History is not always fair to the protagonists who find themselves caught up in it. The history of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/diary-of-a-nepali-soldier-in-france">Gurkha soldiers</a> is no exception. Brave khukuri-swinging soldiers in combat khakis and hats marching off to battle have been an iconic part of Nepal’s past. Forgotten on the pages of history, however, are their sarong-clad wives in Nepal or abroad, their struggles and their contribution. Lately, there has been an effort to correct this with welcome attempts to document the experience of Gurkha wives. Suzana Thapa Shris’s recent exhibition Gurkha Women: An Echo in the Story helped filled this gap by retelling the stories from the perspective of the wives of soldiers.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231207101232_c2517596a438db1f00d1643815a6c13815cec7d491509e897d9bed8879c5bbd4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20231207101232_c2517596a438db1f00d1643815a6c13815cec7d491509e897d9bed8879c5bbd4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="Gurkha women 2"> </figure>  “When Gurkha soldiers were fighting wars, it was their women who single-handedly led the households, they were the silent heroes,” explains 29-year-old Thapa Shris. “With limited money and resources, they raised families and boys who grew up to be lahure themselves. Their contribution is immense.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/beginning-of-the-end-of-the-gorkha-empire">Beginning of the end of the Gorkha Empire</a>, Alisha Sijapati After her first exhibition Bharseli Gurkhas: From Stories to Portraits which looked into the lives of Gurkha soldiers from her ancestral village of Bharse of Gulmi district, Thapa Shris felt that she also needed to put the spotlight on the wives.&nbsp; Coming from a Gurkha household herself, where her grandfather was in the Indian Army, Thapa Shris was introduced to her family’s praetorian past from a very young age. She grew up with her grandparents in Butwal, listening to the lore both from the battles as well as the home front.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231207101232_bcce9d8fe47dc7c8ede1cd1f7a6f70e1877f4f9788865cb703f9504a6e205ab2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20231207101232_bcce9d8fe47dc7c8ede1cd1f7a6f70e1877f4f9788865cb703f9504a6e205ab2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Gurkha women 4"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231207101232_185f09e6839ab5130514dc86ade39257b97b6095f4a8a300f7c7439832624997.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20231207101232_185f09e6839ab5130514dc86ade39257b97b6095f4a8a300f7c7439832624997" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="967" loading="lazy" alt="Gurkha women 3"> </figure>  Her father Bom Bahadur Thapa, a horticulturist by profession and a writer, wrote a book Bharseli Gorkhagatha ra Serofero about his ancestors. And when Thapa Shris started her project, the father-daughter duo interviewed some 50 women in their 70s and above from Baglung, Gorkha, Gulmi, Kaski, Palpa, Rupandehi, and Sunsari. They were all wives of Nepali soldiers who had served in the UK, India, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-malayan-rainforest-and-its-rare-flower">Singapore and Malaya</a> (now Malaysia). “The exhibition took shape as we were looking into who these women were, their life stories and their contribution to Gurkha history,” she adds. “Their identity and contribution has been the main objective of this exhibition.” Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget">Lest we forget</a>, David Seddon Thapa Shris never formally learnt art, but her raw talent for portraits is there for everyone to see. Also on display at the Nepal Art Council from 25-28 November were sketches, archival pictures, visual footage of interviews, and installation art with traditional music in the background. But the highlight of the event were evocative testimonies with their respective portraits depicting two kinds of women: those left behind in Nepal and those in foreign lands where their husbands were deployed. Most struggled to make ends meet, and that too in a new place where they did not speak the local language. <div class="embed-block"><div><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframe src="//cdn.iframe.ly/api/iframe?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FGAUPq7EK_vk%3Fsi%3DNtp3w8G4XbM_OSZy&key=87ca3314a9fa775b5c3a7726100694b0" style="top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;" allowfullscreen scrolling="no" allow="accelerometer *; clipboard-write *; encrypted-media *; gyroscope *; picture-in-picture *; web-share *;"></iframe></div></div></div> “We automatically assume that Gurkha soldiers are well-off and their lives easy but that is not always the case,” explains Bom Bahadur. “There was no immediate means of communication or any channel to wire money. It was these brave women who made their way.”&nbsp; While archival footage helped the audience peek into their lives in foreign lands, an installation art of a classic Nepali knitted bag filled with envelopes depicted how in those days letters were the only medium of contact between spouses. One section was dedicated to hand photography intended to show the resilience and the kind of lives these women led. All the portraits here had wrinkled hands of the women resting on their patterned lungi.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231207101232_a97971b33334ae0e9ffca90c7feeb83e07c17af8a67753e99b6f29aab65035bd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20231207101232_a97971b33334ae0e9ffca90c7feeb83e07c17af8a67753e99b6f29aab65035bd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="953" loading="lazy" alt="gurkha women 5"> </figure>  The exhibition also featured traditional dresses and jewellery of the Gurkha women as well as wooden utensils used by these indigenous communities in the past. Lungi, gold beruwa bangles and traditional gold asarfi rings synonymous with Lahureni were also heavily featured. “The gold came much later after the wartime,” adds Suzana.&nbsp; “One thing all the bojus said was that they were happy that they at least got to wear gold.” The father-daughter duo is now planning to transcribe all the testimonies and turn them into a book. Says Bom Bahadur: “I am glad our Gurkha women are highlighted. The fact that my daughter is working on it makes me even prouder.” &nbsp;

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Retelling Gurkha history

Nepali soldiers in the British or Indian armies are renowned for their valour on the battlefield, but Dam Bahadur Pun’s claim to fame is being a gold-medalist springboard diver. For a Nepali soldier from the highlands of a landlocked country, it was unusual for Pun to take to swimming. But he took to diving like a fish to water.&nbsp; As a young cadet taking compulsory swimming lessons at the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun, he became an expert and passionate diver.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231205111224_12d160069b030bdb97694cab244c32239daa7b7e92826cfaf3920cedc960720a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20231205111224_12d160069b030bdb97694cab244c32239daa7b7e92826cfaf3920cedc960720a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1423" height="2500" loading="lazy" alt="Captain Poon"> </figure>  Now retired at 65, ‘Captain Poon’ is an ex-soldier from the Indian Army’s Gorkha unit, a grandfather, a politician, a climate activist and owner of The Sunny Hotel Teahouse in Ghorepani. Born in Khilang where most young men aspired to be in the military, he travelled to India at age 14.&nbsp; Later, as a recruit in the engineering regiment at the IMA, he was required to swim. Despite never having swum before, Pun not only mastered freestyle but also excelled in diving. Talent spotters from the Indian national swimming team took notice, and he won his first medal at the Indian National Diving Championships in Jaipur.&nbsp; For the next five years, Pun won one tournament after another, collecting an impressive number of gold medals (right). He even participated in the 11th Commonwealth Games in Canada in 1978 as part of the Indian team, being the only known Nepali to have ever done so. He came 11th in the diving event.&nbsp; “I still remember being incredibly nervous at the Commonwealth Games, despite having competed in many tournaments,” recalls Pun. “But my pride and my guts urged me on.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231205111224_026036358018b65e666ac46e137919dadb54fa7ea2a90324f0d324c9156c83e2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20231205111224_026036358018b65e666ac46e137919dadb54fa7ea2a90324f0d324c9156c83e2" data-rendition-name="original" width="4992" height="3328" loading="lazy" alt="Nepali in commonwealth games"> <figcaption>Photo: Aïsha MacDougall</figcaption> </figure>  In 1982, he participated in the Asian Games in Delhi, and improved his ranking to 5th, becoming the Indian national record holder in diving. He went on to take part in the diving event at the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul. Pun became the national coach for the Indian Swimming Federation and a Senior Coach in the Indian Army. He finally returned to his native Nepal on retirement, and opened his lodge in the scenic trekking hub of Ghorepani.&nbsp; “We started small but over time we put in continuous effort to expand the hotel, our business grew and so did the local economy,” says Pun, who is called ‘Captain Poon’ because his hotel is located just below Poon Hill. The entire area started attracting more tourists and prospered after he established The Sunny Hotel Teahouse here, becoming a local hero in the process.&nbsp; Before the advent of mobile phones, Pun helped the isolated hilltop with connectivity by building a telecommunication mast so locals could get phone signals without having to trek for hours to make calls. During the insurgency, Pun mediated between the Royal Nepal Army and the Maoists to ensure that the NTC tower on the mountaintop would not be harmed in fighting.&nbsp; After the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Accord, he got into politics, and was elected chair of Annapurna Rural Municipality in the 2017 election. Throughout his five-year tenure, he did not take his salary, donating it instead to women’s charities and schools in the area.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231205111224_2089d12f-2c9f-4bf6-92fc-c99799bbc8d6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20231205111224_2089d12f-2c9f-4bf6-92fc-c99799bbc8d6" data-rendition-name="original" width="3328" height="4992" loading="lazy" alt="Captain Poon"> <figcaption>Captain Poon is now a grandfather. Photo: Aïsha MacDougall</figcaption> </figure>  Captain Poon has now set his sights on national politics. If elected, he wants to create a new trekking route to Dhaulagiri Base Camp, avoiding new motorable roads through unexplored villages, thus generating local jobs and lifting livelihoods. Pun is also a committed environmental activist and feels concerned about the impact of the climate crisis on the Himalaya. “The limitations of on-going conservation efforts are readily apparent, and that is very worrying,” he says. “We need immediate action to protect and conserve Nepal’s vulnerable landscape.”&nbsp; Despite forays into the military, sports, business and politics, Captain Poon has no plans to slow down and is always on the lookout for the next adventure. One thing that would take him full circle would be to get back to diving.&nbsp; Says Pun: “I want to build a diving school in Pokhara one day. The sport has great potential here, and we can raise a generation of talented Nepali divers.”&nbsp;

