tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55486082012-02-11T09:54:59.170-05:00The civil wars of the twenty-first century: Sushma Joshi's slightly twisted perspective of the universe.Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.comBlogger1931100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-23845365791009593402012-01-26T11:34:00.000-05:002012-02-01T11:39:48.784-05:00

We know a lot about Burma. We know of violations of human rights waged against the political opposition and ethnic minorities, recruitment of child soldiers, political prisoners, refugees, and forced labor. We also know about the ongoing struggle between the military junta and Aung San Suu Kyi and her many house arrests. When people need an example of an undemocratic country, they will quote

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Published in Bertelsmann Stiftung's "Future Challenges" I was in Bangkok last mid-April when it started to pour heavily with rain. I was in Sukumvit Road, the heart of the commercial district. Trying to walk to my hotel, I found that my road quickly flooded with rain within a few hours. I returned to Kathmandu, and followed with anxious trepidation news of the flooding in Thailand via Twitter

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October 2011 By Sushma Joshi Tracking down a far-off Nepali community. My flight to Yangon on 18 June is cancelled. Thai Airways announces that heavy rain has closed Yangon airport. In the restless gloom of the waiting area, rumours start to spread. The Myanmar Army has taken over the airport, people whisper. Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday is a day away. Has some event occurred while they have

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(0 Votes)12345 Sushma Joshi4Other news by SUSHMA JOSHIJun 26 2011Death in BangkokJun 12 2011Together in Chiang MaiJan 01 2011Forging a pathDec 12 2010Tragedy in HaitiRelated NewsJun 26 2011Death in BangkokJun 12 2011Together in Chiang MaiJan 01 2011Forging a pathDec 12 2010Tragedy in HaitiDec 05 2010Successful migrationsNov 14 2010Asian diplomacyOct 31 2010Back and forthOct 10

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To the traveller’s eye, Chiang Mai is a gracious little city. It is cut through at the centre with a medieval brick wall, reminding the traveller that this city, unlike Bangkok, has an architectural heritage. Bangkok’s bold and brash embrace of modernity and capitalism has made it a city of dreary concrete skyscrapers. Chiang Mai, on the other hand, shows off its Thai architectural heritage with

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(0 Votes)12345 Sushma Joshi0Related NewsJul 17 2011The culture of givingJun 26 2011Death in BangkokJun 12 2011Together in Chiang MaiDec 12 2010Tragedy in HaitiDec 05 2010Successful migrationsNov 14 2010Asian diplomacyOct 31 2010Back and forthOct 10 2010Ten days of silenceOct 03 2010A few public subjectsUseful Links» A new way to read online, exact replica of your daily and

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Kao San Road is Bangkok’s Thamel. And like Thamel, you can find street side stalls that sell colorful cotton clothes, handicrafts, and carved wooden souvenirs. But what you may not expect to find there are Nepali vendors. As we walk past one vendor selling small phone accessories and electronic goods, the cheap radio lures me back with a familiar tune from Bollywood. I look at the man and ask:

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A house divided | Oped | :: The Kathmandu Post :: A house divided The global and the local Sushma Joshi SEP 25 - Yesterday, as I watched live on television President Obama give his speech in front of the UN General Assembly, one thing struck me: this man knows how to create consensus. Unlike his predecessor ex-President Bush, who seemed to specialise in dividing the world and creating

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 SUSHMA JOSHI As the rivers rose this monsoon, I thought about a trip I’d taken last year in the spring. I was going from Dharan to a village in Saptari. I had been told the bus trip would take two hours. As the bus started to bump and grind through a white expanse of sand, I realised I was crossing the breach in the Koshi barrage. Here and there, there were desultory

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Guava leaf cure Sushma Joshi AUG 14 - Last Tuesday, Kalpana Dhimal (28), hung herself after she couldn’t afford health care for her infant daughter. The baby died a day later. “Poverty-stricken mom hangs self,” was the headline of a national daily. According to the same report, the child was running a 105 degree fever. The nursing home demanded Rs.1,700 per day. Like many women, she didn’t

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SUSHMA JOSHI Two weeks ago, I wrote an article titled “Guava Cure.” In it, I discussed the soaring costs of allopathic healthcare, and suggested traditional medicine (TM) may provide an alternative to hospital and doctor care. That evening, I got two responses. The first one said: “You are an incurable romantic! A believer in magic! All those leaves and herbs that you

