डम्बर बहादुर गुरुंग ,ल्वांग गाउँका बासिन्दा। तस्विर: रमेश भुसाल

रमेश भुसाल

म अलि अघि नै हिमालतिरबाट फर्केकाे हुँ । त्यसपछिका दुइ सातामा मैले अंग्रेजीमा याे न्यूजलेटर लेखें अनि नेपालीमा गर्छु भन्दाभन्दै छाडें। तर अहिले नेपालीमा अनुवाद गर्ने जाँगर चल्याे वा समय पनि मिल्याे । मजस्ताे धेरै साेच्ने र थाेरै लेख्ने लेखक वा पत्रकारका लागि लेख्न सामान्यभन्दा धेरै समय लाग्छ नै । मैले कतै पढेकाे थिएँ कि साेच्नु लेख्नु हाेइन। लेख्नु भनेकाे साेचेकाे कुरा कागजमा वा कम्प्युटरमा उतार्नु हाे किनभने साेचेर मात्रै आफै लेखिने हाेइन । त्याे ठिकै हाे तर साेच्नु पनि लेख्नुजस्तै काम हाे। त्यसैले साेच्ने र लेख्ने दुबै गरेमात्रै बल्ल केहि लेखेकाे ठहर्छ त्यसैले त मैले लेखिरहेकाे छु । तब याे लेख बन्याे । साेचिरहेकाे भए याे लेख बन्ने थिएन नै ।

के म सल्लाह दिइरहेकाे छु? तपाँइलाइ त्यस्ताे लागेपनि मेराे उदेश्य त्यस्ताे हाेइन र छैन । तर कहिलेकाहि आफु कति जान्ने छु भनेर देखाउन पनि थाेरै खुराँक त पेल्नुपर्याे नि, कि कसाे ? त्यसाे गर्दा मान्छेले मेराे लेख पढिहाल्छन् कि । अहिले मान्छेकाे हातमा माेबाइल हुन्छ र स्क्रिनमा आँखा। यति व्यस्त त मान्छे इतिहासमै कहिल्यै थिएन । मान्छे रिल मात्र हेर्छन, कहाँ लेख पढ्छन् भनेकाे सुन्छु तर यदि त्यस्ताे हाेइन भने तपाँइ याे अलि लामाे लेख पढेर देखाइदिनुस् त भनेर म कसरी भनाैं ।

ल अब लेखतिर लागाैं। खासमा नेपालमा कुनै पहाडबाट फर्कें भन्नुकाे अर्थ छैन। भन्ने नै हाे भने नेपालममा मान्छे एउटा पहाडबाट अर्काे पहाडमा फर्कन्छ। कहिले काहि तराइमा पनि उ डुलिबस्ने गर्छ त्याे बेग्लै कुरा हाे तर पहाड नचढी त उ राजधानी समेत आउन सक्दैन । म पश्चिम नेपालकाे अन्नपुर्ण हिमाल आसपास घुमेर आएँ । एक महिना बढी भयाे । त्याेबेला प्रि मनसनुकाे दबदबा थियाे अहिले मनसुनकाे । नाम फरक भएपनि बादल र पानी उस्तै हुन्। त्याे बेला कस्ताे देखिएकाे थियाे त्याे भेग भनेर हेर्न मन छ भने यहाँ फाेटाे छ। मैले अस्ताम भन्ने ठाउँकाे अन्नपुर्ण इकाे भिजेलबाट खिचेकाे हुँ।

तपाँइले सन् १९५० मा अन्नपुर्ण कस्ताे थियाे र कसरी चढियाे भन्ने जान्न चाहनुहुन्छ भने फ्रान्सेली आराेही माेरिस हरजाेगले लेखेकाे अन्नपुर्ण भन्ने किताब पढ्नैपर्छ। त्याे किताब त कराेड बढी विक्रि भएकाे थियाे ।

अस्तामबाट देखिएकाे अन्नपुर्ण हिमाल। तस्विर : रमेश भुसाल।

अहाे, मेराे किताब छालबाटाे कैलाशदेखि गंगासम्म पनि त्यति नै बिकेकाे भए त मैले पनि यता पाेखराकाे कुनै डाँडामा ढुंगाकाे एउटा राम्राे घर बनाउँथे । हिमालितर फर्काएर ठुलाे आफ्नाे पुस्तकालय बनाउँथे र कहिले सेताे हिमाल हेर्थे किहिले उडिरहेका बादल नाचेकाे हेर्थें । घामजूनकाे आउजाउकाे चियाेचर्चाे गर्थें। तर ठिक छ। मेराे किताब पनि कम विकेकाे हाेइन। लाखाै नभने पनि हजाराैं चाहि बिक्याे । मैले तीन लाखकाे पद्मश्री साहित्य पुरस्कार पनि पाएकाे थिएँ अनि पचास हजारकाे साहित्यपाेष्ट पुरस्कार पनि। साढे तीन लाखमा घर त पाेखरातिर आउँदैन तर ठिकै छ। मैले प्रकाशकबाट पनि केहि लाख त पाएकाे छु। त्याे थप्दा पनि घरै त बन्दैन तर पटक पटक पाेखरा जानआउन पुग्छ नै । के थाहा नयाँ किताब लेख्ने याेजनापनि बन्न सक्छ।

अस्ताममा रहेकाे अन्नपुर्ण इकाे भिलेजमा म बसेकाे काेठा।

म पाेखराँ जाँदा लेकसाइडमा खासै बस्दिन । मेराे प्रिय ठाउँ चाहि अस्ताममा छ। हेम्जा हुँदै पर्वत जाने एउटा भाइरल राेड छ । त्यहि राेडविचमा सुइखेत भन्ने ठाउँबाट पुर्व हेर्दा देखिने डाँडाे नै अस्तामकाे टुप्पाे हाे । त्याे टुप्पाेमा तीन दाजुभाइ मिलेर अन्नपुर्ण इकाेभिलेज भन्ने गजबकाे इकाे लज चलाउँछन् । मेराे त अहिले त्याे अर्काे घरजस्तै भएकाे छ । अव हर्जाेगकाे जस्ताे कराेडाै किताब बिकेकाे भए मैले इकाे भिलेज नै किन्थे तर अहिले म संग किन्ने नभएपनि बेलाबेला गएर बस्ने पैशा चाहि छ । त्यसका एकजना संचालक विश्व अधिकारी हुन् । मेरा मित्र भइसके। छालबाटाे किताबकाे अन्तिम सम्पादन पनि मैले त्यहाँ बसेर गरेकाे थिएँ। दुइ साताजति। यति गुणगान नगाएकाे भएपनि मैले डिक्काउन्ट पाउँथे किनभने मैले त्याे पहिला नै पाएकाे छु । साँच्चै राम्राे छ त्याे ढुंगाले बनेकाे इकाे भिलेज। मैले यति त लेख्नैपर्छ।

यहाँ त आजकल नामकाे अगाडि इकाे थपेपछि इकाे लज भइहाल्छ। खासमा इकाे भनिसकेपछि सामान्य हाेटल वा लजभन्दा केहि फरक त गर्नुपर्ने हाे। त्यसैले नेपालमा साँच्चिकै इकाे र नामका इकाे गरि दुइथरी इकाे छन् जस्ताे लाग्छ मलाई। याे चाहि साँच्चिकै इकाे हाे है । तीन लाख लिटर आकाशे पानी संचित गर्छन् । Sand Filtration बाट पानी फिल्टर गरेर पिउन दिन्छन् ।प्लाष्टिककाे बाेतलकाे प्रयाेग लगभग सुन्य छ । अहिले त गाउँ गाउँमा जहाँ गएपनि प्लाप्टिककाे बाेतल ठ्याइहाल्छन् । हजाराैं नदीनाला, हिमालै हिमाल, मुलै मुल भएकाे देशमा त त्यसाे नगर्नू नि । साँझ आगाे ताप्दा फलामे पाइपबाट पानी तातेर ट्यांकीमा जम्मा हुन्छ र विहान उठेर तपाँइले त्याे पानी बाल्टीमा भरेर नुहाउन पाउनुहुन्छ। हाे त्याे पाे त इकाे ।

अहाे, सफा पानीकाे कुरा नगराैं । म याे लेखिरहँदा पाटनकाे एउटा क्याफेमा छु र यहाँबाट १० मिनेट हिडेर गयाे भने गनाउने बागमती भेटिन्छ। प्राय यहाँ पानी हाेइन ढल बगिरहेकाे हुन्छ। हामीले शहर कस्ताे बनायाैं भनेर के कुरा गर्नु । केहि भन्याे भने पहिला पैशा कमाउने अनि अरु कुरा गर्ने भन्छन् । पैशा कमाउने र राम्राे विकास पनि संगसगैं गर्न सकिन्छ भन्याे भने तैँ गर भन्छन । अहिले त फक याेरआइडिया पनि भन्न सक्छन् ।आहिले चलनचल्तीकाे भाषामा भनेकाे ।

मैले यसपटक एक साता अन्नपुर्ण हिमाल आसपास विताएँ । तर दुइ दिनमात्रै पुरै हिडें । त्यस्ताे पनि के हिडेकाे भन्नु तर निकै रमाईलो भयो । पहाडमा जन्मेकाे मान्छेका लागि हिड्नु सामान्य हाे । म सात बर्षकाे उमेर पर्वतबाट बस चढ्न एक दिन हिंडेर स्यांग्जा आएकाे थिएँ । छालबाटाे लेख्न म हप्ताै कर्नाली वरिपरि हिंडेकाे थिएँ। मलाई हिड्न असाध्यै मन पर्छ। यसपटक एक्लै हिंडे । कुनै दबाब थिएन । कुरा गर्ने कि त बादल थियाे कि त चराहरु । कि रुख भेटिन्थे कि खाेला । बेला बेला मान्छे भेटिन्थे। अधिकांश समय भेटिने चाहि सुनसान थियाे वा साँझमा झ्याउँकिरी। मेराे गन्तव्य थियाे तर उदेश्य थिएन ।

अस्तामबाट मार्दी खाेला झर्ने बाटाेकाे एउटा चाैपारी : रमेश भुसाल

यसपटक म डहरै डहर धेरै हिंडे । अस्तामबाट सिधै मार्दी नदी झर्ने डहरे बाटाे त यति मजाकाे रहेछ कि धितै मर्याे । आजकल सडक गएपछि हिड्ने राम्रा बाटा भेट्नै मुस्किल छ। अझ याे फाेटाेमा जस्ताे डहरे बाटाे त कहाँ पाउनु ? नयाँ बनाएका बाटा त पुरै सिमेन्टका सिंढी छन् । हेर्दा पनि दिक्क लाग्छ , हिड्न पनि मजा नआउने तर के गर्नु सबैकाे जाेडबल सिमेन्टमै छ। अहिले त नेपालमा एउटा मात्रै बाद छ जस्ताे लाग्छ मलाई त्यो हो सिमेन्टवाद। न पुँजीबाद न त समाजबाद। न माअाे लेनिन वाद। नभए याे तल बाघकाे फाेटाे हेर्नुस् त। कतै बाघ देख्नुभयाे । मैले त भ्रष्ट विचार मात्रै देखें। याे बाग्लुंगमा तीन लाख खर्च गरेर बनाइएकाे सिमेन्टकाे बाघ हाे । याे बाघ त पक्कै हाेइन तर याे बनाउन भने ६ सय बाघ भएकाे नाेट खर्च भएकाे रहेछ। सिमेन्ट किन्याे, मिलीजुली खायाे । त्यहि हाे सिमेन्टवाद।

हाँसीरहेकाे (राेइरहेकाे )बाघ । बाग्लुंगमा करकाे रकमले बनाएकाे बाघ। हरे। फाेटाे सेताेपाटी

यस्ता बाघ मात्रै हाेइन अरु धेरै कुरा बनाइएकाे छ। केहि साताअघि म दाेलखाकाे सैलुंग गएकाे थिएँ। त्यहाँ कराेडाैं खर्चेर मिनी ग्रेट वाल बनाइएकाे छ तर पर्यटकले मुत्ने एउटा शाैचालय समेत छैन ।कस्ताे मति हाे याे । यत्राे विश्वकै सबैभन्दा अग्लाे हिमालय पर्वत बाेकेर उभिएकाे देशका मान्छे ढुंगाका मिनी ग्रेटवाल बनाएर बसेका छन् । चित्त र चिन्तन सानाे भएपछि आउने बुद्दि भनेकाे यस्तै हाे । भव्य हिमालय पर्वत बाेकेर बसेकाे देशले यस्ता खित्रेमित्रे कुरुप आकृति बनाएर बसेकाे छ।

दाेलखाकाे सैलुंगमा बनेकाे मिनी ग्रेटवाल । तस्विर :रमेश भुसाल

म अस्तामबाट ल्वागं गाउँ गएँ । विस्तारै विस्तारै जाँदा ४ घण्टा लाग्याे । चरक्क घाम लागेकाे भन्दा वादलसंग लुकामारी खेल्दै गरेकाे आकाशमुनी हिड्न सजिलाे हुन्छ। घामकाे जिम्मा वादलले लिएका थिए तर बेला बेला घाम मेराे हालखबर बुझ्न यसाे आइपुग्थाे । त्याे थाहा पाउने वित्तिकै वादलले घेरिहाल्थे। मार्दी खाेलाकाे दाहिने किनारमा रहेकाे खाेरामुखबाट पश्चिमपट्टीकाे उकालाे लागेर म ल्वांग पुगें। कतै चराकाे आवाज त कतै आफ्नै खुट्टाकाे आवाज। ति दुइ आवाजकाे वर्चश्व थियाे मेराे यात्रामा । खाेरामुखमा एउटा विसाैनी थियाे जहाँ ६/७ जना बुढा गफ लगाएर बसेकाे थिए । एकजना रक्सीले मस्त मानिसलाई सबै बुढा मिलेर उडाइरहेका थिए । जे भने पनि बिल्याउँथे । उनी दलित रहेछन् । बेला बेला म त खतरा हाे । म यस्ताे हाे । म त उस्ताे हाे भन्दै गफ लाउँथे। बुढाहरु हाँस्थे अनि भन्थे याे त प्रधानमन्त्री हुनपर्नि मान्छे हाे तर अहिले यस्लाइ फुर्सद नभएर मात्रै हाे । अनि सबै हाँसे । यस्तै यस्तै गफ सुनेर म खाेरामुखबाट ल्वांगतिर उकालाे लागेकाे थिए । अहिले गाउँतिर देखिन दृष्य यस्तै हुन् । प्राय बुढाबुढी नै भेटिन्छन् । युवाले देश छाडेका छन् । केहि कमाएर पठाएका छन् यता बाआमाले धानेका छन् । यो विश्वकै अग्लो र कान्छो हिमाल आहिले बुढाबुडीको काँध मा छ।

ल्वांग गाउँ । तस्विर : रमेश भुसाल

खाेरामुखबाट ल्वा‍ंग पुग्नुअघिकाे जंगलमा केहिबेर बिसाँए । एउटा लाम्पुछ्रे रानीचरीले निरन्तर करायाे । मानाैं उस्ले मलाइ देख्याे र आफ्नाे गीतकाे स्राेता पाएर खुसी भएकाे थियाे । ल्वांग गाउँ पुग्नुअघि बाटाेमा एकजना बृद्द मजाले गीत गाउँदै झर्दैथिए। उनी मेराे अगाडी आएर राेकिए । हातमा सानाे लाैराे थियाे भने काखीमा आेड्ने प्लाष्टिक च्यापेका थिए । भैंसी चराउँदै रहेछन् ।

भाेकमा भात भेटेपछि कुन नेपाली खुसी नहाेला । त्याे पनि थकाली भान्सा । नेपालमा त भन्छन् नै दालभात पावर ट्ववान्टी फाेर आवर । एउटा बाह्रसिंगे वियर पनि पिएँ । यसाे साेचें मान्छेले पहिला जनावार मार्छन् अनि तिनैका नाममा वियर उत्पादन गर्छन् । हेर्नस् त वियरका नाम- टाइगर, राइनाे ,अर्ना, बाह्रसिंगे अनि यस्तै यस्तै । जंगलमाभन्दा बढी जैविक विविधता त वियरमा पाे देखिन्छ त ।

हजार रुपियाँमा एक पेट दालभात अनि एउटा वियर । देश त सस्ताे हाे नि मान्छे नै गरिव भएर पाे हाे । लण्डन न्यूयाेर्कमा एक गीलास वियरकै यति तिर्नुपर्थाे । यदि तपाँइ पश्चिमा देशबाट आउनुभएकाे छ भने मान्नुस् तपाँइ निशुल्क नेपाल घुमिरहनुभएकाे छ । त्यसैले नेपालमा आउनुस् तर अलि धेरै खर्च पनि गर्नुस् । थाेरै खर्च गर्नेलाइ नेपालीहरुले झाेले टुरिष्ट भन्छन् । ठिकै छ तपाँइ झाेले नै हाे भने पनि आउनुस् । नेपालीहरुले नझाेले नेपाली टुरिष्ट भन्दा झाेले गाेरा टुरिष्टलाइ सम्मान गर्छन। जे भएपनि आउनु्स है । याे पृथ्वी तपाँइहरुकाे पनि हाे । त्यसैले तपाँइ अलि नाइस् झाेले टुरिष्ट बनेर भए पनि आउनुभए राम्राे हुनेथियाे ।

घाम त हरायाे । पानीले पुरै कव्जा हानिसकेकाे थियाे । चार बज्दैथियाे त्यसैले मैले साेचें धम्पुस गएर बस्छु । तीन घण्टामा पुगिन्छ भनेर एकजना बाले भने तर मलाइ स्थानीयले भन्ने समयकाे भर लाग्दैन । उनीहरु आफ्नाे गतिकाे आधारमा भन्छन। एकपटक लांगटांगमा यस्तै गर्दा विजाेक भएर राती नाै बजे जहाँबाट गएकाे हाे त्यहि फर्केर बास बस्नुपरेकाे थियाे । यसपटक प्रि मनसुनकाे पानीले दैनिकजसाे जमीन छाेइरहेकाे थियाे । पाेखराका केहि दिनकाे बसाँइमा लगभग दिनहुँ पानी पर्याे । त्यस्तै थियाे माैसम। जलवायु परिवर्तनले गर्ने नै यस्तै हाे। नपर्ने बेला धेरै पर्ने तर पर्नुपर्ने बेला थाेरै वा पर्दैनपर्ने । पानी नै पर्दा पनि एक्कासी र आरीघाेप्टे पर्ने । कतै पर्ने कतै नपर्ने । अहिले आकाशकाे दैनिकी फेरिएकाे छ । पानीकाे आनीबानी फेरिएकाे छ।

ल्वांगबाट धम्पुस जानेबेला यस्ताे सुन्दर ठाउमा पुगें कि हल्का पानी परिरहेकाे बेला थचक्क बसेर आकास हेरें। चराकाे आवाज सुने र सुने बगिरहेकाे सानाे खेालाकाे आवाज । त्याे झाेलुंगे पुल धेरैसमय खासै प्रयाेग भएजस्ताे देखिन्थेन । एउटा माेटरबाटाे हुँदै म गएकाे थिएँ । माेटरबाटाे घुम्याे र त्याे घुम्तीमा थियाे हिड्ने पुल । माेटरबाटाेमा गाडी नगुडेकाे धेरै भएकाे हुनुपर्छ।झारले कव्जा गरिसकेका थिए ।

ल्वांग र धम्पुस विचतिर खानी गाउँ भन्दा मुनीकाे झाेलुंगे पुल । तस्विर : रमेश भुसाल

धम्पुस पुग्नै लाग्दा अध्याँराे भइसकेकाे थियाे । सडक फराकिलो भए पनि निकै हिलो थियो। एकठाँउमा त ग्माम्मै खुट्टा गाडियाे । पुरै हिलै भयाे। सुन्दर नेपाल भन्नेमा म अडिग नै छु है बिगारेकाे हामीले हाे । बस्ने कहाँ थाहा थिएन केहिबेर हिडेपछि एउटा सामान्य हाेटलजस्ताे देखिने घरमा पसें। नाम रहेछ फिसटेल कटेज। खाना खाँदै गर्दा होटल मालिकलाई सोधें। धम्पुसमा भएकाे सबैभन्दा परिवर्तन के हाे ? उनले फ्याट्टै भने “पहिला हरेक युवाको हातमा हलो हुन्थ्यो, अहिले सबैसँग मोटरसाइकल छ। त्यही होला ठूलो परिवर्तन।”

धम्पुसबाट हिडेर हेम्जाकाेट हुँदै म फेरी अस्ताम झरें।

हिमालपहाड निकै द्रुत गतिमा फेरिंदैछन् । समाजमात्रै हाेइन जलवायु पनि। याे संसारकै सबैभन्दा अग्लाे तर सबैभन्दा कान्छाे हिमश्रंखला हाे । त्यसैले भनिन्छ याे अहिलेपनि बन्नेक्रममा छ। याे पहाडमा धेरै बाटा उकालिएका छन् । मान्छे आेरालाे झरेका छन्। युवा विदेशिएका छन् भने बुढाबुढी तिनीहरु फर्कने आशामा जीन्दगी कटाइरहेका छन् । जलवायु परिवर्तनकाे चपेटामा पनि परेका छन् यि पहाड हिमाल । हेर्दा पहाड सुन्दर लाग्छ। साँच्दै अद्भुत् । तर काेहि किन पहाडमा बस्न चाहँदैन ? किन मान्छे पहाड छाेडिरहेछ र उस्लाइ के ले फर्काउँछ? अवसर र पैशा मात्रै हाे कि अरु केहि छ। पक्कै पनि एउटै उत्तर छैन तर पहाड मान्छे पर्खेर बसेकाे छ । तपाँइ पनि फेरिएकाे पहाड हिमाल हेर्न चाँडै जानुस् र आँखामा कैद गर्नुस् त्याे धेरै नफेरिँदै ।

हेम्जाकोटबाट देखिएको अस्तामको डाँडा। तस्विर : रमेश भुसाल

पढेर केहि प्रतिकृया पठाउनुहाेला है । तपाइले अर्काे चिठ्ठी बंगलादेशबारे यहाँ पढ्न सक्नुहुन्छ । ल अहिलेका लागि यत्ति नै।

साँझ ठिक ६ बजे, विमान धावनमार्गमा थियो। हाम्रा लागि यो विरलै हुने कुरा हो। हालैका दिनहरुमा मैले समयमा उडेको अनुभव गर्न पाएको छैन। मलाई विश्वास गर्नुहोस्, म देशको बारेमा नराम्रो कुरा गरिरहेको छैन। यो एउटा सुन्दर देश हो र यहाँका मानिसहरू गजब छन् ।प्राय विदेशीहरुले त्यसाे भन्ने गर्छन्। देश र जनता दुबै गजब भएकाे भए कुन कुराले हामीलाई विश्वकै पिछडिएको र अति कम विकासित देश बनाएर राख्यो? हँ। छोड्नुस्, यस्ता सानातिना कुरा नगरौं।

हामी पूर्वतर्फ जाँदै थियौं, तर काठमाडौंमा सामान्यतया तपाईंले जहाजमा एकफन्को मार्नुपर्छ, त्यसैले हामी उत्तरतर्फ उड्यौं, घुम्यौं, अनि बंगलादेशतर्फ अर्थात दक्षिण-पूर्वतर्फ लाग्यौं । तपाईं भारत पनि भन्न सक्नुहुन्छ, तर बंगालीहरू भारतलाई मन पराउँदैनन् त्यसैले अहिलेका लागि त्यो नभन्नु नै बेस होला। मैले भेटेका धेरै बंगालीहरूका भनाइका आधारमा म यो भन्दैछु। मेरा भारतीय साथीहरू, सरी । सायद उनीहरू भारतीय सरकारलाई मात्र घृणा गर्छन्। मानिसहरू आफ्नै सरकारलाई त माया गर्दैनन् अरू कसैको सरकारलाई कसले किन पो माया गराेस्? सरकार माया गर्ने कुरा होइन। यो एउटा खतरनाक जीव हो, तर हामी आफैंले सृजना गरेको ।

मलाई उड्न खासै मन पर्दैन । म चाहन्थें कि काठमाडौंदेखि ढाकासम्म बस चलोस् ताकि म गाडी चढेर दक्षिणतिर जान सकूँ, चियाका लागि रोकिन सकूँ, र मानिसहरूसँग कुरा गर्न सकूँ। यो त्यति टाढा पनि त छैन । उडानबाट मात्र एक घण्टाको बाटो त हो तर जमिनको मार्गबाट त्यहाँ पुग्न एकदमै गाह्रो छ।

अहिलेका लागि त यो सपनाहरूको पनि सपना हो। म कहिलेकाहीँ सपना देख्न पनि डराउँछु किनभने यदि भइहाल्यो भने , म यसलाई कसरी अंगालूँला भन्ने पो मनमा आउँछ?

यो क्षेत्र अत्यन्त विभाजित छ भन्ने तपाँइलाइ थाहा नै छ। अफगानिस्तान अहिले अतिवादी, तालिबानको शासनमा छ। भारत र पाकिस्तान एकअर्कासँग कुरा समेत गर्दैनन्। नेपाल अलि बढी लचिलो छ तर यो पनि समस्याहरूबाट मुक्त छैन। भारत, हाम्रो साझा ठुल्दाइ हो जस्को कुनैपनि छिमेकीसँग राम्रो सम्बन्ध छैन। म्यानमारमा जुन्ताको बन्दुकको बलमा शासन चलिरहेको छ। बंगलादेश र श्रीलंकाको अवस्था पनि राम्रो छैन। यो क्षेत्र देखेर बढो दिक्क लाग्छ। यी हिमाल पहाडहरुले जन्माउने नदीहरूले हाम्रो जीवन चलाएका छन् र हामी यी पहाडहरूका उत्पादन हौं, तैपनि हामी खासमा साथीसम्म बन्न सकेका छैनौ।

अहिलेका लागि उडौं।

जब तपाईं विमानमा हुनुहुन्छ, चिन्ता गर्नुको कुनै अर्थ हुँदैन, तर तपाईं चिन्ता गरिरहनुहुन्छ। कम्तीमा म चाहि गर्छु। तपाईं जहाज चढेपछि, कि अवतरण गर्नुहुन्छ, कि त गर्नुहुन्न; त्यहाँ यी दुईवटा मात्र सम्भावनाहरू हुन्छन्। भन्न सजिलो छ तर गर्न गाह्रो। तपाईंले विज्ञानलाई विश्वास गर्नैपर्छ नभए टिकट नै नकिन्नु राम्रो। भनिन्छ हवाइजहाज यातायातको सबैभन्दा सुरक्षित माध्यमहरू मध्ये एक हो। तर मैले यो लेखिरहँदा, क्यालिफोर्नियामा एउटा बी-५२ बमवर्षक विमान दुर्घटनाग्रस्त भयो, जसमा सवार सबै आठ जनाको मृत्यु भयो, र फ्रान्समा भएको दुर्घटनामा १० जनाभन्दा बढी स्काईडाइभरहरू मारिए। यस्ता कुरामा हामी समय बर्वाद नगरौं।

बादल मडारिइरहेकाे थियो र अस्ताउँदो सूर्यले आकाश रंगीन थियो। प्राय आकाश निलो छ भन्ने गरिन्छ । हाे यो निलो छ, तर यो रातो, सुन्तला, कालो, गुलाबी पनि छ। यो दुःखी, खुसी, आक्राेशित, शान्त, आदि देखिन्छ। विस्तृत विवरण नभएपछि “इत्यादि” लेख्नु नै राम्रो हुन्छ। एक अल्छी लेखकले त्यसो गर्छ। मलाई पनि त्यसैमा गन्नुस् भनेर म भन्दिन। हिउँले ढाकिएका पहाडहरूले आफ्ना टाउका मात्र देखाइरहेका थिए, शरीर बादलमुनि लुकाएका थिए। हिमालय, विश्वकै सबैभन्दा अग्लो हिमशृङ्खला। हामी तिनलाई भव्य भन्छौं, र त्यसपछि तिनीहरूमाथि क्रूर व्यवहार गर्छौं।

बादलहरू, ती चुचुराहरूमा रहेका बाक्लो हिउँ, निरन्तर बगिरहेका नदीहरूलाई हेर्दैगर्दा मनमा अनेका तर्कना आए । पानीको एउटा थोपाले पृथ्वीलाई विभिन्न आकार दिन्छ। कहिलेकाहीँ त्यो बादल बनाउँछ, कहिले पग्लिन्छ र बग्छ, र भने कहिले चट्टानहरूमा बरफको रूपमा जम्छ। यो ग्रह पानीका विभिन्न रूपहरुको संगालो हो र ती थोपाहरूले जीवनका विभिन्न रूपहरू सिर्जना गर्छन्। हामी ती रूपहरू मध्ये एक हौं, जसलाई ती थोपाहरूले धानेका छन्। तर हामी विरलै तिन्लाई श्रेय दिन्छौं। हामी सोच्छौं कि हाम्रा फोक्सो वा मुटुको कारणले जीवित छौं, तर वास्तविक सहयोगी प्रणालीहरू हामीभन्दा बाहिर छन्, जसले हामीलाई चाहिने इन्धन निरन्तर आपूर्ति गरिरहेका छन्। हामी यसको लागि सिधै पैसा मात्र तिर्दैनौं। हामी सरकारलाई मात्र कर तिर्छौं, र ति सरकार पनि हामी परिवर्तन गरिरहन्छौं। हामीले परिवर्तन गर्नुपर्ने अर्को कुरा सोच हो त्यो चाहि विरलै परिवर्तन गर्छौ। खासमा सरकारभन्दा सोच परिवर्तन गर्न गाह्रो हुन्छ।

अहिले पृथ्वीमा हाम्रो जनसंख्या ८ अर्बभन्दा बढी छ। अब मान्छेकाे कुरा गरौं विमानमा, नेपाली ह्यान्डबल खेल्ने तन्नेरी खेलाडीहरु थिए, जसमध्ये धेरैको त्यो पहिलो उडान थियो। उनीहरु ढाकाको बारेमा उत्साहित थिए। एकजनाले भन्यो, “यदि यो प्लेन खस्यो भने के होला?” अर्कोले जवाफ दियो, “तैलें थाहा नै पाउँदैनस् किनभने थाहा पाउनु अघि नै तँ चैट भइसक्छस्।” यो कस्तो कुराकानी हो भनेर उनीहरुलाइ मैले सोधिनँ। मनमनै थोरै रिसाएँ मात्रै ।

मेरो छेउमा एकजना बंगाली युवा बसेका थिए। पछाडिका एक यात्रुले उनलाई आफ्नो सिट सिधा पार्न मिल्छ कि भनेर सोधे। तर उनले आँखा तरे र भने, You can do also। म अलमलमा परें, र पछाडिको मानिस पनि अलमलिए। मैले पछि बुझें कि उनको भनाइको अर्थ के रहेछ भने म जे चाहन्छु त्यही गरिरहेको छु यदि तिमीलाई आफ्नो सिट सिधा राख्न मन छने भनेआफुले पनि त्यसै गरे हुन्छ। भाइ, तिमी युवा छौ, अलिकति नम्र हुन सिक भनेर मैले उनलाई भनिनँ , मैले आफैंलाई भनें। लेखकहरु आफैसंग धेरै कुरा गर्छन्। यदि मैले त्यो समस्या आफैं सुल्झाएको भए, त्यहाँ लेख्नका लागि कुनै कथा नै हुने थिएन। लेखकहरू स्वार्थी हुन्छन्, मानिसहरू भन्छन् तर म त्यस्तो छैन।

उनी ढाकाबाट नेपाल घुम्न आएका रहेछन, मुस्ताङ र नगरकोट घुमेछन् ।, र अंग्रेजी साहित्य पढेका रे। त्यसोभए त्यस्तो व्यक्तिले कसरी you can do also भन्न सक्छ भनेर मैले फेरी मनमनै सोधें र उत्तर दिएँ त्यो पनि मनमनै, घमण्डले सिक्नका लागि धेरै ठाउँ छोड्दैन। उनी पछाडिका मानिससंग अनाहकमा रिसाएका थिए । त्यो पनि मैले उनलाई भनिनँ।

हामी बेलुका ७:१५ बजे ढाका पुग्यौं, त्यतिबेलासम्म अँध्यारो भइसकेको थियो। ढाका कथा र जीवनले भरिएको सहर हो, तर यहाँ धेरै कथाहरू र धेरै मानिसहरू पनि छन्। काठमाडौंसमेत भीडभाडयुक्त लाग्ने मान्छेका लागि ढाका सहर हाेइन, आन्दोलन भइरहेको सडकजस्तै हो। म ढाकाका बारेमा नराम्रो कुरा गरिरहेको छैन, मेरा बंगाली साथीहरू ।तर हामीले स्विकार्नुपर्छ कि हाम्रा सहरहरू धेरै फोहोर छन्। हामी जताततै फोहोर फाल्छौं। हामीले वास्तवमै हाम्रा सहरहरू बनाएका छैनौं बरु सामूहिक छाप्राहरु बनाएका छौं। हामीले योभन्दा राम्रो गर्न सक्थ्यौं। म काठमाडौंको बारेमा पनि कुरा गरिरहेको छु।

अनअराइभल भिसाका लागि अध्यागमन डेस्कमा चारवटा कुराहरू मागे: राहदानी, आयोजकको पत्र, फर्किने टिकट, र होटल बुकिङ। मलाई पाँच मिनेटभन्दा कम समयमा छाप लगाइयो र म बाहिर निस्कें।