Ex-soldier dives into business and politics

Beginning of the end of the Gorkha Empire

<figure><img width="800" height="457" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3a09c7e80680e096664jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>It was a hazy December morning in 1971 at the strategic Chicken Neck frontline between India and what was then East Pakistan. Dhan Bahadur Rai had been watching a squadron of five Pakistan Air Force F-6s circle above his position.  Suddenly, one of the planes peeled off and dropped a bomb that landed close to his bunker. The sleek jet then looped back and started strafing the Indian Army positions.Dhan Bahadur was at his 7.62mm LMG (light machine gun) position, and took aim at the plane as it swooped low for another pass.“I fired at it in bursts, and I saw it pull away trailing smoke. Soon, it caught fire and crashed. We saw the pilot parachute out, and the plane was buried in a crater about 1km way,” Dhan Bahadur recalls.The pilot was captured, and became a prisoner of war. Within a week on 16 December 1971, Pakistan had surrendered, and Bangladesh was born.Read also: <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/atom-bomb-saved-his-life-covid-killed-him/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Atom bomb saved his life, Covid killed him</a>https://youtu.be/e3Z2SOYYVuoDhan Bahadur, now 77, grows cardamom in his ancestral village of Nundhiki in Sankhuwasabha high in the mountains of eastern Nepal where as a child he herded the family’s livestock.  At age 19 and never being in school, he walked across the border to Darjeeling with other boys from his village to be recruited into the Indian Army’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/diary-of-a-nepali-soldier-in-france/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gorkha regiment</a>. He was shortlisted, and assigned a number for 11 months of military training.Dhan Bahadur is actually a Tamang, but the Indian Army recruitment officers presumed he was a Rai like other Nepalis who had joined up. So, when he went to Delhi with his wife and grandfather to receive the Vir Chakra medal (below) from Indian President V V Giri in 1972 his name was given as Dhan Bahadur Rai.    <figure><img width="468" height="319" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3a29c7e80680e096665png.png" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Like many of his compatriots, Dhan Bahadur is a modest man, and underplays his role in downing the plane. When other units of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/gorkhas-on-the-frontline-between-india-and-china/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Indian Army</a> also claimed to have shot down the Pakistani plane, he did not press his role.In the end, it was the Pakistani pilot Flt Lt Wajid Ali Khan who as prisoner of war provided the evidence to prove that it was indeed Dhan Bahadur’s bunker from where the shots were fired that brought down the plane.This is considered one of the rare occasions in which a supersonic fighter jet has been brought down by small arms fire. The F-6 was the Chinese-made version of the Soviet Mig-19 fighter jet.Dhan Bahadur was with an advancing column of the 7/11 Gorkha Rifles which on 6 December, 1971 had entered 80km into what was then East Pakistan. The Chicken Neck is a narrow strip of Indian territory between Nepal and Bangladesh that connects India with its northeast. It was strategically important for the Indian military to defend this ‘Siliguri Corridor’. <figure><img width="465" height="426" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3a49c7e80680e096666jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“We had dug a bunker, expecting a counter attack from Pakistan,” Dhan Bahadur recalls. “They did not retaliate, but they kept sending planes on reconnaissance.”A cheer went up from the Indian troops when the Pakistani plane went down. And till today, the 7/11 Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army carries the cockpit of the F-6 and Dhan Bahadur’s Vir Chakra medal as souvenirs wherever it is deployed.Dhan Bahadur was congratulated by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and was promoted to Lance Corporal. He wanted to retire, but a decorated soldier was not allowed to. So he went on to serve in Jammu and Kashmir, Darjeeling and Ladakh.When he did retire in 1980, Dhan Bahadur returned to his village in Nepal where he lives to this day. He tried to change his name to Dhan Bahadur Rai so that his sons could also join the Indian or British armies, but he could not do it.Regardless, his seven sons and a daughter have gone on to build their careers and now have their own businesses in Dharan, that they have named after their famous father. father.Dhan Bahadur now uses a cane as walks in his <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/the-kingdom-of-cardamom-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cardamom field</a>, and says he is enjoying retirement in the village where he was born. “I like village life. I grow cardamom, and I want to live here for the rest of my life,” he says.  <figure><img width="959" height="698" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3a69c7e80680e096667jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>He does travel down to Dharan once in a while to check up on his sons and daughter, and to collect his pension which has grown from IRs 50 in 1980 to IRs48,000 today.Of the Nepali men who were awarded by the Indian government for their bravery, only Dhan Bahadur Tamang still lives in Nepal. Some stayed back in India and some have died.He is invited back to his battalion in India for events, and that is when for old times’ sake, he checks up on his medal, the wreckage of the plane he shot down and looks through framed photographs of that fateful day at the Chicken Neck that propelled him to fame.