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Sushma Joshi JUL 24 - The Kathmandu Post São Paolo is the third largest city in the world—after Mexico City and Bombay, according to some commentators. São Paolo is also the city with the largest population of Japanese outside Japan.Immigrants usually come from poorer countries, in my experience. Urban metropolis from New York to London have neighbourhoods named Chinatown and little Italy and

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SUSHMA JOSHI, Kathmandu Post, 18 July 2010A young Nepali friend of mine, who spends most of his time in a rather charming coffee shop and who seems to mysteriously make lots of money in “marketing consulting” gigs that he gets through referrals and the Internet, told me recently that the time had come to outsource Nepal’s government to the experts.I laughed. I said: “Outsource the government? But

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Kathmandu Post, Sunday, 2010/07/04Every morning, on my way to work, I pass the Bishnumati river. From the turnoff from Kalimati, I can already smell the powerful stench of rotting offals from the wounded body of the water body. Like a dying snake it lies, surrounded by the filth of a city intent on smothering it with sewage. The water is dark black, like ink. Every day, I walk past that fetid

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Sushma Joshi Kathmandu Post, JUN 19 - A few days ago, I was on my way to work when all of a sudden, out of the window of the shuttle van, I saw what appeared to be thousands of young people lining up and around Thapathali, all the way towards the Darshrath Rangashala. The line was composed of young people in their twenties and thirties. In another country (India maybe) these folks could be

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Kathmandu Post, May 16, 2010Mary Douglas was a social anthropologist who came up with an interesting insight into human culture. In her book “Purity and Danger,” Mary Douglas looks at the idea of dirt. What is dirt in one culture may not be in another, she says. Dirt, therefore, is anything that a given society considers out of place. Ideas of pollution, she says, is contextual — it depends upon

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Kathmandu Post, May 16, 2010 Mary Douglas was a social anthropologist who came up with an interesting insight into human culture. In her book “Purity and Danger,” Mary Douglas looks at the idea of dirt. What is dirt in one culture may not be in another, she says. Dirt, therefore, is anything that a given society considers out of place. Ideas of pollution, she says, is contextual

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-1075428894033119552010-04-19T06:44:00.002-04:002010-07-19T06:50:28.309-04:00

REPUBLICAKATHMANDU, April 19: I was one of the panel of judges for the sixth VOW Top 10 Women Competition. I was a judge for graduate level students. Singer Robin Sharma and businesswoman Seema Golccha were also on the same panel. The final 10 winners were awarded prizes at a ceremony held at the Hotel Radisson in Lazimpat on Sunday.

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SUSHMA JOSHI MAR 27 - Kathmandu PostPrabal Gurung has become a household name in most of the planet, and yet, ironically, remains fairly unknown in Nepal. After starting his own fashion label titled Prabal Gurung, Prabal is on his dizzying way to dress some of the most famous people in the world. Recently, Michelle Obama was seen wearing his black-and-white brush-painted rose-silk twill gazar

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Prabal Gurung has become a household name in most of the planet, and yet ironically remains fairly unknown in Nepal. After starting his own fashion label titled Prabal Gurung, Prabal is on his dizzying way to dress some of the most famous people in the world. Recently, Michelle Obama was seen wearing his black and white brush painted rose silk twill gazar hand draped off-the-shoulder dress.

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-44268208382095427432010-03-14T12:56:00.000-04:002010-04-01T12:59:26.099-04:00

SUSHMA JOSHI A high UN official got ticked off by Nepali civil society for using the word “boring”. It was a “boring argument,” he said, to blame UNMIN for the failure of the peace process. He went on to make a bold statement: “It basically means people are not doing their own work and looking around for somebody else to blame.”This, I thought, was quite interesting (the opposite of “boring.”

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SUSHMA JOSHI2010/03/07I rarely watch TV — guilty admission, I don’t own one. So when I got my hands on a remote control and flipped the channel, I was agape to see an ad in an international channel. People sailed off cliffs in paragliders, rushed through mountains in sleek bikes, and jumped through empty space tied to bungee cords. Thumping techno music held me spellbound. An ad for an extreme

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The information gap | Oped | ekantipur.comFEB 14 - On a recent consultation between donors and grassroots groups, in which I was a participant, it was interesting to note that the tenor of the conversation hadn’t changed much in the last ten to fifteen years I’ve been involved in Nepal’s development world. The donors still said they were giving a significant amount of money to government (20

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SUSHMA JOSHI 2010/02/07I was slouching along the road one day, my face swollen with a root canal treatment, my articles unwritten, when I came upon the ever-inspiring poet Manjul. “Here is one of our beloved writers!” said Manjul enthusiastically to his friend. Reeling from a family party in which I had been attacked over my writing the night before, I grouched: “You don’t know how popular. You