पुरानाे ढाकामा रकिब र म।

बंगलादेश संस्कृति, खाना र संगीतमा धनी छ। मलाई यो सबै मन पर्छ। मलाई मन नपर्ने कुरा के हो भने त्यहाँ अत्यधिक मान्छे छन्। जब म ढाका वा दिल्ली जस्ता अत्यधिक जनसङ्ख्या भएका ठाउँहरूमा जान्छु, म साँच्चिकै सोध्छु ,तपाईंहरू किन यति धेरै बच्चा जन्माउनुहुन्छ । मलाई यो नभन्नुहोस् कि पश्चिमाहरुले जनसंख्या कम भएपनि हामीलेभन्दा बढी स्रोतहरू प्रयोग गर्दछन् । मलाई त्यो थाहा छ, र असमानता वास्तविक हो र अन्यायपूर्ण छ। तपाईं रमाइलो गर्न सक्नुहुन्छ र पनि थोरै बच्चा पाउन सक्नुहुन्छ। धेरैले तर्क गर्छन् कि वास्तविक समस्या जनसङ्ख्या होइन बरु असमानता हो । जस्ताे पश्चिमका थोरै मानिसहरूले पूर्वका धेरै मानिसहरुले भन्दा बढी जमिनको क्षयीकरण गर्छन् र बढी पानी प्रयोग गर्छन्। धेरै स्रोतको प्रयोग गर्छन । ठीक छ, तपाईं सही हुनुहुन्छ। धेरै मानिसहरू र धेरै उपभोग दुवै गम्भीर समस्या हुन्। तर हामीले जनसंख्या सकेसम्म घटाएकै राम्राे । यति त स्विकार्नैपर्छ।

हाम्रो होटलका कर्मचारी विमानस्थलको गेटबाहिर मेरो नाम लिएर पर्खिरहेका थिए। मलाई अक्सफाम भन्ने संस्थाले नदी सम्बन्धी एउटा कार्यक्रमका लागि ढाकामा बाेलाएको थियो तर मैले यहाँ लेखेका शब्दहरूमा उनीहरुको कुनै लागनी छैन । तर तपाँइ पैशा तिरेर पनि मेरो Newsletter पढ्न सक्नुहुन्छ। त्यसो हो भने डी एम गर्नुस् अनि म पैशा कसरी तिर्ने बताइदिन्छु है ।

ढाका विश्वविध्यालयकाे बस।

नयाँ बनेको फ्लाईओभर हुँदै चालकले मलाई आधा घण्टामा बनानीको लेकशोर होटलमा पुर्‍याए। फ्लाईओभरले ढाकाको भयानक ट्राफिकबाट बचायो। मैले उनलाई सोधें, “के नयाँ सरकार पुरानो भन्दा राम्रो छ”। उनले मुस्कुराउँदै भने, “उस्तै-उस्तै। "

अस्तव्यस्तता ढाकाको अर्को नाम हो। यदि तपाईं त्यसकाे आनन्द लिनु मन पराउनुहुन्छ भने,त्याे अद्भुत छ। ढाकामा २ करोडभन्दा बढी मानिस छन् जुन नेपालको कुल जनसङ्ख्याको झण्डै दुई तिहाइ हाे। चालकले पनि बालेनले भारतका सचिवलाई भेट्न अस्वीकार गरेको प्रसंग उठाए। बंगलादेशमा त्यो समाचार भाइरल भएको रहेछ । इमानदारीपूर्वक भन्नुपर्दा, विदेशमा आफ्नो देश र नेताहरूको बारेमा राम्रा कुराहरू सुन्न पाउँदा राम्रो लाग्याे। तर हाम्रा लागि त्याेभन्दा अरु धेरै महत्वुपुर्ण कुराहरु छन्। बंगालीका लागि चाहि मिश्री नै सबैभन्दा ठुलाे समस्या लागेकाे रहेछ। हाम्राे देशमा एकजना युवा सत्तामा आएका छन् तर मलाई लाग्छ घमण्ड हाम्रो कान्छो प्रधानमन्त्रीका लागि सबैभन्दा ठूलो जोखिम हो। तपाईं राम्राे नेता हुन सक्नुहुन्छ र पनि तपाईंमा अलिकति न्यूयाेर्कका मेयर ममदानीको केहि अंश राख्न पनि सक्नुहुन्छ। तर त्यसो भन्दापनि सरकारको विरोध गरिस् भनेर भन्न सक्छन्। यहाँ अहिले उनका बारेमा राम्रोमात्रै गर्नुपर्छ नत्र त सामाजिक संजालमा खाउँला जस्तो पो गर्छन त, उनका समर्थकहरु ।

मलाई थाहा छ भारतसँग हाम्रा धेरै मतभेदहरू छन्, र भारतले सधैं आफ्ना छिमेकीहरूलाई सुक्ष्म व्यवस्थापन गर्ने गरेकाे छ। बेलाबेला दुख पनि दिन्छ। तर छिमेकीहरूले पनि भारतबाट आफ्नो हिस्साको फाइदा उठाएका छन् । भारतले यस क्षेत्रको बारेमा बढी व्यावहारिक रूपमा सोचेको भए हुन्थ्यो ताकि हामी सबै सँगै मिले समृद्ध हुन सक्थ्याै। तर मैले सोच्ने तरिका र नेताहरूले सोच्ने तरिका मिल्दैनन्। यसलाई यहीँ पार्क गरौं।

०००

ढाका मैले सोचे जस्तो तातो थिएन, किनकि प्रि मनसुन वर्षाले यसलाई अलिकति चिसो बनाउन मद्दत गरेकाे थियो । अहिले त मनसुन नै आइसक्यो। ढाकामा यो मेरो तेस्रो यात्रा थियो, र अनुभवका आधारमा म भन्न सक्छु कि यहाँ समय भनेको एउटा अंक मात्रै हो। सबैजना हतार गरिरहेका छन्, तर कोही पनि समयमै कतै पुग्दैनन्। लन्च खाऔं भनेर कुनै साथीलाइ भन्नुस् उस्ले भन्नेछ, किन लन्च मात्र भोली ब्रेकफास्टबाट सुरु गरौंला, हुँदैन ? तर भाेली पल्ट उ लन्च त के डिनरका लागि पनि उपस्थित नहुन सक्छ। म सामान्यीकरण गरिरहेको छैन, तर अधिक वाचा गर्नु याे भेगका एउटा रोग नै हो, र बंगालीहरू यसमा निकै माहिर छन् । नेपालीहरू भन्दा बढी, म त्यति त भन्न सक्छु। तथापि, नेपालीहरु पनि यस मामलामा तगडै छन्।यसपटक मेरा एक मित्रले त्यसै गरे। त्यस्तो पहिला पनि भएकाे छ। कार्यक्रम ८ बजे भन्याेभने १० बजे बल्ल शुरु हुन्छ।

यस पटक एकजनाले धाेका दिएपनि अर्का मेरा सहकर्मी राकिब भने हामीले तय गरेको समयभन्दा आधा घण्टा अगाडि नै आइपुगे, जुन यति असामान्य थियो कि मलाई लाग्यो नयाँ क्रान्तिसँगै ढाका परिवर्तन भएछ। तर अर्का पुराना सहकर्मी, जसले म ओर्लिनु अघि नै रमाइलो गर्नुपर्छ भनेर बारम्बार वाचा गरेका थिए, तीन दिनसम्म पनि देखा परेनन्। मैले राकिबलाई पनि सोधें, “ के नयाँ सरकार पुरानो भन्दा राम्रो छ?”

मलाई त्यस्तो लाग्दैन,” उनले भने।

उस्तै भ्रष्टाचार, काम गर्ने उस्तै पारा। हामी हाम्रा विद्यार्थी नेताहरू सत्तामा आएकाे हेर्न चाहन्छौं। एक दिन उनीहरूले नियन्त्रण लिनेछन्। मैले मनमनै भनें “थप एक क्रान्ति तर कृपया कुनै आगजनी नहोस्। ”

मेराे साथी रकिब र म, पुरानाे ढाकामा।

तर मलाई विश्वास गर्नुहोस्, बंगालीहरूले साथीको रूपमा तपाईंलाई आफ्नो मनमुटु दिन्छन्। राकिबले मलाई पुरानो ढाका सहर लिएर गए र ढाका विश्वविद्यालयमा आफ्नो पुरानो कक्षाकोठा देखाए। हामीले लेकशोर हाेटलबाट शहबागसम्म सीएनजी अटाे लियौं, त्यसपछि रिक्सा। मलाई सधैं रिक्सा चढ्दा नराम्रो लाग्छ । एक जना मानिसले अन्य दुई जनालाई तानिरहेको हेर्दा त्यो कडा परिश्रम गर्ने मान्छेको माया लाग्छ। तर फेरि म सोच्छु, कम्तीमा यसले उसलाई गाँस र बास त दिन्छ।

मैले शहबागमा बंगलादेशको जेन जी आन्दोलनको केहि अवशेष हेर्न पाएँ। पुरानो शहीद स्मारक, र विद्रोह गर्ने मानिसहरूको आशा र सपनाहरूको झलक दिने चित्रहरु पनि देखें। तर भर्खरै भएकाे विद्रोहले नयाँ आशा दिनुकाे साटो मानिसहरु फेरी निराश हुन थालेको पनि पाएँ। यो क्षेत्रको दु:ख नै त्यहि हो । एउटा परिवर्तनले पुगेकै छैन। बारम्बार परिवर्तन भएपनि जनताको जिवनस्तर भने खासै फेरिएको छैन ।

हामी चर्चित हनिफ बिर्यानी खान गयौं । पुरानो ढाकामा। खचाखच थियो। केहिबेर लाइन बसेपछि बस्ने ठाउँ पायौं बिर्यानी मिठो नै थियो तर हेर्दा भने पुलाउ जस्तो देखिन्थ्यो। यसलाई कुन कुराले यति लोकप्रिय बनायो थाहा भएन, तर यो नयाँ सरकारभन्दा बढी लोकप्रिय रेहछ, यो पक्का हो। मेरो लागि, यसले एउटा सन्देश दियो। एउटै कुरामा ध्यान केन्द्रित गर्नुहोस्, र तपाईंले त्यसबाट उत्तम नतिजा पाउनुहुनेछ। हनिफ बिर्यानीले एउटा परिकार मात्र पस्कन्छ, मटन बिर्यानी, र केवल मटन बिर्यानी।

पुरानाे ढाकामा चर्चित हनिफ बिर्यानी

हामी विश्वविद्यालय क्षेत्रमा फर्कियौं र प्रथाेमा पुस्तक पसलमा छिर्‍यौं। मैले चारवटा किताब किनें। देशको सबैभन्दा ठूलो अखबार प्रथाेमाले चलाएको पसल भने खासै आकर्षक थिएन। मैले यस्तो ठाउँको अपेक्षा गरेको थिएँ जहाँ तपाँइ घण्टौंसम्म किताबहरु वरिपरी टहल्न पाउनुहुन्छ। मैले टैगोरको गीताञ्जली, काफ्काको मेटामोर्फोसिस, मार्क्सको कम्युनिष्ट म्यानीफेस्टाे, र मिल्टनको प्याराडाइज लस्ट किनें। चारवटा पुस्तकको कुल १,४०० टाका भयो। काउन्टरमा हामीलाई एउटा मात्र पुस्तकको, करिब ३०० टाकाको रसिद दिइयाे । बाँकी स्पष्ट रूपमा करछली। यस्ता साना कुराहरू थपिँदै जाँदा देश असफल हुन थाल्छ। स साना कुरा हुन् तर त्यहि त पछि ठुलाे हुने हो ।

तर, ठूलो समस्या त के थियो भने राकिबले मलाई तीमध्ये कुनैको पनि पैसा तिर्न दिएनन्। जब तिमी ढाकामाहुन्छौ तिमीलाई खुसी राख्नु मेरो जिम्मेवारी हो, पैशा तिर्न पाइँदैन भनेर उनले अडान नै लिए । मैले प्रयास गरें तर असफल भएँ। मैले रिक्सा चालकलाई थप ५० टाका मात्र टिप्सका रुपमा दिएँ। मेराे कुल खर्च त्याे दिन त्यति नै।

प्रथाेमा पुस्तक पसल।

ठिकै छ, मेरो साथी। काठमाडौं आउँदा म तिम्रालागि केही गर्नेछु। मैले खासै धेरै गर्नुपर्दैन। म डाँडातिर लैजानेछु, दुईवटा बियर किन्नेछु, र तिमीलाई हिमाल देखाउनेछु। बियर मेरो तर्फबाट, हिमालहरूले बाँकी काम गर्नेछन्। मैले जिस्क्याएँ।

अन्तिम दिन म , म लुगाहरू खोज्नका लागि मात्र होटलबाट बाहिर निस्किएँ — बंगलादेशको अर्को नाम कपडादेश राखेपनि हुन्छ। मैले गुलशनमा बिग बाेस नाम गरेकाे एउटा ठूलो पसल भेट्टाएँ र धेरै लुगाहरू किनें । मलाई भोक लाग्यो र त्यहाँका म्यानेजरसंग बंगाली खाना पाइने राम्रो ठाउँको बारेमा सोधें। पानी परिरहेको थियो उनले त एकजना सहायकलाई छाता ओढाएर मलाई रेस्टुरेन्टसम्म पुर्‍याउन पठाए । नाम रहेछ सुल्तान बिर्यानी । आउनुहोस् ढाकाको नाम नै परिवर्तन गरिदिऊँ र कपडापछि बिर्यानीदेश राखाैं। नेपालमा मःमः जस्तै, ढाकामा बिर्यानी मुख्य खाना रहेछ कि क्या हाे। खाना यति धेरै थियो कि मैले आधा भाग बेलुकाको खानाका लागि प्याक गर्नुपर्‍यो।

मैले केहि तन्ना किन्न चाहेकाे थिएँ । खाना खाएर फर्केपछि मैले म्यानेजरलाइ साेधें उनले त फेरी अर्को १० मिनेट छाता ओढेर मलाई एउटा यस्तो पसल देखाउन गए जुन मैले भनेकै थिइनँ। बढाे मेजमानी पाे गरे । खासै धेरै खर्च गरेकाे त हाेइन । बनानी फर्कने रिक्साको ५० टाका लाग्यो। रिक्सा चालक एक वृद्ध मानिस थिए, त्यसैले मैले उनलाई १०० दिएँ तर खुद्रा फिर्ता मागिनँ। उनले मलाई एउटा मिठाे मुस्कान दिए । त्यस्ताे मिठाे मुस्कान निकै सस्तोमा पाएँ भनेर मनमनै भनें । तपाईंले मात्र यो थाहा पाउनु पर्छ कि कोसँग मोलतोल गर्ने र काेसंग नगर्ने।

यस पटक मैले ढाका धेरै देखिनँ। यस्तो सहरको व्याख्या गर्नका लागि केही दिन पर्याप्त हुँदैन, तर यो मेरो पहिलो भ्रमण थिएन, र मलाई लाग्छ कि मैले केहि न केहि जानेकाे छु । यति धेरै आशा छ यहाँ । यति धेरै कडा परिश्रम गर्छन यहाँका मान्छे । यति धेरै गरिबी। यति धेरै पीडा। बंगालीहरू राम्रा दिनहरूको लागि व्यग्रताका साथ पर्खिरहेका छन्, तर सरकारहरूले त्यसरी सोच्दैनन् सायद ।तिनीहरू कसरी जित्ने र जितिरहने भन्ने बारेमा सोच्छन्। आशा छ यो सरकारले अघिल्लो सरकारले जस्तै गर्ने छैन र फेरी अर्काे आन्दाेलनकाे भार उनीहरुले बाेक्नुपर्ने छैन ।

पुरानाे ढाकामा एकजना रिक्सा चालक ।

मैले यो लेखिरहँदा, मैले साम डेलरिम्पलको Substack मा एउटा पोस्ट पढेँ। “ कुनै समय, बंगाल पृथ्वीकै सबैभन्दा धनी ठाउँ थियो। सन् १७००काे सुरुतिर, यसले विश्वव्यापी जीडीपीको झण्डै ५ प्रतिशत हिस्सा ओगटेको थियो, र यसको राजधानी मुर्शिदाबादसँग बेलायती कुलीन वर्गको संयुक्त सम्पत्तिभन्दा बढी सम्पत्ति थियो।” त्यसपछिका तीन शताब्दीहरूमा, यो सबैभन्दा धनीबाट सबैभन्दा गरिब मध्ये एकमा परिणत भएको छ।

के ढाकाका ति पुराना दिनहरू फर्केलान ? मलाई थाहा छैन। तर ति फर्किए भने, म पक्का छु कि काठमाडौंले पनि अलिकति फाइदा पाउनेछ। अर्को पटकसम्मका लागि, धन्यवाद, ढाका।

मेरो अर्को न्यूजलेटर काठमाडौं नजिकैको जंगलबाट हुनेछ, जहाँ मैले एक हप्ता कि त लेखेर कि त कोठा बाहिर जंगलको पर्खाल हेरेर बिताएँ। त्याे त्यस्ताे ठाउँ थियाे जहाँ म प्रकृतिमा नाङ्गै उभिन सक्थेँ, र मलाई देख्ने केवल रुख वा चराहरू मात्र थिए।

Image: Painted wall in Dhaka.Pic- Ramesh Bhushal

RAMESH BHUSHAL

Dot 6 pm, the plane was on the runway. A rare moment for a Kathmanduite — I don’t remember any recent flight I’ve taken on time. Believe me, I’m not talking badly about my country. It’s a beautiful country, beautiful people — most foreigners say so themselves. So what kept us at the bottom of the world rankings, backward and least developed? Huh. Come on. Let’s not talk about it.

We were heading east, but in Kathmandu, you normally need to make a loop, so we flew north, turned, then headed southeast toward Bangladesh, you could also say India, but Bengalis hate India, so it’s better not to say that for now. I’m going by the words of many Bengalis I’ve met. Sorry, my Indian friends. Maybe they only hate the Indian government. People don’t even love their own governments, who would love someone else’s? Government isn’t a thing to love. It’s a dangerous creature, but one created by the people themselves.

I don’t enjoy flights. I wish there were a bus from Kathmandu to Dhaka so I could drive down south, stop for tea, and talk to people. It’s not that far — just an hour-long flight but getting there by land is brutally hard. Flying around South Asia, I always imagine a trip from Afghanistan to Myanmar, crossing rivers and mountains, eating local food, and listening to music. But it’s a dream that never comes true. Imagine a train from Kabul through Pakistan, the Indian Himalaya, Nepal, Assam, Bhutan or Sikkim, into Myanmar, and onward to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos. A dream of dreams. I sometimes even fear dreaming because if it came true, how would I embrace it?

This region is so divided. Afghanistan is its own world now, ruled by the Taliban. India and Pakistan don’t talk to each other. Nepal is a bit more flexible but isn’t without its problems. India, our common big brother, has no good relations with its neighbors. Myanmar is ruled by the junta’s gun. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are no better off. We are so messed up. The rivers that originate in these mountains shape our lives; we’re the product of these mountains, yet we can’t be friends at all.

Let’s take off for now. The captain spoke, but I hardly listened. Who listens to those announcements? The rituals.

When you’re on a plane, it’s not worth worrying, but you keep worrying. At least I do. After you take off, either you land, or you don’t; those are the only two possibilities. Easier said than done. You must trust science, or don’t buy the ticket. They say it’s one of the safest modes of transportation. But while I was writing this, a B-52 bomber crashed in California, killing all eight on board, and a crash in France killed over ten skydivers. Let’s not dwell on it. Hope. Hope. Hope.

Clouds were hovering, and the sky was colorful with the setting sun. You think the sky is blue — it is, but it’s also red, orange, black, pink. It’s sad, happy, angry, silent, thundering. It’s better to write “etc.” when you lack the details. A lazy writer does that. Count me in. Snow-peaked mountains showed just their heads, bodies hidden under the clouds — the Himalayas, the tallest range in the world. Majestic, we call them, and then we treat them brutally.

When you’re in the air, you think a lot. Looking at the clouds, the thick snow on those peaks, the rivers flowing endlessly. A drop of water shapes the earth. Sometimes it becomes gas and forms clouds, sometimes it melts and flows, and sometimes it freezes as ice on the rocks. The planet is all about different forms of water, and those drops create different forms of life. We are one of those forms, supported by those drops, and we rarely credit them. We think we’re alive because of our lungs or our heart, but the real supporting systems are outside of us, continuously supplying the fuel we need. We just don’t pay for it directly. We only pay taxes to the government, and we keep changing them.

There are over 8 billion of us on Earth now. On the plane, young Nepali boys — handball players, many on their first flight, were excited about Dhaka. One said, “What if this plane crashes?” Another replied, “You won’t even know because you’ll die before you find out.” What kind of conversation is this? I didn’t ask.

A young Bengali man sat next to me. A passenger behind asked if he could bring his seat forward. He stared at him and said, “You can do also.” I was confused, and so was the guy behind him. I figured out later what he meant: I’m doing what I want; if you want yours upright too, do it yourself. A couple of minutes later, the air hostess made him upright anyway. Man, you’re young, learn a bit. I didn’t say that to him; I said it to myself. As a writer, you talk to yourself a lot. If I’d fixed the problem myself, there wouldn’t have been a story to write. Writers are selfish, people say. I am not.

I got curious about him afterward. He was from Dhaka, had been to Mustang and Nagarkot, and studied English literature. So how does someone like that say “you can do also”? Maybe attitude doesn’t leave much room for learning. That was an unnecessary bit of bad attitude. I didn’t tell him, though.

We reached Dhaka at 7:15 pm, already dark. Dhaka is a city full of stories and life, but also too many stories and too many people. For someone from Kathmandu, who thinks of it as polluted and crowded, Dhaka isn’t even close. I’m not talking badly about it, my Bengali friends, our cities are too filthy. We don’t have manners, and we litter everywhere. We haven’t really built our cities; we’ve built mass shelters. We could have done better. I’m talking about Kathmandu too.

Bangladesh is rich in culture, food, and music. I love it all. What I don’t like is that the country is overpopulated. When I visit overpopulated places like Dhaka or Delhi, I genuinely ask: why do you produce so many kids? Don’t tell me the West uses more resources than us — I know that already, and the inequality is real and unjust. But please, let’s still have fewer people. You can have fun and still have fewer kids. I have one, and I’m fine with it. The real problem, many argue, isn’t population but inequality — fewer people in the West degrade more land and use more water than many in the East combined. Fine, you’re right. Both, too many people and too much consumption are serious problems

Image: Old Dhaka, Pic- Ramesh Bhushal

At the immigration desk for a visa on arrival, they asked for four things: a passport, an organizer’s letter, a return ticket, and a hotel booking. I was stamped in under five minutes.

Our hotel driver was waiting with my name at the airport exit. I should mention I was invited to Dhaka for a program on rivers, organized by Oxfam. These words I have written here are unpaid, though, so if you’d like to change that, DM me. As soon as I said I was from Nepal, he praised our new prime minister, Balendra Shah — Balen, as people call him, and was especially happy Balen had refused to meet India’s foreign secretary, Mishri. He wasn’t happy with how Bangladesh’s new PM was handling India either. Most Bengalis I’ve met express frustration with India — sometimes I think more than Nepalis do. Either way, we can all agree India doesn’t have great relations with its neighbors.

He got me to the Lakeshore Hotel in Banani in half an hour via the newly built flyover, sparing most of Dhaka’s horrible traffic. I asked him, “Is the new government better than the old one?” He smiled and said, “Same-same.”

Chaos is another name for Dhaka. If you enjoy it, it’s wonderful. Dhaka has over 20 million people — nearly two-thirds of Nepal’s entire population. A newspaper ran an article with the byline of Jannatul Bushra, “ If you try to make of sense of Dhaka traffic only by using logic and Google Maps, you will very quickly realize that the city has no particular interest in cooperating with either of them .”

The Cab driver, too, brought up our Balen, refusing to meet India’s secretary; that news had clearly gone viral. Honestly, it was among my least concerns back home. I was more worried about inflation, the treatment of slum dwellers, fuel prices, and the dwindling stock market. But it’s nice to hear good things about your country and leaders for once. A young man has come to power, and I just hope he won’t end up like the young man on the plane. I think attitude is the biggest risk for our youngest prime minister. You can be a leader and still have a bit of Mamdani in you. I wish he had more of it.

I know we have plenty of differences with India, and India has always tried to micromanage its neighbors, but the neighbors have taken their share of advantage too. I wish India thought more pragmatically about the region so we could all be more prosperous together. But the way I think and the way leaders think don’t converge. Let’s park it here.

Dhaka wasn’t as hot as I expected, as the pre-monsoon showers helped a bit to cool it. This was my third trip to Dhaka, and by now I can say confidently: time is just a number here. Everyone is rushing, but nobody arrives anywhere on time. Say “let’s have lunch,” and someone will say, why only lunch? Let’s start with breakfast, then doesn’t show up even for dinner. I’m not generalizing, but over-promising is a disease across the developing world, and Bengalis are quite good at it — more than Nepalis, I’d say. We’re not different breeds, though.

Image: View from hotel Lakeshore in Banani. Pic- Ramesh Bhushal

This time, my colleague Rakib showed up half an hour before our agreed time, unusual enough that I thought Dhaka had changed with the new revolution. But another old colleague, who’d promised fun before I even landed, never showed up in three days. I asked Rakib, too: Is the new government better than the old one? “I don’t think so,” he said. “Same corruption, same way of dealing with things. We want our student leaders to be in power. One day they’ll take over.” One more revolution but no arson, please.

But trust me, Bengalis give you their whole heart as friends. Rakib took me to Old Dhaka and showed me his old classroom at Dhaka University. We took a CNG from Lakeshore to Shahbagh, then a rickshaw. I always feel bad taking rickshaws, watching a fellow human pull two others — such hard work. But then I think, at least it earns him bread and butter.

I caught a glimpse of the Gen Z protest site in Shahbagh, the old martyrs’ memorial, and the hope and dreams of the people who revolted. But is it translating into anything? Many already seem frustrated.

We ate at the famous Hanif Biryani despite a struggle just to get a seat. Not sure what makes it so popular, but it’s more popular than the new government, for sure. To me, it carried a message: focus on one thing, and you’ll get the best out of it. Hanif Biryani serves exactly one dish, mutton biryani, and only mutton biryani.

Image: Hanif Biryani in Old Dhaka. Pic- Ramesh Bhushal

We came back to the University area and got into the Prothoma bookstore. I bought four books. For a store run by the country’s largest newspaper owner, it wasn’t that impressive. I’d expected somewhere you could stroll for hours with a real range of books. I bought Tagore’s Gitanjali, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Four books came to 1,400 taka total. The counter gave us a receipt for just one book, around 300 taka — the rest untaxed, apparently. Small things like that, compounded, are how a country starts to fail. The bigger problem, though, was that Rakib wouldn’t let me pay for any of it. “When you’re in Dhaka, it’s my responsibility to make you happy, no money from your side,” he said. I tried and failed. I only managed to pay 50 taka as a tip to the rickshaw puller.

Rakib and I are in the Prothoma book store in Dhaka.

It’s okay, my friend. I’ll do something for you when you’re in Kathmandu. It doesn’t need to be much. I’ll take you to the hilltop, buy a couple of beers, and show you the mountains. The beers on me, the mountains will do the rest.

One day, I walked out of the hotel just to look for clothes — Bangladesh’s other name might as well be Cloth-desh. I found a big store called Big Boss in Gulshan and bought a ton, total under 300 dollars — branded clothes with unnoticeable factory defects, or so I was told. I got hungry and asked the manager for a good place serving Bengali food. It was raining; he kindly sent an assistant with an umbrella to walk me to the restaurant — Sultan’s Biryani, of course. Let’s just rename Dhaka already. Like momos in Nepal, biryani is the thing in Dhaka. The portion was so large I had to pack half of it for dinner. I’ve survived many days without proper food in my past life, so biryani, to me, is a luxury. I ate at night too.

I asked for bedding, and the same manager walked another ten minutes with his umbrella to show me a store I hadn’t even asked for. For a moment, I felt like Elon Musk. The rickshaw back to Banani cost 50 taka. The puller was an older man, so I gave him 100 and didn’t ask for change. He gave me a big smile — cheap, I thought, to buy a smile like that. You just have to know who not to bargain with.

I didn’t see much of Dhaka this time. A couple of days isn’t enough to explain a city like this, but it wasn’t my first visit, and I think I know it a little. So much hope. So much hard work. So much poverty. So much pain. Bengalis are desperately waiting for better days, but governments don’t think that way — they think about how to win and keep winning. Hope this government won’t do the same as the earlier one.

But once, Bengal was the richest place on Earth. In the early 1700s, it generated roughly 5% of global GDP, and its capital, Murshidabad, held more wealth than the British aristocracy combined. Historian Sam Dalrymple has written about how foreign trading companies competed for the favor of the Bengali elite, and how a forty-mile stretch of river once hosted trading posts from five European empires at once. In the three centuries since, it’s gone from richest to one of the poorest. By the way, I read this post on Sam’s Substack post.

Will those old days return to Dhaka? I don’t know. But if they do, I’m sure Kathmandu will benefit a little too. Until next time, thank you, Dhaka. Don’t lose your hope.

My next newsletter will be from JungleMahal Wellness Resort in the vicinity of Kathmandu, where I spent a week either writing or staring at the forest wall in front of the room. I could stand naked out in nature, and the only ones to see me were trees or birds.

I wrote it all. AI was used to check grammar; no words were added by AI.

Dambar Bahadur Gurung in Lwang village. Pic: Ramesh Bhushal

By Ramesh Bhushal

I am back from the mountains. In fact, I returned over a couple of weeks ago, but you know it takes time to write things. And for those like me who think more and write less, it takes even longer. I read somewhere that thinking is not writing. Writing is putting something on paper or a computer. But thinking is part of the process, right? Either way, only thinking won’t cut it; get some ink on paper.

Am I giving advice? Oh, that’s not what I wanted to do. But you know, sometimes you should tell people how knowledgeable you are just to lure them into reading your work. Believe me, though, I am not doing it that way here.

In Nepal, when you say you are back from the mountains, it really doesn’t mean you are back. Generally, you are just back from one mountain to another. We mostly do mountain-hopping. I am back from the Annapurna mountain range in western Nepal. If you don’t know what it looks like, here is a picture for you.

Annapurna mountain range as seen from Astam. Pic: Ramesh Bhushal

If you haven’t read about what it looked like in the 1950s, look up Annapurna by Maurice Herzog—a formidable French climber whose book sold millions of copies.

I wish my book had sold a million so that I could have bought a beautiful piece of land near these mountains, built a house with a wonderful library facing those lofty peaks, and watched the drifting clouds. But no worries, I can still manage a few things. My book Chhalbato- Kailash Dekhi Ganga Samma ( a 2000 km journey from Tibet to India following the Karnali river that flows through western Nepal) was among the bestsellers in 2025 and won the Padmashree Literature Award, which came with a $2,000 USD prize. I won’t reveal what I received from my publisher 😊, but I earned enough to make multiple trips back to these mountains and maybe start writing another book.

To me, Annapurna Eco Village in Astam is like a home. In 2024, I finalized my book there by spending a couple of weeks. I am welcome anytime at a discounted rate, and they even say I can stay in their house if I want. Doesn’t that sound cool? I don’t need to buy a house; I just need to spare some time to go there often. The owner, Bishwo Adhikari, and his two brothers run this eco-lodge, and it is genuinely eco-friendly. Don’t get confused by the word “eco,” as it is just a buzzword for many hoteliers in Nepal. Merely adding “Eco” to your name doesn’t make you sustainable, but the place I am talking about is a good Eco.

My room in Annapurna Eco Village in Astam: Pic: Ramesh Bhushal

At Annapurna Eco Village, they don’t have hot water in the bathroom; you must fill a bucket from a solar tap or a firewood-heated tank. In the evenings, a zigzagged metal pipe under the firewood transports hot water to a nearby tank that you can use the next morning. That’s a bit of Eco, isn’t it? They also use sand filtration technology for drinking water. There are no plastic bottles, and you can get as much water as you need within the package rate. It’s rare now in Nepal for hoteliers not to force plastic bottled water on you. Wherever you go, they first bring you a plastic bottle and charge you. It’s a shame. In a country that has 6,000 rivers and rivulets and drains billions of cusec of water every year, it’s a shame to charge people for a bottle of water. We could have used traditional ways to serve water, conserved our springs, and cleaned our rivers.

Don’t even talk about clean water. I am writing this from a cafe in Patan, but if you walk 10 minutes north, you will see how filthy the Bagmati, our holiest river, actually is. It’s a dead river. Most of the time it’s just sewage. That’s how we have developed this country. I shouldn’t talk badly about my country; our youngest prime minister might send the police.

Oh, wait. He might just say, “What the f*ck am I doing?” It’s a normal phrase in Nepal nowadays. A few months ago, he said, “F*ck America, f*ck China, f*ck India.” If you can f*ck them, who else do you need to defeat and become a superpower? Don’t ask me; I only have words.

I spent a week around the Annapurna mountains, though it was just a two-to-three-day hike in between. Three days is a peanut for many Nepalis. I walked a whole day just to catch a bus when I was seven back in 1990 and walked over three weeks continuously to write my book. I was born near Pokhara in Parbat district. I love mountains, and I love walking. Walking used to be a way of life when there were no vehicles and no electricity. This time, I walked solo. I talked to the stone-paved trails, which we call Dahar (डहर) in Nepali, listened to the birds chirping around, and drank water from springs. Nowadays, those old trails are being replaced by black-topped roads or cemented, uniform steps. Our model of development just hates every old thing.

Trail from Astam to Mardi river: Pic: Ramesh Bhushal

I would say there is only one “ism” prevailing in Nepal right now: Cementism. Forget Capitalism or Communism; those are just names. Our leaders buy cement, put money in their pockets, build ugly structures around these mountains, and call it development. If you don’t believe me, look at the concrete tiger built near Pokhara in Baglung district. It cost $2,000 USD, and it isn’t a tiger for sure. It’s a shame.

Laughing (crying) Tiger in Baglung district made by the public money, uff. Picture Courtesy: Setopati.com

These kinds of structures are popping up all over the country, including mini “Great Walls,” like the one in Shailung. It’s weird to build a mini Great Wall when you already have the planet’s tallest mountain range. If you question it, they will say, “F*ck your idea.” I am getting older, so I am trying to learn these young words with ‘F’ to keep myself young. Sorry for that.

Mini Great Wall in eastern Nepal’s Dolakha district. Pic: Ramesh Bhushal

From Astam, I walked to Lwang. It took four hours. It was a nice day; the sun hid above the clouds, coming down occasionally to check on me. I walked through the jungle and reached the banks of the Mardi river. My footsteps were the only noise alongside chirping birds and cicadas singing. Unfortunately, the roadside hotels mostly sell packaged junk food and beer. In Khora ko Mukh, I met a bunch of old men. That’s the reality of the mountains now: the youth are leaving the country, sending money back so the older generation can live a bit longer and play cards or chat in Chautari—a common seating place in villages.