He shot down a fighter, then shot to fame

<figure><img width="1400" height="897" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8019c7e80680e087834jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>GRU in Brunei in the early 1990s, with Ram Kangdangwa, sitting third from right.</figcaption></figure>It was evening in September 1996, and some of us Gurkha soldiers who were fed up with the way we were being treated by our British and Brunei officers were holding a meeting inside the military base to discuss the form of protest to press our case.With me were Puranjan Rai, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15993#.X9d66dgzaM8">Gajendra Isbo</a> and Naren Rai. Our grievances were that we were not getting proper pay, pension, not allowed free meals, as well as being insulted and mistreated. It had got out of hand.We also felt that Gurkha recruitment for the Brunei security forces should not be conducted by the British Army, but be governed by a separate treaty between Nepal and Brunei.Our meeting formed a governing committee as well as sub-committees, and more than 2,400 out of the total 2,500 Gurkha force strength in Brunei signed up in support of the movement.We held talks with the hierarchy, and had started boycotting some of the senior officers. One of our demands was that the 16-year-old Gurkha Reserve Unit (GRU) be disbanded and revert to a security guard force. We submitted a written memorandum, but it was ignored. This dragged on for months.  Then, suddenly one middle of the night, all GRU weapons were returned to the Brunei government, and our unit went back to being a security guard force. However, other demands of salary increment, end of mistreatment by arrogant officers were yet to be addressed. Notwithstanding, the officers had learnt an important lesson that Nepalis will not tolerate injustice and oppression.The situation was again on the boil, and pressure was building up. It was obvious that the brass would come down heavily on what it considered a mutiny and insubordination in order to instill military discipline. <figure><img width="965" height="650" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8049c7e80680e087835jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>One evening, I gave a short speech at our meeting, saying that the situation was nearing a make-or-break point, the higher-ups were about to take stern action, and talked about what steps the team should take in case some of us were dismissed and sent back to Nepal.Three days later, I had a premonition of disaster. Sure enough, 11 of us considered to be instigators were secretly dismissed, and without the rest of the unit having any inkling we were dispatched to the airport for a flight back to Nepal.We were waiting to board at Bandar Seri Begawan airport, and did not know that back at camp word had spread about our dismissal and deportation. The Nepali soldiers then surrounded the headquarters building to protest and demanded that their leaders be returned, and failing that, to dismiss them too. HQ brought out the riot police to contain the escalating situation and vandalism.A few hours later, the Permanent Secretary of Brunei (the King's brother-in-law) rushed to the airport to find out from us what had happened. He asked me questions, and after hearing us out, wanted to know if I could convince the Nepalis back at camp to go back to their dormitories and end the protest.I replied that I would do it if our employment was restored, and I was allowed to deliver a short speech to our people at the base. The Permanent Secretary agreed and drove me, along with two fellow Nepalis, to the camp in his Mercedes BenzThe Gurkhas were still protesting and shouting slogans when we reached camp. I got up and in a two minute speech told them they should now return to their quarters in a disciplined manner because the senior most official of the Brunei government had promised to address our longstanding grievances. I assured them that if we were betrayed, we would once more gather to protest and raise slogans. <figure><img width="1640" height="1158" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8069c7e80680e087836jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>After I spoke, there was pin-drop silence and the Nepali troops all dispersed. The discipline and obedience of the Gurkhas seems to have surprised the Permanent Secretary who then went to confer with GRU officers. He then asked us to assemble in the gym hall.He began by informing us that he had just fired Col F D Scotson, the British officer in charge of the GRU who was our principle nemesis. Now that Scotson was gone, and the GRU had reverted back to security guard status, the Permanent Secretary assured us that all our other demands like salary and pension would be resolved.We then collectively took the decision to suspend our agitation, and keep a low profile. Things went back to normal for a few months, but then some Gurkhas challenged the authorities again regarding their promotions. This time, the brass decided that this new rebellion needed to be nipped in the bud, and dismissed the 11 leaders from service. We decided to accept the decision because so many Nepali jobs were on the line if the Brunei unit was disbanded.In the next 15 months, the GRU became the Gurkha Security Guard. A rare near-mutiny  resulted in a successful resolution of our just demands. This was possible because we were united, well educated, patriotic, courageous, and willing to take the risk for the sake of justice and our beliefs. By insisting on a bilateral treaty, we had also acted to stand up to the principle of Nepal’s sovereignty.We finally returned to Nepal with our heads held high on 14 December 1997. It has been  23 years since our run-in in Brunei, and the events are still fresh in our minds. The Brunei Security Guard is still functioning, but the British Army’s involvement in recruiting Nepali servicemen to the unit still continues and there is still no Brunei-Nepal treaty.  <figure><img width="1624" height="1144" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be8099c7e80680e087837jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Brunei force was set up in 1974 with 27 former Gurkhas of the British Army and Gurkha Contingent, Singapore (Nepalis serve as policemen in Singapore). It was originally called Gurkha Security Guard but in 1981, the British and Brunei government decided to form the GRU, and had former British Gurkha soldiers serving in the new unit had to work as regular soldiers. Ever since it was converted into GRU, the Brunei government kept augmenting its strength. By 1996, the GRU’s numbers crossed 2,500 -- as big as a brigade strength in the British Army. I was a British Gurkha soldier, and joined the GRU in May 1996 even though I had signed the contract paperwork as ‘security guard’. When we got there, we were forced to work as infantry soldiers.Most ex-British Gurkha soldiers serving in the GRU were above 45, and the situation was pathetic. Us over-the-hill Gurkhas were compelled to run Battle Fitness Test (BFT) and Combat Fitness Test (CFT), fire heavy weapons and often had to participate in weeks-long exercises in the dense tropical jungles of Borneo.  Despite being fit, some ex-Gurkhas died of exhaustion during physically demanding jungle exercises. Their salaries had remained stagnant for many lustrums. The other big transgression was that the British government used to charge 2,500 Brunei dollars (USD 1,870) per Gurkha soldier as monthly salary from Brunei, but but gave us only BND1,100.  Essentially, Britain has been trading in Gurkhas for the last 205 years, ever since the Rana oligarchy in Nepal used us as its main tool of diplomacy. As scholar May Des Chene writes: ‘Gurkhas have been sold and bartered and they have been the coin of international diplomacy at key moments in Nepalese history.’The ‘Gurkha Contingent’ in Singapore has 2,000 young Nepali soldiers serving as policeman. The Singapore contingent itself was formed in 1949 after the end of the Pacific War, and after 71 years there is still no bilateral treaty between Singapore and Nepal governing recruitment.It is the British Army that recruits Nepalis on behalf of the Singaporeans. The question is: Who authorised this arrangement? Why is it still going on? Scores of so-called democratic governments have come and gone in Nepal, and no one has shown much concern about this affront to the country’s sovereignty.The Gurkhas in Singapore were kept in British Army enclaves until the late 1990s. Many of them are married, but some 1,500 of these young, educated and dynamic Nepali women are confined to the base and not allowed to work in Singapore. <figure><img width="2048" height="1536" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be80c9c7e80680e087838jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Over the years, there were more than 15 retired Gurkha majors and about 50 retired captains serving in the GRU. But their status was lower than that of second lieutenants. However, they had handsome salaries, perks and facilities compared to the other ranks. Most Nepali officer regarded them as sycophants, as many of them used to kowtow to British and Bruneian officers.   Des Chene writes: ‘The soldiers look upon them with mistrust and regard them as moles who misrepresent their views to the British officers in order to curry their favours in the forms of promotions, good postings, longer services, granting of honorary ranks which carry some monetary benefits on their retirement, etc.’ There was a lot of arbitrary discipline enforced, most soldiers who had been in the British Army found the rules confusing and the officers did not have the same discipline and respect of the rank and file. When the British were in India, and after the 1816 treaty they did not actually have to colonise Nepal, and never really recognised Nepal as a sovereign independent country until the Chandra Shumshere Rana’s Friendship Treaty of 1923. But at the heart of the Gurkha dilemma is the anomaly that even today, nationals of one country fight and die for another. It is absurd that the United Kingdom, a sovereign country, recruits soldiers from another sovereign, independent country (Nepal) to serve in still another sovereign independent country, Brunei.  Despite this, elected leaders of Nepal and its intellectuals and historians, forever gloat about Nepal's independence and sovereignty, and that the country was never colonised. Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15993#.X9d66dgzaM8">The resistance</a> by Sita Mademba in Dharan <img width="150" height="171" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181148/636be80f9c7e80680e087839jpeg.jpg" alt="">Ra<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15993#.X9d66dgzaM8">m Kandangwa</a> is a former soldier in the British Army Brigade of the Gurkhas and served in the GRU in Brunei, where he led a rebellion against his commanding officers in 1996, and returned to Nepal on 15 December of 1997. He has a PhD in Nepal-Britain relations.