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Himal South Asia Guest Blogger Sushma JoshiKancha Iiliah, writer of “Why I am not a Hindu,” talks about how Dalits are not just outcastes, they are “outwriters.” Their literature is not seen to be valid, people are not interested to read what they write. People ask and say: Can there be such a thing as Dalit literature? If there can be Vedic literature, and Bhakti literature, and Marxist

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HIMAL SOUTH ASIA BLOGI eat god,I drink god,I sleep on god…It is the first day of the Jaipur Literature Festival and Girish Karnad, who is supposed to give the keynote lecture, along with heavyweights like Wole Soyinka and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., are missing in action. They are possibly lost in the Delhi fog, or the traffic, or maybe they didn’t even depart their home cities and countries in the

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Friday, January 29th, 2010 by Guest Blogger Sushma JoshiWhy are people willing to trade freedom for prosperity and material comfort, asked John Kampfner. His book, Freedom for Sale, looks at eight countries as examples of places which have traded in freedom for material security and prosperity. He was born in Singapore and lived in China and Russia—where except for a group of “fearless

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ART REALLY DOES MATTER | Oped | ekantipur.comART REALLY DOES MATTERSUSHMA JOSHI JAN 02 - I admit it—I’m a culture hound. That’s why I may have been asked to do this roundup for the year’s arts and culture by The Kathmandu Post. Despite my desire to attend every programme and be everywhere, that’s simply not been possible, so I’ll focus myself on the arts I do know best—literature (fiction, more

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DEC 27 - One Nepali man of Brahmin origin who’d grown up in the States, and with whom I was hanging out in those moments when you think you might be compatible enough to share the rest of your life with, told me kindly that he’d finally diagnosed what my problem was. I had, he said, the Angry Brahmin Girl syndrome. Angry Brahmin Girls could never get over the gender discrimination they faced when

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SUSHMA JOSHI Sushma JoshiKATHMANDU, DEC 20, The Kathmandu Post - The music was akin to jatra music. I was walking on the Lazimpat road and assumed the music was for some festival. Oil lamps burnt on the ground, and men carefully put red powder on the words. I mimicked the dance — one man smiled. Then I looked down and realised the words said: The autonomous Newa state. Ah. Then I looked deeper

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Free to be you & meSushma Joshi DEC 18 - At the recently concluded Kathmandu Mountain Film Festival, after the screening of In Search of the Riyal, Kesang Tseten’s moving documentary about Nepali migrants’ plights in the Gulf, a young man got up. “I am in Grade 12,” he said, in bad English, “Do you think I could get a job in the Gulf with my qualifications?” The packed hall had just spent an

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I always wonder why people in Nepal are so aware of celebrities from other countries, but don’t recognize their own. This December, for instance, Oprah magazine, the magazine of one of the world’s most influential and wealthy woman Oprah Winfrey, features a beautiful red gown on its cover. That gown is designed by no other than Prabal Gurung, our own fashion designer. Sadly, our children know all

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Coming from Nepal, the Copenhagen climate change talks were very important to us because 65% of Nepali people are farmers and for many of them the lack of rain for the past three winters along with the very meagre monsoon we had this year really affected the amount of food they could grow. For many of these people, the food they grow is all they have to eat; they don't have a job. Despite the

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DEC 05 - About a year ago, I started an anti-white rice andolan in our house. The strategy was this: each time my mother put rice in front of me, I would say, “White rice!” in exaggerated horror, then ask for some other grain. Maize maybe, or wheat. My mother was heavily offended. She thought I was insulting her, not the rice. “White rice is full of calories! There aren’t any trace minerals! The

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http://tchadonline.com/video-photosl’occident-hypocrite-face-aux-sacrifices-danimaux/ VIDEO & PHOTOSL’Occident « hypocrite » face aux sacrifices d’animaux TOL : 05:35 LES OBSERVATEURS 27/11/2009 / NÉPAL Tous les cinq ans, près d’un million d’Hindous participent à un festival, dans l’ouest du Népal, où l’on sacrifie buffles, chèvres, coqs et pigeons par milliers. Les défenseurs des droits des

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Sushma JoshiKathmandu PostNOV 28 - In a gathering at my Kathmandu house where we incidentally sat around and ate buffalo momo dumplings, I said, “I wonder what psychological trauma the people around Gadhimai feel through all the pain of the sacrificed animals!” My logic, that somehow the violence inflicted on the animals must reflect on the humans, and that somehow this would lead to more

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Hear my submission: “Gadimai brings to light what happens every single day in cattle farms across the planet.”

