrate it as a festival of worshipping god of death “Yamaraj”. Later, King Pratap Malla established a new trend of celebration. The most renowned king of the Malla era, Pratap Malla had two wives and five sons from them. King Pratap Malla being an enlightened soul, he wanted to experiment with a new concept he had in mind. He wanted all of his five sons to have the experience of ruling a kingdom in his own lifetime, so he allotted one year of rule for each of his sons. As luck would have it, the second eldest son, Chakrabartendra, was trampled to death by an elephant on the second day of his taking over the reins. King made a pond named Ranipokhari. The king filled the beautiful pond with water from all the holy rivers of the kingdom. This was to fulfill his queen’s wish of wanting to sanctify herself by bathing in the waters of all the sacred rivers of the kingdom. The queen, was devastated, since her dead son happened to be her favorite offspring. The sadness was such that she fell into a deep depression. The king brought in all sorts of entertainment and entertainers to the court in repeated attempts to make her forget the tragedy. However, no matter how hard everybody tried, nobody could make her even smile a little, let alone laugh.

Finally, in desperation, the king asked his subjects to organize a parade in which one member of every family that had suffered a loss that year would take part. He ordered that they dress up in crazy and flashy costumes and drag a colorfully decorated cow along behind them. Those who didn’t have a cow could have someone dressed up as a cow. On this particular day, the king allowed his subjects to make jokes about existing social norms and people in powerful positions. Every sort of buffoonery and lampooning was permitted. This flamboyant parade was to pass along the main gates of the royal palace, from where the king and his queens would watch the revelry.

As the parade drew near, the king pointed out the huge contingent of participants, and told the grieving queen that every participant in the parade had suffered the death of a family member in the year gone by. On knowing this, the queen realized that she was, after all, not the only one who had been so aggrieved. Many others were grieving for the loss of a loved one, just as she was. However, that had not stopped them from moving on or taking part in a very funny kind of parade, dressed in weird clothes and cracking all sorts of jokes, laughing till their bellies hurt. Gradually, a smile of merriment began to form on her hereto grimly tight lips, and eventually a giggle escaped from her, which finally turned into laughter.

Ref. : www.insidehimalayas.com , The Rising Nepal.

The Lost Kingdom: Sikkim

Sikkim is a landlocked state of India.It is in the Himalayan mountains. Sikkim is bordered by Nepal to the west, Tibet to the north, Bhutan to the east, Indian state of west Bengal to the south. Since 1642, Sikkim was under the rule of "Namgyal" dynasty. King of Sikkim is called as “Chogyal”. Phuntsog Namgyal was the first Chogyal of Sikkim in 1642. After independence of India, Sikkim had retained guarantees of independence from Britain. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru agreed to a special status for Sikkim. Sikkim was to be attributary of India in which India control its external defense, diplomacy and communication.  King of Sikkim Tashi Namgyal died in 1963 after suffering from cancer. His son Palden Thondup Namgyal became new Chogyal of Sikkim in 1965. This new king was viewed by India as politically dangerous, due to his wife. His second wife Hope Cooke was American citizen. She was suspected to be a CIA agent. Indian government didn’t want USA interference in Sikkim, India also have concern that unstable Sikkim will invite china to claim Sikkim as a part of Tibet/china. so, India decided to take covert steps for the merger of Sikkim. Indian government sent Ajit Doval as an undercover agent in Sikkim in 1970. He was assigned the job of merger of Sikkim in India. Ajit Doval succeed to unite small political parties of Sikkim under the leadership of Sikkim National Congress Party (Who was in favor of merging Sikkim into India). In 1974, Sikkim national congress party won an election and Lhendup Dorje became prime minister of Sikkim. Tensed relation between new prime minister and king resulted unstable environment in Sikkim. In 1975, Sikkim Prime minister Dorji appealed to the Indian Parliament for intervention. Indian police moved and take control over Sikkim and palace of king seized, all the Sikkim borders were closed. On 14 April 1975, referendum was held, in which Sikkim voted to merge with the India with more than 95% votes. Sikkim became the 22nd Indian State on 26 April 1975 and Lhendup Dorji became chief minister of Sikkim.

The indigenous people of Sikkim are not Nepalese, but lepchas and bhutias. But due to illegal immigration from Nepal, the demography changed to such an extent that more than 70% of the population became Nepali and the indigenous people a minority in their own land. When the king of Sikkim wanted to address this issue of large illegal Nepali immigrants, the Nepalese of Sikkim engineered a coup with the help of RAW, which led to toppling of the king and illegal annexation of Sikkim with India with the support of illegal Nepali immigrants who were facing eviction from that country and against the wishes of the king and indigenous people of Sikkim.