A forgotten Gurkha rebellion

<figure><img width="1400" height="897" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636beefd4b0ad905ca02ef7djpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>GRU in Brunei in the early 1990s, with Ram Kangdangwa, sitting third from right.</figcaption></figure>It was evening in September 1996, and some of us Gurkha soldiers who were fed up with the way we were being treated by our British and Brunei officers were holding a meeting inside the military base to discuss the form of protest to press our case.With me were Puranjan Rai, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15993#.X9d66dgzaM8">Gajendra Isbo</a> and Naren Rai. Our grievances were that we were not getting proper pay, pension, not allowed free meals, as well as being insulted and mistreated. It had got out of hand.We also felt that Gurkha recruitment for the Brunei security forces should not be conducted by the British Army, but be governed by a separate treaty between Nepal and Brunei.Our meeting formed a governing committee as well as sub-committees, and more than 2,400 out of the total 2,500 Gurkha force strength in Brunei signed up in support of the movement.We held talks with the hierarchy, and had started boycotting some of the senior officers. One of our demands was that the 16-year-old Gurkha Reserve Unit (GRU) be disbanded and revert to a security guard force. We submitted a written memorandum, but it was ignored. This dragged on for months.  Then, suddenly one middle of the night, all GRU weapons were returned to the Brunei government, and our unit went back to being a security guard force. However, other demands of salary increment, end of mistreatment by arrogant officers were yet to be addressed. Notwithstanding, the officers had learnt an important lesson that Nepalis will not tolerate injustice and oppression.The situation was again on the boil, and pressure was building up. It was obvious that the brass would come down heavily on what it considered a mutiny and insubordination in order to instill military discipline. <figure><img width="965" height="650" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef004b0ad905ca02ef7ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>One evening, I gave a short speech at our meeting, saying that the situation was nearing a make-or-break point, the higher-ups were about to take stern action, and talked about what steps the team should take in case some of us were dismissed and sent back to Nepal.Three days later, I had a premonition of disaster. Sure enough, 11 of us considered to be instigators were secretly dismissed, and without the rest of the unit having any inkling we were dispatched to the airport for a flight back to Nepal.We were waiting to board at Bandar Seri Begawan airport, and did not know that back at camp word had spread about our dismissal and deportation. The Nepali soldiers then surrounded the headquarters building to protest and demanded that their leaders be returned, and failing that, to dismiss them too. HQ brought out the riot police to contain the escalating situation and vandalism.A few hours later, the Permanent Secretary of Brunei (the King's brother-in-law) rushed to the airport to find out from us what had happened. He asked me questions, and after hearing us out, wanted to know if I could convince the Nepalis back at camp to go back to their dormitories and end the protest.I replied that I would do it if our employment was restored, and I was allowed to deliver a short speech to our people at the base. The Permanent Secretary agreed and drove me, along with two fellow Nepalis, to the camp in his Mercedes BenzThe Gurkhas were still protesting and shouting slogans when we reached camp. I got up and in a two minute speech told them they should now return to their quarters in a disciplined manner because the senior most official of the Brunei government had promised to address our longstanding grievances. I assured them that if we were betrayed, we would once more gather to protest and raise slogans. <figure><img width="1640" height="1158" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef034b0ad905ca02ef7fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>After I spoke, there was pin-drop silence and the Nepali troops all dispersed. The discipline and obedience of the Gurkhas seems to have surprised the Permanent Secretary who then went to confer with GRU officers. He then asked us to assemble in the gym hall.He began by informing us that he had just fired Col F D Scotson, the British officer in charge of the GRU who was our principle nemesis. Now that Scotson was gone, and the GRU had reverted back to security guard status, the Permanent Secretary assured us that all our other demands like salary and pension would be resolved.We then collectively took the decision to suspend our agitation, and keep a low profile. Things went back to normal for a few months, but then some Gurkhas challenged the authorities again regarding their promotions. This time, the brass decided that this new rebellion needed to be nipped in the bud, and dismissed the 11 leaders from service. We decided to accept the decision because so many Nepali jobs were on the line if the Brunei unit was disbanded.In the next 15 months, the GRU became the Gurkha Security Guard. A rare near-mutiny  resulted in a successful resolution of our just demands. This was possible because we were united, well educated, patriotic, courageous, and willing to take the risk for the sake of justice and our beliefs. By insisting on a bilateral treaty, we had also acted to stand up to the principle of Nepal’s sovereignty.We finally returned to Nepal with our heads held high on 14 December 1997. It has been  23 years since our run-in in Brunei, and the events are still fresh in our minds. The Brunei Security Guard is still functioning, but the British Army’s involvement in recruiting Nepali servicemen to the unit still continues and there is still no Brunei-Nepal treaty.  <figure><img width="1624" height="1144" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef064b0ad905ca02ef80jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Brunei force was set up in 1974 with 27 former Gurkhas of the British Army and Gurkha Contingent, Singapore (Nepalis serve as policemen in Singapore). It was originally called Gurkha Security Guard but in 1981, the British and Brunei government decided to form the GRU, and had former British Gurkha soldiers serving in the new unit had to work as regular soldiers. Ever since it was converted into GRU, the Brunei government kept augmenting its strength. By 1996, the GRU’s numbers crossed 2,500 -- as big as a brigade strength in the British Army. I was a British Gurkha soldier, and joined the GRU in May 1996 even though I had signed the contract paperwork as ‘security guard’. When we got there, we were forced to work as infantry soldiers.Most ex-British Gurkha soldiers serving in the GRU were above 45, and the situation was pathetic. Us over-the-hill Gurkhas were compelled to run Battle Fitness Test (BFT) and Combat Fitness Test (CFT), fire heavy weapons and often had to participate in weeks-long exercises in the dense tropical jungles of Borneo.  Despite being fit, some ex-Gurkhas died of exhaustion during physically demanding jungle exercises. Their salaries had remained stagnant for many lustrums. The other big transgression was that the British government used to charge 2,500 Brunei dollars (USD 1,870) per Gurkha soldier as monthly salary from Brunei, but but gave us only BND1,100.  Essentially, Britain has been trading in Gurkhas for the last 205 years, ever since the Rana oligarchy in Nepal used us as its main tool of diplomacy. As scholar May Des Chene writes: ‘Gurkhas have been sold and bartered and they have been the coin of international diplomacy at key moments in Nepalese history.’The ‘Gurkha Contingent’ in Singapore has 2,000 young Nepali soldiers serving as policeman. The Singapore contingent itself was formed in 1949 after the end of the Pacific War, and after 71 years there is still no bilateral treaty between Singapore and Nepal governing recruitment.It is the British Army that recruits Nepalis on behalf of the Singaporeans. The question is: Who authorised this arrangement? Why is it still going on? Scores of so-called democratic governments have come and gone in Nepal, and no one has shown much concern about this affront to the country’s sovereignty.The Gurkhas in Singapore were kept in British Army enclaves until the late 1990s. Many of them are married, but some 1,500 of these young, educated and dynamic Nepali women are confined to the base and not allowed to work in Singapore. <figure><img width="2048" height="1536" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef094b0ad905ca02ef81jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Over the years, there were more than 15 retired Gurkha majors and about 50 retired captains serving in the GRU. But their status was lower than that of second lieutenants. However, they had handsome salaries, perks and facilities compared to the other ranks. Most Nepali officer regarded them as sycophants, as many of them used to kowtow to British and Bruneian officers.   Des Chene writes: ‘The soldiers look upon them with mistrust and regard them as moles who misrepresent their views to the British officers in order to curry their favours in the forms of promotions, good postings, longer services, granting of honorary ranks which carry some monetary benefits on their retirement, etc.’ There was a lot of arbitrary discipline enforced, most soldiers who had been in the British Army found the rules confusing and the officers did not have the same discipline and respect of the rank and file. When the British were in India, and after the 1816 treaty they did not actually have to colonise Nepal, and never really recognised Nepal as a sovereign independent country until the Chandra Shumshere Rana’s Friendship Treaty of 1923. But at the heart of the Gurkha dilemma is the anomaly that even today, nationals of one country fight and die for another. It is absurd that the United Kingdom, a sovereign country, recruits soldiers from another sovereign, independent country (Nepal) to serve in still another sovereign independent country, Brunei.  Despite this, elected leaders of Nepal and its intellectuals and historians, forever gloat about Nepal's independence and sovereignty, and that the country was never colonised. Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15993#.X9d66dgzaM8">The resistance</a> by Sita Mademba in Dharan <img width="150" height="171" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109191116/636bef0c4b0ad905ca02ef82jpeg.jpg" alt="">Ra<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15993#.X9d66dgzaM8">m Kandangwa</a> is a former soldier in the British Army Brigade of the Gurkhas and served in the GRU in Brunei, where he led a rebellion against his commanding officers in 1996, and returned to Nepal on 15 December of 1997. He has a PhD in Nepal-Britain relations.