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SUSHMA JOSHI Kathmandu PostNovember 19: When I was in college, our American campus was abuzz with students talking about “deccentering” power. This decentering happened to all sorts of power centers, from white men to Europe to English Literature. White men, who as everybody knows are the center of the world, were a particular target: bright undergraduates would try to pull apart their

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SUSHMA JOSHIKathmandu Post October 13-I am sitting under the full moon outside the Puri Saraswoti temple in Ubud, Bali. Behind the red doors of the performance stage is the temple of Saraswoti, the gracious patron of arts and music whose presence can be felt everywhere on this island. In front me sits Arjuna in full regalia and meditation. He (actually a she dressed as a he) is about to be

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Kathmandu Post, September 26, 2009SUSHMA JOSHII remember Asthami, the eighth day of Dashain, from the old days. My grandfather, notorious for his bad temper, would climb down the rickety steps of his older brother’s house, fuming silently by the time the puja was finished and it was time to chop off the goats’ heads. He never had to wait for his food, so the one day in 365 when a row of female

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SUSHMA JOSHIKathmandu Post20 September: As a student in the USA, I became used to meeting with Nepalis “sponsored” by American friends. These folks, usually from remote villages, harbored a complex mixture of emotions—sadness at their lot in life, gratitude at their friends (and sometimes a sense of entitlement), hidden annoyance at the often unsubtle ways in which their poverty was pointed out

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Sushma JoshiSeptember 6: This morning, I heard a series of frantic mewing coming from tree foliage twenty feet up in the air. I walked under the thick bouganville, but couldn’t locate the plaintive meows. Then I saw it—a black and tan kitten caught midway in the fork of a straight and bare tree trunk. Its okay, get down now, I said. Motivational speaking, funnily, works on freaked out kittens

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SUSHMA JOSHI When Basanta Thapa of the Himal Association called me up and asked me if I’d like to be one of the jury members of the UK Nepal Climate Change Competition, it sounded easy. “We’ve received three films,” he said. “About seven have registered to send more.” We estimated at the most about two dozen films, each three minutes long, that we’d watch in one sitting.When I rushed in at 9:15am

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Sushma Joshi 09/8/14I became a hippie by mistake. A few days before my 19th birthday, a man approached me in the co-operative house where I used to live in Providence, New York, and asked: “Would you like to follow the Grateful Dead?” “Yes!” I answered, having not the slightest clue what or who the Grateful Dead were. “Do you know what you’re getting into?” My friend Naomi, who was accompanying

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Sushma Joshi Kathmandu Post, 2009/07/31Long before it became fashionable in Kathmandu to discuss ways to eradicate caste, class and ethnic boundaries and discrimination, there was one Nepali space where this was already taking place. The hill station of Darjeeling, where the British went to cool off, has retained an institutional legacy of colonialism that even the staunchest post-colonialist

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By Sushma Joshi A charming little vegetable bazaar sets up at evening at the public plaza near my home. Candles twinkle in the dusk, temple bells rings, and clusters of children gather as the vendors set up piles of colourful vegetables and fruits for sale. One of the vendors has claimed me for his own, and insists I buy watermelons and mangoes even on days when I don't need them. To humour him,

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Sushma Joshi Kathmandu Post, 2009-07-19During the Jana Andolan time, we heard a lot about “regression.” Regression, as far as I understood, stood for “going back to a darker time and place.” With the establishment of the republic and the Constituent Assembly (CA), we haven't heard that word with such frequency. Admittedly, the peace process still has to come to a “logical end” through the fabled

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-60014285509169748942009-07-10T04:41:00.000-04:002009-08-19T04:43:42.838-04:00

Sushma Joshi With the rising population, many communities in Nepal are on the edge of a major drinking water crisis“Do you know who the current Prime Minister is?” we ask. The people of the Chidimar village eye the team of journalists scornfully and reply: “We don't know. Last time we checked it was Girija. Maybe now it's Fatteh Singh Tharu.” They are being facetious. News media is too widespread

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Sushma Joshi “Is there any other person whose death would evoke the same global response in this century?” wondered a well known journalism professor in his Twitter posting. The answer seems to be no. Michael Jackson, love child of the American Eighties and its fantabulous excesses, is probably going to be it.My mother's still convinced he died of cancer. When I asked her, “Do you know this