Lwang village. Pic: Ramesh Bhushal

A long-tailed minivet chirped as I climbed uphill to Lwang, a beautiful Gurung village. Near the top, I met an old man in his 80s singing while herding his buffaloes.

He kept singing, and nature was at its best.

Eating Dal Bhat in Nepal is the best thing you can do. They say, Dal Bhat Power, 24 Hour. I ate some and had a bottle of Barahsinghe Beer. People love to name beers after the wildlife they kill—Tiger, Rhino, Arna. Apparently, putting their names on beer bottles is our best way to protect biodiversity. It was cheap, though. The whole meal cost nearly $10 USD. In London or New York, that would barely buy you a glass of beer. If you come from the West, it’s like buying a beer and getting a free lunch. Please come to the mountains. Nepal needs tourists who can afford to spend a bit and who care about the environment as well. Otherwise, you end up as a Jhole Tourist— travelers escaping their own countries just to live cheaply. But don’t worry, you can be a jholey as it’s your planet too. You can be a bit nice jholey.

By 4 PM, it was raining a bit, but the meal pushed me to reach Dhampus by 7 PM. Pre-monsoon rains have lashed the region over the past few weeks. This is unusual, and the heavy pre-monsoon rainfall is worrying people, especially as a drier monsoon has been forecast. Monsoon hasn’t arrived yet. Not only rains, but there has been unusual snowfall this year. This is what Climate change would do. Bring more unusual things and unease to you and the planet.

I found a beautiful trail along an old motorable road that hadn’t been in operation for years, complete with a stunning suspension bridge. I wish I could live right next to it. Who wouldn’t want to stay nearby? But the villages nearby are nearly empty.

A bridge on the way from Lwang to Dhampus. Pic: Ramesh Bhushal

When I arrived at Dhampus, the hotel owner noted a major shift: “In the past, every young person used to have a plow (Halo), but now every young person has a motorbike.”

The mountains are changing fast. Roads are cutting through the hills, the youth are leaving, and the elderly are left waiting. It leaves you with mixed feelings. I always wonder: what keeps people in the mountains, and what forces them out? Will people ever return? What is keeping me from returning? Is it just money, or is there something else? I am back with more questions than answers. I am a very confused man, but that gives me an excuse to go back time and again. If you want to see the mountains, please go now and hold them in your eyes, keep them in your memories. They are changing fast.

I wrote it all. AI was used to check grammar only.

My next newsletter will cover the Bay of Bengal. I am just back from Dhaka. Do send any comments or compliments:). I won’t mind.

‘Moving base camp will create chaos,’ says Kami Rita Sherpa. (Image: Daniel Prudek / Alamy)

Climbing Mount Everest – at 8,849 metres, the world’s highest mountain – is on many people’s bucket list. Even just reaching Everest Base Camp in northeastern Nepal, at 5,364 metres, is something few people achieve. Except for Kami Rita Sherpa that is, for whom climbing Everest has been a routine for over two decades, sometimes twice or even three times a year.

Born in Thame, a Sherpa village in the Everest region of Nepal, he started working as a porter for trekking companies when he was just 12. Now 55, Kami Rita climbed Mount Everest for the first time in 1994 when he was just 24. This year, Kami Rita reached the summit for the 32nd time, a new world record.

On a sunny day in July of 2022, he spoke to Ramesh Bhushal in a café in Kathmandu. With monsoon clouds advancing from the Bay of Bengal towards the Nepalese capital, he had a bit of leisure time between the spring (pre-monsoon) and autumn (post-monsoon) climbing seasons.

Kami Rita Sherpa, record-holding Everest Climber , image: Ramesh Bhushal

The Nepalese government reportedly wants to move Everest Base Camp to a lower elevation, because of risks associated with climate change – including melting of the glacier the camp is located on – and an increasing number of climbers. But as Kami Rita explains, the plan is not supported by all.

What is your opinion about the government’s plan to move Everest Base Camp?

There is no valid reason to move it. Do you think climate change has impacted just Base Camp? What about the other camps [on the Everest route]? Where will you shift them? If you say climate change has impacted Base Camp, then don’t you think the other camps have also become riskier due to rapid melting of the ice?

Moving Base Camp will create chaos. The camps were established on the basis of the availability of a suitable place, identified through experience and practicality. If you move Base Camp lower, say to [the village of] Gorak Shep [at around 5,150m], then it will just be a stopover before the current base camp, as it’s nearly impossible to hike from the moved Base Camp to Camp I [at 6,150m]. And you can’t stay anywhere in between, as there isn’t any suitable spot except the current base camp. It will be just an added camp, not an alternative.

But the government says it’s becoming more dangerous, and that the decision would create a safer environment for climbers and climbing expeditions’ support staff.

I don’t really think Base Camp has become unsafe or less safe. I think it’s the safest point to camp for preparation before heading up and there isn’t a place nearby that’s more suitable. If you move down a little, it’s even more dangerous. Currently, Base Camp is on the edge of the Khumbu Glacier, and moving it down a bit will take you near the foot of Pumori mountain. That’s the place where an avalanche occurred during the 2015 earthquake and killed scores of climbers and Sherpas.

If you move it further down to Gorak Shep [where a flat area is available], which is over three kilometres south, then how would you provide water? There is no water source nearby and you must walk for an hour or so to get some water from the ice. Currently, Base Camp has meltwater [from glaciers], and even when there is no meltwater, we can crumble ice and melt it to drink. It would be nearly impossible to carry out expeditions at lower levels far from glaciers unless there is a continuous supply of water. It’s about feeding over 1,500 people for over two months [including climbers, porters and support staff], and we need a large amount of water every day.

The Everest climbing route, Camp I to IV, is on the Khumbu Glacier. Studies have shown that the glacier has been shrinking due to rapid melting resulting from global warming. How has this affected climbing?

Rapid melting exposes more rock on mountains and it’s harder to climb rock than ice-covered terrain. It also increases the chances of rockfalls that could cause serious injury or even death. I have noticed more exposed rock, and the length of rock [that has to be climbed] has increased in the past two decades. Between Camp III and Camp IV, there used to be about 50m of rock when I started to climb Everest, but now it’s over 70m.

Likewise, there is a spot called Geneva Spur [an anvil-shaped rib of rock] at 7,300m and more rock has now been exposed there, too. Between Camp IV and The Balcony [a small platform where climbers rest before the summit], there is a triangular face that used to [feature] about 100m of rock to climb, but now it’s about 130m. It’s quite rocky near the Hillary Step [a short rock face near the summit] and that has also increased in length.

Base Camp and camps 1 to 4 on the Nepal route up Mount Everest • Graphic by The Third Pole • Imagery: Landsat/Copernicus via Google Earth

What changes have you seen on Everest since you started climbing?

A lot. I can say that the amount of ice on Everest is less than when I climbed for the first time in 1994. Ice is melting at a faster rate and it’s moving [higher] up, but the bigger problem is that the timing of rainfall and snowfall has become irregular. In 1994 and the following expeditions for some years, it wasn’t normal to drink meltwater in Base Camp at the beginning of climbing in late April. We used to crack ice and then melt it to drink. But now you can get melted water not only in Base Camp, but often in Camp II. This year in April, we got water in Camp II. Now I feel like Camp II is the new base camp.

If shifting Base Camp is not a good idea, what do you think the government should do to ensure that climbing Everest in Nepal is safe and appealing?

I think if a decision is made [to move Base Camp], it will shift more climbers to China. It’s already expensive and challenging to climb Everest from the Nepal side. The Tibet side in China has a lot of facilities and it’s easier to climb from the northern side rather than the southern one. China has electricity and roads up to the base camp. You can go up to 6,500m on yaks. Why would someone come to the Nepal side if you prolong their stay without reason [by creating a longer route]?

Just doing things to make a news headline won’t solve the problem

Instead of moving Base Camp, the government could spend money on providing electricity at the camp, so that we can reduce the use of gas to cook food. [The use of gas canisters by climbing expeditions has been suggested as a factor in the warming of the area.] One expedition uses three gas canisters per day, and there are about 50 expeditions a year. One expedition takes around two-and-a-half months from Kathmandu and back, and most of the stay will be in Base Camp. You can reduce the use of gas if you provide electricity.

Secondly, the government can spend money on providing folding toilets to all expeditions so that we don’t have to carry them every time, and they can charge for the usage. They could invest in providing more reliable weather information and focus on clean-up campaigns [of rubbish left by climbers] along the trail up to the summit.

Toilets on Everest?

Just doing things to make a news headline won’t solve any problem. There are many more things that could be done to create a safer climbing environment and save the mountains, but an easy [fix], like moving Base Camp down, is just a waste of time.

What is your message to the world, which has responded very slowly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, causing snow and ice in the mountains to melt faster?

The mountains are not just ours. It’s not just Sherpas who would be impacted, or Nepal that would lose revenue from tourism [if the snow and ice melts]. It’s the source of water for billions of people. It’s the heritage of the world. If it’s gone, we are done. I think the only way to keep our mountains white is to reduce emissions from factories, planes and vehicles.

I remember the Dalai Lama saying that one day we will die because there won’t be water to drink. I feel like that will happen some day soon. I would urge the global community to think about it seriously and act immediately. I can’t do much as a climber, except inform people about the situation out there.

I just want to say that the ice on the mountains is vanishing. That’s my information based on experience and it’s up to you to make a decision.

It was first published in Dialogue Earth in July 2022.

Raju Majhi, a fisherman from Majhitar with his catch of the day in the Dhading district, Nepal. Majhi is among thousands who fear resettlement when the project work begins [image: Nabin Baral/Dialogue Earth]

Plans to build Nepal’s biggest-ever hydropower project in western Nepal have undergone a bewildering series of politically motivated changes since 2011. Now it seems the Nepali government cannot get the Chinese contractor to say when construction might start.

Meanwhile, the lives of some 50,000 people are being disrupted for a project. Nepali energy sector experts have criticised as fast becoming financially unviable, due to the falling costs of other renewables, such as wind and solar.

The Budhi Gandaki hydro project was meant to be finished by 2022, almost doubling Nepal’s electricity supply by adding 1200 megawatts (MW). The project plans envisage a lake 45 kilometres long, behind a dam 263 metres high (one of the world’s 10 tallest). The reservoir’s steady flow should permit output of 3.38 billion units of electricity a year. The Budhi Gandaki river is a major tributary of the Gandak river which carries turbulent Himalayan waters into northern India.

The problem? China Gezhouba Group Corporation shows no sign of starting work. It was awarded the contract without a tender in September 2018, a decision that was controversial at the time.

“We have tried to communicate with the company in the past few months, but it hasn’t responded clearly. We can neither say the company is out, nor it’s in. It is between somewhere and nowhere,” said Gokarna Raj Panta, deputy spokesperson at Nepal’s Ministry of Water Resources, Energy and Irrigation.

Between somewhere and nowhere is a fitting description of the lives of farmers and traders whose homes, land and livelihoods are due to be submerged.

In the project office in Siurenitar which was set up to deal with compensation claims, there is frantic activity. Phones ring constantly, and staff are busy taking calls from claimants.

“The government’s first priority is land clearance, so we have already paid about 33 billion rupees (USD 0.3 billion) as land compensation,” said Krishna Bahadur Karki, head of the compensation and resettlement unit. Another 20 billion rupees (USD 0.2 billion) is earmarked to reimburse locals for their houses, animal sheds, trees and other valuable infrastructure, he added.

Most villagers got their first inkling of the coming upheaval in 2013 when the government put restrictions on their rights to sell their lands and property, stating the area would be submerged.

At the time, new roads were under construction, and new towns were forming along the river valleys, driven by two decades of rapid migration from the hills to the valleys.

A drone shot of Khahare Bazaar, one of the biggest settlements on the tributary. The bazaar will be submerged in water [Image: Nabin Baral]

Compensation shortfalls

Forty kilometres north of the dam site, Ghare Gurung runs a roadside grillhouse. Two decades ago, he bought his roadside land in Arkhet township, Gorkha district, using money he had earned as a migrant labourer in Malaysia. He received USD 1,000 in compensation for his land. “Now they have been saying that a 10% depreciation cost would be applied to our infrastructure. If it happens, then I need to pay them instead of receiving money,” he said.

The area affected is a huge proportion of this small country. The project will submerge 45 kilometres of the Budhi Gandaki and another 22 kilometres of the valley of Aankhu Khola, the largest settlement on the tributary.

Gyanu Maya Shrestha, who sells samosa, noodles, tea and sel roti (rice flour bread) in her small hut close to the tributary’s bank in Hepne, in Dhading district, said her business has been blighted twice over.

In April 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook Nepal. It destroyed her concrete home and her animal shed, killing her buffaloes, oxen, and goats. Before the quake, officials from the project had measured both structures. “After the earthquake, they remeasured and are telling us that they will compensate for these new makeshifts, not the older house,” she said.

Officials at the compensation and resettlement office responded that the pre-quake measurements were for an environmental impact assessment (EIA) report, not compensation.

While many other quake-hit communities have built new houses, people along these two rivers have not.

Krishna Majhi lives in Gumti village, 10 kilometres north of the damsite. He and his fellow villagers have been living on unregistered land for decades. In May 2017, the council of ministers agreed to include structures on unregistered land in the compensation programme. More than three years later, no payments have been made. Project officials said the payments are in process but could not give any dates.

Meanwhile, Krishna uses part of his cracked old house as a kitchen but has spent five years living in a makeshift structure. There are severe cracks in the house walls. “Another small earthquake would be enough to kill us. We can’t dismantle it as we need to show the authorities if they come to check while paying compensation,” he said.

Krishna Majhi pictured at his house. The walls has cracks from the 2015 earthquake in Gumti, a village in Dhading. [Image: Nabin Baral]

Many promises were made to locals to persuade them to handover their land, including the promise of resettlement. They were asked to fill in forms saying where they wanted to be resettled and what facilities they needed.

“We were told that new villages will be built around the reservoir area up in the hills and we would be provided with all facilities, and a 235 kilometre-long ring road. Now we are hearing that they will build a link road not a ring road. Resettlement plans are not even on the horizon. All these years they made fools of us,” said Sushil Dharel, from Khahare, another village on the Ankhu Khola.

Back at the compensation office, the villagers’ dissatisfaction is no surprise to Karki: “A lot of people are unhappy, which I can understand,” he said.

“The compensation amount is many times higher than the government rates that are in the system. [But] we can’t do what we want, as there are rules,” he said, adding, “There are people who have received hundreds of thousand dollars and have bought houses in cities like Kathmandu too.”

A drone shot of Arughat Bazaar, one of the biggest settlements on the Budhi Gandaki River valley bordering Gorkha and Dhading district in Nepal. The bazaar will be submerged in water. [Image: Nabin Baral]

But locals take a different view. The land market operates informally, and actual rates are much higher than government allocated rates.

While some have done well from compensation payouts, the majority are from marginalised and poor communities. They resent the way the authorities persist in glorifying those who have benefitted, while downplaying the real problems faced by many.

“Our field is irrigable, there is a market nearby and we can produce three crops in a year. Even a small amount of land would make a comfortable living of a family of five to six. I can’t buy a piece of land in an urban area with what I have received from the project compensation, how do I make a living there?” said Pampha Khadka from Khahare, who burst into tears as she spoke.

Nor do government officials in Kathmandu have any clear answers on resettlement timetables. “We have drafted a resettlement policy for the Budhi Gandaki project, but the problem is that there isn’t clarity over the modality of project implementation. Unless its finalised, resettlement is not possible,” said Gokarna Raj Panta, deputy spokesperson at Nepal’s Ministry of Water Resources, Energy and Irrigation.

Botched resettlement policies are creating social problems. Some have spent money on frivolous celebrations, which means they will be homeless and landless if not resettled. Many have used payouts to meet their daily needs or pay debts, buy motorbikes or educate and marry off their children. “I received about USD 900 for a piece of land. I spent USD 100 on my grandchildren and sent USD 800 to my daughter in Kathmandu for her studies,” said Purna Bahadur Ale Magar from Arkhet village.

Environmental damage ignored

According to the environmental impact assessment report, the reservoir will submerge 2,400 hectares of forest holding, 3.5 million individual trees in 38 plant species, and 19 mammal species, 9 of reptiles and 54 of birds. They include 15 protected species, and there are five fish species on the IUCN red list, whose habitat will dramatically change.

Despite this, civil society groups in Nepal have shown negligible concern.

Forty-four cremation grounds, 74 religious sites and 29 historic and cultural sites will vanish.

“Even if you raise genuine and serious concerns, you are tagged as an anti-development goon. I think this has helped to instill fear at all levels and civil society has fallen prey to it,” he added.

Forest conservation achievements are being reversed; 1,500 hectares of community forest managed by 62 community forest user groups that will be impacted. The Pashupati community forest in Majhitaar is one of them. About 200 metres above the riverbank, Suresh Shah pointed out multiple freshly cut tree stumps. “When I try to stop them, they say why do you care about these woods as we have lost everything,” he said. “Feelings of ownership are something that had helped conserve the forest but they’re no more,” he added.

Karki, the project office manager, was unable to answer any questions on environmental issues, and his engineer was equally at a loss. “This is an issue which will be dealt with when construction starts. We have not thought about it and have not been advised on how to deal with it,” Karki said.

With climate change impacting glacial meltwater and making river flows uncertain, Dixit questioned the value of mega-hydro projects: “I think the country is moving towards a very serious and risky business without proper assessment.”

Political chaos

In Kathmandu, three successive governments in the last three years have made as many decisions to award or scrap the contract with China Gezhouba Corporation.

After pre-feasibility study in 1984, the project was sidelined till 2006, when it was opened to international bidders. No expressions of interest were received.

It was next revived in 2011, when Nepal’s power outages exceeded 12 hours per day. Once again, international companies showed no interest, so the government opted to make Budhi Gandaki into a national pride project – a development priority with a bigger budget from domestic resources.

In 2016, the Belgian multinational Tractebel completed a detailed design.

The project was set to move ahead with national funds and management, then China entered the scene abruptly in 2017. A few days before leaving office, erstwhile Nepal Communist party (Maoist) supremo Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s cabinet decided to award the project to China Gezhouba Group Corporation, without any bidding.

In November 2017, the incoming Nepali Congress Party-led government scrapped the contract with China Gezhouba, stating irregularities and lack of transparency surrounding the award. A court action followed. Nepal got another new government four months later, in February 2018. K P Oli became prime minister heading a coalition of Communist parties, which returned the project to China Gezhouba in September 2018.

Now the problem is that China Gezhouba is showing little interest and failing to respond to Nepali government requests for information.

Gyanu Maya Shrestha pictures at her shop in Hepne in Dhading district. [Image: Nabin Baral]

“It’s not that Chinese are less interested now. They are just waiting for a favourable time as there is political chaos in the country,” said Nepali hydro-economist Ratna Sansar Shrestha.

In his view, China’s interest in Nepali hydro projects is limited to making money from construction contracts.

“India has more interest in Nepal’s water as it depends on water that flows from the mountains for irrigating vast swathes of land in the Gangetic plains,” Shrestha said.

Geopolitical friction

The Gandaki river, of which the Budhi Gandaki is a tributary, enters India’s Bihar state and eventually flows into the Ganges.

Both countries signed the 1959 Gandak treaty, which bars Nepal from upstream activities that would impact water flow in Bihar, where millions of hectares of farmland depend on the Gandak’s waters. Water distribution has long been a sensitive issue between the two countries.

However, China’s growing influence within Nepal (it is the largest provider of foreign direct investment) could lead to geopolitical friction, according to a 2018 report from the Asia Society, “The Price of Power: The Political Economy of Electricity Trade and Hydropower in Eastern South Asia.”

Chinese firms recently built two other hydro projects in Nepal at Upper Marsyangdi A and Upper Madi, with combined capacity of 75 MW. Indian state owned and private firms have not built a power project in Nepal since the mid-1980s, the report said.

However, India is promoting cross-border trade in electricity as part of cohering the nascent BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal) regional sub-group of nations as a sphere of influence. Both Nepal and Bhutan have objected to the Indian power ministry’s statement in December 2016 that electricity was a “strategic commodity” so non-BBIN foreign powers could not be involved in the supply chain. Both countries have rich potential hydropower exports.

In Shrestra’s view, India is unconcerned about China’s involvement in the Budhi Gandaki project, whose power is solely for domestic use, and it views the reservoir positively.

India made clear it had no interest in investing in or building the Budhi Gandaki project; it withdrew from bilateral talks in the late 90s.

Faulty design?

“While designing the project, the irrigation aspect has been completely ignored,” said Dipak Gyawali, former water resources minister and a noted water resources expert in the country.

Gyawali has also headed a review committee formed by the government to review the design.

“About 100,000 hectares of land in Nawalparasi and Chitwan districts downstream could have benefitted in Nepal, which seems to be a strategy to make India happy,” he said.

“The water that flows in dry months from the reservoir is not flowing water, it’s produced by submerging our land and through our investment. If India uses this water then we should get financial returns,” added Gyawali.

Another problem Gyawali sees in this project is that the dam type is faulty. “For a seismically active region like Nepal, rock filled dams are better than concrete double arch dams as proposed on the design,” he said.

But Laxmi Devkota, the former Chair of the Budhi Gandaki Development Committee, claimed that it has been designed with a serious consideration for earthquake impacts.

“We have designed the current dam with the highest level of earthquake resistance along with international safety standards. There isn’t a point as such to worry,” added Devkota.

Changing market, increasing costs

However, the delays risk making the Budhi Gandaki project financially unviable. Costs are plummeting for other renewables, such as solar and wind power, and emerging hydrogen energy technology.

According to the Asia Foundation report, solar electricity tariffs in Rajasthan, India, fell from more than 19 US cents per unit in 2010 to 3.6 US cents, and wind energy was around 3.7 US cents. Nepal’s hydropower costs 7 US cents per unit to produce.

India, which is Nepal’s expected energy export market, is ramping up renewable energy capacity fast with 37 gigawatts of solar and 38 gigawatts in wind by 2020.

However, Budhi Gandaki’s output is planned for domestic use so need not compete directly in the regional market.

Nonetheless, the technical costs are making its value questionable, even for domestic use. “If we can develop this project within five years then we will definitely save some money, but if it is the next 20 years then it would be a hotpot of corruption for politicians and bureaucrats. It looks like this project is losing its technical strength in terms of cost already,” said Dipendra Bhattarai, an energy expert and doctoral student at the University of Tasmania, Australia.

Finally, the daily power cuts that drove Nepal’s policymakers to revive the project in 2011 have ceased. Nepal doubled its electricity production from 700 megawatts (MW) in 2010 to 1400 MW in 2014. Another 700 MW is likely to be added in the next couple of years. However, Nepal has been importing about 600 megawatts from India in the dry, winter months (November to April) to meet peak demand as the smaller “run-of-the-river” hydropower projects struggle when water levels are low – one motivation to build a big reservoir.

The Budhi Gandaki hydropower plant should have been completed by 2022. In 2015, the project cost was estimated at US$2.5 billion— more than one fourth of Nepal’s total budget that year.

“We have already lost about half a billion dollars in the last four years if we consider just 10 per cent inflation rate. Another one and half billion dollars could have been gained by selling electricity in the four years that were delayed. We are already on loss at total project cost amount” said Laxmi Devkota.

There is always a queue of jars at the stone spouts [image by: Ramesh Bhushal]

RAMESH BHUSHAL

Every morning, just a few metres away from a busy, dusty road in Kalanki, Kathmandu, Ambika Thapa sells water from a 5,000-litre tank. From where she stands, you need only turn your head slightly and the lofty, snow-capped Himalayan mountain range rises into view. Sadly, this vision provides nothing to quench a thirst.

Prabhat Tamang, a customer of Thapa who owns a small, mobile food stall in the area, knows the mountains’ torment all too well. “What can you do with these mountains if they can’t even provide water to drink? It’s like money in the bank – you can see it, but you can’t get it,” he says, smiling.

Thapa’s two tanks rest easily against the landscape, pierced by two taps and covered in advertisements for Nerolac paint. The water she sells comes from a spring nearby, in the hills that surround the valley.

Customers queue, fill their jars and pay, a process more commonly seen at petrol stations. Unlike a regular petrol station, however, Thapa does not have access to automated price and volume readings. Instead, she calculates the sale of the water based on the size of the jars and buckets people bring to fill. The profits she makes are her family’s bread and butter.

Roshni Rana, one of Thapa’s regular customers, lives in a rented house nearby. As she leans her pregnant body towards the tank to fill her jars and a two-year-old boy clings to her side, she explains : “We get water once a week for half an hour from government-installed taps in rented houses. Sometimes they release the water at midnight and we don’t even know as we are all asleep. There aren’t any other options than buying from here.” Once Rana’s 20-litre jars are full, she hands over 10 Nepalese rupees (about seven pence) from her trousers and returns home.

At the end of the working day, Thapa locks up the tank’s water taps before leaving for home herself. “I sell about 3,000 to 4,000 litres of water every day,” she says. “Water has become so precious that every drop has value,” she adds, explaining the strong locks securing the taps in her absence.

According to the Nepalese government’s Central Bureau of Statistics, one in every five Kathmandu households has no access to a domestic water source and two-thirds of its urban households live with an inadequate water supply.

Estimates show that the city of 4 million has a severe water deficit. The demand is triple the current supply of 106m litres a day , which further reduces to 75m litres a day during the dry season [PDF] . Despite growing demand, little has been done to increase supply.

In recent years, the water crisis in the capital has deepened, resulting in a rise in the number of water-selling stations. While the city’s residents are calculating drops of water, scientists estimate 224bn cubic metres of water is lost annually from Nepal into India and Bangladesh. “If you calculate per capita water availability, then Nepal has one of the highest in the world with 9,000 cubic metres (9m litres) and the country holds about 2.7% of the world’s total fresh water available,” says Pennan Chinnasamy, a water resources expert at the International Water Management Institute in Kathmandu.

The answer to why the capital of the world’s most water abundant country is in such a dire situation is as diverse as the rivers that flow through it. About 6,000 rivers and rivulets flow through the small landlocked country between China to the north and India to the south. None of the rivers that flow through Kathmandu city is clean, wells are drying up, the groundwater table is lowering and the water distribution system is weak and inefficient.

Many cite the city’s haphazard development as the main reason for the crisis, while some see politics over water projects as the cause. “We failed to implement our laws effectively on urban development, which led to haphazard urbanisation. Too much politics on development projects aimed to bring water to serve the capital has resulted in this dire situation,” says Kishore Thapa, a former secretary of the ministry of urban development.

The water Ambika Thapa sells comes from a spring nearby. Customers queue, fill their jars and pay. Photograph: Ramesh Bhushal

One of the over-politicised projects he is referring to is the Melamchi water project. The unfinished project was designed in 1998 and set to divert 170m litres of water per day to Kathmandu from the Melamchi River in the Sindhupalchowk district bordering China. Tensions between locals demanding compensation for water diverted from the river, government tussles over various issues, inefficient contractors for tunnel construction and, most significantly, corruption has hampered completion of the project.

But in many parts of the city, pipeline construction for the nearly two-decade-old Melamchi project has gained momentum in the last couple of months, keeping many Kathmandu residents’ hopes alive. “The pipe has arrived after 17 years. Let’s hope some day water will flow down from our taps, as they have been providing air instead of water for many years,” Hari Narayan Maharjan, a resident of Patan in the southern part of the city says with a big smile.

This article was first published in The Guardian .

As the situation has worsened, people have migrated in search of a more reliable source of water near the riverbanks, in areas that were once paddy fields. The villages of Puranogaun and Nibhare in eastern Nepal’s Khotang district are nearly empty. Most households have migrated down to the banks of the Sapsu and Koshi river, an hour’s drive down the mountain. This film by Ramesh Bhushal and Nabin Baral tells the painful story of the people who had to leave their homes.

Production credits:

Directed and produced by Ramesh Bhushal and Nabin Baral
Filmed by Sushil Basnet
Drone operation by Nikesh Maharjan
Edited by Man Bahadur Thapa
Colour by Mitra Dev Gurung

Music:

“The tree told me” by Jeris, CC BY NC
Other tracks not known

Copyright notice:

This video is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence.

This video was first published in Dialogue Earth.

A Bengal tiger in Nepal’s Bardia National Park, home to one of Nepal’s three distinct tiger populations (Image: Marc Anderson / Alamy)

RAMESH BHUSHAL

By the latest estimates, Nepal is home to 355 wild tigers – almost triple the country’s tiger population in 2010, which stood at 121. Nepal was the first country to achieve a target agreed in 2010 among all countries then home to wild tigers: to double their tiger population by 2022. Nepal’s success is all the more notable when compared with the track record of some other countries since 2010: tigers are now considered extinct in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

But an increase in tiger numbers in Nepal has raised some important questions. How many tigers can the country’s protected areas hold? How healthy is the population? And with a growing tiger population posing a potential risk to the communities they live near, what strategies can help to reduce human-tiger conflict?

Dibesh Karmacharya, a noted genetic scientist in Nepal, believes that tiger DNA holds the key to answering some of these critical questions. In 2007, Karmacharya founded a wildlife genetics laboratory, the Centre for Molecular Dynamics Nepal, in Kathmandu. Then in 2011, he launched research into tiger genetics – the first of its kind in the country – which involved collecting tiger scat across Nepal and profiling the animals’ DNA. He has recently published a book based on this research: ‘A Molecular Approach to the Conservation and Management of the Bengal Tiger in Nepal’.

Ramesh Bhushal met Dibesh Karmacharya in his lab in Kathmandu, to learn what secrets of the lives of tigers can be unlocked through studying their DNA, and how this could help both big cats and people in Nepal.

How can using DNA help to accurately count tiger populations?

Traditionally, tiger counting was done mostly by using pugmarks [footprints] to identify individual tigers. This technique relies on measuring a paw print, with a presumption that each paw print is unique. But environmental exposure like ground texture and moisture influences the paw prints, [and] that could result in wide errors in estimates. After pugmarks, camera traps have been in use as a more reliable alternative – this uses a remote camera to capture tiger images with an assumption that each individual tiger has a unique stripe [pattern]. However, there are several disadvantages of camera trapping, including poor performance in difficult terrain, adverse weather conditions, susceptibility to theft or vandalism, and low detection in larger areas. It also demands more human resources.

The molecular approach has advantages over most of those problems. We collect DNA from tiger scat [droppings] to derive a genetic profile of an individual tiger. As DNA differs between every individual tiger there is less error in tiger population estimates.

Could DNA replace camera traps when it comes to counting tigers?

I don’t think at this point [DNA] can totally replace camera traps immediately. We don’t have to carry out DNA study separately, but we can embed this component while conducting tiger surveys. With advancement in the science, it’s not that far off that it could be the principal method [used] to count tigers.

There is resistance from government authorities and a chunk of the conservation fraternity to making a shift from camera traps to DNA. I think it’s mostly because there is a fear about the results. Given nobody wants to say tiger numbers have decreased, there is less space to manoeuvre any result from genetic studies, but it could be a bit easier while using camera traps if anybody wants. Secondly, countries have been saying they don’t have resources to do it.

How expensive is the DNA profiling of tigers?

Currently, half a million dollars is being spent to count tigers by camera trapping in Nepal, but we can do DNA-based counting and analysis with half of that amount.

Dibesh Karmacharya in his wildlife genetic laboratory in Kathmandu, Nepal (Image: Ramesh Bhushal)

What can DNA studies tell us about the genetic health of tiger populations, and the extent to which populations may be isolated?

The tiger population in Nepal can be split into three isolated sub-populations that are separated by agricultural lands or human settlements. The largest population is in Chitwan National Park and the adjacent Parsa National Park in the lowlands of central Nepal. To the west of Chitwan there is another isolated population in Bardia National Park and – further west – a third population in Shuklaphanta National Park. Between 2011 and 2013, the Nepal Tiger Genome Project which I led carried out the first comprehensive genetic study [of these] tigers. We collected 396 tiger scat samples [and] counted 125 individual tigers, 77 male and 48 female.

[We found that] that genetic diversity was slightly better in Bardia National Park compared to others, and this meant that in Chitwan National Park, conservation focus should be more on increasing heterozygosity [genetic diversity] for maintaining a healthy and sustainable population.

We found seven migrant tigers (five males and two females) moving between sub-populations in Nepal. For example, we found evidence of one male and two females moving from Shuklaphanta to Bardia National Park. If they [were to] breed there, then that would likely avert the detrimental effects of inbreeding depression.

What can DNA tell us about the lives of tigers and other species?

When we collect scat, it’s not just tiger DNA that can be profiled. Dietary composition is among other important information we collected in our study – that is not possible through camera trapping. In our study we were able to create a dietary map of tigers.

When we carried out the same kind of study on snow leopards in mountain areas of Nepal, especially in Mustang, we found that the snow leopards’ diet included 43% domestic goats, 55% bharal [wild blue sheep] and 2% domestic sheep. [This means] the snow leopards’ main diet is domesticated animals, and that’s the reason for the human-wildlife conflict.

DNA can be a very effective forensic tool to pinpoint the source of trafficked wildlife body parts – is this being used in Nepal to tackle tiger trafficking?

It’s an emerging science, that has been used in several other species across the globe. We can identify the sex and geographical origin of seized tiger body parts from Nepal by using our genetic database of wild tiger populations that we collected during our study. We applied this technology with 15 seized putative tiger parts, including 13 skin pieces and two blood-smeared knives, which were confiscated by the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police between 2014 and 2016.

All forensic samples were found to be of tigers: 10 males and five females. One genotype of a forensic sample matched 100% with a previously profiled female tiger in Bardia National Park – DNA we have in our laboratory. That meant the female tiger was alive during the period 2011-2013, and that tiger could have been poached very recently [before the confiscation]. The remaining samples didn’t match our DNA profiles, but we were able to identify where those tigers came from. Most samples were from Bardia and Sukhlaphanta regions, pointing to where the poaching pressure was.

How can countries in South Asia better collaborate to embed use of DNA in conservation science?

There are a few labs in India, but they also work in silos. We have one lab in Nepal, whereas Bangladesh and Bhutan have no such lab facilities. Most of the [tiger] habitats in Nepal are connected to protected areas in northwest India. India and Bangladesh share the Sundarbans, and Bhutan and India also share tiger habitats. We can establish a regional tiger genome centre and leverage resources and expertise.