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2d29c7e80680e083ecejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1668" height="1130"/><figcaption>Gurkhas in the trenches of France during World War I. More than 20,000 Nepali soldiers were killed fighting for the Allied Forces between 1914-1918. Photo: Imperial War Museum</figcaption></figure>Books have been written about the legendary bravery and sacrifice of Nepal’s Gurkha soldiers. Officers have extolled their obedience and cheerfulness despite hardships and danger. The world has an image of Nepali soldiers in the battlefield: fierce but always smiling.But historians have pored through letters and diaries written by Gurkha soldiers from the two World Wars to paint a slightly different picture — Nepalis in the trenches of Flanders Field or below the cliffs at Gallipoli, homesick, terrified, cold and miserable. Many of these letters home were held by military censors, and are archived.Now, a diary written by a Gurkha sergeant in the British Army during the battle of La Bassée in northern France during World War I in 1914, and retrieved by a German officer, have revealed a whole new side to the Gurkha legend, one that confirms the traditional bravery, but also their human side.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2d59c7e80680e083ecfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1912" height="1054"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2d89c7e80680e083ed0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1804" height="720"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Lieutenant Alexander Pfeifer was with the Kurhessische Jäger-Bataillon Nr. 11 and found the diary of a Nepali solider in La Bassée on 20 December 1914 after a fierce battle against Allied forces of the British and French Armies. The battle had lasted from 12 October till the end of December. The name of the Nepali soldier, and whether he died in the battlefield or as a prisoner of war, are not known.Lt Pfeiffer’s great-grandson Philip Cross found the documents and the khukri while going through his family effects. He is in the process of translating his great grandfather’s diary into English, and also getting the diary of the dead Gurkha sergeant translated into English and German.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2db9c7e80680e083ed1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1650" height="1240"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Lt Pfeiffer writes in his diary about the fearsome reputation of the Gurkhas among the German troops: ‘I found quite a few letters written in Indian script. They are fierce warriors. We are afraid of them. They use their knives to cut up the enemy,’ he writes in one entry.It appears that Lt Pfeifer’s job was to go through the bodies of dead enemy soldiers to find out if he could find any intelligence of what the Allied forces were up to. That appears to be how he got hold of the diary, photographs and even the khukri.The first page of the diary of the unknown Nepali solider is in verse with numbered lines. It lists the names of the writers’ young friends who were killed or taken prisoner, the hardships they endured. From the penmanship and vocabulary and the use of numbered verse, the soldier appears to have learnt his Nepali probably from a village priest who used to be the only literate person in the villages in Nepal in those days.यो कठै बरा...जोबन सबै शत्रुका हातबाट गयो ।।२०।। पल्टनको माया मोह नेपालमै रह्यो जिउँदै मरी कैलाशमा गयो। सुवेदार भीमसिं भँडारी भयो ।।२१।। हर्के थापा जसराजा धर्म खत्री कम्यान्डर प्रजीतन नैनसिं खत्री सरुप कुँवर प्रतिमन थापा<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2de9c7e80680e083ed2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="788" height="1180"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2e19c7e80680e083ed3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1878" height="1196"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Translated, the lines read: ‘Poor fellows, their youth was taken away by the enemy’s hands (20)The love of the military was left behind in NepalWe are the living dead who have gone to heavenSubedar Bhimsi Bhandari (21) Harke Thapa Jasraja Dharma Khatri Commander Pasitan Nainsingh Khatri Swarup Kunwar Pratiman Thapa’ <figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2e59c7e80680e083ed4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="878" height="1180"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The second page of the Nepali solider’s diary (above) has the names of Gurkhas which, interestingly, are the same names found in the same order in the papers of Lt Pfeifer in which he lists the names of Gurkhas taken prisoner (left). The German phonetics also closely resemble the way the unknown soldier has written the names in Nepali, for example, by spelling Gurung as गुरुं (Gurun).Lt Pfeiffer's note in his own diary entry reads as follows:Found with a Gurkha sergeant major. The content of the notice page no. 1 says: The soldiers of the section (Battalion) should be treated with love, friendliness and kindness. Every person, who carries out the rules of his religion, according to law and order, receives his payment (will be happy). The orders of the commanding officer should be carried out precisely and immediately. The content of the notice paper no.2 is as follows. Names of the Gurkhas:<ol><li>Thuparau Gurun</li> <li>Chandrabir Thapa </li> <li>Akalbir Gurun</li> <li>Manbahadur Gurun</li> <li>Amarsing Gurun</li> <li>Udjersingh Gharti</li> <li>Imansing Gurun</li> <li>Manbir Thapa</li> <li>Chhabilal Rana</li> <li>Akatbir Thapa</li> <li>Narbahadur Thapa</li> <li>Schatasin Gurun</li></ol>On investigating some of these names, British Army records show that Chandrabir Thapa was a rifleman in the Second King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles (Sirmur Rifles). Manbir Thapa was a sergeant in the First Battalion of the First King George V’s Own Gurkha Rifles (Malaun Regiment), and his service number was 1896 and he was killed in action on 20 December 1914 in La Bassée. We even know Manbir’s father’s name was Parasram Thapa and lived in Dohadi village in western Nepal.Chhabilal Rana’s service number was 2114 and he was a rifleman with the Second King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles Second Battalion (Sirmur Rifles) and he was also killed in action on 20 December.Records at La Bassée show that there were other Gurkha soldiers killed in the battlefield or taken prisoner who are not on Lt Pfeiffer’s diary list. One of them is Haribal Thapa who, according to the Sir Kukri &amp; Co blog was a rifleman in the First King George V’s Own Gurkha Rifles (First Gurkha Regiment).His service number was 2952 and he died on 24 January 1915 while he was a prisoner of war in a German camp after being captured in La Bassée. His grave can still be found at a military cemetery outside Berlin. Haribal Thapa’s documents show that his father was Dal Kishore who lived in Perung in today’s Majhkot of Tanahu district.Lieutenant Alexander Pfeifer’s diary, as translated by his great-grandson, has many references to the Gurkhas who were their enemies and served in the British Army. Among them are entries dated 20 December 1914, the day of the fierce battle during which the 12 Gurkhas listed above by the unknown Nepali soldier were probably taken prisoner:<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2e79c7e80680e083ed5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="1036"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><ul><li>I was woken up at 5:30am on 20 December 1914 by the sound of cannons and gunfire. Someone opened the door to the room where I was sleeping. He was the uberjäger from our machine-gun company. He was so frightened he could not even speak properly. Our machine-gun company had been over-run by the enemy. He said they (the Gurkhas) used their curved knife to cut the throats of our comrades, and killed everyone they could find. I woke up the others and related this news to them.</li></ul><ul><li>After the end of the battle, I witnessed a horrific sight. The dead and wounded covered the ground. There were some British and Indian (Gurkha) soldiers, who were in eternal sleep next to our artillery position. Some were headless, others did not have limbs. We took what we could from the dead. I got one of those curved knives, tobacco, food in tiffin boxes. </li></ul><ul><li> We were fighting these Indians (Gurkhas) who had their heads shaven. They were short and stocky, and very agile. One of them who was a prisoner of war said that the Gurkhas were terrified of the cold. They were afraid of the snow and freezing weather. They will soon bite the dust.</li></ul><ul><li>The Gurkhas have a reputation for being brutal, aggressive and fearless, but in their hearts they are kind, peace-loving and spiritual people. </li></ul><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2ea9c7e80680e083ed6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2298" height="1038"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The Nepali soldier’s diary, written by hand 107 years ago, says a lot about the war and the warriors from Nepal. The soldier was writing about fellow Nepalis in his own, and possibly other units, listing carefully the names of the dead and those taken prisoner. The names in the poem are probably of those who were killed in battle, but we cannot be sure. The other list, because of its similarity to the list in Lt Pfeifer’s list in German, could be of those who were taken prisoner on 20 December.But that opens up a puzzle. How come the list of dead soldiers in Nepali soldier’s diary is in the same order as the list of prisoners in German in Lt Pfeifer's diary? Nepali writer Satis Shroff who lives in the southwest German town of Freiburg has read Lt Pfeifer's notes, and deduces that the list contains names of Gurkha POWs and the commanding-officer is instructing his subordinates to treat the soldiers well and to allow them to practice their religious rites as they are used to. Shroff infers that the Gurkha who wrote the list of names is dead because there is no mention of a handing-over of the diary.It is not clear if Lt Pfeifer is just translating the Nepali soldier's diary, or if those are his own instructions. The German officer's own diary was ultimately found more than a century later by his great-grandson. We do not know what the Gurkha's name was, where in Nepal he was from, and what happened to him.To add to the puzzle, Manbir Thapa, whose name is among the 12 listed in the German and Nepali soldiers’ diaries, is also on the FindGrave.com list of those killed in action on 20 December 1914 in the battle of La Bassée and buried at Indian Cemetery in <a href="https://www.google.com/search?safe=strict&amp;client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;sxsrf=ALeKk01rdoUpIkzZMB4dtPbPOl1AsEo_PQ:1606490163118&amp;q=La+Rochelle&amp;spell=1&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjC0YecgqPtAhWdzjgGHStuAFUQkeECKAB6BAgQEC4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.google.com/search?safe%3Dstrict%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sxsrf%3DALeKk01rdoUpIkzZMB4dtPbPOl1AsEo_PQ:1606490163118%26q%3DLa%2BRochelle%26spell%3D1%26sa%3DX%26ved%3D2ahUKEwjC0YecgqPtAhWdzjgGHStuAFUQkeECKAB6BAgQEC4&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606610831928000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEooEwW7j1qpO0hqcCG7g4EKtWx1w">La Rochelle</a> in France. Here is a partial reproduction of the list of those killed from the First King George V’s Gurkha Rifles (Malaun Regiment) on that day with their father’s name and hometown:Rifleman Buddhiman Thapa Father’s name and address: Sukhbhar Thapa, LamjungLance Corporal Kharak Bahadur GurungFather’s name and address: Jasbir Thapa, LamjungRifleman Bahadur GurungFather’s name and address: Asu Bahadur Gurung, LamjungRifleman Rana Bahadur RanaFather’s name and address: Kulman Singh, SerungRifleman Pritman ThapaFather’s name and address: Sarbajit Thapa, GrahamRifleman Ransur ThapaFather’s name and address: Purnabir Thapa, BhirkotRifleman Haribaran ThapaFather’s name and address: Pratiman Thapa, BhirkotLance Corporal Lal Bahadur GurungFather’s name and address: Sriman Gurung, GorkhaBesides the uncertainty of war, the Gurkhas who sailed across the oceans to a completely new country, climate and food must have suffered badly from culture shock. Many had boarded troop ships from Calcutta or Bombay and arrived in Europe at the beginning of winter in 1914. Their main hardship was caused by the extreme cold because they did not have enough warm clothes while in the wet trenches. Many wore military trousers on top of their suruwal.They had never been trained in trench warfare, and did not know how to dig them. They were not used to fighting in such cold. The Germans found out from the Gurkha prisoners of war that the Nepalis feared the cold more than the enemy they were fighting, according to Alexander Pfeifer’s diary.Most of the fighting men from Nepal could not read or write, and no one ever wrote their stories for them, so there is very little written documentation of what they went through. There must be so many hidden stories of unknown soldiers that we will never get to hear about. Yet, they are a part of our people’s history, and a forgotten chapter in the history of Nepal.Those who returned alive from the front, used to dock in Bombay and take the train via Banaras, where they all bought copies of the Nepali Ramayana translated by Bhanubhakta Acharya. One of the major ways in which the holy book got to the far corners of Nepal was through these demobilised Gurkhas returning home.The Battle of La Bassée lasted three months with the Germans first gaining the upper hand, and then being repulsed by British Army reinforcements from the Lahore Division and Gurkhas. The British suffered more than 20,000 casualties, of which 1,600 were from the Indian Corps, including Gurkhas. The Germans recorded 6,000 killed.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181124/636be2ed9c7e80680e083ed7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="924" height="1252"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Many of the Gurkhas captured in France and Belgium were transported to prisoner of war camps in Germany. There, some of the prisoners had their voices and songs preserved in early recording machines that had just come into use.Nepali professor Alaka Atreya Chudal of Vienna University has been translating from Nepali into German some of these testimonies recorded between 1914-1918 in a prisoner of war camp of Halbmondlager in Wünsdorf 40km away from Berlin.The 100 or so recordings contain Nepali folk tales, songs, poetry, and folk riddles that have immense linguistic and cultural value because they are preserved in audio from more than a century ago. The recordings are now in the archives of Humboldt-Universität in Berlin.Says Prof Atreya: “These folk material bring out the sorrow, prayers, suffering, longing for home and family of the Gurkha prisoners from long ago.”Shree Bhakta Khanal is an investigative journalist and author of An Arduous Path.