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Sushma Joshi “Subsidized food turning Mugu fields barren.” This rather astonishing news was reported by the Kathmandu Post on June 15. The article quoted District Agricultural Officials who stated that Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) and World Food Programme (WFP) rice had increased dependency, and that people have lost interest in cultivating their land in favor of standing in line all day to get a

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Sushma Joshi The transformation of a barren strip of unused land to a hundred fish ponds teeming with fish may not just transform the lives of a hundred familiesGive a man a fish, and he will eat for the day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. I first saw this adage as a child in the office of World Neighbours, one of the first INGOs to come to Nepal. World Neighbours rented our

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Sushma Joshi Accusations that the Indian security forces have been causing havoc by raping Nepali women and forcing them away from their land by moving the border markers has made front page news in recent days. So is Koilabas another Susta? I was interested to read a report prepared by a mixed group of seventeen civil society members, including eight journalists, two policemen, one INSEC

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Sushma Joshi I am the youngest of seven cousins. When we were little, we used to play lukamari, or hide-and-seek, games in the garden. My eldest cousin sister, taking pity on me, would allow me to be a dudh-bhat (milk and rice) during our games. A dudh-bhat is someone too young to play the game adequately, but the older children allow this young one to tag along and never be “outed” from the game

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Sushma Joshi, Kathmandu Post, 5/22/09One longterm expatriate, who'd recently read an op-ed in the papers advocating the chopping down of trees along the roads, complained to me: butchery is in Nepal's genesTwo friends of mine took me on a midnight jaunt through Valencia, Spain, last winter. What stunned me was not just the rows of beautiful houses in the old city, and the rush of water from the

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Sushma JoshiRepublica, May 19, 2009“Oh, you’re going to see Jhamak?” says the older man as we sit drinking tea in a tea house in Dhankuta Bazzar in the early morning chill. “I’m her uncle.” Jhammakkumari Ghimire, the writer who’s triumphed despite her disability, is apparently known by this androgynous name, I soon figure out. Then he proceeds, in those causal but fortuitous coincidences that

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Sushma Joshi, Kathmandu PostPerhaps the answer lies in the conversation my travel partner is having with a man he's just met in the airplane. "The man was run down right here. The truck backed into him and killed him even though he was only injured slightly," says the old man. "Yes, it's that law," says my friend. "It's cheaper to run down somebody in an accident than pay compensation for their

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Kathmandu Post, 4/28/09Sushma Joshi The idea of an interlinked world whose security rests on each other is clearly a new idea for mostThe United States government recently put out a call for help to the most unlikely group -- computer hackers. Hackers, normally hounded for their ability to enter computer systems, were now recruited for one reason -- cyberattacks on government networks were

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Sushma JoshiWhat does the United States of America have in common with St. Kitts (68 square miles wide), a small island in the Eastern Caribbean? Both countries, it appears, follow the federal system. Despite the naysayers who have been saying federalism won't work for Nepal due to its small size and multicultural and multiethnic nature, there is evidence that multicultural countries perform

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By Sushma JoshiIt is sad that Nepal is unable, when it comes to its own internal borders, to recognize the vulnerability and concerns of other victimsThe government of Nepal has no doubt signed every piece of legislation and international law there is in existence to fight trafficking. All the big political leaders have at one point or another pledged to help end trafficking. Activist networks

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Sushma JoshiIn about forty years time, the monsoon may be the only source of water for much of the Indian subcontinent's one billion plus people“Are you eating meat again?” says my nephew to me disapprovingly each time he sees me eating fish or chicken. “Don't do that. You'll get bird flu.” My nephew is five years old. He is brought up by parents who are both vegetarians. His mother is pretty

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Sushma JoshiOf all the groups who have blocked our highways, the Tharus are one group who need to be heard more than anybodyBlocking highways has become the de facto way to exhibit political protest. Everyone gets up in arms about this; perhaps we have no one to blame but our political leaders who started this method of guerilla warfare to bring attention to their presence and issues. Highways

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Sushma JoshiThe Kathmandu Post, 02/27/2009I laughed out loud when I read this news story: China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage lodged a protest when the auction house Christie sold two bronze sculptures—the head of a rat and a rabbit—at US$36 million.According to an AP report: “"Christie's obstinately went on with the auction of the Summer Palace relics, going against the spirit of

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SUSHMA JOSHII recently made my way up to Swayambhunath after a long hiatus. I’m used to seeing Kathmandu change at a rapid pace, but even the microbus ride out there was surprise. About a thousand kilometers of road seem to be carved out of the ground suddenly, all unpaved, all exuding white dust. Instead of an easy walk through crowded newari toles, we were now bumping past thousands of tacky

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GETTING AWAY WITH MURDERSUSHMA JOSHI Kathmandu Post, 21/02/09When I first met Devi Sunwar, in October 2004, she was her eyes were red from crying. The event was a launch of a report by Human Rights Watch titled “Between a Rock and a Hard Place”. When Devi told the story of how her fifteen year old daughter, Maina, had been killed by soldiers, there was not a dry eye in the crowded conference hall

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and here's me with my chasma...