When it comes to genetic research, there is a deeply embedded fear among countries. They regard it [genetic information] as a resource and worry – what if others get information about their tigers? But the overall goal should be to understand endangered species better and act jointly to save the species, as several habitats are connected in the region. We need to build trust and should have willingness to act. We must go into genetic level study if we really want to save tigers and implement management strategies more effectively.

Himalayan Musk Deer: image taken by Martin Walsh and submitted to iNaturalist .

This article was first published in Dialogue Earth ( formerly, The Third Pole) in 2021.

As soon I sat down with Hari Bhadra Acharya, spokesperson at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), at his office in Kathmandu in April 2021, he received a call. He was kind enough to put his mobile on speaker mode. “I want to apply for a wildlife farming licence and get the Himalayan musk deer as a seed animal. When should I come to the department and what are the requirements?” a male voice said.

Acharya threw me a smile and answered the caller softly. “We are yet to finalise criteria for wildlife farming, so I am not sure by when that would happen,” he said. The caller insisted: “Last year, we were told we would be able to apply for the licence in a couple of months.” Acharya blamed Covid-19 for the delay and ended the call.

In 2021, Nepal is set to embark upon a new venture: farming wild animals for commercial purposes. Ever since the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act was adopted in 1973, the country’s wildlife policy has been based on a philosophy that seeks to protect terrestrial wild animals from commercial exploitation, including strict bans on buying or selling wild animals and their body parts. These protections apply to non-domesticated mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects, but not to other invertebrates or fish.

Now, Nepal is on the verge of a shift to the commercialisation of wild animals. While some are enthusiastic, others are fearful for the future of wildlife conservation in Nepal.

A new law for wildlife farming

Fifteen minutes after the first call, Acharya’s mobile rang again. “We are planning to apply for a snake farming licence so what are the criteria?” the caller asked. Acharya again blamed the pandemic for delays. “Every day, I get about 10-12 calls like this from people seeking information on wildlife farming,” he said.

There is a reason for these frequent calls. In 2017, Nepal’s parliament passed an amendment to the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, with a new provision to allow farming of wild animals for commercial purposes – the first of its kind in the country’s history. The Ministry of Forests and Environment has since had work to do to make the law implementable. Two years later in 2019, the ministry published a list of wild animals that could be farmed under the amended act, along with regulations laying out details around licensing of commercial wildlife farms. The list named 10 mammals – including several endangered deer species – 12 birds, and all reptiles except pythons.

A crucial element yet to be finalised is a document that lays out criteria and procedures for obtaining ‘seed’ animals – individuals caught from the wild to start captive populations. This would cover how the animals are collected, transported and sold. “If there wasn’t Covid-19 we would have finalised it already,” said Acharya. “Once it is done, anybody interested in farming wild animals listed by the ministry can apply for a licence and, once approved, will get seed animals to start up a business.”

From monkeys to musk deer – a bumpy ride for two decades

Nepal has had a storied journey in wildlife farming so far. In 2003, the Ministry of Forests and Environment passed a policy to enable captive breeding of wild animals for conservation and research purposes. A breeding centre for rhesus macaques, a species of monkey used in biomedical research in the US, was then established in Kathmandu in 2005, with 200 wild-caught macaques as seed animals. US labs were struggling to source an adequate number of monkeys at the time, as India – previously the main supplier – had banned their export in 1978.

Protest groups soon formed to pressure the Nepalese government to end the venture. “It was primarily to serve that purpose of selling monkeys to USA. That policy had nothing to do with conservation or research,” said Mangal Man Shakya, chairman of Wildlife Watch Group, an NGO working on wildlife conservation in Nepal.

In 2009, the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources directed the government to immediately ban export of the monkeys, due in part to lack of provisions in the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act enabling sale of wild animals. The Ministry of Forests and Environment decided to scrap a deal with the breeding facilities, and freed the captive monkeys. Unfortunately, the majority died as they could not adapt to life in the wild.

Wildlife farming in Nepal then stalled for almost a decade. It made a grand comeback in 2017 with the passing of amendments to the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act to allow commercial farming of wild animals. Once again, animal rights and conservation groups vowed to fight against wildlife farming.

“We are preparing to fight against this law in the court and are busy doing paperwork. Nepal is going in the wrong direction and we will keep fighting to ban any kind of wildlife farming in the country,” said Shristi Singh Shrestha from the Jane Goodall Institute in Nepal. She has posted a petition which has received nearly 10,000 signatures. “First of all, it’s immoral to farm any wild animal for commercial purposes. Secondly, this law also allows animals to be used for entertainment like zoos and other exhibitions. It’s insane,” she added.

Lack of consultation and errors raise alarm

The new list of wild animals that may be farmed includes the Himalayan musk deer, a species listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN assessment highlighted the threat posed to the species by trade in its body parts. Musk deer ‘pods’ – scent glands found in male deer – are traded for use in traditional Chinese medicine and perfumery. Much media interest in Nepal has focused on this species, portraying musk deer farming as an opportunity to make a lot of money by selling the high-value musk pods.

Also on the list are hog deer, listed as endangered by the IUCN, and the swamp deer or barasingha, considered to be vulnerable to extinction.

“There is no clarity on how these species were selected. It is an ad hoc decision of the government. No consultations with stakeholders were held, no scientific studies were done before selecting these species,” said Raju Acharya, executive director of Friends of Nature Nepal, a conservation research organisation.

The selection of birds for the list raises more questions. Out of 12 bird names on the Nepali-language list, two refer to the same species yet give different fees for licences and seed animals. “Ban kukhura and luinche are local names for the red junglefowl but the rules document has listed them as two species. This level of carelessness while taking such a huge decision is worrisome. It’s ridiculous,” said Vimal Thapa, board member of Bird Conservation Nepal, an NGO.

Hari Bhadra Acharya at the wildlife department agreed that no consultations with ornithologists were conducted, and listing the junglefowl as two species was a mistake. “Thanks for pointing out the issue, we will discuss about it in detail and make necessary changes,” he said.

The use of generic terms elsewhere in the list poses potentially greater problems. “[The list] mentioned pigeon or partridge or francolin but there are several species within that family and some of them are threatened too. I don’t know how they are going to execute this policy,” added Thapa.

Similarly, the wholesale listing of ‘frogs’, ‘toads’, ‘tortoise’ and ‘all reptiles except pythons’ means that threatened species within these categories could potentially be covered by the farming guidelines, which allow capture of wild individuals as seed animals. This includes species like the Nepal paa frog, which is endemic to Nepal and nearby northern India. It is found nowhere else in the world.

In seemingly another error, ‘tortoise’ is listed under the heading ‘amphibian’. “Tortoise is a reptile not an amphibian. It’s a shame for the conservation community as a whole that the country’s official legal document fails to recognise where the species listed for farming fall into let alone go other details,” said Karan Bahadur Shah, an expert on herpetofauna and a retired professor at the Natural History Museum at Tribhuvan University of Nepal. “Just a few phone calls with experts would have been enough to avoid these mistakes but no consultations were done.”

Putting policy into practice: frustrated government officials and divided conservationists

While Nepal is just a step away from launching its wildlife farming industry, some authorities within the government are not on board. “Personally, I am against wildlife farming and not happy with what’s going on,” said Hari Bhadra Acharya at the wildlife department. “A couple of other senior officials I talked to have the same opinion.”

I asked Acharya why he was going ahead with implementing the policy if he was not happy with it. His answer was simple: “Lawmakers are keen to move it forward. We cannot hold it [up] any more as it’s beyond our capacity.”

Support for wildlife farming is not solely restricted to politicians. Some conservationists have also argued that wildlife farming is something that Nepal should move ahead with, but carefully.

“I don’t see wildlife farming as a problem. If done properly and monitored effectively it will be a win-win for both conservation and economy,” said Raju Acharya of Friends of Nature Nepal.

How would that happen? I asked. “Regulated farming of abundant species for commercial purposes would provide economic benefits to the communities and reduce pressure on wild populations as it would eventually help to reduce poaching,” he said.

Conservationists in favour argue that economic benefits to local communities are essential to sustain conservation of wild animals. They suggest that wildlife farming could offer a source of income that means communities don’t have to rely on hunting animals from the wild.

The kalij pheasant is found throughout the Himalayas into Southeast Asia. It is included on the Nepali government’s list of wild animals that can be farmed for commercial purposes (Illustration: Kabini Amin)

“It’s not an issue of for or against wildlife farming in general. We need to be wise and think about how economic benefits could be harnessed without undermining the values of wild conservation, and much also depends on the status of species we select for farming,” said Ghanashyam Gurung, head of WWF Nepal.

However, Hari Bhadra Acharya at the wildlife department worries that in practice, commercial farming could lead to more illegal killing and trade of wild animals. “If somebody who establishes a farm kills animals from the wild, or buys from poachers and sells its meat or wild body parts, then how do we identify the source of that product? It’s technically tough to deal with these kinds of issues.”

In other countries where wildlife farming is practised, such as in China and Vietnam, such issues have occurred repeatedly. They include farms capturing wild individuals to top up captive populations or passing off wild-caught animals as farmed without the costs involved in raising them.

Acharya questions the supposition that wildlife farming can be effectively monitored in Nepal. “We are already understaffed so monitoring is nearly impossible with current human resources,” he added.

However, others don’t see this as an adequate reason to eschew wildlife farming. “If we lack capacity to implement rules and regulations effectively then we need to increase it. I don’t think just prohibiting every legally possible activity to operate is a good idea,” said Raju Acharya from Friends of Nature Nepal.

With preparations for wildlife farming developing apace, other government departments are also laying the groundwork. The Forests Act, amended in 2019 by the Department of Forests, lists wildlife farming as a type of “forest enterprise” that could be promoted. “Any person, body, group or community may, subject to the prescribed standards, also carry out agro-forestry, herbs farming and wildlife farming,” the act reads.

“Imagine if all community forests or private forest owners start up wildlife farming as a potential source of income, then where do you go to monitor?” said Hari Bhadra Acharya. There are over 20,000 community forest users groups in Nepal, with significant areas of private forests across the country.

Advocates have an answer to this, though not a complete solution. “We can put up a quota system based on availability of seed animals, we don’t have to give it to everybody who arrives at the doorstep with an application,” said Mukesh Chalise, founder of the Natural History Society of Nepal, an NGO.

While regulations over sourcing of seed animals are for now still on the desks of officials at the central Ministry of Forests and Environment, provincial governments are already gearing up to prepare themselves for the business. “We have allocated a USD 150,000 budget for a project to establish a Himalayan musk deer farm in Mustang district. Field-based study has been done and we are currently finalising it,” said Maheshwar Dhakal, secretary at the Ministry of Forest, Environment and Soil Conservation in Gandaki province.

Will wildlife farming saturate, or increase, demand?

One major argument made by advocates of wildlife farming is that if farming is allowed, it will eventually reduce hunting pressure on wild population of the species. “We should allow farming of animals that are abundant. For example, the kalij pheasant is among the most illegally hunted species in Nepal and is relatively abundant. If [it is] farmed then that would put less pressure on the wild population as the meat demand would be met from the farms,” said Raju Acharya of Friends of Nature Nepal.

But whether wildlife farming actually increases or saturates demand for wildlife products is a contested issue globally. “There is no evidence that farming of tigers or trade in products from farmed tigers reduces demand for wild tiger products,” said Debbie Banks, campaign lead for tigers and wildlife crime at the Environmental Investigation Agency, a UK-based NGO. “Even with a supply of farmed tiger products, perceptions among some consumers that wild is better persists,” she added.

A 2018 study from Vietnam on consumption of bear bile – used in traditional medicine in East and Southeast Asia – found that consumers were less interested in consuming bile from farmed bears. They were willing to pay more for bile from wild bears. The study concludes that “the case of bear bile farming in Viet Nam provides an example of wildlife farming failing to reduce pressure on a once widely distributed and relatively abundant species.”

A 2016 study on wildlife farming by conservation researcher Laura Tensen argued that wildlife farming can only benefit wild populations if five conditions are met, including that consumers show no preference for wild products versus farmed alternatives; farms do not need to take animals from the wild for restocking; and farms do not ‘launder’ illegal wildlife products. “For most species encountered in the wildlife trade, these criteria are unlikely to be met in reality and commercial breeding has the potential to have the opposite effect to what is desired for conservation,” Tensen concluded.

“Already a hotspot for poachers and an established trade route for illegal wildlife body parts, Nepal is likely to [face] bigger problems if the country jumps into this new business without adequate preparation,” said Kumar Paudel, co-founder of NGO Greenhood Nepal. “You have to comply with stricter rules if you go legal, so farm owners may show a part of the business as legal and [also] opt for illegal trade which would be easier to operate.”

Community benefits called into question

Several conservationists have questioned one of the foundations of the new wildlife farming policy, namely the assertion that rural communities would reap economic benefits. “With the current policy there are slim chances that the poor and marginalised will be benefitted. It is designed for those who have enough [money] to invest and take it as a business venture,” said Paudel.

The costs as laid out in government documents would likely be unaffordable for many Nepalis. According to the regulations published in 2019 by the government, it will cost around USD 900 to get a licence to farm Himalayan musk deer, and more than USD 700 for each seed animal bought from the government. The prospective wildlife farmer must also cover all costs including travel for government officials to source seed animals, and transport of the seed animals. The annual per capita income for Nepal was around USD 1,070 in 2019, according to the World Bank.

Acharya at the wildlife department is unclear on how communities would benefit. “Our plan is to provide farming licences to a few selected companies,” he said. If so, the policy offers little possibility of uplifting the lives and livelihoods of poor and marginalised communities, I suggested. “I agree to some extent, but it can create jobs for communities and in the long run as the business flourishes they would be able to get seed animals from those farms established and start up their [own] businesses,” said Acharya.

Image: White-rumped Vulture in captivity at Betana Wetland in Morang District, eastern Nepal. In Nepal, rescued animals like this are kept in captivity by Community Forest User Groups, which refer to these facilities as mini zoos.( Ramesh Bhushal)

Traditional Chinese medicine companies see a business opportunity

Since the wildlife farming law was passed by parliament in 2017, traditional Chinese medicine companies have been trying to partner with established conservation organisations in Nepal.

According to Acharya, at least one Chinese company has filed an application at Nepal’s Department of Industry seeking approval to establish a traditional Chinese medicine factory in Nepal. “The industry department has forwarded their proposal to us for review as it has mentioned use of musk deer scent and snake venom to produce such medicine. It’s under review,” he said.

Two major traditional Chinese medicine companies – Beijing Tong Ren Tang and Beijing Sheng Shi Xingwen Company Limited – are trying to get involved in wildlife farming in Nepal. The Third Pole has seen a letter from Beijing Sheng Shi Xingwen Company Limited and Beijing Tong Ren Tang to the prime minister of Nepal stating their interest in working on wildlife farming.

The National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) – a semi-autonomous organisation established by the government of Nepal – told The Third Pole that Beijing Sheng Shi Xingwen approached it to invest in its Himalayan musk deer farming centre that is under construction in Manang district in western Nepal. “As it’s a private company we told them to get a letter from the Chinese embassy in Nepal stating it’s a recognised agency in China, but they haven’t come up with the document,” said Siddhartha Bajracharya, executive officer at NTNC.

The Third Pole approached both companies for comment prior to the publication of this article, which will be updated if any responses are received.

Farming of musk deer for their body parts is well established in China, beginning in 1958. According to a news report published in 2017, there are over 20,000 musk deer in captivity in China. Nonetheless, wild populations continue to decline due to hunting for their musk as well as because of habitat loss. Musk pods are also frequently seized in Nepal en route to China. “If farming and trade is opened then how would anyone identify whether the musk scent that is being traded is legally acquired or it was extracted illegally from musk deer in the wild? It would make illegal trade easy,” said Kumar Paudel from Greenhood.

Interest from Chinese companies and government agencies in wildlife farming in Nepal, especially of musk deer, is not new. In 2009, a meeting was held with the Chinese embassy in Nepal and the National Trust for Nature Conservation during which potential support from China to establish a musk deer farm in Manang district was discussed. This did not materialise as the development of the wildlife farming policy stalled that year.

But private traditional Chinese medicine companies started to contact agencies in Nepal following the law amendment in 2017. “As it is our pilot project, we want to get Chinese support on technology, help our people get trained by them. If they agree then we can partner to farm musk deer in larger scale to produce musk scent and export to China,” Bajracharya said.

Not all are convinced that foreign investment will come flowing in. Paras Bikram Singh, an expert on Himalayan musk deer who studied at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Chinese companies are assessing the situation in Nepal rather than jumping into investment. “I don’t think China is keen to invest in wildlife farming here immediately, but they want [to] help set [up] farming companies and buy wildlife products, at least for now,” said Singh.

“We need to have clarity on policy whether we want to have foreign direct investment on wildlife farming or not,” added Singh. “If we want investment, we have to speed up our decision-making process and negotiate clearly with those interested to invest. Unless we do that, I do not think anybody will come to invest here.”

In 2019, Nepal and China signed a list of instruments to enhance cooperation between the two countries, one of which was establishing cooperation on traditional Chinese medicine. “Normally traditional Chinese medicine uses a lot of varieties of wildlife body parts and products so eventually this wildlife farming would feed that cooperation that has been envisioned between two countries,” said Kumar Paudel.

A question of timing

As Nepal was finalising criteria for permits for wildlife farming in early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic started to rage. Experts at the World Health Organization have pointed to wildlife farming in southern China as the most likely source of the virus. Concerns over the disease risk of wildlife farming and trade have prompted calls from across the globe, including in China, to ban consumption of wildlife.

In February 2020, the Chinese government enacted a sudden ban on farming and trade of terrestrial wild animals for food consumption. Farming for traditional medicine, fur and other uses was exempted, and trade in aquatic species – from fish and turtles to giant salamanders – remained legal. Nevertheless, it had a large impact. The government shut down over 12,000 wildlife-related businesses thereafter.

Nepal’s wildlife farming trajectory is seemingly at odds with its neighbour’s turn against farming wild animals for food due to the public health risk. “Our major focus is on meat-based wildlife products, not in… other products, so there is a market that could consume meat-based products domestically. It should be linked more with food security than selling other wildlife products from the farmed animals,” said Maheshwar Dhakal, secretary at the Ministry of Forest, Environment and Soil Conservation of Gandaki province.

But pandemic-induced delays and a change in public opinion may not mean a reversal on wildlife farming from the government of Nepal. “It is not a right time to jump into this business as the world is against it. Though it has stalled sooner or later this is going to happen. It’s just a matter of when,” said Hari Bhadra Acharya.

Landslide in the district of Sindhupalchowk, Nepal (Image: Richard Friedericks)

This article was first published in 2020 in Dialogue Earth.

Basanta Raj Adhikari, an engineering geologist at the Institute of Engineering in Nepal’s Tribhuvan University, pulled out data from his yet-to-be-published research as he spoke to me on Skype in late August. He told me the death figures due to landslides in Nepal. “Between 1972 and 2016 a total of 5,190 people lost their lives in 3,419 landslide events on record,” he said.

While Adhikari was explaining past tragedies, headlines in Kathmandu were dominated by the search operation to retrieve dead bodies after a landslide in Lidi village, near the Koshi river in the district of Sindhupalchowk bordering Tibet. Thirty-nine people died. Only a few kilometres away, in 2014 156 people were killed after a massive landslide swept away another village, Ramche, and blocked the Koshi.

According to a report by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization published in 2011, Nepal has one of the highest fatalities from landslides in the world. “Between 1950 and 2009, the frequency of fatal landslides was highest in China, followed by Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Japan, Pakistan and Nepal. These seven countries accounted for 87% of the 17,830 landslide-related fatalities reported during that time period in Asia,” the report said.

Relative to population, Nepal has the highest fatality rate in the world.

Counting the bodies

Since 2017 (after the time period studied in Adhikari’s research paper), an additional 490 people have been killed by landslides, according to recent government data. This year alone, 243 have died and 51 are missing. This is the second highest of confirmed casualties on record in the past 10 years, and nearly three times higher than 2019.

So why have authorities failed to respond to one of the country’s major disasters? Adhikari was quick to answer, citing a “lack of prioritisation and willingness to see the depth of this problem”. A report by Department of Water Induced Disaster Management – the authority that used be responsible for dealing with landslides which was scrapped in July – supports this claim. The report reads, “Although huge amounts of funds have been invested every year in disaster management, landslides are not treated as one of the important parameters during the planning and designing stage. Even if treated, it is done without detailed study and investigation, which further enhances the problem.”

Landslides are not a new phenomenon in a country where more than 80% of land is on a slope – and many occur naturally. But experts say that increasing human activities, such as road building, have been making the situation worse. “In tectonically active mountains such as the Himalayas, natural landslides play a fundamental role in the evolution of the landscape. But there is a clear anthropogenic influence in the occurrence of landslides in Nepal,” wrote David Petley, a professor at the University of Sheffield in the UK who is a global expert on landslides, including in Nepal and also runs a landslide blog.

Shaken by earth movers, mired in controversy

Nepal has built thousands of kilometres of roads in the past three decades. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, the country embarked on an aggressive rural road building policy that has led to haphazard construction. According to the Department of Local Infrastructure Development and Agricultural Roads, there are over 6,600 rural roads with a combined length of almost 60,000 kilometres. Most of these roads were built by local leaders, and were not designed by engineers. They are also poorly maintained.

Global companies that make earth movers, excavators and heavy equipment have rushed to the country. In 2017 Nepal imported 12,712 excavators, bulldozers and cranes, a 30% increase compared with 2016. In 2017, MAW Earthmovers in Nepal sold the most JCB equipment in South Asia and the second-highest amount globally, according to a JCB India statement.

Anil Pokhrel heads the recently established National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Authority (NDRRMA) under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Over the past few months, he has been flying around the country with top politicians handing out relief packages to landslide victims. “Everywhere we visited, the local leaders said that haphazard road construction has put the communities under threat but said they had warned people not to cut the slopes so brutally,” he said.

Then who is responsible? “Central government is not effective in monitoring and guidance, whereas local governments lack capacity to handle it properly. And then there is pressure from the communities themselves to construct roads. So, it’s a mix of everything,” Pokhrel said.

But Madhukar Upadhya, a watershed expert and the author of a book Ponds and Landslides, said, “Most of the local leaders have investments in this heavy equipment so they are keen to make money by providing contracts to these earth movers.” Upadhya added, “It’s not local individuals who put pressure to build roads. It’s mostly a nexus between local leaders and contractors.”

Roads built without oversight by engineers are more prone to landslides. “An average villager on the hillside dreams of having a house near the road and starting up a business. So people crowd near these haphazardly built roads without proper assessment of the risk. This has also increased loss of lives in recent years,” said Pokhrel. A recent study by Adhikari and his team showed that more landslides happen along roads. “We found rainfall-triggered landslides are more than twice as likely to occur within 100m of a road than landslides generated by earthquakes,” the report said.

Ignorance is not strength

Geologists say that many villages in the hills of Nepal are located on old landslides, but people tend to forget quickly. At first, people start to grow crops on landslide debris and then they construct houses. After a few years or decades this becomes a new settlement. New vegetation covering geologic scars helps people to forget what lies beneath. “Everything looks OK from the outside, but the unstable slopes are buying time. Unless we monitor them closely, we won’t know,” said Adhikari.

A study from 2001 recounts one such tragic landslide in western Nepal’s Myagdi district. The report reads, “In 1998, a huge landslide in Myagdi Khola… killed 109 people and the river was temporarily blocked. But, 62 years before that incident, the same landslide had buried the Darbang Bazaar and killed nearly 500 people.”

“If we had had institutional memory, we could have saved those lives. We just wait for another disaster to happen,” said Adhikari.

Trees don’t reduce risk

Some experts say that Nepal has a misguided approach to landslides, due to the widespread belief that tree planting helps minimise risks. “When I first challenged authorities at the Ministry of Forests and Environment, they asked me whether I was an anti-forest campaigner. But I would like to reiterate that forests do not help reduce landslides,” said Madhukar Upadhya.

Nepal nationalised its private forests in 1957, resulting in massive deforestation as people rushed to cut trees. At the same time there was forest encroachment and tree cutting in the lowlands due to state-backed migration from the hills to the densely forested plains bordering India. In response the government introduced new plantation programmes in the 1970s and 80s. Thousands of hectares of community forests emerged.

Experts say while these plantations were not a bad idea it was wrong to understand forest management as a panacea for landslides. “Heavy monsoon downpour causes mass failure of inherently unstable slopes on a large scale and at depths far below the root zone of trees (normally three metres). Forest cover, while desirable for many good reasons, plays little or no role in stopping such mass wasting,” added Upadhyay. “While we covered land with greenery, we forgot about soil management, which has resulted in more destructive landslides.”

One of the landslides that occurred this year is a typical example. In Durlung village in western Nepal’s Parbat district, densely forested land collapsed and washed out four houses on the flat land more than a kilometre downhill, killing nine people. “Nobody would imagine by just looking that such a forested land could collapse. We should remove this deeply rooted belief and put other appropriate measures to control landslides,” said Pokhrel, who visited the area after the event.

Early warning system not rocket science

Setting up early warning systems is one such measure. But while early warning systems for floods have worked well in the past few years, there have been negligible efforts to set up such systems for landslides. In 2018, Adhikari and his team piloted a successful early warning system in Sundrawati, a village in the eastern district of Dolakha. “The pilot system saved 495 people from 117 households in August 2018,” he said.

Landslide early warning systems (LEWS) are more complex than flood systems because robust monitoring of land displacement is required. “But after a short training course, locals can handle this by themselves,” said Adhikari.

A LEWS consists of a microcontroller, extensometer, solar panel, siren and soil moisture sensor. If the system detects deformation or soil moisture changes that exceed a certain threshold, it will alert an assigned person from the community and government security personnel. “This is not rocket science. It can be done if we reduce a minister or high-profile visitor’s chopper costs that happen after each of these landslides,” Adhikari added.

But in many places where landslides have occurred authorities did not take warning signs seriously. Google Maps images of before and after the 2014 landslide in Sindhupalchowk show that several scars emerged on the slope before the huge slope failure that blocked Koshi river for 12 hours, but no one noticed. “A landslide-prone area provides several signs before failing. We need to monitor this closely and act accordingly,” said Adhikari.

Science not a priority

More than 90% of landslides in Nepal occur during the monsoon between June and September. Even within those four months, landslides peak during July and August, according to some research. So any changes in monsoon rainfall patterns directly affect disasters.

See: Extreme rainfall events have more than doubled in the Himalayas
See: Himalayas will see dramatic rise in landslides by end of the century

Landslide risks are only expected to grow. Several studies suggest that monsoon rainfall has intensified in the past few decades due to climate change. “As the majority of landslides are triggered by rainfall, any changes in this pattern would have a direct impact. More studies are needed and science should play a strong role in policy ­– which is not happening in Nepal,” said Adhikari.

For this to happen some experts argue there needs to be a department dedicated to landslides – but responsibility for this has been muddied over the years by bureaucratic restructuring.

Landslides now fall under the remit of the new disaster management authority. But many are sceptical the NDRRMA will be able to deliver an effective response. “I don’t see any dedicated organisation for landslides as the national disaster authority is responsible for everything from forest fires to earthquakes,” said Ahikari.

Disaster management overcentralised

Critics say that the major hurdle in managing disasters is that the home ministry dominates the rescue and relief approach. They say authorities have ignored calls from civil societies, experts and NGOs to split the responsibility for rescue and relief from risk preparedness and mitigation. “Unless we detach them no miracle is going to happen with a newly established agency,” said Amod Mani Dixit, adviser to NGO, the National Society for Earthquake Society.

The NDRRMA’s Pokhrel said that the new set-up is not meant to undermine other agencies but play a “powerful coordinating” role between all agencies. “Landslide research will be at the core of our work in future. However, the most important thing is to build the capacity of communities who are the first responders,” he said.

Pokhrel, who was appointed seven months ago, said there is a silver lining in the new set-up. “My experience over the past few months tells me that due to the authority’s presence, there has been a very high attention to landslides. Two meetings were held with the prime minister alone,” he said. “We will be installing at least a few landslide monitoring stations shortly. There will be an insurance system for all losses and a dedicated wing to research landslides.”

A jackal at a roadside (Image: Sushil Chikane / Alamy)

New research has warned that tigers, Asiatic wild dogs and other apex predators in southern Nepal will be “severely affected” if the construction of a new road is completed.

The Postal Highway and its link roads are planned to extend over 1,700 kilometres, spanning the breadth of the country along the Indian border. So far, less than a fifth of the work is completed, with the remaining sections still under construction across the Terai, the country’s lowlands.

But as the study, published in Nature in February, highlights, the planned highway will cross the distribution area of seven apex predators, and will be entirely built within the range of the dhole, or Asiatic wild dog. Along with the sloth bear and tiger, the dhole is among the species already most at risk due to existing roads, and will be severely impacted by the new project.

What is an apex predator?

Apex predators are non-herbivorous terrestrial mammals that have an average body mass higher than 13kg, or species that are below that threshold but are the main predators in their ecosystems, as defined by the recent study in Nature.

Across Nepal, at least 5,000km of highways are under construction, and work has also begun on the 1,000-kilometre East-West Railway. If built, these infrastructure projects will pass through the habitats of several endangered species, from tigers in the country’s lowlands to snow leopards in its mountainous regions.

Though they promise increased connectivity and development, the projects are encountering difficulties balancing human and social concerns with environmental and wildlife conservation, and have proven divisive between communities, conservationists and authorities.

“Our road construction is ‘demand-based’ instead of ‘need-based’,” said Roshan Sherchan, a Nepali conservationist advocating for wildlife-friendly infrastructure in the country. “Communities may demand [these projects], but the state should weigh in on both economic and ecological benefits, before making decisions to construct infrastructure and build roads wherever is necessary. But it’s very ad hoc now.”

Road controversies in Nepal are nothing new

The concept of a new cross-country road had been mooted for several decades in Nepal before construction finally began on the Postal Highway in 2008. But progress since has been mostly paralysed by financial troubles, delays, disagreements and, latterly, the Covid-19 pandemic. To date, just under 300km of road has been completed, according to the Nature study.

In 2017, construction of a section of the highway was delayed after UNESCO raised serious concerns about plans for the route to cut through Chitwan National Park – the oldest national park in the country, which has been listed as World Heritage Site since 1984. An initial environmental examination (IEE) for this section of the project had been carried out by the Department of Roads and approved by the national planning commission in 2009, but this was deemed insufficient by park authorities and UNESCO.

The state should weigh in on both economic and ecological benefits, before making decisions to construct infrastructure and build roads—Roshan Sherchan, conservationist

A report on the situation, submitted by the national parks department to UNESCO in April 2021, said that the IEE had made “no mention” of the road passing through the park, but “during the construction phase seven kilometres of the road section… was known to fall within the buffer zone”. The buffer zone was established in 1996 to provide access to resources for communities while protecting the core area of the park from degradation.

After a public interest lawsuit was filed against the government, in 2019 the Supreme Court of Nepal ordered construction of the section of road to be halted, and plans for a railway line through the national park also to be stopped. The court ruled that no construction should take place without a full environmental impact assessment, agreed in consultation with the park’s stakeholders.

A road being surfaced in Chitwan district in 2014 (Image: Naresh Newar / Thomson Reuters Foundation, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Though construction hasn’t resumed in Chitwan National Park, work continues elsewhere, including in important bands of forest known as “biological corridors”, which link national parks in Nepal with adjoining parks along the border with India.

The recent research in Nature, which was carried out in Africa, the Brazilian Amazon and Nepal, highlighted the threat that roads can pose to wildlife and these habitat-connecting corridors. It estimated that over 25 million km of new roads will be constructed globally by 2050, with around 90% in developing countries, including Nepal.

“Roads threaten apex predators acutely due to their large spatial ranges, low population densities, low reproductive rates and intolerance to increased human disturbance,” said Bibek Raj Shrestha, an ecologist and one of the authors of the study.

Eight of the 10 species of apex predators most exposed to roads are found in Asia: the sloth bear, tiger, dhole, Asiatic black bear, clouded leopard, sun bear, Sunda clouded leopard and leopard. As Nepal is home to seven of these vulnerable species, close attention and collaborative approaches to road-building will be essential to manage controversies and minimise impacts as work unfolds, the authors conclude: “It is vital that road planning committees include conservation scientists, the voices of all stakeholders – from local communities to government officials – and even wildlife protection organisations.”

Tiger waits for lockdown to cross highway

Other recent investigations in Nepal have also highlighted the impact of roads on apex predators. On 14 February 2021, a tiger was radio-collared in Halkhoriya, Bara district, in southern Nepal’s Parsa National Park. After a couple of weeks, the tiger had travelled over 10km south and reached a major road, the East-West (or Mahendra) Highway – but didn’t cross it. Instead, it moved west, roaming along the highway for over 20km.

One-fifth of total unnatural wildlife deaths in Nepal’s national parks in 2020 were due to road accidents

“Though the tiger reached the highway over five times in three months, it didn’t dare to cross the country’s busiest road,” said Baburam Lamichhane, a senior officer at the National Trust for Nature Conservation’s office in Chitwan National Park, who was involved in the tracking of the animal.

On 20 May, the tiger walked south to the highway again and, for the first time in three months, took a chance on crossing the road. This happened after three weeks of lockdown, imposed by the government at the end of April. “It clearly shows that the tiger had attempted to cross earlier, but decided to cross during the lockdown as vehicular movement was negligible,” added Lamichhane, who is also an expert on tigers.

Source: Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation / National Trust for Nature Conservation • Graphic by The Third Pole

In the past five years, at least three tigers have been killed due to collisions with vehicles on the East-West Highway – which runs largely parallel to the Postal Highway route, around 25 km to the north. On 23 January this year, a rhino died after falling in a trench on a newly built roadside in the vicinity of Chitwan National Park, while seven leopards were killed in accidents involving vehicles in 2017 alone. And it’s not only roads that pose a threat: irrigation canals have become death traps for wild animals. In 2016, nine animals drowned in canals that are part of the Sikta irrigation project in western Nepal.

According to the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, 108 animals were killed in road accidents in 2020 within national parks – nearly one-fifth of total unnatural wildlife deaths that year. The numbers were even higher in the preceding years, with 119 in 2019, 126 in 2018 and 131 in 2017.