Diary of a Nepali soldier in France

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181116/636be0f39c7e80680e083e1fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1068" height="801"/><figcaption>Bal Bahadur Basnet, died of Covid-19 at the age of 99. Photos: MANISH PAUDEL</figcaption></figure>A Nepali soldier in the British Army who was captured by the Japanese during the fall of Singapore, and survived four years in a prisoner of war camp in New Guinea, has died of Covid-19 at the age of 99.Bal Bahadur Basnet was one of only four Gurkha soldiers from a unit of 1,300 to survive the war and cruel conditions at the camp, and was only saved after Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs ended the war in August 1945.He died Saturday morning at the Nepal Army Hospital in Kathmandu. Basnet was in good health before being infected with Covid-19, and when his pneumonia worsened two weeks ago, he was transferred to the ICU at the military hospital. In the last few days he needed to be put on ventilator support.“He was perfectly fit before the coronavirus infection, he never took any medication. He got up every morning at four, took a cold shower and a walk, he did not even need prescription glasses for reading and writing,” said Man Khatri, the publisher of his biography दोस्रो विश्वयुद्धका जिउँदो युद्धबन्दीः बलबहादुर बस्नेत (Living Prisoner of the Second World War).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDeAg8i3ryI&amp;feature=emb_logoBasnet joined the British Army on 7 October 1939, just after World War II started and was taken to the Burma Front, where the Allied forces were trying to stop the Japanese advance into India. His recruitment number was 8629.When the Japanese started making advances into Malaya, the British took the Gurkha battalions there to try to protect Singapore. But the peninsula fell, and Basnet along with other British prisoners of war were taken to Changi Prison in Singapore, later to Java and finally to New Guinea.Basnet <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-atom-bomb-saved-my-life/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-atom-bomb-saved-my-life/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605163838930000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHsKwI6iWohtrDHXbswpiULxw74Hw">told Nepali Times last year</a> how he and other prisoners ate rats and rotten rice, and were often beaten by their Japanese captors. Of the 1,300 Nepalis in Basnet’s unit, only 300 were alive when Singapore fell, and the 200 who were wounded were left behind to die. Of the 100 who were taken to New Guinea, only four survived. If they were not killed in action or of their wounds, most died of malaria and other diseases at camp.“We were made to work on empty stomachs, and had to bury the bodies of our friends,” Basnet recalled. Many prisoners were executed, some with nails hammered into their heads in front of the others. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2030#.XejsHpMzbIU" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D2030%23.XejsHpMzbIU&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605163838930000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH6Re_CpWwMTV7rA6YC5glVpTwfhg">Ex-POWs get  £10,000</a>, Ramesh Poudel<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181116/636be0f59c7e80680e083e20jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1600" height="1067">Basnet worked as the prisoner barber, and remembers the Japanese treating the Gurkhas slightly better than the others. They were confident about winning the war and making Nepal a part of Japan.One day, there was noise and shouting at the camp as word spread of the Japanese surrender. Later, he found out that it was the attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought the war to an end. He told us last year: “The atom bombs saved my life.”Australian troops liberated the camp, and took Basnet and others to Darwin from where they were brought to Bombay. Basnet took a train to Gorakhpur, and then on to his village in Galkot of Baglung. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2529#.XejuxZMzbIU" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D2529%23.XejuxZMzbIU&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605163838930000&amp;usg=AFQjCNErFhf90bLSD--P6yG1PRuaqNbFkA">A bahun Gurkha</a>, Nepali TimesHis family had given him up for dead, and it was a joyous reunion. The Gurkhas were given the option of joining either the British or Indian Army, Basnet decided to be near home in India. But he was soon fighting again as the Indian Army waged war with Pakistan over Kashmir.In 1954, he had enough of fighting other people’s battles, and decided to retire with his pension, and come home to Nepal. He stayed in Galkot, established a school and helped the community with development projects.A few years ago, he moved to Lokanthali of Bhaktapur to be with his son. Remembering his POW years, Basnet told us: “We suffered such hardship, we thought those who died in the camps were the lucky ones.”Read also:<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5987#.Xejs9ZMzbIU" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D5987%23.Xejs9ZMzbIU&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605163838930000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFafemfGU_SvbjnO1AIrXPWJhagpQ">“War is the worst of all things”</a>, Nepali Times

Atom bomb saved his life, Covid killed him

<figure><img width="1500" height="997" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109131156/636ba41b9c7e80680e07364ejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Soldier-turned-author Tim I Gurung with Gurkha veteran Indra Jit Wanem Limbu, 92, in Dharan while interviewing him for his book, The Gurkhas: A True Story.</figcaption></figure>As a boy from a far-flung village in Nepal’s Kaski district, Tim I Gurung never made it to college. He joined his family’s ancestral profession of enlisting in the British Army’s Brigade of Gurkhas.During his school days, Tim loved writing poetry, songs, and short stories, and his parents remember he had a way with words. But his family was hardwired to Gurkha recruitment though generations of service, and it was perhaps inevitable that he would also be a solider himself.Like many of his forebears, Tim’s destiny was to serve and risk his life defending a foreign country through its armed force. Without finishing his schooling, he joined the British Army and served as a rifleman for 13 years.Although the Brigade of Gurkhas is supposed to have a long and glorious history, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596437613486000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG01XOTDWJpcUnPg_zXVxEapPBfQw">it is also tragic</a>. It is hard to imagine that at a time when Nepal’s population was only 5 million, 200,000 Nepalis fought in the trenches of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/100-years-of-platitudes,1025" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/100-years-of-platitudes,1025&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596437613486000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEXAtzhrs90EjHy6-l1eO58QCcoQA">Flander’s Field</a> and in <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/gallipoli-and-the-gurkhas,2271" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/gallipoli-and-the-gurkhas,2271&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596437613486000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFsJZ6BpB12n1KKIZ8HYXsJcoMnqw">Gallipoli</a> in World War I. One in ten did not return home, leaving Nepal’s villages devoid of young men. Barely 30 years later, 250,000 Gurkhas were once more sent to battle to defend the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, North Africa and Europe. Almost 33,000 were killed in action, others died of disease in Japanese POW camps.It was out of the question for Tim Gurung to leave the military before completing his tenure, but he managed to get early retirement to start a small business. He struggled to raise his family, and finally settled in Hong Kong, where he was based till the British handover of the colony to China in 1997.At age 50, he decided he had enough of both the military and manufacturing, and he fell back on his childhood passion for writing. This enthusiasm for the world of words is amply demonstrated by a verse that is <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=tim%20i%20gurung&amp;src=typed_query" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/search?q%3Dtim%2520i%2520gurung%26src%3Dtyped_query&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596437613486000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF92lYPF-BchJ9LersCES1_wM4HNg">pinned on his Twitter wall</a>:The Gurkhas fought for the British over 200 years,  Yet nobody could defeat them in a fair game, Now one of their own has arrived with a pen, And promised to give them a proper name! <figure><img width="1500" height="997" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109131156/636ba41e9c7e80680e07364fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Tim Gurung with Tahal Singh Gurung, 100 in Palpa.</figcaption></figure>Tim did not let the English language and the craft of writing be a barrier to his assiduous research of retired Gurkha veterans. He tracked them down in remote villages in Nepal to record their testimonies before the world moved on, and forgot about their sacrifices.It was precisely because he knew time was running out that he put all his effort into his writing mission with the goal of telling the true, and full story of Gurkha soldiers like himself. Some of the veterans like Tahal Singh Rana whom he went to interview in Palpa, are 100 years old – physically perhaps a bit frail, but sharp as ever with memories of their time in frontline military service. Tim goes all the way to Ilam to meet Karna Bahadur Rai, now 99, and then to Dharan to meet 92-year-old Indra Jit Wanem Limbu who proudly pins all his British Army medals of valour on his shirt for a photograph.Tim Gurung had no clue about the world of books, although he had been self-publishing works of fiction from Hong Kong. In 2015 he was profiled in the South China Morning Post, and wrote op-eds for the Asia Times portal, but he knew that although bringing out his own books gave him independence as an author, he could not sustain a career in writing. He made it a point to be at major book fairs in Hong Kong and the region so he could directly interact with readers and publishers.After writing nearly a dozen novels that did not cause much of a ripple, Tim switched to non-fiction. His dream project was to try to document the history of Gurkha recruitment, as well as individual stories of servicemen like himself. Earlier this year, The Gurkhas: A True Story, was finally published by Penguin Random House.Although the history of Gurkha recruitment from 1815 to the present day has been <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/new-gurkha-book/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/new-gurkha-book/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596437613486000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFPVKGPDmcRoNYOixLB6t2sHDLM6g">told and retold many times</a>, some of them about the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/review/The-Khukri-Braves-review,2945" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/review/The-Khukri-Braves-review,2945&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596437613486000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGMfgdm5ebyKA_TnEq4zrVh7oCsxg">deployment of Gorkhas in the Indian Army</a>, and tales of their bravery in battle, generosity and uncomplaining sacrifices are well documented, what makes this book different are the oral testimonies of veterans. It goes without saying that many of their experiences are more dramatic than any fictional account that Tim Gurung could have imagined in his novels.   <figure><img width="1500" height="997" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109131156/636ba4229c7e80680e073650jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Tim Gurung tracked down Karna Bahadur Rai in Ilam to record his testimony for his book.</figcaption></figure>While Tim writes incredibly fast, the project would not have been possible without adequate resources, energy and a well-framed and rigorous research plan that spanned three years. In that period, he visited most countries connected with the Gurkhas from Brunei to Britain. He visited the Kranji War Memorial in <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=17264#.XyZc5ooza70" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D17264%23.XyZc5ooza70&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596437613486000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH8uQOLGfL_s1LFYK_HLzabGttHdg">Singapore</a> where many thousands of Gurkhas are interred. He met Ministry of Defence officials in London, and historians in Malaysia and Burma, interacting with diplomats and members of the Nepali diaspora.But it was in Nepal where most of the retired protagonists are, and he has mined their memories with military precision for posterity. Accompanied by a camera crew, Tim toured Nepal from Pashupatinagar of Ilam in the east to Chadani-Dodhara in Kanchanpur in the western tip of the country, interviewing more than 90 ex-Gurkhas – many of them who served in Burma, Malaya and Italy during World War II.What fascinates most in The Gurkhas: A True Story are vivid battlefield memories of the surviving veterans, their  gallantry, sacrifice and suffering. Unlike other books on Gurkha history, Tim Gurung’s account is not written through a western lens, thus offering a new indigenous perspective. Especially when it comes to the controversy of Gurkha pensions, we hear an impassioned plea for fairness and justice.The book has been reviewed in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post and Singapore’s Straits Times, and although they have raised bona fide issues of writing and editing, the fact remains that they are reviewed by non-Nepalis. It may be rough on the edges, but this is a true people’s history of the Gurkhas, told by an insider.For now, the book is available only in Southeast Asia through Penguin Random House, but will seen be released in a South Asian edition soon.  Chun B Gurung is a former UN media specialist in Nepal and Timor-Leste, and Chun is currently adjunct faculty of journalism at St Xavier’s College in Kathmandu.The Gurkhas: A True Storyby Tim I GurungPenguin Random House, 2020Paperback 256 pages $ 18.84<a href="https://www.amazon.sg/Gurkhas-Tim-I-Gurung/dp/981488281X" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.sg/Gurkhas-Tim-I-Gurung/dp/981488281X&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1596437613486000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGWBJwbk65pj1sD9nef33Jd73uQCQ">Available on Amazon 340g</a><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109131156/636ba4259c7e80680e073651jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="261" height="405">