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Sushma Joshi Sunday February 15, 2009Source : THE KATHMANDU POSTA group of young schoolchildren sat on the floor and listened to their teacher, who stood in front of a painting by Gaugain, explaining the difference between the West and other cultures. I was in the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid. I watched with amazement as the group of five year olds listened to their teacher with complete

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Sushma Joshi Our inability and our reluctance to preserve and share the spares of the great writers and poets and artists of Nepal gives the impression that we have less than we doI'll be honest with you. The only reason I heard about Spanish poet Frederico Garcia Lorca is because a favorite song of mine is inspired by him. ¨Take this waltz, ¨ by Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, I learnt, was based

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-87254512073291842762009-01-30T09:18:00.006-05:002009-02-18T10:39:35.439-05:00

Kathmandu Post, January 23, 2009Sushma Joshi Pablo Picasso's name is synonymous with modern art. But people in Malaga, his birthplace, are not impressed. ¨Ah, Picasso, ¨ says a journalist dismissively when I tell him I am writing an article on the maestro. ¨I don't have much to say about him.¨ Instantly intrigued, I asked: So what about Picasso? Do tell. I sense this man has a lot to say about

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Sushma JoshiKathmandu Post, January 16, 2009 A butterfly flutters its wings in one part of the world, and the flutter cause a hurricane on the other side. This causality, so widely cited by everybody from weather experts to scientists to economists looking at causes for seemingly random but connected phenomena, becomes more relevant in this day and age when a global financial crisis is occuring.

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The Audacity of TechnologySushma Joshi The Kathmandu PostShould a five year old in a rural village lacking a reliable supply of electricity and basic school supplies dream of owning a computer of her own? For Rabi Karmacharya, director of the Open Learning Exchange in Nepal (OLE), the answer is a resounding yes. The audacity of his hope, that many schools in rural Nepal will follow and adopt the

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-55631573576177436422009-01-09T07:59:00.000-05:002009-02-07T08:01:19.721-05:00

Sushma Joshi "Last week, one man hung himself, two died in construction, and seven died in their sleep," says Devendra Raj Bhattarai. We are sitting in a five star hotel in Doha, where I find myself suddenly sequestered after being pulled en route to some other destination. Bhattarai, the Special Correspondent for the Gulf Region for Kantipur Daily, is giving me a list of deaths that have taken

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-3497340780449566472008-12-29T10:17:00.002-05:002008-12-29T10:21:54.578-05:00

Hi all! My book's being published this January by Fineprint! Please do buy and read it--it will be available in all major Kathmandu bookstores. I am headed out to Spain till February 7th but you can send me your thoughts, suggestions and feedback at this email: sansarmagazine@gmail.com, and I will try to get back to you when I get access to email. Peace, love, happiness (and for Nepal-based folks

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Sushma Joshi Kathmandu PostIf you can't join them, beat them. This Maoist maxim was illustrated all too clearly to me when I went window-shopping to Bhatbhateni supermarket last week, and was bemused to see a whole shelf of Hindu gods and goddess replicas -- manufactured in China. The Ganesh was misshapen, the Shiva and Parvati duo looked white, and Krishna looked fat and charmless, but other

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-82021637801591100352008-12-20T03:39:00.001-05:002008-12-29T00:45:45.692-05:00

SUSHMA JOSHI Anjan Gajurel is thirty years old. Like many other thirty-year old Nepali men, he sports a fashionable haircut and a sweet smile. But don't let the modest demeanor fool you—for Anjan, who grew up in Janakpur, is now one of the hottest art directors in Bollywood, and owns his own top of the line studio in the most competitive industry of Mumbai. Anjan was like any other aspiring

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SUSHMA JOSHICan a victim say “no” to a camera which promises to expose injustice,while knowing full well that the photograph may only provide a vicarious reproduction of their lived experience out to a sympathetic but ineffectual audience?Can a photograph change the world? For many gazing at the photographs hanging at the latest exhibit at the Art Council at Babar Mahal, “Prison and the rights of

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-84308355334692843442008-11-28T01:18:00.001-05:002008-12-04T01:24:42.314-05:00