“These numbers are just those from inside the national park that have been reported. It would have been much higher if all deaths were recorded properly – forget about the rest of the country,” said Pramod Neupane, a wildlife infrastructure expert who previously worked with the World Wildlife Fund in Nepal.

Wildlife-friendly guidelines in progress

Better protection for wildlife may be on the way. After four years in preparation, the Nepal government has approved its first ever guidelines for wildlife-friendly infrastructure, aimed at curbing the threats and problems encountered.

What is wildlife-friendly infrastructure?

Roads, railways, canals and other types of infrastructure can be designed to enable the movement of wild animals and reduce negative impacts on populations. Examples include structures that allow the passage of wildlife, fencing that enables animals to cross where it is safe, wildlife escape measures and signage to alter motorists to wildlife, according to Development Asia.

An underpass might be the area beneath a large bridge or viaduct, or a section of a drainage pipe set aside for small mammals and reptiles. Some species prefer overpasses, or bridges, although these historically have been more expensive to build than underpasses.

“The cabinet meeting on 10 March has endorsed the guideline and criteria document, but we are yet to receive a copy,” said Meghnath Kaphley, spokesperson at the Ministry of Forests and Environment.

The document is not yet publicly available, but a draft of the guidelines seen by The Third Pole instructs: “The contractor or a concerned agency should prepare the design of wildlife friendly infrastructures, while preparing detailed project report of any infrastructure and submit it for approval before moving into construction phase.”

The guidelines have also set criteria defining “wildlife-friendly” infrastructure. For example, they stipulate that underpasses and overpasses “built for the movement of rhinos and elephants should be of 20 degrees slope at maximum and minimum breadth of 20 metres. For other animals, it could be up to 30 degrees in slope and 10 metres wide at minimum.” The document also specifies measures such as creating tree canopy bridges for animals such as monkeys and squirrels, so that they are able to move from one tree to another and cross obstructions such as roads and railways.

In 2016, more than four decades after the establishment of its first national park, Nepal constructed its first ever underpass, enabling wildlife to cross a road safely. However, at the time there were no guidelines or criteria for this type of infrastructure. There are currently four such wildlife passes around Chitwan National Park. A study of animal movement though these passes showed a significant use of them. Camera traps set by WWF detected 607 animal crossings between August 2017 and June 2018. Of these, 93% were wild mammals and birds, while the remaining 7% were domestic cattle, according to a report on the initiative.

A wildlife overpass in Singapore (Image: Benjamin P. Y-H. Lee / CC BY 4.0)

Krishna Prasad Nepal, deputy director-general at the Department of Water Resources and Irrigation, is hopeful that the new guidelines will help to reduce conflicts and concerns, as stakeholders had been struggling without a clear document outlining appropriate design.

“In Ranijamara irrigation project in western Nepal, we had a plan to level up a wildlife passage with the adjoining land, but later wildlife experts suggested that it doesn’t have to be flat, as elephants can move up and down in gentle slopes, but are reluctant to walk on concrete structures,” he said. “Instead of investing money to increase height we covered the slope with a soil cushion about one metre thick. Elephants have been walking easily now. This document would have been helpful to work on the project from its inception phase,” he added.

Experts have said guidelines are good, but that the country’s narrow concept of infrastructure –for humans only – needs a larger rethink. “Engineers would design longer roads but shorter bridges due to costs. But in wildlife areas, we should construct bridges as long as possible, so that wild animals can use the riverbanks as corridors,” said Pramod Neupane. “Costs need be allocated for other species too, as roads have been connecting people, but disconnecting the rest.”

However, officials are hopeful that the guidelines will help reduce wildlife casualties and support the country’s sustainable development plans, as they can help to embed consideration of wildlife during the project design stage. “To begin with, it would be bit difficult due to higher costs, and discourage investors and donors, but if implemented it will ensure our common future,” said the environment ministry’s Kaphley. “It should be taken as responsibility rather than burden.”

Interviewed by Sanskriti Pokharel for The Kathmandu Post.

It’s rare for an environmental science student to have a journalistic career. Ramesh Bhushal, who began his journey with The Himalayan Times, is now the South Asia Coordinator for the Earth Journalism Network. Recently, he also took on the role of ‘Author’ with the release of his debut book, ‘Chhaalbato: Kailash Dekhi Ganga Samma’.

‘Chhaalbato’ is a chronicle of Bhushal’s 45-day journey from Kathmandu to Kailash Mansarovar, tracing the path from the source of the Karnali River in Tibet to the Ganges in India. Although a book of travels, it transcends the travel genre. The book offers a sociological lens on the countries travelled, touching on diverse topics—from climate and forests to the Dalai Lama, marginalised communities, river politics, and more.

Fueled by a deep wanderlust, Bhushal has always wanted to go beyond desk reporting. This journey allowed him to be on the ground, capturing the transboundary stories he had always aspired to tell.

Looking back on his childhood, Bhushal remembers the impact of losing his father a few months before his birth. “A typical childhood was something I could only dream of,” he reflects. “Life left me no choice but to work hard from an early age. During winter breaks, I would return to my home in Parbat from Kathmandu, where I connected with nature and the Dhaulagiri Mountain. That’s when my love for travel and the wilderness truly took root.”

The Post’s Sanskriti Pokharel sat down with Bhushal. Here’s what he said about his motivation to embark on a 45-day journey, his experiences in Tibet, river politics, and local perspectives on climate change.

What sparked your desire to document your journey in a book?

Newspaper bylines are ephemeral. On the other hand, a book is a solid piece of work that never dies. I have travelled from Tibet to India, from the Nepal-China border to the Nepal-India border, from Koshi to Gandaki, and so forth. During my travels, I gathered a lot of information, and I wanted to use that information to create something everlasting.

In my first book, I focused on the people and the planet rather than simply listing my travels. My goal was to go into the field, engage with locals, understand their views, and share their perspectives.

When I studied environmental science, I realised I am keenly interested in telling stories. Back then, the topic of climate change was an emerging issue. But, it was not getting enough coverage in the media. I realised that a career in journalism would allow me to share stories with a broader audience. While covering environmental issues, I travelled across many continents and saw what’s happening worldwide. Ultimately, this fueled my passion for writing. During the 45-day journey, I collected countless stories worth sharing, which deepened my desire to create something lasting. This combination of wanting to document my experiences and tell stories led me to write the book.

What motivated you to embark on the 45-day journey from Kathmandu to Kailash Mansarovar?

Megh Ale, a river conservationist, had a lifelong dream of journeying along the Karnali, Nepal’s last free-flowing river before it was dammed like many others. He imagined this journey not as a solo mission but as a collaborative expedition with anthropologists, hydrologists, environmental journalists, and photographers. The team aimed to assess the river, tracing its course from Tibet in China down to the Gangetic Plains in northern India. For Ale, the trip was about discovering, understanding, and preserving the river’s stories.

As someone who thrives on field reporting rather than being stuck at a desk, I felt a strong pull to join this journey through China, India, and Nepal. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, as it matched my passion for immersive, on-the-ground storytelling.

How did your experiences in Tibet influence your understanding of the sociopolitical context of the region?

A lot is happening beyond our mountains, and my time in Tibet made me realise that even more. Despite its proximity, Tibet feels farther away than mainland China due to the difficulties in accessing it. A Chinese visa alone isn’t enough to enter; a separate, restrictive pass is required, making it challenging for outsiders to engage, especially with the added language barriers.

Geopolitically, Tibet is a sensitive and controversial region under China’s control. The Chinese government has invested heavily in the area, building infrastructure like railways and hydropower projects. Development is moving southwest from Shanghai and Beijing, and it’s clear that Tibet is being prepared to become as developed as other parts of China.

This strategic development is China’s broader ambition to connect with South Asia, using Nepal as a gateway to India. We are the most accessible pathway to enter India from China. So, they are preparing everything in Tibet.

Beijing and Shanghai are shifting their focus towards the Southwest and are eager to expand their business interests. China wants its people there, and as a result, there’s a gradual influx of diverse populations from mainland China, slowly overshadowing and eroding traditional Tibetan culture.

While in Tibet, I gained insights into issues often overlooked by Nepali media. I made it a point to address these underreported topics in my book, shedding light on the changes happening beyond our mountains.

What did you observe about the communities living along the Karnali River?

I witnessed heartbreaking scenes. Communities in the most remote parts of Karnali are suffering, and there is insufficient food to sustain them. I saw malnourished children and newborns dying within six months due to a lack of proper care and a supportive environment.

Many view the Karnali’s running water as wasted because they lack the means to harness it, and those who do, for hydropower, won’t share the benefits with them. It’s understandable why they see it this way—after all, they are the first to face the consequences. Sadly, these communities, the most vulnerable to climate change, have contributed nothing to it yet bear the most significant burden.

They deserve a better life. They need access to electricity, but more importantly, they should have a say in the decisions that affect their future, with opportunities to raise their voices and be heard.

How do you think river politics and local governance impact people’s lives in these communities?

River politics and local governance are harming communities near rivers. The dominant perception reduces rivers to mere sources of electricity, disregarding their ecological importance.

This mindset has turned rivers into commodities, overshadowing their natural value and leading to their exploitation. For instance, the devastating flash floods in October, which claimed the lives of hundreds of Nepalis, can be partly linked to this narrow perspective on rivers.

Rivers are more than just flowing water—they shape everything from the ecology to the culture of the areas around them. In my work, I’ve tried to tell the stories of people who live by the river and how they feel being near it. These people live in some of the most remote parts of the country, deprived of necessities like clean water and food. They desire a better life, which is not too much to ask. They’ve been promised that hydropower development will bring improvements.

The issue lies in the fact that politicians and stakeholders drive these narratives, focusing solely on the economic gains from river projects. They often assure local communities that these projects will bring prosperity, but the promised benefits rarely reach those directly impacted. Instead, these communities bear the brunt of natural disasters like floods while those in power remain unaffected by the consequences.

The dominant narrative, which neglects the ecological perspective, frames rivers merely as sources of hydropower or as dumping grounds for waste. Despite the profound impact of river politics on local communities, the discussion around river ecology and sustainable use remains largely absent.

You touch upon climate change in your travels. What were some of the local perspectives on climate change that you encountered?

The local people I met in the remotest parts of Karnali were not in a position to debate whether climate change is real. Despite the lack of development, they are witnessing changes in their surroundings. They see the impact firsthand, from shifting rainfall patterns to changes in agricultural practices. They believe the changes they’ve been experiencing over the past 15 to 20 years are not natural or normal.

What was your writing process during and after the journey? Did you keep a journal or document your experiences in real time?

During the journey, I didn’t plan on writing a book. However, I was eager to cover stories. Wherever we went, we engaged with the people we met. Our photographer friend captured those moments, and if the conversation was fascinating, we recorded a video, thinking it might come in handy later while working on stories. I also asked for their contact details, just in case it would be useful. I took every opportunity to capture as many pictures as possible with my phone and camera.

With my headlamp on in the evenings, I would jot down notes here and there. When I decided to write this book, I reviewed all the recordings, photographs, and notes I had gathered on my phone and in my diary.

The process was daunting. In news articles, we move quickly, but in books, every detail, no matter how small, requires explanation. The truth is, I didn’t know how to write a book. However, since this was my first one, I was determined to give it my best.

Chhaalbato

Author: Ramesh Bhushal

Year: 2024

Publisher: FinePrint

You can read the original article in The Kathmandu Post, here.

दाेलखाकाे जिरीमा रहेकाे गुराँस पार्क र पाेखरी। फाेटाे : रमेश भुसाल ।

दाेलखाकाे जिरीमा चैतकाे अन्तिमा साता भएकाे प्रथम बागमती पर्या-साहित्य महोत्सवमा प्रमुख वक्ताको रूपमा दिएको मन्तव्य।

प्रिय साहित्य अनुरागी तथा प्रकृतिप्रेमी साथीहरु,

यो सुन्दर जिरीमा मलाई आमन्त्रण गरेर बोल्ने अवसर दिनुभएकोमा धन्यवाद। गौरीशङ्कर हिमालको दक्षिणी भिरालो भूभागमा लम्पसार परेको यो सानो तर ऐतिहासिक जिरीको सौन्दर्यका बीच मेरा शब्दहरू फिक्का लाग्न सक्छन्। म त्यसका लागि तयार नै भएर आएको छु।

अहिले समुद्री सतहबाट लगभग १९०० मिटरको उचाइमा २७ डिग्री ३८ मिनेट ३१ सेकेन्ड अक्षांश र ८६ डिग्री १३ मिनेट ४७ सेकेन्ड देशान्तरमा उभिएको एकजना व्यक्ति हुँ म। मजस्तै अहिले यो पृथ्वीमा आठ अर्ब व्यक्तिहरू छन्, जसलाई ‘होमो सेपियन्स’ भनिन्छ वा हामीले भन्ने गरेका छौँ। होमो सेपियन्सको अर्थ ‘बुद्धिमान मानिस’ भन्ने हुन्छ। आफैँले आफ्नो नाम राख्दा यति त आफूलाई भन्नैपर्‍यो। तर अरू प्रजातिले हाम्रो नाम राख्न सक्ने भएको भए के राख्थे होला भनेर म कहिलेकाहीँ सोच्छु। मलाई लाग्छ, अरू प्रजातिले मान्छेको नाम राख्न पाउने भए ‘सुइँखुट्टे भस्मासुर’ राख्ने थिए होला । तर दुर्भाग्यवश, यो पृथ्वीमा मान्छेबाहेक अरू कसैले कसैको नाम राख्न सक्दैन। सबैको नाम मान्छे ले नै राख्छ ।

वैज्ञानिकहरूको अनुमान अनुसार यो पृथ्वीमा झन्डै ८७ लाख जीव र वनस्पति हुन सक्छन्।आजसम्म अभिलेखीकरण गरिएका १४ लाखभन्दा बढी जीव र वनस्पतिमध्ये यो पृथ्वीको अधिकांश स्रोतको प्रयोग एक्लो मानिस नामक प्रजातिले गर्छ। बाँकीको पहिचान र अभिलेखीकरणसमेत गर्न बाँकी नै छ। डरलाग्दो कुरा त के छ भने, अभिलेखीकरण गरिएका हजारौँ प्रजाति विगतका केही दशकमा मानिसका कारण लोप भइसके र त्यो क्रम तीव्र छ।

पश्चिममा अफगानिस्तानदेखि पूर्वमा म्यानमारसम्म ३५ सय किलोमिटरमा फैlnएको संसारकै सबैभन्दा अग्लो हिन्दुकुश हिमालय पर्वत शृङ्खलाको एउटा सानो अंश यो भूभाग हो, जहाँ हामी उभिएका छौँ। यो पर्वत, जहाँ एसियाका १० ठूला नदी बग्छन्, जहाँ पृथ्वीको तेस्रो ठूलो हिउँ भण्डार छ र जहाँको नदी बेसिनको क्षेत्रफल मात्रै ३५ लाख वर्ग किलोमिटर छ, झन्डै दुई अर्ब मानिसको पानीको स्रोत यही हो। जहाँ म उभिएको छु, यहाँको पानी गङ्गा नदीको हिस्सा बन्छ। पूर्वमा ब्रह्मपुत्र, इरावड्डी, सालविन र मेकोङ नदी बग्छन्। पश्चिममा सिन्धु (इन्डस) नदी छ, जो अरब सागर छुन पुग्छ। अझ पश्चिममा अमु दरिया छ, जो पामिर हिमालबाट मध्य एसियाको सुक्खा भूभाग भएर बग्छ। उत्तरमा तारिम नदी र तिब्बती पठारको उत्तर-पूर्वमा यलो र याङ्त्से नदीहरू बग्छन्। तिनैलाई बाँडफाँड गरेर अहिले भारत, चीन, नेपाल, थाइल्यान्ड, पाकिस्तानलगायतका दर्जनौँ देश र हामी बासिन्दा बनेका छौँ।

पृथ्वीको उमेर साढे चार अर्ब वर्षको छ। हाम्रो पूरा आयुलाई सय वर्ष आसपास मान्ने हो भने पनि पृथ्वी हामीभन्दा झन्डै साढे चार करोड गुणा जेठो छ। मानिस भन्ने प्रजातिले यो पृथ्वीमा बिताएको पूरै समय हिसाब गर्दा पनि समग्र पृथ्वीको उमेरको जम्मा ०.०००७ प्रतिशत मात्र हुन आउँछ। यो अति लामो समयलाई बुझ्न लेखक डेभिड क्रिस्चियनले निकै रोचक तरिका निकालेका छन्। उनले ब्रह्माण्डको १३.८ अर्ब वर्षको इतिहासलाई १३ वर्ष ८ महिनाको एउटा काल्पनिक समयरेखामा ढालेका छन्। यो हिसाबले हेर्ने हो भने, सूर्य र सौर्य प्रणाली बनेको जम्मा ४ वर्ष ६ महिना मात्र भयो। ६० करोड वर्षअघि ठूला जीवको उत्पत्ति भएको समयलाई मानिसको समयरेखामा झार्दा त्यो जम्मा सात महिनाअघिको कुरा हो। साढे ६ करोड वर्षअघि डाइनोसरको लोप भएको घटना त यो पात्रोमा जम्मा २४ दिनअघिको मात्र हो।

अब मानिसको कुरा गरौँ, चिम्पान्जीबाट मानिसको हाँगो छुट्टिएको जम्मा साढे दुई दिन मात्र भयो। होमो सेपियन्स अर्थात् हामी जस्तो देखिने मानिसको उत्पत्ति त यो समयको तराजुमा जम्मा १०० मिनेटअघि मात्र भएको हो। अनि हाम्रो मानव सभ्यता र सहरहरूको इतिहास जम्मा साढे दुई मिनेटअघिको कुरा हो। तर यो सारा वातावरणीय विनाश र जलवायु परिवर्तनको उत्पात त जम्मा ६ सेकेन्ड अर्थात् पछिल्लो दुई सय वर्षको खेल हो। कल्पना गर्नुस्, साढे चार अर्ब वर्षको पृथ्वीको इतिहासमा अन्तिम ६ सेकेन्डमा एउटा प्रजातिले यो ग्रहको अरबौँ वर्षको सन्तुलनलाई भताभुङ्ग पारिदिएको छ। यो ६ सेकेन्डमा मानिसले जे गऱ्यो, त्यो केही हदसम्म स्याबास भन्नुपर्ने उपलब्धि त हो तर उत्तिकै चिन्ता गर्नुपर्ने विषय पनि हो। होमो सेपियन्स ८७ लाख जीवजन्तु र वनस्पति प्रजातिमध्येको एक प्रजाति हो। यही प्रजातिले हिजो पनि होइन, आज बिहान झिसमिसेमा पनि होइन, अघि भर्खरै वा केही मिनेट वा सेकेन्डअघि गरेको क्रियाकलापले उसको भाषामा विकसित भएको र अरू प्रजातिको भाषामा सिध्याएको पृथ्वीको कथा सामान्य छैन। उसले गरेको विकासको कथा पनि सामान्य छैन र उसले गरेको विनाशको कथा पनि सामान्य छैन।

मान्छे यो स्वरूपमा आएको धेरै भएको छैन। मानिस बुद्धिमा मात्रै होइन, शारीरिक हिसाबले पनि अरूभन्दा भिन्न बन्यो। मान्छेलाई खासमा कुन अङ्गले अरूभन्दा फरक प्रजाति बनायो होला? वा शरीरको कुन अङ्ग सबैभन्दा महत्त्वपूर्ण छ मान्छे बन्नका लागि भन्ने प्रश्नको रोचक उत्तर मैले केही वर्षअघि पढेको एउटा किताबले दिएको थियो। लेखक कोलिन टजले आफ्नो किताब ‘द ट्री’ मा लेखेका छन्— “हामी अरू प्रजातिभन्दा भिन्न हुनुको एउटा मुख्य कारण हाम्रा हातहरू हुन्। फुक्काफाल छाड्न सकिने बलिया हातले हामीलाई मान्छे बनाएका हुन्।” ती डाङ्ग्रेसँग हात छैन, तर पखेटा छन्। कुकुरसँग खुट्टारूपी हात छन्, जुन उसले उभिन मात्र पनि हरहमेशा प्रयोग गरिरहनुपर्छ। गाईगोरु, बाघ वा गैँडासँग पनि त्यस्तै छ। चराले पनि उड्नका लागि पखेटा फिँजार्र्नैपर्छ। बाघले पनि चार हातखुट्टा टेकेरै हिँड्नुपर्छ। मान्छे भने फुक्काफाल हात हल्लाउँदै हिड्न सक्छ।

खासमा हाम्रा यी हातहरूलाई फुक्काफाल छाड्न सकिने बनाएको चाहिँ रूखहरूले हो। टजका अनुसार, हाम्रा पुर्खाले जमिनमा झर्नुअघि कम्तीमा आठ करोड वर्ष रूखहरूमा बिताएका थिए। रूखमा झुन्डिएर ‘चचहुई’ गर्दागर्दै हामीले हातलाई फुक्काफाल पार्न सक्यौँ। हात्ती र सुँगुर पनि चलाख छन्, दिमाग तिनीहरूको पनि छ, तर फुक्काफाल हात छैनन्। लोखर्के तीक्ष्ण भए, बाँदरले पनि जमिन छुन खोजे, तर ती रूखमै अड्किए। मान्छेका पुर्खा भने अलि अघि निस्किए र रूख छाडेर जमिनमा झरेपछि हातलाई फुर्सदिलो बनाए, खुट्टालाई व्यस्त गराए। यदि हाम्रा हात फुक्काफाल हुँदैनथे भने हामी पनि डल्फिन र हात्ती जस्तै तीक्ष्ण तर निराश प्राणी भएर बाँच्न बाध्य हुन्थ्यौँ भन्ने टजको भनाइ छ। फुर्सदिला हात बनाएपछि सेपियन्सले बलिया पाखुरा र चलायमान औँला घुमाएर आज पृथ्वीमा राज गरिरहेको छ। तिनै हात र दिमागको सहाराले बनाएको गाडी चढेर म जिरी आइपुगेको छु। यी हातहरूले खराब मात्रै गरेनन्, कमाल पनि गरे। मान्छेलाई उड्न सक्ने बनाए, गुड्न सक्ने बनाए। विज्ञानको चमत्कारले आज हामी सजिलै पृथ्वी चाहार्छौँ, जहाँ पनि तुरुन्तै बोल्न सक्छौँ। हामीलाई सजिलो त बनायो प्रविधि र विकासले, तर अरू प्रजातिलाई भने निमिट्यान्नै पार्‍यो।

हामी हजारौँ वर्ष आफ्ना पाखुराको बलले बाँचेका थियौँ। हामी देख्थ्यौँ तर के हो थाहा पाउँदैनथ्यौँ। हामी पानी देख्थ्यौँ तर त्यसमा दुईवटा हाइड्रोजन र एउटा अक्सिजन मिलेर बसेका हुन्छन् भन्ने थाहा थिएन। रूख हरियो देख्थ्यौँ तर त्यसको कारण क्लोरोफिल हो भन्ने ज्ञान थिएन। आज मान्छेले माटो, ढुङ्गा, रूखपात, पृथ्वी, चन्द्रमा सबै बुझ्ने भएको छ। सबै कुरा खुट्याउन सक्छ र त्यसभित्र भएका कुराहरू प्रयोग गरेर सामान बनाउन जान्ने भएको छ। आज मान्छेले पृथ्वीका हरेक कुरा बेच्छ।

१६ औँ शताब्दीअघिसम्म मानिस ‘पृथ्वी गोलो छ’ भन्नेसम्म पनि विश्वस्त थिएन। लिनियसले नाम राखिदिएको चार दशकपछि वैज्ञानिक तथा अन्वेषक अलेक्जेन्डर भोन हमबोल्टले सन् १८०२ मा दक्षिण अमेरिकी देश इक्वेडरमा रहेको एन्डिस हिमशृङ्खलाको लगभग एक्काइस हजार फिट अग्लो चिम्बोराजो हिमालको चुचुरोमा टेके। पृथ्वीका सबै चुचुराको नाप नभइसकेको त्यो समयमा चिम्बोराजो विश्वकै अग्लो चुचुरो मानिन्थ्यो। सगरमाथा पृथ्वीको सबैभन्दा अग्लो चुचुरो त हो, तर समुद्री सतहबाट नाप्दा मात्रै। चिम्बोराजो अहिले पनि पृथ्वीको केन्द्रविन्दुबाट मापन गर्ने हो भने सबैभन्दा उच्च विन्दु हो। त्यो उचाइबाट पृथ्वी हेर्ने हमबोल्ट पहिलो मानिस थिए, कम्तीमा लिखित इतिहासमा।

हमबोल्ट कुनै कीर्तिमान कायम गर्न सो हिमाल चढेका थिएनन्। प्रकृतिबारे बुझ्न उनलाई सबैभन्दा अग्लो चुचुरोबाट पृथ्वी हेर्ने मन थियो। औद्योगिक क्रान्ति ल्याउने वाष्प इन्जिन बनेको एक शताब्दी पनि कटेको थिएन। मानिसले पृथ्वी सबै नापिसकेको थिएन, घुमिसकेको थिएन। जहाज उडिसकेको थिएन। रकेटले वायुमण्डल काटिसकेको थिएन। इन्टरनेट कल्पनामै थिएन अनि कम्प्युटरले गर्भधारण गरिसकेको थिएन। पृथ्वी हेर्ने एउटा मात्रै उपाय अग्लो हिमाल चढ्नु हुन्थ्यो। त्यसैले हमबोल्ट आफ्नै पैसा खर्च गरेर स्पेनको उपनिवेशमा रहेको दक्षिण अमेरिकी महादेश बुझ्न पाँचवर्षे अन्वेषण यात्रामा निस्केका थिए।

अठारौँ शताब्दीअघि प्राकृतिक विज्ञान भन्ने विषय नै थिएन थिएन वा वन्यजन्तु वा वनस्पति कुनै पनि विज्ञानका विधा थिएनन्। प्रकृति एउटा दर्शन थियो, विज्ञान थिएन। रसायन र भौतिक विज्ञानका अनेकन आविष्कारचाहिँ भइरहेका थिए। हमबोल्टले दर्शनको रूपमा रहेको प्रकृतिमा विज्ञानको मसला थपिदिए। जसै उनी चुचुरोमा पुगे, उनले वास्तवमै पृथ्वी निकै फरक देखे। परपरसम्म हेरेपछि उनी एउटा निष्कर्षमा पुगे— ‘यो पृथ्वीमा जलवायु, जीव, वनस्पति, जमिन, समुद्र सबै एकअर्कामा जोडिएका छन्। पृथ्वीको सगोलमा एउटा प्रकृति छ र सबै कुरा एकअर्कामा निर्भर,’ ‘इन्भेन्सन अफ नेचर’ नामक किताबमा लेखिका आन्द्रिया उल्फले लेखेकी छन्।

मानिस नहुँदो हो त यो पृथ्वी कस्तो हुँदो हो? वरिपरि आँखा घुमाउँछु। ऊ नहुँदो हो त मेरो वरिपरि देखिएको पिच गरेको सडक हुँदैनथ्यो, घर हुँदैनथे, फलामको बार हुँदैनथ्यो, इँटाको थुप्रो हुँदैनथ्यो, कपडा हुँदैनथ्यो, घडी हुँदैनथ्यो, जुत्ता हुँदैनथ्यो, औँलामा लगाएको औँठी हुँदैनथ्यो, गोजीको मोबाइल हुँदैनथ्यो, वरिपरि घुमिरहेका गाडी, मोटरसाइकल, साइकल हुँदैनथे, अगाडिको पार्क हुँदैनथ्यो, अलि पर रोपिएको खेत हुँदैनथ्यो, परको डाँडामा ठडिएको गुम्बा हुँदैनथ्यो, आकाशमा उडिरहेको जहाज हुँदैनथ्यो, त्यो बिजुलीको पोल हुँदैनथ्यो, छेउमा यत्रतत्र छरिएको प्लास्टिक हुँदैनथ्यो! मानिसले चमत्कार त गऱ्यो, तर उस्का लागि मात्रै ।

पृथ्वीको खास रङ नीलो हो, तर आज यो हल्का रातो भइसकेको छ। वैज्ञानिकहरू तातोलाई रातो रङले चिनाउँछन्। सन् १८५०–१९०० को दाँजोमा पृथ्वीको तापक्रम औसतमा १.१ डिग्रीले बढिसकेको छ। यही गतिमा अगाडि बढ्ने हो भने अबको २० वर्षमा १.५ डिग्री र शताब्दीको अन्त्यसम्म ३ डिग्रीले बढ्नेछ। सन् २०२४ विश्वकै सबैभन्दा तातो वर्षका रूपमा पुष्टि भइसकेको छ। यो रातो कथा जम्मा तीन सय वर्षमा बुनिएको हो। कोइला र पेट्रोलियमको बढ्दो प्रयोगले मानिसलाई आराम त दियो, तर पृथ्वीको ज्वरो निकालिदियो। बीसौँ शताब्दीको मध्यमा ५ अर्ब टन रहेको वार्षिक कार्बन उत्सर्जन अहिले ३५ अर्ब प्रति बर्ष कटिसक्यो। भारत, चीन र अमेरिकाले मात्रै कुल उत्सर्जनको आधा हिस्सा ओगट्छन्। पृथ्वी तातेपछि अब पानी झमझम मात्रै पर्दैन, झरना जसरी ‘छङछङ’ झर्छ। काठमाडौंमा १२१.५ मिलिमिटर पानी झर्दा नदी किनारका बस्ती सखाप हुनु यसकै नतिजा हो। हामीले नदी मारिरहेका छौँ, माटो मारिरहेका छौँ। अरू प्रजातिहरू मारिरहेका छौँ तर हामी मात्रै बढिरहेका छौँ र हाम्रै लागि मात्र पृथ्वीका स्रोत दोहन गरिरहेका छौँ।

नदीहरू यो पृथ्वीका रक्तनली हुन्। तर पृथ्वीका ६० प्रतिशत नदीमा हामीले बाँध बाँधिसक्यौँ। हामीले नदीलाई केवल बिजुली निकाल्ने मेसिन सम्झियौँ। जलविद्युत् आयोजनामा बनाइएका ९५ प्रतिशत ‘फिस ल्याडर’ ले काम गर्दैनन्। हाम्रो पैतालामुनिको संसार पनि ध्वस्त हुँदैछ। मानिसले वार्षिक ३५ लाख टन विषादी माटोलाई पिलाउँछ, जसले गर्दा ६० प्रतिशत माटो विषाक्त भइसकेको छ। जङ्गली जीवजन्तुको सङ्ख्या ७० प्रतिशतले घटिसक्यो। आज स्तनधारी जीवहरूको तौल जोख्ने हो भने ३६ प्रतिशत मान्छे, ६० प्रतिशत घरपालुवा जनावर र केवल ४ प्रतिशत जङ्गली जनावर बाँकी छन्। चराहरूमा ७१ प्रतिशत त केवल हामीले खाने कुखुराहरू मात्र छन्।

विश्वबाट अव देशकाे कुरा,

तीन वर्षअघि म मकवानपुरको चुच्चेखोला सामुदायिक वन समूहले संरक्षण गरेको ‘समुदाय संरक्षित विश्वकै पहिलो सालक पार्क’ हेर्न गएको थिएँ। राति मात्र बाहिर निस्कने सालकलाई देखाउन भनेर त्यहाँ स्थानीयले सालकका विभिन्न मूर्तिहरू बनाएका रहेछन् र पिकनिक स्थल पनि निर्माण गरेका रहेछन्। यस्तो लाग्थ्यो, त्यो सालकको ‘मुर्दापार्क’ हो। जताततै सिमेन्टका संरचना, सेल्फी खिच्ने ठाउँदेखि पिकनिक स्पटसम्म। हिँड्ने बेला एक स्थानीय हर्ताकर्ताले भने, ‘हामीले सङ्घीय पर्यटन मन्त्रालयबाट पन्ध्र लाख रुपैयाँ अनुदान पाउँदै छौँ। त्यो रकमले यहाँ ठूलो गेट बनाउने योजना छ। त्यो गेटका दुई पिलरमध्ये एउटा पुरुष र अर्को महिला हुन्छन्। दुवैका हातले नेपालको ठूलो नक्सा बोकेका हुन्छन्। त्यो समावेशी गेट हुनेछ।’ उनको समावेशी कल्पनाशीलताको पराकाष्ठा देखेर म चकित परेँ। सालक जोगाउने पार्कमा पन्ध्र लाखको गेट, महिला र पुरुष आकृतिका पिलर बनाएर समावेशी! यस्तो सोच कसरी वा किन आयो? त्यसको जड के हो?