Former Gurkha soldier turns author

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151116/636a64ce9c7e80680e0598fajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1203"/><figcaption>Photo: MANISH PAUDEL</figcaption></figure>They ate rats with rotten rice, were ravaged by <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-mosquito-that-changed-nepals-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">malaria</a> and beaten by their Japanese captors. Only four of the 300 Nepali prisoners of war captured in Singapore and transported to camps in Indonesia survived. Bal Bahadur Basnet, now 98, was one of them.The British <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/the-gurkhas-an-interactive-timeline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gurkha</a> defending Burma from Japanese invasion during the Second World War had to flee to Malaya, and were captured as Singapore fell. Those who refused to surrender were executed.First they were taken to Java, where the white soldiers were put in one camp, while the Indians and Nepalis were kept in dirty, insect-infested cells with little food.“On empty stomachs we were made to work carrying heavy loads, and had to bury the bodies of our friends,” Basnet recalls, adding that punishment for disobedience was to have nails hammered into their foreheads in front of fellow prisoners. Soon, the Japanese crammed the soldiers into vehicles and ships and took them to Java, then five months later to camps in New Guinea, where hundreds of prisoners survived eating coconuts and even grass. Many contracted malaria, while others died with painful boils all over their body.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2030#.XejsHpMzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ex-POWs get  £10,000</a>, Ramesh Poudel<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=5987#.Xejs9ZMzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"War is the worst of all things"</a>, Nepali TimesOnly four Gurkhas who were brought to New Guinea survived. “The dead were the lucky ones, those who were alive worried that there would be no one to bury them after they died,” remembers Basnet.Basnet (pictured, left, and with a knife that survived the war, above) was good with scissors, so the Japanese made him the camp barber. He talked to his captors in broken English while he cut their hair, and remembers the Japanese were confident they would win the war.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151116/636a64d09c7e80680e0598fbjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="402">“They told me they would conquer the world, and Nepal would soon be a part of Japan. But one day there was panic in the camp, the Japanese started melting away,” Basnet remembers. He found out only later that the Americans had bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.“The atom bomb saved my life,” Basnet says.Basnet’s platoon had 1,300 members at the start of the war, but only 300 remained when they were captured. Among them, 200 were wounded and could not walk, so they were left behind to die. Only 100 remained in New Guinea at the end of the war, and of them only four were Nepalis.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDeAg8i3ryI&amp;t=9sA month after the Japanese left in 1945, Australian soldiers arrived and took the POWs to Darwin, where they were given Australian Army uniforms and $20 each for their trip to Bombay. After that it was a long train journey to Gorakhpur, where they were reunited with other Gurkhas who had survived the war.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2529#.XejuxZMzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A bahun Gurkha</a>, Nepali TimesBasnet hiked over the mountains to his home in Galkot of Baglung. After four years, his family and friends had given him up for dead. It was a surprise homecoming, and everyone was ecstatic.But peace did not last. The Gurkhas were given a choice to join the British or Indian Armies. Basnet opted for the Indian Army, to be closer to home. And soon, India was at war with Pakistan and Basnet’s platoon had to go to Ambala from Dehradun. Again, Bal Bahadur Basnet lost many friends from the Gurkha brigade in the battles in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/kashmir-and-kathmandu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kashmir</a>.After that war, the Gurkhas who had served more than 15 years were given a choice to stay or retire with pension. Basnet says he raised his hand and quit the army.“By then I was pretty tired of fighting other people’s wars.”