Sushma JoshiKathmandu Post Kathmandu's annual theatre festival, started by Aarohan theatre, is awaited eagerly by theatre lovers. This year, I could only make it to one play out of seventeen. But I may have stumbled upon the one that was most different, unusual, and new to Nepal. The Circle Course, by Mira Kingsley, may have been the first time when Nepali audiences saw a female actor on stage

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-13923099160144334962008-11-21T01:23:00.000-05:002008-12-04T01:24:00.950-05:00

Sushma JoshiKathmandu Post Education should encourage students to start their own creative and business venturesHave you noticed how there seem to be so many qualified people looking desperately for jobs on the one hand, and businesses complaining about how they can't find the people with the right skills, on the other?” This observation, made by a colleague of mine, made me realise that the

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-71590086126065962782008-11-14T01:14:00.000-05:002008-12-04T01:16:58.216-05:00

Sushma JoshiWalking out of my house one evening, I was puzzled to find the street empty -- except for a pack of aggressive male dogs. It was eight pm, and not a load-shedding night. And yet it appeared everybody had decided to call it a day. The vegetable market was closed. So were the shops. Walking down my own street suddenly became a discomfiting experience.Kathmandu has darkened noticeably in

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-33028328315334931102008-11-08T05:45:00.001-05:002008-11-08T05:45:53.703-05:00

THE NEXT GREAT PRESIDENTSushma JoshiKathmandu Post, November 7th, 2008I admit it—I cried. Watching Obama's victory speech, I was remindedagain that America's power lies not in its military might but in itsideas, not in its financial currency (now at one of the lowest pointsin history) but in its symbolic currency of democracy.I have lived in America for ten years of my life, and at times

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-76324100610138392292008-10-19T02:41:00.002-04:002008-10-19T02:44:21.294-04:00

Apologies for the ten year old photo with the shaved head on my profile picture: I can't seem to change it! Its stuck! But here's another one (and this one is already a few years old as well) so you can recognize me on the street when you see me...

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Sushma JoshiThe budget speech of Fiscal Year 2008-9 was given a month ago, but people, I amongst them, are still mulling it. Dr. Baburam Bhattarai quotes poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota on his fourth point: “we should aim to fly high and touch the moon.” The shadow of poetry is apt -- indeed, the document is a piece of literature in itself, gripping in the way it tries to address the concerns of an

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-22496043340715483072008-10-11T13:07:00.000-04:002008-10-19T02:02:18.121-04:00

The Kathmandu PostSushma JoshiWhy did it take us so long to get here? I think, as I watch an actor cross the entire theatre of Gurukul on a rope suspended diagonally above our heads. Simultaneously, a screen in front of us displays a video projection of the raging Karnali river. The actor in question is in the play The Karnali Moves Southward (Karnali Dakshin Bagdo Chha), and as the audience

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The Kathmandu PostBy SUSHMA JOSHIThe Patan Museum courtyard, was at first empty, then quickly full, by 5:10pm on Saturday evening. The event was a fundraising concert, and the musicians in questions were Kutumba and a sibling duo, Barta and Binod Gandharva. Binod is still in high school, and Barta is yet to go to college. The event was aimed to raise funds for their education.Kutumba is a name

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-2387158652135690842008-10-03T03:33:00.002-04:002010-10-17T03:41:06.482-04:00

Breaking TrailECS NEPAL | The Nepali Way, March 2008  Text by : Sushma JoshiThe room in the Summit Hotel where Arlene Blum waited to talk was full of expatriates, not unusual for a Cultural Studies Group talk—but on the side, sitting on the edge with nervousness and excitement, was a group of very young Nepaliwomen. After her talk, I went up to them and discovered that they were an all female

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-36705443547753882532008-08-04T08:36:00.003-04:002008-08-05T02:26:19.008-04:00

Sushma Joshi, ECS Magazine, August 2008Art remains in people's lives long after their creators are gone. These material artifacts, ironically, weather time better than the people who shaped them from their imagination. The miles and miles of art objects that adorn the Louvre, France's and possibly the world's most well-known museum, are an aching reminder of how the material world outlives the

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SKETCHES IN VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND AESTHETICSECS Magazine, July 2008I was walking by Thamel in one of those anti-social moods last Friday evening—I had braved my life on a motorbike ride through upstream traffic to get to the Sundhara Bakery Café, only to find out that the art opening I thought was being held wasn’t there. A magician was on stage instead, doing tricks for a birthday party.