यस्तै, केही वर्षअघि म कपिलवस्तुमा रहेको जगदीशपुर ताल पुगेको थिएँ। त्यहीँ वडा अध्यक्षसँग भेट भयो। केहीबेरको कुराकानीपछि चिया पिउने सल्लाह भयो। चियाको चुस्कीसँगै उनले भने, ‘यो तालको बीचमा हामी बुद्धको ठूलो मूर्ति बनाउँदै छौँ र केही डुङ्गा किनेर तालमा पर्यटनको प्रवर्द्धन गर्ने योजनामा छौँ।’ जगदीशपुर ताल चराहरूका लागि प्रख्यात छ। बीसौँ हजार चराको रोजाइको ताल हो, जगदीशपुर। यहाँ बर्सेनि साइबेरियादेखि चराहरू आइपुग्छन्। मैले उनलाई भनेँ, ‘यहाँ त हजारौँ चरा आउँछन्, किन मूर्ति बनाउने र डुङ्गा चलाउने? बरु तपाईंहरूले यहाँ आसपास चरा हेर्ने घर (Bird Watching Tower) बनाउनुस्, दूरबिन किन्नुस्, चराको सङ्ग्रहालय बनाउनुस्। देशभरिका विद्यालयबाट विद्यार्थी र पर्यटक ल्याउनुस्। पैसा पनि आउँछ, मान्छे पनि आउँछन् र चरा पनि रहन्छन्। सबैलाई फाइदा हुन्छ।’ तर उनले त्यसो गर्न नसक्ने छोटो जवाफ दिए। खासमा मूर्ति बनाउन सजिलो छ। सय बोरा सिमेन्टको साटो दुई सय बोरा हाल्न पाइन्छ। पाँच लाख खर्च गरेर दस लाख देखाउन पाइन्छ। त्यो पनि केही महिनामै तयार हुन्छ र व्यक्तिगत आम्दानी भइहाल्छ। त्यति भएपछि किन चराको चासो लिइरहनु? अहिले मुद्दा परेर त्यो योजना रोकिएको छ भन्ने सुनेको छु।

हामी पनि विहानै जिरीकै गुराँसपार्क पुगेर फर्कियाै । त्यहाँ सुन्दर पाेखरी थियाे । छेउछाउमा चिमाल गुराँस । तर त्याे पाेखरीकाे एकाभागमा एउटा सिमेन्टकाे पिलर उिभएकाे थियाे र त्यसमा महादेवकाे मुर्ति । त्याे पाेखरीकाे पिलरमा महादेश खुसी छन् कि दुखी थाहा भएन । त्याे पानी, छेउछाउका रुख नै महादेवका लागि पर्याप्त थिए तर किन हाे तपाँइहरुले उनलाई पिलरमा बस्न लगाउनुभयाे। त्यसले हामीलाई नै गिज्याइरहेकाे थियाे ।

आज हाम्रो देशलाई जलवायुभन्दा पनि माथिबाट ‘भ्रष्टवायु’ ले छोपेको छ। विकासको नाममा व्यक्तिगत लाभ खोज्ने र कमिसनका लागि अनावश्यक कङ्क्रिटका संरचना खडा गर्ने प्रवृत्ति बढेको छ। सालक जोगाउने सामुदायिक वनमा सालकको बासस्थान सुधार्नुको सट्टा सिमेन्टका ठूला गेट र मूर्ति बनाउने होडबाजी छ। जगदीशपुर ताल जस्तो चरा आउने ठाउँमा दूरबिन होइन, तालको बीचमा सिमेन्टका मूर्ति बनाउने योजना बुनिन्छ। ठाउँठाउँमा मिनी ग्रेटवाल बनाउने सपना छ। हामी जथाभाबी दोहनको बाटो रोज्ने कि प्रकृतिसँग सन्तुलन मिलाएर टिकाउ विकास गर्ने? हिमालको हिउँ रहेमात्र हाम्रो अस्तित्व रहनेछ, नदीको बहाव रहेमात्र हाम्रो सभ्यता बाँच्नेछ। हामीले आज जे गर्छौँ, त्यसैले हाम्रो भविष्यको पुस्ताको भाग्य निर्धारण गर्नेछ। विज्ञानले जतिसुकै चमत्कार गरे पनि प्रकृति दाहिना भएन भने हाम्रो अस्तित्व सङ्कटमा पर्नेछ। त्यसैले, यो पृथ्वीलाई नीलै रहन दिऊँ, यसलाई चिसै रहन दिऊँ। किनकि पृथ्वी नीलै राखेको ठीक, चिसै राखेको ठीक!

मैले लेखेकाे किताब छालबाटाे : कैलाशदेखि गंगासम्म किताबबारे सुन्नेवित्तिकै धेरैले मलाई छालबाटाे भनेकाे के हाे भनेर साेध्नुहुन्छ त्यसैले मैले याे छाेटाे परिचय लेखेकाे छु।

छालबाटाे तीनदेशमा गरिएकाे दुई हजार किलोमिटरकाे यात्रा हाे जुन ४५ दिनमा गरिएकाे थियाे ।काठमाडौंदेखि कैलाश मानसरोवर हुँदै तिब्बतस्थित कर्नाली नदीको उद्गमदेखि भारतको गङ्गासम्मको यात्रा । त्यो पनि हिँडेर-गुडेर-बगेर गरिएको । हो, त्यही यात्राको अनुभूति हो, छालबाटो । कर्नाली नदीकिनारका स्थानियहरुले नदीकाे किनारै किनार हिड्ने बाटाेलाई छालबाटाे भन्दा रहेछन् त्यसैले मैले किताबकाे नाम छालबाटाे राखेकाे हुँ।

यो पारम्परिक यात्रावृत्तान्तभन्दा पनि यात्रा गरिएका ठाउँको समाजशास्त्रीय अवलोकन हो, जहाँ जलवायुदेखि जङ्गलसम्म, बाँधदेखि बाघसम्म, दलाई लामादेखि दबिएका समुदायसम्मका सन्दर्भ अटाएका छन् । र अटाएका छन्, एकातिर दुःखको पहाड बोकेर बसेका मानिस, अर्कोतिर विकासको भोक; नदी जोगाएर अन्य तरिकाले जीवनस्तर उकासौं भन्ने एउटा विचार अनि दुःख हटाउने औषधि नै जलविद्युत् हो भन्ने अर्को विश्वास र बीचमा रनभुल्लमा परेका स्थानीय; झुटको खेतीमा मस्त नेता; रसुवागढीको रेल सपना; कैलाश पर्वतको सेरोफेरो; तिब्बतमा रमाइरहेका मिङ्मार; हिल्सामा होमिएकी पेमा; भारीले थिचिएका धनवीर; छालबाटो कुदिरहेका काङ्ग्री; डुङ्गामा रम्ने मेघ; बर्दियामा बढेका बाघ; घाघराले उठीबास गराएका समुदायको पीडा र बनारस हुँदै बग्ने दुर्गन्धित गङ्गा । बिरलै गरिने यात्रालाई विषयगत विविधताको धागोले फरक शैलीमा उनिएको यो पुस्तक हो छालबाटाे।

याे पुस्तकले पद्मश्री साहित्य पुरस्कार २०८१ र साहित्यपाेष्ट साहित्य पुरस्कार २०८१ प्राप्त गरेकाे थियाे ।

तपाँइले छालबाटाे किताब पसलहरुमा वा अनलाइनमा पनि किन्न सक्नुहुन्छ । नेपालमा किन्नका लागि यहाँ र अमेजनमा पनि किन्न सक्नुहुन्छ।

केहि प्रतिकृया भए मेराे इमेल: rameshbhushalj@gmail.com मा पठाउनुहाेला। म समय मिलाएर उत्तर फर्काउनेछु ।

Image : Samita Ghimire, who lives alongside a highway expansion project in western Nepal, covers her face to protect against dust pollution. Steps to reduce air pollution recommended in the project’s environmental impact have seemingly not been carried out. (Image: Ramesh Bhushal)

Ramesh Bhushal

November 15, 2022

In March 2018, an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for a proposed airport in Nijgadh, in southern Nepal’s Bara district, was submitted to the Ministry of Forests and Environment. By May, the environment ministry had approved the report – from a private firm hired by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal – opening the door for the authority to move ahead with the USD 3.5 billion project. This despite the fact that constructing the airport would mean clearing 2.4 million trees in of one of Nepal’s last remaining subtropical forests.

The report was approved “in haste”, an official at the environment ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Third Pole. “There was not much time to review a huge technical document of such a big project in a short period of time,” the official said, citing pressure from the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.

The report contained errors. Chapter eight of the report, which is not yet publicly available but has been seen by The Third Pole, refers to electricity generated from the project: the sentence was mistakenly copied and pasted from another report for a hydropower project. The report did not, as EIAs are supposed to, present comparative analyses of different potential sites – it simply stated the forest area as the best choice.

Image: Vehicles on the Pokhara-Mugling Highway in western Nepal. Widening of the road has resulted in dust pollution for residents living along the road. (Image: Ramesh Bhushal / The Third Pole)

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Media reports of flaws in the EIA stirred protests over the government’s decision to approve it, with the case eventually ending up in Nepal’s supreme court. After three years, in May 2022, the court directed the government to halt the project in Nijgadh and restart the EIA process from scratch.

The Nijagh airport saga serves as an example of Nepal’s troubles with EIAs. While environmental assessments are being conducted for projects across the country, converting this process into meaningful reduction of environmental harm is proving challenging.

EIAs in Nepal

Ever since the 1960s, when they were introduced in the United States, environmental impact assessments (EIAs) have become a well-recognised tool to mitigate the environmental impacts of large infrastructure projects across the globe.

Nepal started to use EIAs in 1997, after enacting the Environment Protection Act. The law obliged any company or government body planning an infrastructure project to conduct environmental assessments. Large projects require a full environmental impact assessment (EIA), whereas smaller ones require an initial environmental examination (IEE). Nepalese law allows for developers to be prosecuted if they do not follow mitigation measures laid out in the approved EIA or IEE.

What’s the difference between an EIA and an IEE?

“So far, EIAs in Nepal have been of a low standard, and have failed to serve their purpose in mitigating environmental problems and protecting communities,” Madhu Ghimire, head of the EIA section at the Ministry of Forests and Environment (MoFE), tells The Third Pole. The MoFE is responsible for reviewing and approving EIAs.

“[EIAs] have been taken by developers as just a procedural step before implementing any project, rather than a tool to mitigate environmental impacts and safeguard investments,” she says. Asked why flawed reports, such as the EIA for the Nijgadh airport, are still approved, she said developers refuse to do more work on reports once they’re submitted. “If we ask developers to review and rework [a flawed EIA], then political lobbying starts and we are portrayed as those delaying the approval.”

According to Ghimire, the ministry has approved 550 EIAs in the past 25 years, but it does not have aggregated data on the number of IEEs approved by all ministries. “There should be several hundred of them [IEEs, from the past 25 years]. Though it’s within our mandate to collect and analyse them, we are understaffed,” she says.

The MoFE’s EIA section has just five members of staff to evaluate all projects across the country, explains Ghimire.

Good intentions, but questionable rules

Some argue that EIAs have been effective in certain cases in Nepal. Batu Krishna Uprety, former head of the EIA section at the Ministry of Environment, cites the Babai irrigation project in western Nepal’s Bardiya district as an example. In 2003, the government’s Department of Irrigation had requested permission to clear 1,150 hectares of forest to construct an irrigation canal. The Ministry of Forests directed the department to conduct an EIA, which resulted in the project only receiving approval to cut down 22 hectares.

Madhav Giri, managing director of Prakriti Consult, a private firm that conducts EIAs, says that while the intentions behind EIAs are good, implementation and monitoring has been extremely weak. This, he says, is because rules around mitigating environmental impact were introduced without adequate consideration of what is scientific and practical. For example, current EIA rules mandate that for every tree felled for a project within a national forest or protected area, 10 others must be planted. Until recently, the rule was 25.

“There was no scientific basis for the 1:25 [rule] that was in place earlier, and it has been reduced to 1:10 now without any scientific basis. If you ask why not 1:5 or 1:2 – there is no answer. It would have been more practical to have fewer trees as compensatory plantation, but better monitoring and implementation,” Giri says.

“We used those numbers to discourage rampant tree-cutting, but it was not based on any scientific study,” says Uprety, who was head of the government’s EIA division when the process was introduced. “A study may recommend expensive measures that could discourage a [project] proponent to implement it. Providing analysis of possible alternatives can help developers to choose the option with the least impact and support sustainable development.”

Negligible implementation, ineffective monitoring

The Mugling-Pokhara highway links Nepal’s capital Kathmandu with Pokhara in the west, a popular tourist destination. A road expansion project is working to widen an 81km stretch of the highway to four lanes, enabling greater traffic flow.

Samita Ghimire lives near where the highway is being expanded in Tanahun district. “This road expansion has become a curse for me, as there is so much dust around,” said Ghimire, who had wrapped an old T-shirt around her face. “I had bronchitis, but it has worsened in the last year. I think I will die before this road expansion is completed.”

The 2019 IEE prepared by the Asian Development Bank, which provided a loan of USD 195 million to the Nepalese government for the project, had concluded that air pollution was one of its possible environmental impacts, including dust from earth works and emissions from construction equipment and vehicles.

Vehicles on the Pokhara-Mugling Highway in western Nepal. Widening of the road has resulted in dust pollution for residents living along the road. (Image: Ramesh Bhushal / The Third Pole)

The report proposed mitigation measures. “Water sprinkling, water fogging, broom sweeping shall be carried out in dust prone locations,” the report reads. “Air quality shall be monitored during the construction stage and if monitored parameters are above the prescribed limit, suitable control measures shall be applied.”

But the reality on the ground seems quite different. When The Third Pole visited the site in August 2022, plumes of dust thrown up by vehicles trundling down highway could be seen covering settlements nearby.

“The contractor does nothing to mitigate air pollution. Nobody listens to our plea,” said Rohit Kumar Shrestha, a resident of the nearby town of Khairenitar. “Doctors have advised me to avoid dust, but how do I do it? You can see how dusty it is out here,” Shrestha added, gesturing at the hazy air.

On 18 October, locals from Gachepani, another town close to the highway, took direct steps to demand action. “We talked to the local administration office multiple times, but our voice was not heard,” Shankar Nepali, a resident of Gachepani, told The Third Pole. “We decided to lock all the staff in the Gachepani office of the constructor to pressure them to solve the air pollution problem due to road expansion. They have agreed in writing to sprinkle regularly and mitigate the problem,” said Nepali.

Narendra Subedi, head of the eastern section of the Mugling-Pokhara Highway expansion project at the Department of Roads, told The Third Pole: “We have been sprinkling as much as possible, but I agree that it’s not satisfactory as you can see dust on the roadside. However, it is also partly because we can’t control vehicular flow on the busy highway and it quickly becomes dry due to the sun.” Regarding installation of air pollution measuring stations, as required by the IEE, Subedi added: “I am not aware of any kind of measuring instruments installed in the project site.”

The USD 64 million contract for the project was given to Anhui Kaiyuan Highway and Bridge Co. Ltd., a Chinese company. The Third Pole reached out to the project lead at the company and a representative of the Asian Development Bank for comment, and was awaiting a response at the time of publication.

The MoFE’s Environment Department is the designated authority to monitor projects like the highway expansion, but this is lacking in practice. “We don’t have the human resources to carry out monitoring of hundreds of projects across the country, as it’s costly, but we have been doing whatever we can and on selected projects,” said Namaraj Ghimire (no relation to Madhu or Samita), director-general of the department. Ghimire said the department has only one staff member assigned to monitor implementation of measures recommended in EIAs and IEEs.

EIAs in hydropower

According to Madhu Ghimire at the MoFE, more than one-third of all EIAs approved over the last 25 years were in the hydropower sector. The Nepal Government’s Guidelines for Study of Hydropower Projects state that all hydropower projects in the country must release 10% of water downstream throughout the year. But experts say that implementation of this rule is negligible.

Batu Krishna Uprety co-authored a 2019 report on the environmental impacts of hydropower projects on the Modi Khola, a tributary of the Kali Gandaki River in western Nepal. The Modi Khola is just 50km long and has a small watershed of 675 square kilometres, yet two hydropower plants are in operation on the river, and six others are under construction.

“We found no water being released by hydropower. It’s the same across the country and it’s a very worrisome situation,” Uprety told The Third Pole. The report quotes an engineer involved in construction of a hydropower project on the Modi Khola as saying he never saw an EIA report, nor was informed about measures to follow to reduce environmental impacts.

“We are aware that projects have not released water as stated in environmental assessments, but we can’t force them to do so, as we need electricity to meet growing demand, especially in winter when the flow is low,” said Kul Man Ghising, managing director of the Nepal Electricity Authority.

Frustrated hydropower developers have been lobbying the government to either ease or remove Frustrated hydropower developers have been lobbying the government to ease or remove requirements to around EIAs, as they blame them for delays in project implementation. In a letter sent to the MoFE in August 2022, seen by The Third Pole, the Independent Power Producers’ Association of Nepal mentioned EIAs as a key hurdle to developing hydropower in the country. “We would like to request you to expedite the process and facilitate approval of EIA and IEE,” the letter said.

“We are open to discussion and willing to make changes if needed,” said Ghimire at the MoFE, in response to criticism that the process is unwieldy.

But experts like Giri see fundamental problems in Nepal’s approach to environmental assessment. “EIAs have been seen by proponents as a document needed for official process; government agencies have seen this as a tool to delay process instead of facilitating or strengthening monitoring. And for consulting firms like us, it’s a business to make our living,” said Giri.

“Doing EIAs as usual is just a waste of time and money,” he said.

Published in Dialogue Earth on August 3, 2022

Climbing Mount Everest – at 8,849 metres, the world’s highest mountain – is on many people’s bucket list. Even just reaching Everest Base Camp in northeastern Nepal, at 5,364 metres, is something few people achieve. Except for Kami Rita Sherpa that is, for whom climbing Everest has been a routine for over two decades, sometimes twice or even three times a year.

Born in Thame, a Sherpa village in the Everest region of Nepal, he started working as a porter for trekking companies when he was just 12. Now 52, Kami Rita climbed Mount Everest for the first time in 1994 when he was just 24. This year, Kami Rita reached the summit for the 26^th time, a new world record.

Kami Rita Sherpa in July 2022 (Image: Ramesh Bhushal)

On a sunny day in July, he spoke to The Third Pole in a café in Kathmandu. With monsoon clouds advancing from the Bay of Bengal towards the Nepalese capital, he had a bit of leisure time between the spring (pre-monsoon) and autumn (post-monsoon) climbing seasons.

The Nepalese government reportedly wants to move Everest Base Camp to a lower elevation, because of risks associated with climate change – including melting of the glacier the camp is located on – and an increasing number of climbers. But as Kami Rita explains, the plan is not supported by all.

What is your opinion about the government’s plan to move Everest Base Camp?

There is no valid reason to move it. Do you think climate change has impacted just Base Camp? What about the other camps [on the Everest route]? Where will you shift them? If you say climate change has impacted Base Camp, then don’t you think the other camps have also become riskier due to rapid melting of the ice?

Moving Base Camp will create chaos. The camps were established on the basis of the availability of a suitable place, identified through experience and practicality. If you move Base Camp lower, say to [the village of] Gorak Shep [at around 5,150m], then it will just be a stopover before the current base camp, as it’s nearly impossible to hike from the moved Base Camp to Camp I [at 6,150m]. And you can’t stay anywhere in between, as there isn’t any suitable spot except the current base camp. It will be just an added camp, not an alternative.

Base Camp and camps 1 to 4 on the Nepal route up Mount Everest • Graphic by The Third Pole • Imagery: Landsat/Copernicus via Google Earth

But the government says it’s becoming more dangerous, and that the decision would create a safer environment for climbers and climbing expeditions’ support staff.

I don’t really think Base Camp has become unsafe or less safe. I think it’s the safest point to camp for preparation before heading up and there isn’t a place nearby that’s more suitable. If you move down a little, it’s even more dangerous. Currently, Base Camp is on the edge of the Khumbu Glacier, and moving it down a bit will take you near the foot of Pumori mountain. That’s the place where an avalanche occurred during the 2015 earthquake and killed scores of climbers and Sherpas.

If you move it further down to Gorak Shep [where a flat area is available], which is over three kilometres south, then how would you provide water? There is no water source nearby and you must walk for an hour or so to get some water from the ice. Currently, Base Camp has meltwater [from glaciers], and even when there is no meltwater, we can crumble ice and melt it to drink. It would be nearly impossible to carry out expeditions at lower levels far from glaciers unless there is a continuous supply of water. It’s about feeding over 1,500 people for over two months [including climbers, porters and support staff], and we need a large amount of water every day.

The Everest climbing route, Camp I to IV, is on the Khumbu Glacier. Studies have shown that the glacier has been shrinking due to rapid melting resulting from global warming. How has this affected climbing?

Rapid melting exposes more rock on mountains and it’s harder to climb rock than ice-covered terrain. It also increases the chances of rockfalls that could cause serious injury or even death. I have noticed more exposed rock, and the length of rock [that has to be climbed] has increased in the past two decades. Between Camp III and Camp IV, there used to be about 50m of rock when I started to climb Everest, but now it’s over 70m.

Likewise, there is a spot called Geneva Spur [an anvil-shaped rib of rock] at 7,300m and more rock has now been exposed there, too. Between Camp IV and The Balcony [a small platform where climbers rest before the summit], there is a triangular face that used to [feature] about 100m of rock to climb, but now it’s about 130m. It’s quite rocky near the Hillary Step [a short rock face near the summit] and that has also increased in length.

What changes have you seen on Everest since you started climbing?

A lot. I can say that the amount of ice on Everest is less than when I climbed for the first time in 1994. Ice is melting at a faster rate and it’s moving [higher] up, but the bigger problem is that the timing of rainfall and snowfall has become irregular. In 1994 and the following expeditions for some years, it wasn’t normal to drink meltwater in Base Camp at the beginning of climbing in late April. We used to crack ice and then melt it to drink. But now you can get melted water not only in Base Camp, but often in Camp II. This year in April, we got water in Camp II. Now I feel like Camp II is the new base camp.

If shifting Base Camp is not a good idea, what do you think the government should do to ensure that climbing Everest in Nepal is safe and appealing?

I think if a decision is made [to move Base Camp], it will shift more climbers to China. It’s already expensive and challenging to climb Everest from the Nepal side. The Tibet side in China has a lot of facilities and it’s easier to climb from the northern side rather than the southern one. China has electricity and roads up to the base camp. You can go up to 6,500m on yaks. Why would someone come to the Nepal side if you prolong their stay without reason [by creating a longer route]?

Just doing things to make a news headline won’t solve the problem

Instead of moving Base Camp, the government could spend money on providing electricity at the camp, so that we can reduce the use of gas to cook food. [The use of gas canisters by climbing expeditions has been suggested as a factor in the warming of the area.] One expedition uses three gas canisters per day, and there are about 50 expeditions a year. One expedition takes around two-and-a-half months from Kathmandu and back, and most of the stay will be in Base Camp. You can reduce the use of gas if you provide electricity.

Secondly, the government can spend money on providing folding toilets to all expeditions so that we don’t have to carry them every time, and they can charge for the usage. They could invest in providing more reliable weather information and focus on clean-up campaigns [of rubbish left by climbers] along the trail up to the summit.

Just doing things to make a news headline won’t solve any problem. There are many more things that could be done to create a safer climbing environment and save the mountains, but an easy [fix], like moving Base Camp down, is just a waste of time.

What is your message to the world, which has responded very slowly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, causing snow and ice in the mountains to melt faster?

The mountains are not just ours. It’s not just Sherpas who would be impacted, or Nepal that would lose revenue from tourism [if the snow and ice melts]. It’s the source of water for billions of people. It’s the heritage of the world. If it’s gone, we are done. I think the only way to keep our mountains white is to reduce emissions from factories, planes and vehicles.

I remember the Dalai Lama saying that one day we will die because there won’t be water to drink. I feel like that will happen some day soon. I would urge the global community to think about it seriously and act immediately. I can’t do much as a climber, except inform people about the situation out there.

I just want to say that the ice on the mountains is vanishing. That’s my information based on experience and it’s up to you to make a decision.

कान्तिपुर दैनिकमा भाद्र १, २०८१ मा प्रकाशित

रमेश भुसाल

असारको अन्तिम साता सिमसिम पानी परिरहेको छ, आकाश भनिरहेछ– थप जोडले पर्नेछु । इँट्टाले थिचेको, सिमेन्टले लिपेको काठमान्डु उपत्यकाको पश्चिममा रामकोटको उकालो चढ्दै छ गाडी । घर घट्दै गए, माटोले रूप देखाउँदै गयो । कतै झारले त कतै रूखले । कतै घरले त कतै बाटोले माटो लुकाउँछन् । सहरमा माटो देख्नै मुस्किल छ । कतै देखिइहाले पनि त्यो माटो हुँदैन, हिलो भइदिन्छ ।

भीमढुंगाबाट केही पर पिचसडक सकियो । सिमसिमे पानीले माटो गिल्यायो । पाङ्ग्रा गाडिए । गाडी नाच्यो । शरीर मर्कियो । मन थर्कियो । यस्तोबेला पाङ्ग्राको भन्दा खुट्टाको भर बढी लाग्नुपर्ने, तर हिलोको छिःछिःमा हुर्केको शरीर पाङ्ग्रामाथि नै अडियो र भन्यो– गए ज्यान गाडीसँगै जाला ! आधुनिक ज्यान न पर्‍यो ।

•••

नदी उर्लिएका छन्, झरना पोखिएका छन् । पहाड पानी पिएर टम्म भरिएका छन् । आकाश पग्लिरहेको छ । पानीका थोपा जमिनतिर बगिरहेका छन् । माटोको भारी बोकेको त्रिशूली नदी सडक भेट्न आतुर भएजसरी उकालिएको छ । माटोले रंग देखाइरहेको बेला म भने माटोबारे सोचिरहेको छु । केही समयदेखि म माटो पढिरहेको छु । माटोमा टेकेर, माटो नै खाएर, माटो नै पिएर बाँच्ने मान्छेले विरलै माटोबारे सोच्छ । म गलत पनि हुन सक्छु, किनकि तपाईं भन्नुहोला– किसानले सोच्छ त ! तर, अहिले किसानभन्दा धेरै कम्पनी भइसके । कम्पनीले उत्पादनबारे सोच्छ, माटोबारे होइन । माटो अहिले किसानको होइन, कम्पनीको भएको छ । बीसौं शताब्दीमा अकासिएको पुँजीवादी व्यवस्थाले जमिनलाई मान्छेको नाममा राख्ने व्यवस्था थप बलियो बनायो । स–साना किसानले उत्पादन गर्ने खाद्यान्न अब ठूला किसान र कम्पनीहरूले उत्पादन गर्न थाले ।

सन् १९६० मा एक अमेरिकी किसानले सरदरमा २५ मानिसलाई खाना खुवाउँथ्यो, तर अहिले एकजनाले १२९ जनालाई खुवाउँछ अर्थात् थोरै किसानले धेरै उत्पादन गरेर धेरै मानिसलाई खुवाउन थाले । तर, त्यहाँ संख्या मात्रै थपिएन, नाफा पनि थपियो । नाफामा हिसाब उत्पादनको हुन्छ, माटोको गुणस्तरको हुँदैन ।

मानिसले पानी पिउँछ, खाना खान्छ, हावामा सास फेर्छ तर माटो पिउँदैन, खाँदैन । खासमा उसले त माटोलाई कुल्चिन्छ, खोस्रिन्छ । तर, जुन धरातलमा ऊ उभिएको छ त्यसबारे ऊ विरलै किन सोच्ने गर्छ ? ऊ मरेपछि जहाँ जान्छ ? त्यसबारे पनि ऊ खासै सोच्ने गर्दैन । ऊ त स्वर्ग वा नर्कबारे गम्नमै व्यस्त हुन्छ । ऊ भान्सामा तरकारी देख्छ, तर देख्नपर्ने माटो हो । चियाको रंग देख्छ, तर सोच्नुपर्ने माटोबारे हो । हावाबारे गम खान्छ, पानीबारे सोचिबस्छ, तर माटोलाई बाल दिँदैन । किन ? के माटो विरूप हुन्छ ? वा सोच्नलायक नै हुँदैन ?

खेतबारी, गाउँ–सहर, बाटाघाटा, पुल–पुलेसा जताततै मान्छेले माटोलाई कि थिचेको छ, कि खनेको छ, कि पेलेको छ, कि त घोलेको छ । नभए रसायन छर्केर घायल बनाएको छ । अहिले वार्षिक रूपमा ३५ लाख टन विषादी त मान्छेले माटोलाई पिलाउँछ ।

तर, माटो पछिल्लो पात्र हो पृथ्वीको । पृथ्वीमा पछिल्लो भनेको पनि ४५ करोड वर्षअघि हो । यहाँ करोड होइन, अर्ब वर्ष पुराना पात्र पनि छन् । मान्छेचाहिँ केही लाख वर्षअघि जन्मिएको पात्र हो, तर पछि आएको भए पनि उसले धमाका मच्चाएको छ । पुराना पात्रहरूलाई कज्याएको छ । मान्छेले नयाँ–पुराना सबैको हुर्मत लिएको छ ।

४५ करोड वर्षअघि के भएको थियो र जन्मियो माटो ? साढे चार अर्ब वर्ष पुरानो पृथ्वीले आफूमा माटोको लेपन लगाउन चार अर्ब वर्ष किन पर्खनुपर्‍यो ?

•••

एकतमासले बगेको यमानको माटाम्य त्रिशूली र माथि माटोको लेपन लगाएको अक्करे भीरबीच बनेको अलकत्रे धर्से बाटोमा खसेको पहिरोका कारण चरौंदीभन्दा केही पर गाडी रोकियो । माटे–पानी बगिरहेको हेर्दै म भने केही दिन अघि पढेको माटोबारेको अनुसन्धानबारे सोचिरहेको छु । सन् २०१२ मा ‘नेचर जीओ साइन्स’ मा एउटा अनुसन्धान छापिएको थियो, जसमा भनिएको छ– खासमा पृथ्वीमा माटो ४५ करोड वर्षअघि मात्रै बन्न सुरु भएको हो, जब वनस्पतिहरूको उदय भयो । हामीलाई लाग्छ, माटो नदीहरूले नाङ्गा चट्टानहरूलाई खुइल्याउँदै जाँदा, बगाउँदै गर्दा बनेको हो । तर, खासमा माटो रूखबिरुवाहरूले बनाएका हुन् । करिब ४५ करोड वर्षअघि जब स–साना बिरुवाहरूले जमिन कब्जा गर्न थाले, त्यसपछि माटो बन्न सुरु भयो । जब रूखबिरुवाको साम्राज्य बढ्दै गयो, तिनले हावामा रहेको कार्बनडाइअक्साइड ग्यास द्रुत गतिमा खपत गर्न थाले । कार्बनडाइअक्साइडको मात्रा घटेपछि पृथ्वीको तापक्रम ओरालो लाग्न थाल्यो । हिउँले ढाकिएको पृथ्वीमा हिउँ पग्लने गति बढ्यो । चट्टानहरू खुइलिन, टुक्रिन थाले र त्यसैलाई मिसाएर रूखबिरुवाले माटो बनाए र पानीलाई नियन्त्रण गर्न थाले । जता पनि बगिरहेको पानीले निश्चित बाटो बनाएर बग्न थाल्यो र नदी–खोला बने । चट्टानका टुक्रा र मरेका वनस्पतिहरूको अवशेषले थप माटो बन्दै गयो । पृथ्वी मलिलो बन्दै गयो । थप जीवनहरू फल्दैफुल्दै गए । पृथ्वीको स्वरूप नै फेरियो । आफू जन्मेको धेरै वर्षपछि मात्रै बल्ल पृथ्वीको छाला बन्यो अर्थात्– माटो ।

माटो आफ्नै गतिमा बनिरहेको थियो । बोटबिरुवा, जनावर, किराकिरी आउने–जाने भई नै रहेको थियो । तर, माटो धीमा गतिमा बन्छ, त्यसैले माटोलाई आफ्नो काम गर्न समय चाहिन्छ । अमेरिकी माटो–वैज्ञानिक डेभिड मोन्टगोमेरीको भाषामा भन्ने हो भने खासमा भूगर्भ र वनस्पति, जीवजन्तुको बिहेपछि जे जन्मन्छ, त्यो माटो हो । ढुंगा टुक्रिएर, बोटबिरुवा र अन्य जन्तु मरेर कुहिएपछि मलिलो माटो बन्छ । प्राकृतिक रूपमा माटो एक इन्च चाक्लो हुन सयौं वा हजारौं वर्ष पनि लाग्छ ।

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एकातिर उर्लंदो नदी, अर्कातिर खस्न खोजेको पहाडबाट फुत्किएपछि भेटेको भात– मुग्लिङमा । कुनै बेला पृथ्वी राजमार्गमा भातको अर्को नाम थियो– मुग्लिङ, तर अहिले समय फेरियो । मुग्लिङले फेरिन जानेन । थालमा तरकारी, दाल, भात, अचार, साग, खुर्सानी, लसुन, प्याज, अनेकथरी छन् । तर, माटोबारे पढ्न थालेदेखि मेरा आँखा फेरिएका छन् । म थालमा भात, अचार, साग वा तरकारी देखिरहेको छैन, माटो देखिरहेको छु । विषादी भनौं कि वा युरिया ! अथवा नाइट्रोजन, फसफोरस, क्याल्सियम ! तर, मान्छे माटोभित्र पसेर माटो केलाउन जान्ने भएको धेरै भएकै छैन ।

माटो बुझ्न निकै कठिन थियो, अझै पनि सजिलो छैन । पश्चिमा विश्वमा पाँचौंदेखि चौधौं शताब्दीसम्म विज्ञानले खासै चमत्कार गर्न सकेन, किनभने धर्म निकै हावी हुँदै गयो । विज्ञानको विकासमा खासै जोड भएन । त्योभन्दा अगाडि भएका वैज्ञानिक कामहरूले पनि खासै निरन्तरता पाउन सकेनन् किनभने धर्मले विज्ञानलाई तगारो लगाइदियो । तर, १५ देखि १८ औं शताब्दीमा वैज्ञानिक क्रान्ति भयो । वैज्ञानिक जगत्को पुनर्जागरण भयो ।

१६ औं शताब्दीको मध्यतिर वैज्ञानिक वर्नार्ड पालिसीले बिरुवाले माटोबाट सबै तत्त्व नुनको रूपमा लिन्छ भन्ने दाबा गरे, जसलाई नुन सिद्धान्त भनियो । तर, त्यसले खासै स्थान पाएन । १६ औं र १७ औं शताब्दीमा वैज्ञानिहरू भान हेलमन्ट र रोर्बट बोयलले भने रूखबिरुवाले सबै कुरा पानीमार्फत पाउँछन् र माटो केवल माध्यम मात्रै हो भन्ने सिद्धान्त निकाले, जुन लगभग सय वर्ष स्थापित रह्यो । १८ औं शताब्दीको सुरुतिर भने वैज्ञानिक अलव्रेख्त थाएरले ह्युमस सिद्धान्त निकाले र रूखबिरुवाले कार्बन नामक तत्त्व हावाबाट होइन, माटोबाट लिन्छ भन्ने दाबा गरे । विज्ञान लामो समय तर्कहरूमा सीमित थियो किनभने कुनै तर्कलाई प्रमाणित गर्न चाहिने तथ्य निकाल्न सक्ने उपकरण बनेकै थिएनन् । विज्ञान कुनै विधा नबनेको पुरानो समयमा कलाकार, दार्शनिक सबै तर्क गर्थे । माटोको विचित्रताले चकित परेका लियोनार्दो दा भिन्सीले समेत माटोको अध्ययन गरेका थिए । उनले सन् १५०४ देखि १५०६ सम्म गमलामा बिरुवा हुर्काएर माटो अध्ययन गरे । दुई वर्षपछि भने, ‘हामीलाई माटोभन्दा बढी त आकाशका तारा र ग्रहबारे जानकारी छ ।’ माटोबारे अनभिज्ञ थियो मानिस । केही रोप्थ्यो, फले खान्थ्यो, नफले थातथलो छाडेर अन्तै लाग्थ्यो । माटोले अन्न उत्पादन गर्थ्यो र त्यसैका भरमा शासकहरूले राज्यहरू चलाउँथे । राज्यको मेरुदण्ड थियो– माटो ।

माटो लामो समय भूगर्भ विज्ञानको अंग मात्रै बनेर बस्यो । १८ औं शताब्दीको सुरुवाततिर युरोपमा देशहरूको नक्सा निकाल्न सुरु गरियो, जहाँ कुन बाली र कुन प्रजातिको जंगल छ भन्ने संकेतहरूसमेत राख्न थालियो । त्यसैका आधारमा राज्यहरूले कर निर्धारण गर्थे । त्यसमा निकै अगाडि थियो– जर्मनी । त्यहाँ कर व्यवस्था लगाउने काममा लागेका जर्मन नागरिक फेडरिक फालोले माटोविज्ञानलाई पेडोलोजी नामकरण गरिदिए । पेसाले वकिल थिए फालो, तर उनको माटोमा गहिरो चासो थियो । माटोको गुणको आधारमा कर लगाउने काम भए पनि माटो ढुंगा, चट्टान फुटेर वा खिइएर मात्रै बन्ने वस्तु हो भन्ने बुझाइ व्याप्त थियो । तर, १९ औं शताब्दीको मध्यतिर माटो ढुंगा, चट्टान फुटेर वा खिइएर मात्रै बन्ने वस्तु मात्रै होइन, यसको आफ्नै जीवन छ, आफ्नै विशेषता छ र बन्ने प्रक्रिया छ भनेर केही वैज्ञानिकले तर्क गर्न थाले, जसमा रुसी भूगर्भशास्त्री भासिली दोकुचेभको अग्रणी स्थान छ ।

सन् १८४६ मा रुसमा जन्मेका भासिली दोकुचेभ एक भूर्गभशास्त्री थिए । दोकुचेभले लामा अध्ययनहरू गरे र भने, ‘माटो भनेको जलवायु, पितृवस्तु अर्थात् ढुंगा–चट्टान, भिरालोपना, समय–वनस्पति र जीवजन्तुको अवशेषको मिश्रण हो । माटोको आफ्नै बन्ने प्रक्रिया हुन्छ । यसको आफ्नै जीवन छ, आफ्नै विशेषता ।’ पछि उनको अध्ययन स्थापित भयो ।

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पेटमा हुलें– माटो वा खाना । जे भए पनि पेट भरेर, अक्करे भीर काटेर चितवनको समथर सौराहा पुग्दा गर्मी हप्प थियो । आकाश केहीबेर आराम गरिरहेको थियो वा बादल व्यवस्थापनमा व्यस्त थियो । ‘इल्सभियर’ मा प्रकाशित ‘माटोको सुरुवाती ज्ञान, जन्म र माटोविज्ञानको विकास’ शीर्षकको एउटा अनुसन्धानपत्र भने म सौराहामा राप्तीकिनारमा बसेर पढिरहेको छु । राप्ती पनि आफ्नो रंगमा छैन, उसको रंग पनि माटोकै भएको छ । खासमा नदीहरूलाई बगाउन माटोको ठूलो हात छ । माटोले पानीलाई अड्काउन सक्ने भए, रूखपात हुर्काउन सक्ने भए र त पानीले नदी–रूपी आफ्नो बाटो बनाउन पाए । कोही वर्षैभरि बग्न पाए, कोही बर्खामा बेगिने र हिउँदमा रित्तिने भए । नदीहरूले हरेक वर्ष नेपालबाट मात्रै २४ करोड घनमिटर मलिलो माटो बगाएर बंगालको खाडीसम्म पुर्‍याउँछन् भनेर एक अध्ययनले भन्छ । यसरी सयौं वर्ष लगाएर बनेको माटो बगेको छ, तर यहाँ माटोको कसलाई मतलब ? जाबो माटाको पनि के कुरा गर्नू ? सधैं नयाँ सरकार बनाउने हतारो हुने देशमा माटो, पानी, हावाबारे को सोचिबस्छ ?