The Land of Thunder Dragon

v Introduction

Bhutan is a landlocked mountainous kingdom between two giants China and India, the land of thunder dragon, with area of 38,117 sq. Km and population of approx. 8 lakhs. Thimphu is the Capital city of Bhutan; major religion is Buddhism & national game Archery. 72% of land is covered by forest, constitution has law of keeping at least 60% of land as forest in future. It is the only carbon neutral country (In fact carbon negative) in the world. Basic education and health facilities are all free in Bhutan. The country which measures its development by happiness index, worlds happiest nation. The first road was only paved in 1961. There is no traffic light in whole country. Tshering Tobgay is the prime minister and Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (The King since 2006: Former king was Jigme Sigme wankchuk). In 1994, one of the glacier lake bursts causing devastating flood (Biggest calamities). Agriculture is major occupation. Hydroelectricity is important source of economy, exporting electricity to neighboring country like India. Bhutan’s white gold “Water”. Big hydropower projects are ongoing. Tobacco and plastic is completely banned here. Television and internet were banned till 2001 in Bhutan. Polygamy is not illegal, but same sex marriage is illegal. Bhutan ranks 25^th on corruption perception index. They call it the last Shangri-La, tourism is not very much encouraged limiting <3000 tourist per year and charge high $300 per day. Its compulsory to wear their cultural clothes and speak national language (Cultural preservation).

v Bhutan Conflict

o   Initially, in 1620, few Newari craftsmen from Kathmandu were called by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal (Bearded Lama/ unifier of Bhutan) to make a silver stupa to contain the ashes of his father. Since then, people of Nepalese origin started to settle in uninhabited areas of southern Bhutan. The south soon became the country's main supplier of food. Bhutanese of Nepalese origin “Lhotshampas” were flourishing along with the economy of Bhutan. Settlement in Bhutan of many people from Nepal happened in the early 20th century.

o   The numbers of new immigrants were swelling. Amnesty was given through the Citizenship Act of 1958 for all those who could prove their presence in Bhutan for at least 10 years prior to 1958. On the other hand, the government also banned further immigration in 1958 but due to poor governance and large scale immigration continued as construction workers for making road (Thimphu-Phuntsholing highway) or in other way.

o   Perceiving this growing dichotomy as a threat to national unity as well as greater Nepal movement fear, the government promulgated directives in the 1980s that sought to preserve Bhutan's cultural identity "One Nation, One People" policy by making compulsory to wear Driglam Namzha and speak Dzongkha as the national language. Nepali was discontinued as a subject in the schools. The government, for its part, perceived that free Nepali-language education had encouraged illegal immigration into southern Bhutan.

o   The Citizenship Act of 1985 clarified and attempted to enforce the Citizenship Act of 1958 in order to control the flood of illegal immigration. In 1980, the government conducted its first real census exercise. The basis for census citizenship classifications was the 1958 "cut off" year, the year that the Nepali population had first received Bhutanese citizenship. Those individuals who could not provide proof of residency prior to 1958 were adjudged to be illegal immigrants.

o   Its major concern was to avoid a repeat of events that had occurred in 1975 when the monarchy in Sikkim was ousted by a Nepalese majority in a plebiscite and Sikkim was absorbed into India. Government also was afraid that the large influx of Nepalese might lead to their demand for a separate state in the next ten to twenty years, in much the same way as happened in the once-independent monarchy of Sikkim in the 1970s.

o   Early 1990s: People (Bhutan Peoples Party) began protest/armed, government declared them as terrorist and imprisoned them, tortured and forced to fill voluntary migration form. Bhutan government targeted this community, & it came under military rule. Besides government, non-Lhotshampa ethnic group also started fighting against them. There are report of arrest, rape and torture. Schools, hospitals, business and post offices in the south were forced to close and many lost their jobs. After this, much of the community began to leaving en-masses in 1990 and 1991. They ran away from Bhutan to India where they were not welcomed, and they finally came to Nepal. Nepalese government and UNHCR jointly helped to establish 7 refugee camps in Jhapa.

o   The debate about the future of the community during this time was heated and occasionally violent, with some favoring repatriation in Bhutan, and others favoring integration in Nepal, and still others favoring third-country resettlement. Third-country resettlement only emerged as a serious option in 2007. This is a choice available to members of the refugee community who are registered at the camps. Resettlement is not forced. In the beginning, this choice was very controversial, in part because those who supported a return to Bhutan believed third-country resettlement undermines the political movement to return to Bhutan. Those who are among the first to choose resettlement in 2007 often did not speak publicly about their choice before they left out of fear of retribution. As more have left, the choice is becoming more accepted. Still, it’s important to recognize that families continue to agonize over whether it is the right choice for them. 
The United States has agreed to resettle the most refugees, and Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands are also accepting significant numbers of refugees.

Prevent Your Eyes

Many people at present are found to be suffering from computer vision syndrome.