Sushma Joshihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15801489353753793086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5548608.post-36661930672708507802008-06-08T11:49:00.001-04:002008-06-08T11:49:46.948-04:00

SUSHMA JOSHIECS Magazine, June 2008Kirateswor is located on an obscure hilltop in the Pashupati temple complex, but many people can navigate their way there with effortless ease. That is because for the last fifteen years, classical musicians have gathered to play instruments and share their art every full moon, drawing crowds of reverent listeners. The last full moon was no exception. The

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Breaking TrailECS NEPAL | The Nepali Way, March 2008 Text by : Sushma JoshiThe room in the Summit Hotel where Arlene Blum waited to talk was full of expatriates, not unusual for a Cultural Studies Group talk—but on the side, sitting on the edge with nervousness and excitement, was a group of very young Nepaliwomen. After her talk, I went up to them and discovered that they were an all female team

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ECS NEPAL | The Nepali Way March 2008Text by : Sushma Joshi The room in the Summit Hotel where Arlene Blum waited to talk was full of expatriates, not unusual for a Cultural Studies Group talk—but on the side, sitting on the edge with nervousness and excitement, was a group of very young Nepaliwomen. After her talk, I went up to them and discovered that they were an all female team about to

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By Sushma JoshiECS Magazine, March 2008Adoption brings joy. “Some people get families, others get love,” says Mukta Shrestha. “I’ve always wished the best for each family.” Mukta, who started to translate for Spanish families 15 years ago, should know. She’s helped to facilitate more than 100 adoptions in the last 15 years. During this time, she’s seen hundreds of children pass through to

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A R T M A T T E R SAn Animated LifeBy Sushma Joshi Illustrations by Ajanav Mohan RanjitECS Magazine, March 2008 When Ajanav Mohan Ranjit told me that he’d created the animation filled with Nepali dancers and farmers that heralds the Kantipur news-hour, I said spontaneously: “I always wanted to meet the person who made that!” And it was true. There is a magical touch to that particular

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A R T M A T T E R SBy Sushma JoshiECS Magazine, February 2008 Did the title get your attention? Did you think, as I did, that it would be fun to have a how-to book on building a Nepali temple—after all, our ancestors seem to have indulged in this pastime in generous measure, and there is no reason for us to give up on it just because bungee-jumping and barhopping are now the more

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M E E T T H E A R T I S TBy Sushma Joshi ECS Magazine, February 2008Why Nepal? I ask.Pourquoi Nepal? Chloe translates.Christian ponders, then shrugs that slight French shrug. He taps the left side of his chest, where his heart is, with his right hand. “It is a small question with a big answer,” he says.Why would an art dealer from Paris up and leave his successful business of

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Sushma JoshiI live five minutes away from Bhatbhateni. My favorite place to shop in the area is—no, not the supermarket, wrong guess…its Organic Garden. Set in a small Rana-style house a little away from the road, Organic Garden is a two-in-one deal: a garden restaurant with an organic store. While the restaurant serves a delicious wild boar burger, gigantic salads, and Jumla red bean soup, the

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A R T M A T T E R SBy Sushma JoshiECS Magazine, December 2007 If location was anything to go by, Cinderella, the annual production by Kathmandu’s Shakespeare Wallahs, was going to be a miserable experience. The hall inside the British Embassy compound seem to lack that great American invention—central heating. They had, it also appeared, spared no expense to replicate the joys of

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A R T M A T T E R SECS Magazine, December 2007 By Sushma Joshi Giovanni Battista Ambrosini is 59 years old, but as he crouches on the ground and assiduously draws his signature image—a figure that could be a bird, a child, a spirit—with a white wax-stick on a canvas stretched out on the tiles of Babar Mahal Revisited’s courtyard, he appears centuries older. The white mane of hair looks

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This link leads to a story about a Norwegian funded program for hydropower engineering at Kathmandu University.

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The Half-Moon FilesBy Sushma JoshiI happened, by accident, to hear about 'The Half-Moon Files.' The Berlinale, Berlin's international film festival, is the biggest in Europe after Cannes, and there were 250 films competing for attention. But the woman who told me about it was certain I would be interested. It was about the POW (Prisoner of War) camp in Berlin after WW 1 and had interesting

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Sushma JoshiKantipuronline.com, February 7, 2007Vogue, one of the world’s premier fashion magazines, features actress Angelina Jolie on the cover of its January 2007 issue. Jolie wears a raspberry rayon matt jersey evening dress that drapes across her body in perfect, sensual symmetry—there’s a sari-like hint to the drape of fabric against her legs. The classic, elegant look comes from the design

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