राप्तीमा माटो बगिरहेछ, काठमान्डुमा सरकार ढलिरहेछ । राजमार्गमा पहिरो खसिरहेछ, काठमान्डुमा नयाँ सरकार बनिरहेछ । साँझ राप्तीमा माटो बगाउँदै गरेको दृश्य हेरेर सुतेका ज्यान बिहान दुईवटा बस सिमलतालको पहिरोले बगाएको समाचार सुन्दै उठ्यो, ६५ बेपत्ता । ती त्रिशूलीमा हराएका मानिस फेरि नयाँ सरकारका नाइकेहरूले देश र जनताका नाममा गर्ने चर्को भाषण गरेको सुन्नबाट बञ्चित भए ।

तर, माटोले सरकार मात्रै होइन सभ्यताहरूलाई समेत धरापमा पारिदिएको छ भन्ने हेक्का नेताहरूलाई हुँदैन किनभने नेताहरूले अर्को सरकारसम्म मात्रै सोच्न सक्छन् वा चुनावसम्म । तानाशाही, राजशाहीले भने छोरा–नातिसम्म सोच्न सक्छन् कि ? माटोले नै धेरै सभ्यताहरू बसायो र माटोकै कारण धेरै सभ्यताहरू हराए पनि । करिब १२ हजार वर्षअघिसम्म जंगल डुलिहिँड्ने मानिस अहिलेको इराक आसपासको मेसोपोटामियामा आएपछि रोकियो । अरू धेरै ठाउँहरूमा विभिन्न सभ्यताहरू बनिरहेका थिए । तर, मसोपोटामियामा प्रशस्त मात्रामा जंगली जौ र गहुँ देखेपछि टिग्रिस र युफ्रेट्स नदीबीचको भागको त्यो क्षेत्रमा मान्छेले खेतीपाती गरेर बस्ती बसाउन थाल्यो । त्यहाँ निकै मात्रामा पानी थियो, तर अहिले त्यो भेग धेरै सुख्खा छ ।

खेतीपातीको युग सबैतिर फैलियो । युरोप, अरब, दक्षिण अमेरिका, अफ्रिका सबैतिर । जसले माटोलाई बुझे ती सभ्यता धेरै टिके, जसले माटोलाई बेवास्ता गरे ती धेरै टिकेनन् । अधिक दोहन गर्नेहरूले थातथलो छाड्नुपर्‍यो । माटोलाई माया गर्नेहरूले माटोको पनि माया पाए । सबैभन्दा पुरानो भनिने मेसोपोटामिया सभ्यताको सुरुवातीमा सुमेरियन र बेबीलोनियनहरूले खेतीपाती राम्रो गरेका थिए, सिँचाइका लागि कुलो बनाएका थिए । तर, सुमेरियनहरूका पालामा पानीमा नुनको मात्रा बढी भएपछि उत्पादन हुन छाड्यो । त्यही बेला सुमेरियनहरूलाई बेबीलोनियनहरूले कब्जामा पारे र आफ्नो शासन सुरु गरे । पछि बेबीलोनियनहरू पनि सिद्धिए, जब छेउछाउका डाँडाहरूबाट व्यापक माटो बगेर नहरहरू भरिए । उनीहरूले पहाडका रूख मासेका थिए, जसले भूक्षय व्यापक भयो । उता इजिप्टमा नाइल नदीको उर्बरापनाले इजिप्टेलीहरूले धुमधाम उत्पादन गरिरहेका थिए । नाइल नदीमा बाढी आउँथ्यो, मलिलो माटो खेतमा भरिन्थ्यो र उत्पादन हुन्थ्यो । लामो समय नाइल नदीले उनीहरूलाई धान्यो । बाढीको पानीले माटोमा नुन थिग्रिन दिँदैनथ्यो र माटोलाई उर्बर बनाउँथ्यो । कतै माटोले उकास्यो त कतै खसाल्यो ।

माटाले आफ्नो काम गरिरहेको थियो । मान्छेले आफ्नो । सबै ठीकठाकै थियो । तर, जब मान्छे माटोभित्र पसेर त्यसलाई केलाउन सक्ने भयो, त्यसपछि उसले माटोलाई निर्देशन दिन थाल्यो । हैकम चलाउन थाल्यो । माटोले पृथ्वी अर्कै बनायो । मान्छेले माटो नै अर्कै बनाइदियो ।

इन्जिन बनेपछि त मान्छेले हातखुट्टाले काम गर्न छाड्दै गयो । इन्जिनले माटो उल्ट्यायो पल्टायो, गुल्ट्यायो । सकेसम्म धेरै बाली लगायो । एकातिर मेसिनले पेल्यो, अर्कोतिर रसायन ठेल्यो । त्यसपछि माटोले लय बिर्सियो । ऊ मान्छेको अधीनमा पर्‍यो । रसायन बालीमा, तरकारीमा पुर्‍याउने माध्यम बन्यो– माटो । माटो आफूले निर्णय गर्न छाड्यो । बाली कस्तो लगाउने ? कहिले लगाउने ? मात्रै होइन कति पोटासियम बिरुवामा पुर्‍याउने ? कति नाइट्रोजन हुल्ने ? कति फस्फोरस सोस्ने ? यो माटोले निर्णय गर्न पाउन छाड्यो । मान्छे क्याल्कुलेटर लिएर बस्यो, जर्किन भर्‍यो, युरिया छर्‍यो । खाना सहज हुँदै गयो, मान्छे पनि मौलाउँदै गयो ।

मान्छेले भकारी भर्‍यो, तर पैतालामुनिको विविधता र विचित्रको संसारलाई ध्वस्त बनायो । हाम्रो खुट्टामुनि यस्तो विचित्रको पारिस्थितिक प्रणाली छ, जसले हाम्रो कल्पनाशीलतालाई समेत चुनौती दिन सक्छ । एक मुठी स्वस्थ माटोमा त्यति सूक्ष्म जीव हुन्छन्, जति यो पृथ्वीभरिमा मान्छे छन् अर्थात् आठ अर्ब । तर, मान्छेले पैतालामुनिका अर्बौं जीव क्षणभरमै सखाप पारिदिन्छ, रसायन जो बनाउन सक्ने भएको छ मानिस । उसले पिचकारी बोकेर हिँडेको छ, माटो कब्जा गरेको छ । अहिले पृथ्वीभरिको माटोमध्ये ६० प्रतिशत त कुनै न कुनै रूपमा विषाक्त छ, बिग्रिएको छ ।

मान्छेले पृथ्वीको आधा बस्नयोग्य भूभाग आफ्नो खाना उत्पादनका लागि कब्जा गरिसक्यो, तर आज ८० करोड मानिस भोक नमेटी बस्न बाध्य छन् । किनकि यहाँ माटोमा अन्न होइन अर्थ फल्छ । अन्न पहिले पैसा बन्छ र मात्रै खाना । जोसँग पैसा छैन उसले अन्न हेर्न पाउँछ, खान पाउँदैन । त्यसैले त आज विश्वको ९० प्रतिशत अन्नको व्यापारमा चार कम्पनीको कब्जा छ । त्यस्तो विविधतायुक्त पृथ्वी बनाएको माटो अहिले लाचार छ । अहिले पृथ्वीमा चार बालीको वर्चस्व छ– गहुँ, धान, मकै र जौ । कुनैबेला विरलै भेटिने यी चार बालीले मात्रै पृथ्वीको आधा अर्ब बढी हेक्टर जमिन ओगट्छन् । चार बाली, चार कम्पनी ।

•••

सौराहाको धमिलो बगेको राप्ती नदीकिनारमा दुइटा हुट्टिट्याउँ उभिइरहेका छन्, सायद चारो खोज्दै छन् । धेरैबेर ती यताउता गर्दै बसे । छेउको रूखमा तीनवटा सारौं बसिरहेछन् भने भुँइमा केही कोटेरो मुनियाँ छन् । भर्खरै उड्न सिक्दै गरेको बचेरो सारौंलाई उड्न सिकाउँदै छन् उसका बाआमा सायद । केहीबेरमा एउटा गोही हुट्टिट्याउँकै छेउबाट पौडिँदै छ । आकाश बादलरूपी पानीले ढपक्कै छोपेको छ । कुनै पनि बेला खस्न सक्छ । खसेपछि त्यो बादल कतै माटोमा पस्छ, कतै जंगलमा फस्छ त केही हुर्रिएर खोला–नदी भेट्न आउँछ । नदीकिनारको होटलमा मान्छेले भने सफा, नीलो पौडी पोखरी बनाएको छ । धमिलो नदीछेउ नीलो पौडी पोखरी, त्यसैको छेउमा कफी र बार । पारि चितवन राष्ट्रिय निकुञ्जका बाघलाई भने त्यो क्याफेबारमा निषेध छ ।

विनाशको गति बढो तेज भयो, कृषिका कारण । अघिल्लो शताब्दीको ८० प्रतिशत वनफँडानी खेतीपातीका लागि भयो अर्थात् मान्छेका लागि । पृथ्वीमा पाइने चरा प्रजाति सबै जोख्ने हो भने अहिले उडिरहेका चराको भाग जम्मा २९ प्रतिशत हुन आउँछ बाँकी सबै मासुजन्य कुखुरा हुन् । सबै स्तनधारी जोख्ने हो भने जम्मा ४ प्रतिशत तौल स्तनधारी जंगली जनावरको हुन आउँछ । ३६ प्रतिशत मान्छेको र बाँकी ६० प्रतिशत घरपालुवा र मासुजन्य जनावरको छ । अर्थात् यो पृथ्वीमा कि त मान्छे छ, कि त मान्छेले खाने मासुप्रजाति छन् । जंगली प्रजाति त हराउँदै गए । माटोभित्रको विविधताको त लेखाजोखा पनि राम्रोसँग भएको छैन । कुल्चिहिँडने माटाको के लेखाजोखा !

बेलायती लेखक जर्ज मन्बइटले आफ्नो पछिल्लो किताब ‘रिजेनेसिस्’ लेखेका छन् । खासमा भन्ने हो भने अहिलेको सबैभन्दा ठूलो वातावरणीय समस्या माटोमा छ । यसरी माटोलाई पेलेर अगाडि बढ्न सम्भव छैन र त्यो निकै घातक हुनेछ । तर, केही बाठा मान्छेहरूले केही नयाँ कुरा सोचिरहेका छन् । उनीहरू हावामा खाना उत्पादन गरिरहेका छन् ।

‘मन्बोइट’ यो प्रविधिले माटोलाई राहत दिन्छ भन्नेमा विश्वस्त देखिन्छन् । यदि खेतमा नभएर हामीले सूक्ष्म जीवका ब्रुअरीहरू संसारैभरि खोल्न सके त्यहाँ सूक्ष्म जीवले खाना बनाउनेछन्, किसानले होइन । माटोमा होइन हावामा खाना फलाउने, घामको सहारामा । जमिनलाई राहत दिने, माटोलाई रम्न दिने प्रकृतिमै । उसले बनाएको विविधतायुक्त पृथ्वी उसैलाई फिर्ता गर्न मान्छेले सक्ला वा तयार होला ? झिनो आशा त राख्न पाइयो, तर मान्छे त्यति उदार प्राणी भने होइन ।

हावाबाट खाना फलाउने काम चाहिँ सुरु भइसकेको छ । फिनल्यान्डको हेलसिन्कीमा सोलार फुड नाम गरेको कम्पनी छ, जहाँ सूक्ष्म जीवले हावामा रहेको कार्बनडाइअक्साइड, हाइड्रोजन र अक्सिजन खान्छन् र झन्डै ७० प्रतिशत प्रोटिनयुक्त पिठो बनाउँछन् । ती सूक्ष्म जीवहरू किसानले एक किलो अन्न उत्पादन गर्दा लाग्ने पानीको जम्मा एक प्रतिशत पानी प्रयोग गर्छन् भने अहिले खपत भइरहेको जमिनको जम्मा पाँच प्रतिशत जमिन प्रयोग गरेर उत्ति नै मात्रामा खाना उत्पादन गर्न सक्छन् । त्यो ‘सोलेइन’ नाम गरेको पिठोको बजार परीक्षण गर्न सिंगापुरले अनुमति नै दिइसक्यो ।

•••

सिमलतालको पहिरे बाटो फर्कने आँट नभएपछि चितवनबाट गाडी हेटौंडा मोड्यौं र फेरि उकालियौं । भैंसे, भीमफेदी, सिस्नेरी, छैमले हुँदै फेरि भैंसेपाटी, पहिरा छिचोलेर । पुरानो भैंसीको पाटीमा आलिसान बंगला बनिरहेका छन्, जहाँ फेरिइरहने मन्त्री बस्न थालेका छन् । म मन्त्रीमहल आसपासको माटोमा बसिरहेछु, थचक्क । हामीले मन्त्रीबाट मुक्ति नपाए पनि के प्रविधिले माटोलाई मुक्ति देला ? फिनल्यान्डको सोलर फुड्सको कथाले मलाई हल्लाइरहेको छ । सधैं पिएर मात्रै हल्लिनुपर्छ भन्ने छैन । समाचार, विचारले पनि त हल्लाउँछन् । के मान्छेले अँचेटेको, पिरोलेको माटोले आफ्नै लयमा काम गर्न पाउला ? के त्यहाँ फेरि करोडौं सूक्ष्म जीवदेखि जनावर, रूखबिरुवा फर्कन पाउलान् ? माटो फेरि आफ्ना पुराना किरायादारहरू फर्केकामा खुसी हुन पाउला ?

म उठेर मन्त्रीमहलबाट उत्तर लागें । माटोबारे पढ्न थालेदेखि हरेक पाइलामा म कसै न कसैको लासमाथि टेकेर हिँडिरहेको छु भन्ने भान हुन थालेको छ । भविष्यमा तपार्इंको शरीरमाथि टेकेर कैयौं मानिस हिँड्नेछन्, तर तिनीलाई पत्तै हुनेछैन । तिनले तपाईंलाई खानेछन्, तर तिनले महसुस गर्ने छैनन् । किनकि माटोले तपाईंलाई आफूमै मिसाउनेछ, स्वाद फरक हुनेछ ।

आजसम्म कुनै पनि मानिस वा जनावर वा जीवजन्तुले यो पृथ्वी छाडेका छैनन् । उनीहरूले स्वरूप मात्रै फेरेका हुन् । ती कहिले धान बन्छन् त कहिले साल । कहिले कोदो बन्छन् त कहिले जौ । कहिले बाघ बन्छन् त कहिले बालक । यो पृथ्वीमा सबै कुरा घुमिबस्छ । सबै जीवजन्तु पनि घुमिबस्छन्, फरक–फरक स्वरूपमा । तर, ती सबैको रूप फरिदिने माटोले मात्रै हो । त्यो जननी हो र बिसर्जक पनि । माटो रहस्यको पोको हो । हरेकलाई आफूमा समाहित गर्न सक्ने, घोल्न सक्ने, मोल्न सक्ने, पुर्न सक्ने, उमार्न सक्ने, उफार्न सक्ने, थेचार्न सक्ने ।

कमजोर माटो, दूषित माटोले अन्ततः मानिसलाई नै सिध्याउँछ । माटो सधैं बेखुसी रहन सक्दैन र मान्छे माटोलाई भेन्टिलेटरमा राखेर सधैं उँभो लाग्न पनि सक्दैन ।

यसैले पैतालामुनि पनि बेलाबेला हेरौं, कुल्चेको छु भनेर माटोलाई नहेपौं । जिउँदो हुँदा उभिने आधार हो माटो, मरेपछि अरूलाई उभ्याउन सक्ने धरातल । माटो सबै जाने बाटो हो र फर्कने पनि । त्यो हो, जीवन–मरणको राजमार्ग ।

Ramesh Bhushal

On a fine morning in April 2022, Mount Everest can be seen clearly from the Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park office in Namche, northeastern Nepal, the snow from its peak evaporating to form a thin layer of cloud. Bishnu Rokaya, the park’s assistant conservation officer, has little time for the beauty on display as he flips through the pages of their latest annual report. He points to a passage stating that, “from mid-2020 to mid-2021, over three hundred livestock [animals] were killed by wild animals in the park and its buffer zone areas, for which we have paid the communities a sum of over 9 million rupees [USD 85,000 USD] as compensation for their losses.”

Himalayan wolves – one of the Nepal’s least-studied wild animals – are playing an outsized role in the problem.

According to the report, of the 323 livestock animals killed, 234 – over 70% – were killed by Himalayan wolves, known locally as bwasho. And this number has been rising year on year, says Rokaya. “We don’t know the exact reason for this increased number of casualties, but it has become a very serious issue for us and the communities in recent years,” he says.

The Himalayan wolf, also called the Tibetan wolf, has a population of several thousand in adjoining Tibet, but the number living in Nepal is unknown. “Much of conservation focus has been on snow leopards in the high mountains due to which wolves have received negligible attention, but both are the top predators in the region,” says Naresh Kusi, country program director at the Himalayan Wolves Project, who has been researching wolves for the past few years.

Factbox: The Himalayan wolf may be a separate species

The scientific status of the Himalayan wolf is unclear, though research has shown it is genetically distinct from other Eurasian wolves.

“Studies on wolves from Asia are fewer [than on other wolves] and the taxonomy of various Asian wolf populations is not clearly established,” stated a recent scientific review on Asian wolves led by Geraldine Werhahn, director at the Himalayan Wolves Project. The review concluded that the Himalayan wolf, as well as the Indian wolf, are distinct enough to be considered separate at the subspecies or species level.

“Our research suggests that Himalayan wolves are genetically different and adapted themselves to low oxygen levels at high altitude and are eligible to be a subspecies,” says Naresh Kusi of the Himalayan Wolves Project, adding that its status is now under review by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In the meantime, Nepalese law still lists its wolf population it as the grey wolf, as a nationally endangered species.

Did Himalayan wolves follow yaks into Nepal?

While the current presence of Himalayan wolves in Nepal’s mountains is beyond doubt, how long a resident population has been present is contentious.

“Wolves were here for ages but they hadn’t colonised [the areas in Nepal] permanently as their big population is in Tibet just across the border, where abundant prey species are present compared to Nepal’s mountains. Those temporary populations were often killed by herders as retaliatory killing which wouldn’t have [come] to the notice of park authorities as the population was small,” says Kusi.

Image: Yaks and porters en route to Tibet, on an expedition to bring yaks from Tibet to the Syangboche Yak Breeding Centre in Nepal in 2014 (Image: Lalan Yadav, Syangboche Yak Breeding Centre)

Locals also say that while wolves have long been present in the area, until recently there had been no serious conflict except occasional retaliatory killings by herders. “We had wolves in the Everest region when I was a kid,” says Lhakpa Norbu Sherpa, who served as the first chief conservation officer of the national park in 1983. “There were wolves even before the park was established in 1976 but complaints of livestock killing increased sharply after 2015.”

Many locals believe the apparent rise in wolf numbers is linked to an import of yaks from Tibet in 2014. That year, 30 yaks were brought over from Tibet via Nangpa La pass – northwest of Everest – to the Syangboche Yak Breeding Centre, to cross-breed and improve the genetic quality of the local yak population. A team of 25 took 16 days to reach the location in Tibet where the Chinese government had delivered the yaks, hiking through thick snow; the return journey with the animals took another seven days. “I just can’t believe how we survived that journey,” says Lalan Yadav, livestock technician at the yak breeding centre.

Yaks and porters en route to Tibet, on an expedition to bring yaks from Tibet to the Syangboche Yak Breeding Centre in Nepal in 2014 (Image: Lalan Yadav, Syangboche Yak Breeding Centre)

A couple of years after the Tibetan yaks’ arrival, locals started to complain about wolves attacking yaks and other livestock. “Locals have said that a [pack] of Tibetan wolves followed those yaks and then started to live here permanently. I, too, believe it is possibly true,” says Lalan.

Pema Tshering Sherpa is a resident of Khumjung village, a little uphill from the Syangboche breeding centre. He believes that the yaks brought in Himalayan wolves to the region. “Livestock killing has dramatically increased after 2015. That coincides with yaks’ arrival from Tibet, so it must be the reason,” says Sherpa.

Researchers don’t deny the possibility of wolf packs following the yaks from Tibet but, Kusi says, “It needs to be validated with scientific evidence which we don’t have, at least for now.”

Human-wolf conflict increasing, but information sparse

In 2013, Nepal introduced its first guidelines to compensate communities for any loss or injury of livestock caused by eight types of wild animal: elephants, rhinos, bears, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, wild boar, and wild buffalo.

In 2015 the government decided to add Himalayan wolves, clouded leopards and wild dogs to the list. “We had started to receive complaints from locals that wolves have been killing their yaks and horses in the region but had no way to compensate,” says Ganesh Pant, an ecologist at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, who was chief conservation officer of the national park in 2015. “So we recommended an addition of wolf to the list that allowed us to pay NPR 30,000 [USD 240] for any loss of livestock,” he says.

The problem continued to worsen, but with little official documentation of the number of livestock killed; there is no information available on compensation paid for livestock losses from wolves before mid-2018. Nonetheless, once compensation for livestock losses became official policy, the park started to take a more proactive approach to understanding the situation.

In 2017, a meeting between park authorities and local herders from the Ngampa valley to the west of Mount Everest was held at the park’s office in Namche. Former chief conservation officer Lhakpa Norbu Sherpa attended, and told The Third Pole how a local herder vented his frustration. “[He said] if you don’t want to kill the wolves, you might [as well] kill us. As a former warden of the park and now an elder from the Nangpa Valley, I felt hemmed in between a rock and a hard place,” Sherpa recalls.

As more cases of conflict were reported in the region, Lhakpa Sherpa and his team conducted a survey of predators in the Nangpa valley over four months in summer 2019. He was able to take pictures of Himalayan wolves in the wild, a rare achievement, along with solid photographic evidence of a leopard, a snow leopard, red foxes, and brown bear paw prints.

Image: A rare photograph of a Himalayan wolf in Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park, Nepal (Image © Lhakpa Norbu Sherpa)

Without research, solutions to conflict are lacking

A 2019 study from central Nepal found that Himalayan wolves selected wild prey over livestock during the summer period despite the seasonally overwhelming abundance of yaks and goats in the study areas. However, Kusi suggests the situation could be different around Everest, in eastern Nepal. “It looks like they have adapted now locally in the Everest region and have increased in numbers too. Possibly due to insufficient wild prey in the region, they might have started to kill livestock more frequently,” he says.

One other reason for the high number of livestock being killed in the Everest region could be surplus killing, when wolves kill almost all animals in a shed or in a group, beyond what they could eat. “We don’t know exactly why they do this but if we invest more on research and understand their behaviour, we can avoid them and can reduce conflict if herders are well informed with reliable information about wolves,” Kusi adds.

But officials at the park say they don’t have the resources to carry out such research. “We have very limited budget so we have a plan to seek support from donors and research organisations to understand more about Himalayan wolves that could help us better plan to mitigate conflict,” said Bhumi Raj Upadhyay, chief conservation officer of the park.

रमेश भुसाल

याे लेख कान्तिपुर दैनिकमा २२ मंसिर २०२२ मा प्रकाशित भएकाे थियाे ।

अघिल्लो साँझ ठमेलको एक होटलमा हाम्रा गाइडले सचेत गराए, ‘रसुवागढीमा सबैको मोबाइल र क्यामरा चेक हुन्छ, चिनियाँ अधिकारीहरूले सबै फोटो हेर्छन्, हटाउनु । कुनै किताब नबोक्नु, फाल्दिन सक्छन् । केरकार गर्छन् ।’

हजारौं फोटो सारेर सुत्दा बिहानको २ बजेको थियो । थाकेको ज्यान लिएर म बिहानै भैंसेपाटीबाट कलंकी हानिएँ । जीपीएस पनि नबोकेको राम्रो भनेका थिए गाइडले । जे पर्ला–पर्ला भनेर क्यामराकै खोलभित्र हालें । मलाई पूरै यात्राको नक्सा बनाउन मन थियो । जसका लागि देशान्तर र अक्षांश, यात्राको दूरी, जमिनको उचाइ चाहिन्थ्यो जुन जीपीएसले रेकर्ड गथ्र्यो । देखे फाल्देला, नदेखे गजब भइहाल्यो ।

असोज पहिलो साता । दसैं नजिकिँदै थियो । मानिसहरू घर फर्कने योजना बुन्दै थिए । फेसबुकको म्यासेन्जरमा केही साथी र आफन्तका सन्देश आइसकेका थिए, ‘ह्याप्पी दसैं, घर आउँदै छु, मिलाएर भेटम्ला है ।’ मैले उत्तर दिएको छैन । उनीहरू आउने बेला म कर्णाली नदीको किनारमा हुनेछु । नदी चिन्ने, प्रकृति र संस्कृति बुझ्ने यात्रामा ।

कैलाशदेखि गंगासम्मको ४५ दिने यात्रामा तीन देश पुगिन्छ— चीनको स्वशासित क्षेत्र तिब्बत, नेपालको उत्तरदेखि दक्षिण र भारतका सीमावर्ती प्रान्तहरू उत्तरप्रदेश र विहार । काठमाडौंबाट गाडीमा रसुवा हुँदै तिब्बतको केरुंग, सागा सहरबाट कैलाश पर्वत र मानसरोवर । कैलाशभन्दा दक्षिणपश्चिमबाट नेपालका हुम्ला, बाजुरा, कालिकोट, दैलेख, अछाम, सुर्खेत, डोटी कैलाली हुँदै भारतको उत्तरप्रदेशस्थित बहराइच, अयोध्या । अनि उत्तरप्रदेश र विहारको सीमाको छप्रा जिल्लामा गंगा र कर्णाली नदीको दोभानमा यात्रा टुंग्याउने हाम्रो योजना थियो, झन्डै ११ सय किलोमिटरको कर्णाली नदीलाई शिरदेखि पुछारसम्म पछ्याएर ।

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भैंसेपाटीबाट कलंकी जाँदा छेउछाउका धुलाम्मे घरहरू हेर्दै मनमनै भनें– अबको केही छिनमा फोक्सोलाई म चकित पार्छु । तर, मेरो यो योजना भोलिपल्ट चीन नपुगेसम्म सफल भएन । धूलो रोकिएन । बस चढेर जाने विदेश भारत मात्रै जस्तो लाग्थ्यो । चीन पनि थपियो । पासपोर्ट बोकेर बसमा पहिलो पटक विदेश ।

दर्जनौं पटक तिब्बती पठार चहारेका हुम्ली पेमा लामा गाइड समूहका नाइके थिए । ३५ वर्षदेखि संसारभरिका नदीका छाललाई पछ्याउँदै आएका मेघ आले हाम्रो टोली नेता । हामी उनलाई नदीमान्छे भन्छौं । उनी नदीका ताल पढ्छन् । र पछ्याउँदै बग्छन् । धेरैजसो छालमाथि उनको विजय हुन्छ । कहिलेकाहीं छालले जित्छ र डुंगा पल्टाइदिन्छ । ‘नदीमा हारजित भइरहन्छ भाइ । जिन्दगी बित्यो छालसँग खेलेर । मर्ने बेलासम्म खेल्न पाइएला कि नपाइएला । यो यात्रा जीवन्त हुनेछ,’ उनले आफ्नो हात मतिर ल्याए । हामीले हाई फाइभ गर्‍यौं । उनले ९० को दशकमा पहिलोपटक कर्णाली नदीमा डुंगामा बगेको सम्झे । त्यसपछि उनी सयौं पटक यो नदीमा बगेका छ्न् । उद्गमस्थलसम्म जान लागेको चाहिँ पहिलो पटक ।

पिछडिएको पश्चिमी तिब्बत । पिछडिएकै कर्णाली क्षेत्र । र, यस्तै उत्तरप्रदेश र विहार । भौतिक रूपमा पिछडिए पनि प्राकृतिक रूपमा अति सुन्दर । कैलाशमा भगवान् शिव बसे । अयोध्यामा रामले जन्मिए, लुम्बिनीमा गौतम बुद्ध । यी सबैलाई जोड्ने कर्णाली नदी । त्यसैलाई पछ्याउँदै हिँडेर, गुडेर, बगेर, डेढ महिना बिताउने हाम्रो योजना । टोलीमा नेपाल नदी संरक्षण संस्थाका अध्यक्ष पनि रहेका उनै मेघ आले, फोटोग्राफर नवीन बराल, पानी तथा नदी विज्ञ सन्तोष नेपाल, चरिचरणक्षेत्र व्यवस्थापनविज्ञ विनय पासखल, मानवशास्त्री अस्टिन लर्ड र म । तिब्बतबाट नेपालको हुम्ला झरेपछि ग्रामीण पर्यटनविज्ञ प्राध्यापक प्रेम शर्मा, जलचर विज्ञ दीपनारायण शाह र भूगर्भशास्त्री क्यारेन बेनेट मिसिए ।

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कतिबेला चिनियाँले बोलाउँछन् र जान पाइन्छ भनेर रसुवागढीभन्दा तीन किलोमिटर वरैबाट दर्जनौं ट्रक केरुंग जाने प्रतीक्षामा थिए । आजलाई नाका बन्द भयो । बाटोमै ट्रक राखेर केही ड्राइभर र सहचालक स्टोभ निकालेर खाना पकाउँछन् । कोही होटलतिर लाग्छन् । कोही गाडीमै रात काट्छन् । चिनियाँले बोलाएपछि तिब्बत छिर्छन् र सामान बोकेर फर्कन्छन् । ‘नेपालका प्रहरीसँग चिनियाँहरूको खासै संवाद हुँदैन । उनीहरूले पठाइदेऊ भनेपछि गाडी छोडिदिने हो, नभए रोक्ने हो,’ एक नेपाली सुरक्षाकर्मीले भने । हाम्रा सुरक्षाकर्मी चिनियाँ सुरक्षाकर्मीका आदेशपालक मात्र हुन् । ठूलो र सानो, गरिब र धनीको भेद प्रस्ट देखिन्थ्यो । अधिकार र भौतिक संरचना दुवैमा । चीनपट्टि अन्तर्राष्ट्रियस्तरका सेवासुविधा भएका कार्यालय छ, नेपालपट्टि सानो टहरो । दुई वर्षअघि त टिनले बारेको छाप्रो थियो ।

केरुंगबाट बग्दै आएको गिरोंग जांग्बो नदी नेपालमा त्रिशूली बन्छ । महादेवले त्रिशूल बझार्दा पानी निक्लेको भनिने गोसाइँकुण्ड क्षेत्र त्रिशूली नदीको उद्गमस्थल मानिन्छ । यसको एउटा शाखा तिब्बती सहर केरुंग अथवा गिरोंग उपत्यका छिचोलेर गहिरो खोंचबाट दक्षिणपूर्व बग्दै रसुवागढी आइपुग्छ ।

रसुवागढीस्थित नेपाल–तिब्बत नाकाको एक छेउमा रसुवा किल्ला छ । १८५५ मा भएको नेपाल भोट युद्धमा तिब्बत आक्रमण गर्न जंगबहादुर राणाले बनाएको किल्ला । कुनै बेला तिब्बतलाई युद्धमा जितेको बहादुरहरूको भूभाग अहिले विचित्रको हीनभावले ग्रसित छ । टीठलाग्दो मुख लगाएका सुरक्षाकर्मी, चिनियाँहरूको हेपाइ सामान्य मान्दै सुस्ताइरहेका सवारीचालकहरू र डरले ग्रसित टुरिस्ट गाइडहरूको मलिन अनुहार ।

हामीले चीनको विशाल भवनलाई पछाडि पारेर फोटो खिच्दै थियौं । पेमा लामा हत्तारिँदै आए, ‘चाँडो जाउँm अहिले फेरि रोक्छ ।’ हामी हतारहतार चीनतिर लाग्यौं । पुल कट्नेबित्तिकै पेमाले लाइन लाग्न भने । सबैको भिसा एउटा कागजमा छ जसमा नाम, पासपोर्ट नम्बर र जाने ठाउँहरूको सूची छ । हरेकको पासपोर्टमा पहेलो स्टिकटमा एउटा नम्बर टाँसिएको थियो । लाइन लाग्ने बेला पेमाले पासपोर्टमा भएको नम्बरअनुसार बस्न भनेपछि थाहा भयो, त्यो स्टिकर किन टाँसिएको रहेछ । भिसा कागजमा जुन रोलक्रम छ त्यसैअनुसार पासपोर्टमा नम्बर टाँसिदिएका रहेछन् काठमाडौंका भिसा अधिकारीले ।

हाम्रो सामान मेसिनचेक गरेर भित्र पठाइयो । सबैको मोबाइलमा भएका फोटा चेक गर्न एक महिला र पुरुष हरियो पोसाकमा थिए । कम्तीमा एक जनालाई ५ मिनेट लगाएर जाँचे । मेरो पालो आयो । सोचेको थिएँ, हिजो खिचेका केही तस्बिर मात्रै मोबाइलमा छ । अरू डिलिट गरिसकें । तर, डिलिट गरेका झन्डै २५ सय फोटा ट्रयास फोल्डरमा रहेछन् । मैले ट्रयासबाट हटाउन बिर्सेछु । रातभरि निद्रा मारेको अर्थ रहेन । फोटो फोल्डरमा कम फोटो देखेपछि उनले ट्रयास फोल्डर खोले । सबै फोटो हेरे । लगत्तै पासपोर्ट कन्ट्रोलमा पुगियो । पासपोर्ट केहीबेर राखेर दिए तर स्ट्याम्प लगाएनन् । तिब्बत छिरेको कि मलाई थाहा छ कि त चीन सरकारलाई । पासपोर्टमा केही प्रमाण छैन । जीपीएस र क्यामरा भएको झोला छेउको एक्स रे मेसिनबाट पास हुँदै थियो । मेरा आँखा उतै थिए । झोला पास भएपछि ढुक्क भयो । छिमेकीकहाँ जाँदा पनि कत्रो डर !

हामीलाई लिन एक नेपाली बोल्ने मानिस पासपोर्ट कन्ट्रोलनेर बसिरहेका थिए । हाम्रा तिब्बती गाइड रहेछन् । उनले टेक्न पाउने अन्तिम पाइला यही पासपोर्ट कन्ट्रोल रहेछ । सानैमा भागेर भारतको धरमशाला गएका उनी पछि तिब्बत फर्के । त्यसपछि विदेश जाने छुट छैन ।

सामान बोक्ने एउटा सानो ट्रक र मान्छे बोक्ने माइक्रोबसजस्तो अर्को गाडी हामीलाई कुरेर बसेका थिए । गाडी चढ्नेबित्तिकै भित्र दुइटा सीसी क्यामरा जडान गरेको देख्यौं । हामीपट्टि फर्काइएको । भित्र हुने कुरा रेकर्ड हुनेरैछ । हामी सजग भयौं । गिरोंग जांग्बोको तिरैतिर हामी चिल्लो बाटोमा ९०–१०० किलोमिटर प्रतिघण्टा गतिमा हुइँकियौं ।

सीमा कट्नेबित्तिकै कति धेरै कुरा फरक, भूगोल उस्तै भए पनि । उनीहरू दाहिने गाडी चलाउँछन्, हामी देव्रे । पुलवारि नेपालमा बिहानको ८ बज्दा पुलपारि सवा १० । बेइजिङकै समय । घाम–जूनले फरक नदेखे पनि राजनीतिक आँखाले फरक देख्छ । हामीले बाँधेको सिमानाले पारि चीन भन्छ वारि नेपाल । कुनै बेला मानिसहरू बिनारोकतोक वारिपारि गर्थे, बिहेबारी चल्थ्यो अहिले भिसा चाहिन्छ । नभए विशेष पास । समय बदलियो । चीन धनी र शक्तिशाली हुँदै गयो हामी झन्झन् कमजोर ।

केरुंग भविष्यलाई धेरै सोचेर बनाइएको नाकाजस्तो देखिन्छ । यस सुन्दर उपत्यकामा एउटा विकसित सहरमा हुनुपर्ने सबैजसो पूर्वाधार बनाइसकिएको छ । योजनाबद्ध तरिकाले चीनले तातोपानी नाका सारेर केरुंग पुर्‍याइसकेको छ । ‘पाँच वर्षअघि र अहिलेको तिब्बतमा धेरै फरक छ,’ पेमाले भने । पुरानो खोज्न धौ–धौ हुन्छ अहिले । पुरानो त केही घर र गुम्बा मात्रै हुन अरू सब नयाँ ।

सेनाले खोलेको स्याफ्रुबेंसी बेत्रावती सडक मात्र राम्रोसँग चालु हुने हो भने ७–८ घण्टामा केरुंगबाट वीरगन्ज पुगिन्छ । तिब्बतबाट नेपाल हुँदै भारत जोड्न यति छोटो र सजिलो बाटो अहिले अर्को छैन । बिहार र उत्तरप्रदेशमा ३० करोडभन्दा बढी मानिस छन् । दसवटा नेपाल बराबरको जनसंख्या । त्यही बजार पुग्न सजिलो भए काफी छ चीनलाई । त्यसैले रेल केरुंग आउँदै छ र काठमाडौं पनि आउने हल्ला छ ।

नेपाली धेरै देखिन्छन् केरुंगमा । खासगरेर रसुवा, सिन्धुपाल्चोक र नुवाकोटका मानिसहरू काम गर्न जाँदा रहेछन् । रेस्टुराँ, डान्सबारमा काम गर्न । कति ज्यालादारी मजदुरी गर्न ।

फेसबुक, ट्वीटर, इन्स्टाग्राम सबै सामाजिक सञ्जाल मोबाइलबाट हटाएर वी च्याट मात्र राखेको थिएँ । गाइडले फेसबुक पनि चेक गर्न सक्छ भनेका थिए त्यसैले । खासमा दलाई लामाका फोटा वा त्योसँग सम्बन्धित अन्य सामग्री कतै देखे केरकार गर्ने रहेछन्, उस्तै परे फर्काइदिने । केरुंग पुगेर घमाइलो दिनमा खुलेका हिमाल, चिल्ला सडकमा गुडिरहेका गाडीको छोटो भिडियो खिचेर मीनाक्षीलाई पठाएँ, ल है तिब्बत पुगियो भन्ने सन्देशसहित । केही सेकेन्डपछि वी च्याट बन्द भयो र सन्देश आयो, ‘योर वी च्याट एकाउन्ट ह्याज विन फाउन्ड सस्पिसियस, इट्स् ब्लक्ड ।’ भरपर्दो म्यासेजिङ एप भनिएको सिग्नल मैले म्यानमारमा डाउनलोड गरेको थिएँ । एक–दुई पटक चलाएको पनि थिएँ । साथी नवीन बरालको वी च्याट ब्लक भइसकेको थिएन । त्यसबाट मीनाक्षीलाइ एड गरेर सिग्नल डाउनलोड गर भन्ने सन्देश पठाएँ । त्यसपछि तिब्बतमा रहँदा त्यसैबाट घरसँग सम्पर्क गरें ।

तिब्बती गाइडको नाम मिंगमार रहेछ । प्रस्ट नेपाली बोल्ने । सबैलाई तिमी भन्ने । एउटै कुरा दोहोर्‍याइरहने । ‘तिमीहरूलाई म पहिल्यै भन्दिन्छु, हैन, देयर इज नो ह्वाई इन चाइना, ओके,’ उनले सुरुमै भनेका थिए । तर, हामी बेला–बेला प्रश्न गथ्र्यौं । उनले केही उत्तर दिन्थे । केहीचाहिं ‘देयर इज नो ह्वाई ओके’ भनेर टार्थे । बेलाबेला हामीलाई तिब्बतबारे सुनाउँथे । चीन आएपछि के भयो भनेर सुनाउँथे । तीब्बतमा विकास भएकामा खुसी थिए । चीनको शासनप्रति भने गुनासो थियो । मैले सीसी क्यामराले काम गरिरहेको छ कि भनेर सोधें । ‘छैन, हामीले तार छुटाइदिएका छौं । यो नभएपछि स्पिडको मतलब हुँदैन जसरी मन लाग्यो उसरी गुडाउन मिल्छ,’ मिंगमारले भने । हामी अलि ढुक्क भयौं । तर, उनले चीनप्रति गरेको टिप्पणी देख्दा मलाई अलिअलि डर लागिरहेको थियो, कतै हामीलाई उस्काएको त हैन भनेर ?

उनले आफ्नो कथा सुनाए । ‘१५ वर्ष भारतको धर्मशालामा बसें । स्कुल त्यही पढें । केही वर्षपछि नेपाल आएँ । दुई–तीन वर्ष पोखरा बसें । पछि परिवारलाई कहिल्यै भेट्न पाउँदिनँजस्तो लाग्यो । अनि तिब्बत फर्कें । थाहा थियो मलाई सजाय हुन्छ तर पनि फर्कें ।’ उनी बेलाबेलामा ‘बुझ्यो हैन’ भन्थे । हामी टाउको हल्लाउँथ्यौं । उनले थपे, ‘मलाई ३ वर्ष जेलमा राख्यो सरकारले । त्यसपछि बिस्तारै गाइडको रूपमा काम गर्न थालें । मेरो कुनै नराम्रो रेकर्ड छैन । मलाई विश्वास गर्छ सरकारले ।’ उनी पियक्कड थिए, नौ दिनसम्म नपिएको कुनै समय थिएन । हामीलाई लेक लाग्ने डर । उनी त ५ हजार मिटरमा पनि स्वाट्टस्वाट्ट ।

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केरुंगबाट झन्डै दुई सय किलोमिटर उत्तरपश्चिममा सागा सहर भेटिन्छ । पश्चिम नेपालको हिमालपारि हुम्ला र मुगुभन्दा उत्तरको तिब्बती क्षेत्रमा अवस्थित छेमायुंगदुंग हिमनदीबाट सुरु हुने ब्रह्मपुत्र नदी (तिब्बतमा यार्लुंग जांग्बो भनिन्छ) सागा सहर हुँदै पूर्वतिर बग्छ । पूर्वमा भुटान पल्तिर अरुणाञ्चल प्रदेशबाट दक्षिणपश्चिम मोडिन्छ र आसाम पार गरेर बंगलादेश पस्छ । पश्चिमबाट बिहार हुँदै आएको गंगा नदी र पूर्वबाट आएको ब्रह्मपुत्र बंगलादेशमा मिसिन्छन् र बंगालको खाडीमा पोखिन्छन् । एसियाकै सबैभन्दा लामा र ठूला १० नदीमध्येको एक हो ब्रह्मपुत्र । यसको लम्बाइ झन्डै तीन हजार किलोमिटर छ । कैलाश पर्वत पुग्नु केही घण्टाअघि ब्रह्मपुत्र नदीको मुहान जाने बाटो देखाउँदै मिंगमारले भने, ‘म मुहानमै पुगेको छु ।’ सडकछेउमा गाडी रोकेर पिसाब फेर्न लाग्दै गर्दा उनले केही ढुंगा जम्मा गरिरहेको थिए ।

‘सबै जना यता आऊ म तिमीहरूलाई बुझाइदिन्छु,’ मिंगमारले बोलाए । बीचमा एउटा ढुंगा राखे । पूर्व, पश्चिम, उत्तर र दक्षिण पारेर अरू चारवटा । ‘बीचको कैलाश पर्वत हो । कैलाशको पूर्वपट्टिको हिमालबाट ब्रह्मपुत्र निस्किन्छ, यसलाई ताम्चोक खम्बाब अथवा घोडाको मुखबाट निस्केको नदी भनिन्छ । यो तिब्बतबाट भारत हुँदै बंगलादेश पुग्छ । पश्चिमपट्टिबाट सतलज नदी निस्किन्छ, यसलाई लांगचेन खम्बाब अथवा हात्तीको मुखबाट निस्केको नदी भनिन्छ यो भारतको पन्जाब पुग्छ । दक्षिणतिरबाट कर्णाली निस्किन्छ यसलाई माप्चा खम्बाब अर्थात् मयूरको मुखबाट निस्केको नदी भनिन्छ । यो नदी नेपालको हुम्लाबाट बगेर कैलाली झर्छ र भारतमा पुगेपछि घाघरा नदी बन्छ । उत्तरतिरबाट इन्डस् निस्किन्छ जसलाई सिंगी खम्बाब अर्थात् सिंहको मुखबाट निस्केको नदी भनिन्छ । त्योचाहिं जम्मु कश्मीर हुँदै पाकिस्तान कटेर अरबियन सागरमा मिसिन्छ,’ उनले बेलिविस्तार लगाए ।

तिब्बतमा माप्चा खम्बाब भनिने कर्णाली नदी नेपालको हुम्लास्थित हिल्सा नाका छिरेपछि कर्णाली बन्छ । कैलालीबाट दक्षिण लागेपछि घाघरा । अयोध्यामा यसलाई सरायु भनिन्छ भने त्यहाँबाट दक्षिणपूर्व बगेर बिहारको राजधानी पटनाभन्दा उत्तर पश्चिमस्थित छप्रा जिल्लामा गंगामा मिसिन्छ । गंगा नदीको सबैभन्दा ठूलो र दोस्रो लामो शाखा नदी कर्णाली हो । तिब्बतबाट भारतसम्म यसको लम्बाइ १०८० किलोमिटर छ भने नेपालमा यो ५ सय ७ किलोमिटरको दूरी बग्छ । नेपालका सबै ठूला नदी उत्तराखण्ड, उत्तरप्रदेश र विहारमा गंगा नदीसँग मिसिन्छन् । गंगाको ७० प्रतिशत पानी नेपालका नदीहरूबाट जान्छ ।

कैलाश पर्वतको दक्षिणमा दुइ ठूला ताल छन् (राक्षस ताल र मानसरोवर । झन्डै १५ मिटरको उचाइले मात्रै छुट्टिएका दुई तालबाट एकआपसमा पानी बगेर पनि जान्छ वर्षामा । राक्षस तालमा नुहाउने त कुरै भएन हेर्न पनि हुन्न भन्दा रहेछन् । मानसरोवर तालमा एक डुबुल्की मार्न मानिसहरू लाखौं खर्चेर हजारौं किलोमिटरको दूरी पार गरेर आउँछन् । हुम्लीहरू यो ताललाई लंकारी ताल भन्छन् । नेपालको हुम्ला, बाजुरालगायतका जिल्लामा स्थानीय मानिसहरूले कर्णाली नदी राक्षस तालबाट आएको हुनाले कर्णालीको विकास नभएको र पिछडिएको मान्दारहेछन् । तर, यो टोलीका वैज्ञानिकहरूले दुई दिन लगाएर गरेको स्थलगत अध्ययनबाट कतैबाट पनि राक्षस तालको पानी कर्णाली नदीमा मिसिएको देखिएन । राक्षस तालभन्दा दक्षिणमा रहेको गुर्लामान्दाता हिमालबाट निस्केका दुईवटा हिमनदीको पानी ४०–५० किलोमिटर उत्तरपश्चिमबाट बग्दै आएको अर्को शाखा नदीमा मिसिएको मात्र देख्यौं । त्यो नदी नै नेपाल छिरेपछि कर्णाली हुने हो ।

हामी राक्षस तालबाट दक्षिण झरेर कार्दुंग गाउँ हुँदै उत्तर लाग्यौं । मिंगमार घरीघरी रमाइला कुरा सुनाउँथे । पौराणिक कथा पनि भन्थे । कच्ची बाटोमा कर्णाली किनारैकिनार गुडिरहँदा उनले कैलाश पर्वतको कथा सुनाए, ‘हिटलरले दोस्रो विश्वयुद्ध हुनुअघि आफ्ना फौजका केही मानिसलाइ कैलाश पर्वत पठाएका थिए । समय नै परिवर्तन गरिदिने साँचो तिब्बतमा छ किनभने यो ब्रह्माण्डकै केन्द्रविन्दु हो भन्ने थाहा पाएर त्यो साँचो खोज्न यहाँ पठाएका थिए,’ आफैंले देखेजसरी मिंगमारले भने । खासमा हिन्दुहरू कैलाश पर्वतमा ध्यानमग्न भएर बसेका शिवजीसँग ब्रमाण्ड चलाउने शक्ति भएकाले उक्त स्थानलाई ब्रह्माण्डकै केन्द्रविन्दु मान्छन् ।

पछि खोज्दै जाँदा एउटा रमाइलो प्रसंग भेटें, सायद मिंगमारले यसैको आधारमा कथा बुनेको हुनुपर्छ । सन् १९३९ सेप्टेम्बरमा दोस्रो विश्वयुद्ध सुरु हुनु केही महिनाअघि मात्रै जर्मन नागरिक अर्नेस्ट साफरको टोलीले जर्मनीको तर्फबाट पहिलो आधिकारिक तिब्बत भ्रमण गरेको रहेछ । तिब्बतको इतिहास, संस्कृति र जैविक विविधताको तथ्यांक संकलन गर्ने टोलीको रूपमा उनीहरू आएका रहेछन् । प्राणीशास्त्री साफरको नेतृत्वमा ब्रिटिस इन्डियाको अनुमति लिएर सिक्किमबाट ल्हासा, सिगात्सेलगायतका स्थानहरूमा भ्रमण गरेको सो टोलीलाई तिब्बत सरकारले दुई महिना बस्ने, अनुसन्धान गर्ने र फोटो खिच्ने अनुमति दिएको रहेछ । तर, सो भ्रमणलाई हिटलरका प्रोपोगन्डा मन्त्री जोसेफ गोएबल्सले राजनीतिक रङ हालिदिएका थिए । गोएबल्सले प्रोपोगन्डा गर्ने जर्मन पत्रिकामा सो टोली अलिखित मान्डेटसहित तिब्बत हिँडेको समाचार छपाएपछि भारतमा ‘द स्टेट्स्म्यान’ पत्रिकाले तिब्बतमा नाजीहरूको घुसपैठ भन्ने लेख छापेको रहेछ । त्यसपछि बेलायती अधिकारीहरूले साफरको टोलीलाई कलकत्ताबाटै फर्काउने प्रयास गरे पनि सफल भएनन् । सो टोली फर्किने बेला हिटलरलाई एक जोर लामा पोसाक, एउटा तिब्बती कुकुर र बौद्ध धर्मावलम्बीहरूले प्रयोग गर्ने कांग्युर धर्मग्रन्थ उपहार लगिदिएका थिए । सयौं फोटो र सयौं वनस्पति र वन्यजन्तुका नमुना संकलन गरेर टोली फर्केको केही दिनमै दोस्रो विश्वयुद्ध सुरु भएको थियो । सायद यसैलाई मिंगमारले हिटलरले पठाएको टोली भनेको हुनुपर्छ ।

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मानसरोवर तालबाट उत्तरपश्चिमममा हामीले दुई रात टेन्टमा बितायौं । मिंगमारले एक स्थानीयलाई एक दिनका लागि हामीसँग हिँडेर मुहान देखाइदिन अनुरोध गरेका रहेछन् । बिहानै ६ बजेतिर म टेन्टबाट निस्कनेबित्तिकै एउटा सेतो एसयूभी गाडी देखेपछि तर्सें । कतै हामीलाई तिब्बती अधिकारीहरूले पछ्याइरहेका त छैनन् भनेर । मैले सोचेको थिएँ, एउटा झोला बोकेका मैलो कपडा लगाएर लुखुरलुखुर हिँडेर आउलान् तिब्बती गाइड भनेर । तिब्बत परिवर्तन भइसक्यो भन्ने पेमाको भनाइ मैले बिर्सेछु ।

एसयूभी गाडी हामी बसेको क्याम्पभन्दा माथि जाँदैनथियो । हामी उनकै पछि लागेर हिँड्यौं । अलि अगाडि कर्णाली तर्नुपर्ने थियो । बिहान घाम नलाग्दै हामी कर्णाली तर्दा पानी यति चिसो थियो कि बीचतिरै कतै मूच्र्छा परिएलाजस्तो । जुत्ता खोलेर एक मिनेटजतिमा नदी तरियो । पारि पुग्दा खुट्टा आफैंसग छन् कि छैनन्जस्तो भयो ।

आधा दिन हिँडेर एउटा ठूलो मूलमा पुग्यौं । मैले जीवनमा देखेको सबैभन्दा ठूलो मूलमध्ये एक थियो त्यो । मयूरको आकारको पहाडको फेदैनिरबाट निस्केको मूल झन्डै २० मिटर तल उत्तरपश्चिमको गरुडा उपत्यकाबाट आएको एउटा नदीमा मिसिन्छ । कर्णालीको सबैभन्दा लामो दूरीको उद्गमस्थल गरुडा उपत्यका भए पनि यो मूल निस्केको पहाडकै नाममा तिब्बतमा यस नदीलाई माप्चा खम्बाब भनिएको हो— स्थानीय गाडडले भने । माप्चा भनेको मयूर र खम्बाब भनेको मुख अर्थात् मयूरको मुखजस्तो पहाडबाट निस्केको नदी ।

पश्चिमी तिब्बत पिछडिएको क्षेत्र मानिन्छ । सन् ६० को दशकमा सुरु सडक निर्माण कार्यले ५–७ वर्षअघि मात्र पूर्णता पाएको हो । अहिलेका राष्ट्रपति सी चिनफिङले खास महत्त्वका साथ यहाँका विकास निर्माण काम गराइरहेका छन् । जताततै नयाँ सडक बन्दै छन् । हेरक गाउँलाई आधुनिकीकरण गरिएको छ । बिजुली पुर्‍याइएको छ । हरेकजसो गाउँमा नयाँ घर बन्ने क्रम तीव्र देखिन्छ । प्रत्येक घरका सदस्यलाई प्रतिव्यक्ति रकम दिएर सरकारी इन्जिनियरको डिजाइनअनुसार दुईतले घर बनाउने काम भइरहेको छ । मिंगमारका अनुसार चीनले सन् २०२० सम्म सबैलाई नयाँ घर, २०२५ सम्म सबै तिब्बतीलाई रोजगारी भनेको छ । राजनीतिक रूपमा बोल्न पहिलाजस्तो कडाइ अहिले छैन, बिस्तारै खुकुलो पारिंदै छ । योभन्दा पछाडिको पुस्ता चिनियाँ हुन्छ तिब्बती हुँदैन, योचाहिँ पक्का छ । हरेक गाउँका स्कुलमा बास्केटबल कोर्ट, केटाकेटी खेल्ने सरसामान देखिन्छ ।

धेरैजसो एउटा अंग्रेजी गीत हाम्रो गाडीमा बज्थ्यो । बबी म्याकफेरिनले गाएको– ‘डन्ट वरी वी ह्याप्पी । इन एभ्री लाइफ वी हाव सम ट्रबल, ह्वेन यू वरी यू मेक इट डबल’ । सुसेली हाल्दै गाइएको यो गीतले भन्छ— सबैको जीवनमा दु:ख हुन्छ, चिन्ताले दु:खलाई दोब्बर गरिदिन्छ, त्यसैले चिन्ता नगर, खुसी होऊ । यो बज्नेवित्तिकै मिंगमार खुसी हुँदै गाउन थाल्थे ।

विकास हुँदै जाँदा तिब्बतमा चिनियाँ प्रभाव बढ्दै छ । बिस्तारै तिब्बती संस्कृति हराउँदै छ । ‘तिब्बतमा अब जमिन मात्रै तिब्बती हुन्छ अरू सबै चाइनिज ।’ तिब्बतीहरू बाहिरका मानिससँग खासै कुरा गर्न चाहँदैनन् । केही भइहाल्ला भन्ने डरले हो कि । एउटा गाउँमा एक महिलासँग पेमाले माथि गुम्बामा जान पाइन्छ भनेर सोधे । सुरुमा हुन्छ भनेका उनले केही बेरपछि दौडिँदै आएर दुई सय मिटर जति परको प्रहरी चौकीमा सोधेर जाऊ भने । सायद उनी घरका अरू कोही सदस्यलाई सोधेपछि हामीतिर आएको हुनुपर्छ ।

संवाद गर्न तिब्बतमा गाह्रो छ । सागा सहरमा हामी सुप खान रेस्टुरेन्ट गएका थियौ । कफी, ब्रेड, केक सबै पाइने पश्चिमा शैलीको रेस्टुरेन्टको मेनु भने चाइनिजमा । काम गर्ने पनि चाइनिज मात्र बोल्ने । हामीले कति नै गरे पनि भेज सुप अर्डर गर्न सकेनौं । एक छिनपछि छेउमा राखेको मनिप्लान्टजस्तो बिरुवालाइ देखाएर भेज सुप भनेपछि बल्ल वेटरले बुझे । हामीले भेज सुप खायौं ।

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हामी ताक्लाकोट झर्‍यौं । यो सहरलाई बुरांग वा पुरांग पनि भनिन्छ । कर्णाली नदीको तीरमा बसेको यो नेपालको हिल्सा नाका झर्नुअघिको सबैभन्दा ठूलो तिब्बती सहर हो । नगरको यसरी पुनर्निर्माण भइरहेको छ कि यो पूरै एउटा ठूलो व्यवस्थित होटलजस्तो बन्दै छ । नेपालले तिब्बतमा भएको विकासबाट धेरै कुरा सिक्न सक्छ । हाम्रा नेता चिनियाँहरूको निम्तोमा घुम्न त जान्छन् तर उनीहरूले गरिरहेको व्यवस्थित बस्ती विकास र योजनाबद्ध सहरीकरणका बारेमा बुझ्नभन्दा पनि फोटो खिचेर सामाजिक सञ्जालमा हाल्न धेरै समय खर्च गर्छन् । एकदम छरिएका तिब्बत बस्तीहरूलाई उनीहरूले व्यवस्थित सहरमा परिणत गर्दै छन् । ससाना गाउँहरूलाई कुनै एक ठाउँमा सारेर । हाम्रोजस्तो पहाडी, हिमाली भेगका लागि विकासको पहिलो काम भनेकै छरिएका बस्तीहरूलाइ समेटेर स–साना शहर र वा गाउँहरू बनाउनु हो । त्यसपछि जनघनत्व र व्यापारिक महत्त्वका हिसाबले सडक सञ्जाल बनाउने वा उद्योग खोल्ने । जता मन लाग्यो उतै डोजर झोंसेर घरघरमा सडक पुर्‍याउने ध्याउन्नमा लागेका हाम्रा नेताले पनि केही सिके हुने ।

तिब्बतका अधिकांश ठाउँका पहाडमा सोलारका ठूलाठूला प्लेट राखिएका छन् । जहाँ सकिन्छ त्यहाँ हावाबाट बिजुली निकालिएको छ । कर्णाली नदीमा दुईवटा जलविद्युत् आयोजना सञ्चालन गरिएका छन् । बनाइएका सडकहरूबाट निस्केको ढुंगा–माटो कतै छरपस्ट देखिँदैन हाम्रोमा जस्तो ।

नेपालीहरू हुम्ला, दार्चुलाबाट यहाँ काम गर्न ताक्लाकोट आउँछन् । यहाँभन्दा माथि जान उनीहरूलाई छुट छैन । पहिलापहिला कैलाश जाने गरेका सीमावर्ती जिल्लाका मानिस पनि अहिले जान पाउँदैनन् । त्यसका लागि काठमाडौंबाट भिसा लिनुपर्छ । केही मानिसले पुस्तौंदेखि यहाँ व्यापार गरिरहेका छन् । नेपालका दार्चुला र हुम्ला अनि भारतको धार्चुलाका मानिसहरूका लागि छुट्टै बजार बनाइदिएको छ सरकारले । ताक्लाकोट बजारको उत्तरमा कर्णाली नदीकै किनारमा ठूला भवन बनिरहेका छन् । ती सुपरमार्केट हुन् । ‘अब सबै नेपाली र भारतीयको दोकान पनि त्यतै सार्ने योजनामा छ सरकार,’ एक नेपालीले भने । जाडो महिनामा भारत र नेपालमा आएर सामान खरिद गर्छन् र गर्मी सुरु भएपछि ताक्लाकोट गएर व्यापार गर्छन् । कात्तिकदेखि फागुनसम्म त पूरै बन्द ।

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‘सबै जना १० बजे रेडी हुनू, आर्मीले हामीलाइ साढे १० बजे बोलाएको छ,’ पेमाले भने । नवीन र मैले राति अबेरसम्म बसेर फोटो र भिडियो हार्ड डिस्कमा राखिसकेका थियौं । फोटो वा भिडियो चेक गरे भने फालिदेलान् भन्ने डरले हामीलाई सताइरहेको थियो । अस्टिन लर्ड भन्ने साथी हामीलाई नभनी पारिपट्टिको गुम्बा हेर्न गएछन् । उनी ११ बजेसम्म फर्किएनन् । मिंगमारले थर्काए, ‘अब तिमीहरूको साथी आएन, यतै बस आज पनि ।’ हामी केही बोलेनौं । ‘आर्मीले पूर्णिमाको रात सांस्कृतिक नाचहरू गर्छ । दिनभरि चेकिङ हुँदैन । अब हामीलाई साँझ मात्रै बोलाएको छ,’ हामीलाई जानकारी दिइयो । म र नवीन भने थप डरायौं । अस्टिन नआएपछि हामीले हाम्रा कुकलाई एउटा हार्डडिस्कचाहिँ चामलको बोरामा राखिदिन भन्यौ । खासै केही त थिएन तर दु:ख गरेर तिब्बतमा खिचेका तस्बिरका माया लागेको ।

चिन्ता पनि कति गर्नुपर्ने । ९ दिन ९ वर्षजस्तो भइसकेको थियो । साढे ११ बजेतिर अस्टिन आइपुग्यो । ढिला भइसकेको थियो । दिनभरि होटलमा कुर्‍यौं । साँझ साढे ५ बजे मेसिनमा सबै सामान चेक गरेपछि हामीलाई एउटा पास दिइयो । अब गाडीबाट झर्न पाइँदैन । हिल्सामा सामान चेक गर्ने मेसिन नभएकाले ताक्लाकोटमै सबै कुरा चेक गरेर पठाउँदा रहेछन् । हिल्सामा पासपोर्ट देखाएर बाहिर निस्कने मात्र ।

आधा घण्टामा सरर हिल्सा आइपुग्यौं । आफ्नो देश भनेको आफ्नै हो । अझ यो पनि नगर् त्यो पनि नगर्, उता पनि नजा यता पनि नजा । जहाँ भन्यो त्यहीं बस् भन्ने हैकममा बिताएका नौ दिनमा कम्ता सकस भएन । पासपोर्ट चेक गराएपछि बाहिर निस्केर मिंगमार र गाडीका दुई चालकलाई बिदाबादी गर्‍यौं । अँगालो मार्दै मिंगमारले भने, ‘राम्रोसँग जाउ, वी च्याटमा कुरा गरौंला ।’

हाम्रोतिरको कथा उस्तै छ । एउटा टेन्ट टाँगेर केही सुरक्षाकर्मी बसेका छन् । रजिस्टरमा नाम लेख्छन्, पासपोर्ट हेर्छन् र छाप हानिदिन्छन् । त्यसपछि नेपाल छिरियो । ‘एक जनालाई १०–१२ हजार दिएर ताक्लाकोटबाट चकलेट र अरू सामान ल्याइदे भनेको ५ दिन भयो फर्केकै छैन, त्यसलाई जान्याछु, आयो भने यहीं थुन्दिने हो,’ एक सुरक्षाकर्मीले सुनाए । सायद उनीहरू घर फर्कंदै थिए र केही सामान लान चाहन्थे । हुम्लातिरका एक व्यापारीलाइ पैसा दिएर पठाएका रहेछन् भोलि नै आउँछु भनेर चीन गएको ५ दिन हुँदा पनि नफर्केपछि चिन्तित भएका रहेछन् । प्रहरीलाई नै झुक्काइदिएछन् भन्दै हामी मुसुमुसु हाँस्यौं । ‘अब जाडो सुरु हुन्छ । हामी सिमिकोट झर्ने हो । हाम्रो पोस्ट पनि तिमीहरूले नै हेर्देऊ भनेर जाने हो चिनियाँलाई,’ उनले थपे । आफ्नो नाका अरूलाई जिम्मा लगाएर छाड्ने मुलुक विरलै होलान् यो पृथ्वीमा । काठमाडौं पशुपतिनाथको, हिल्सा कैलाशको कृपाले चलेको छ । सबै शिवजीकै जिम्मा ।

याे लेख कान्तिपुर दैनिकमा २२ मंसिर २०२२ मा प्रकाशित भएकाे थियाे ।