The atom bomb saved my life

Born in Khandbari in eastern Nepal, Parashuram Pathak helped his family around the farm, sold what they grew in the market and lent a hand in the kitchen.&nbsp; After working as a chef in Dubai, San Francisco, Denmark, Australia, and on cruise ships, Pathak has now brought back what he has learnt to the Tusa Restaurant in Bhaktapur that opened on Nepali New Year on 13 April. Tusa uses fresh indigenous ingredients from various parts of Nepal, and fuses them with international methods to produce unique dishes. Pathak is a global Nepali, and is introducing global Nepali cuisine to his homeland. Pathak left an executive chef job to intern at three-Michelin-starred Noma in Denmark, named the best restaurant in the world five times. Noma runs on a philosophy of foraging to rediscover wild local ingredients, and Tusa’s mission is similarly noble: preparing dishes with Nepali ingredients using modern techniques and equipment. “We are taking Nepali food beyond dal-bhat and momo, we are taking it international,” Pathak said on the phone from Sydney. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepali-baker-rises-to-the-top-in-denmark">Denmark’s best baker is a Nepali</a>, Vishad Onta  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240419180424_1312bc016cbb2fe59c6d4a78d1f8b463af4a10b3f79559a2405fd54ea5b3197a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20240419180424_1312bc016cbb2fe59c6d4a78d1f8b463af4a10b3f79559a2405fd54ea5b3197a" data-rendition-name="original" width="801" height="802" loading="lazy" alt="The return of the natives Page 12 NT #1208"> <figcaption>Photo: PARASHURAM PATHAK/FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  Pathak’s team in Nepal includes chefs Rupesh Bohara and Sagar Shrestha who have also worked extensively in Dubai and Australia, and share his vision. The three realised they shared the same dream, and over the past five years have travelled across Nepal to research their menu, collecting ingredients and ideas from homestays, food carts, and nature. The team then scouted for Nepal’s best architect, and zeroed in on Bhaktapur-based heritage conservationist Rabindra Puri who designed the Malla-era house for Tusa in the Nag Pokhari neighbourhood. Bohara and Shrestha have moved back to Nepal for good, and Pathak arrives in September. “I made dishes from all over the world, but when someone asked what Nepali food was like, I had no answer,” says Bohara, “I came back to find out.” &nbsp;“You can get citizenship, a green card, big houses and cars, but where is the self-satisfaction?” asks Shrestha, who has a red-and-blue chef’s knife with the sun and moon of the Nepali flag tattooed on his right forearm.&nbsp; Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/diaspora-diaries/the-return-of-a-master-baker"> The return of a master baker</a>, Raju Pakhrin  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240419180424_c601264463e5a28d4e71a46781f340a53619a08d00949a7aaebfef84e75a319d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240419180424_c601264463e5a28d4e71a46781f340a53619a08d00949a7aaebfef84e75a319d" data-rendition-name="original" width="6000" height="4000" loading="lazy" alt="The return of the natives Page 12 NT #1208"> <figcaption>Photos: TUSA</figcaption> </figure>  Bohara and Shrestha passionately recount stories of their trips across Nepal, speaking of generous lodge owners who introduced them to local ingredients. Tusa can seat 28, and dining here is a sensory experience with a live kitchen. The chefs cook and place dishes on a large granite countertop with induction sections built in. Behind the counter is a grill on an indoor fire with pulley control to adjust the fire. Everything that can be made in Nepal — chairs and tables, ceramic dishes, the grill — is locally sourced. The executive kitchen/laboratory is downstairs. It is spacious, spotless, and contains appliances rarely seen in restaurants here: a sous vide machine that cooks vacuum-sealed packets at consistent temperatures, and a dehydrator for sisnu nettles. A fresh batch of deep purple kimbu (mulberry) muffins has just come out of the oven. Fridges have dry-aged fish and marigold kombucha. Fermentation seems to be the theme at Tusa, and Pathak explained: “Fermentation takes away the natural sugars in food, leaving behind a true, umami taste.”&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/vikings-khukri-passion">Viking's khukri passion</a>, Alisha Sijapati  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240419180424_c59e2b4230864f646bc36108adb951e95ec85da6156740294b1ec715b86acf89.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20240419180424_c59e2b4230864f646bc36108adb951e95ec85da6156740294b1ec715b86acf89" data-rendition-name="original" width="5895" height="3930" loading="lazy" alt="The return of the natives Page 12 NT #1208"> </figure>  Tusa itself means ‘shoot’ in Nepali, and can be a dish of fermented bamboo shoots. The restaurant serves a tasting menu with six courses, plus surprises. It starts with a fermented potato and millet roti with charred green garlic and tomato chutney. The bread tastes like a mix of alu paratha and kodoko roti with a satisfying, mild flavour. The chefs do not show off, and overdo it. Dishes are tastefully simple and faithful, a theme that runs through the meal. The second course is a filet of fish charred on one side and placed in a broth. It is delicate and smokey, and does not mask the character of the fish.&nbsp; The next is Batuk Chukauni, a Magar dish with a lentil snack and a yoghurt-based potato achar. The batuk, made of lentil batter, is light and the chukauni has potatoes and peas. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/money-is-not-everything-but-you-need-money-for-everything">"Money is not everything, but you need money for everything"</a>, Rohit Shrestha  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240419180424_e3f51228ff792e8d4297f81f8e67d138584e922ae035d131977494219e5e85c5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20240419180424_e3f51228ff792e8d4297f81f8e67d138584e922ae035d131977494219e5e85c5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="The return of the natives Page 12 NT #1208"> <figcaption>Batuk Chukauni. Photo: VISHAD ONTA</figcaption> </figure>  Next is a skewer of jackfruit with a tamarind and mustard glaze that has the texture of a slice of sausage and melts in the mouth. Then comes the first off-menu item: a steak of watermelon, glazed and grilled, tasting sweet, sour and smokey. After that a palate cleanser sorbet made with laligurans syrup adorned with a frozen candied rhododendron petal. Finally the main course: barbeque chicken and chyakla coarse corn grits. The chicken has been brined, marinated, cooked sous-vide and seared on the grill. The delicate consistency of the chicken stands out. Desert is a smooth, creamy cheesecake that uses the local juju-dhau yoghurt. And the last course is a moist, moss-green sisnu cake laced with mulberry jam and cream.&nbsp; There is nothing gimmicky about Tusa. It is the coming together of skilled Nepalis with international exposure who have mixed what they have learnt abroad with the flavours of home.&nbsp; The tasting menu is Rs3,500, and it may take some time before Nepalis develop a predilection for some of its items. The chefs are excited, vindicated, and relieved. Coming back to Nepal, uprooting successful careers abroad to take a chance on Nepal must not have been easy.&nbsp; Tusa had a soft launch on New Year’s day with Kathmandu-based diplomats. Australian Ambassador Felicity Volk was one of them, and wrote on a Facebook post: ‘Chefs who honed their skills in Australia and returned to Nepal to give back. We call it fine dining, they call it #cominghome.’ Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-baker-of-barpak">The baker of Barpak</a>, Tara Aryal Pandey

The return of the natives

For a year or two after the 25 April 2015 earthquake, the residents of Kathmandu were too terrified to return to their high-rise apartments. None of them collapsed in the 7.8 disaster, but many sustained serious structural damage. &nbsp;
Fast forward nine years, and they have all but forgotten that frightful day. Kathmandu is back to building substandard structures, even as land prices drive developers to build taller.&nbsp;
With no more space to spread horizontally, Kathmandu is going vertical. But structural engineers say most of the high rises do not take into account seismicity, soil condition, construction methods, quality of raw materials, fire hazard, and search and rescue in collapsed concrete structures.
“Much of our focus since the 2015 earthquake has been on building and construction, but not as much on where we are building,” warns Sangeeta Singh, Professor of Urban Planning and Deputy Director of Centre for Disaster Studies at the Institute of Engineering.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/in-a-disastrous-state">In a disastrous state</a>, Sonia Awale
She adds: “Kathmandu is not really suited for high-rises. We have to first test the condition of the soil, but building permits are being issued without this fundamental step.”
Kathmandu Valley is a former lakebed with soft topsoil prone to liquefaction and excessive shaking, as seen during the 1934 megaquake. Many ruptures tore up the surface in 2015. &nbsp;
During an earthquake, the rock layers below Kathmandu ring like a bell and the vibrations on the surface take between 0.5 to 2 seconds for one oscillation. Buildings also vibrate, but at different frequencies depending on their height, construction material, and arrangement of their structural components.
At five floors, the vibration period of a building is 0.5 seconds, which is the same as that for Kathmandu Valley, and this could cause more damage, says structural engineer Surya Narayan Shrestha at the National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET).
“Building anything that is five storeys or higher in Kathmandu needs special design and structural considerations,” says Shrestha.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/shaking-things-up">Shaking things up</a>, Editorial
Technologies exist to reduce seismic risk in high-rises, and these are used in earthquake-prone cities like Tokyo, Los Angeles, Jakarta or Mexico City.&nbsp;
Base isolation, for example, separates the vibration of the land and the building, reducing damage from soil-building resonance. Base isolators move and stretch under pressure, absorbing much of an earthquake's impact by reducing swaying and shaking. &nbsp;
Seismic dampers change the pattern of vibration altogether, dissipating energy as vibrations move across a structure. But these are all expensive technologies, and none of the high-rises in Kathmandu use them.
However, Nepali engineers who can help with technology transfer are working in the field in Nepal and overseas. Kathmandu’s high-rises are already very expensive, and making them seismic-resistant would be an incremental cost.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/learning-from-jajarkot-what-we-didnt-after-2015-695vpzle">Learning from Jajarkot what we didn't after 2015</a>, Sushil Gyewali
The shape of high-rises also matters. Reinforced concrete buildings with asymmetric designs of the kind that are seen in newer structures in Kathmandu experience more torsion and shear during quakes. High-rises with regular geometry are stronger. &nbsp;&nbsp;
An even bigger concern is that of emergency evacuation and rescue in case of fire or earthquake. Kathmandu fire services do not have ladders that reach the higher floors of most new structures.
“High-rises mean more people and potentially higher casualties,” explains Shrestha. “We need immediate evacuation routes, fire escapes, emergency ladders, and fire trucks that can reach higher. Right now, safety features are voluntary and not mandatory.”
The street access, shelters, open spaces, and evacuation routes are integral to disaster preparedness and the safety of neighbourhoods and not just buildings. Most new high-rises in Kathmandu have narrow access roads.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/rebuilding-resilience-7-years-later">Rebuilding resilience 7 years later</a>, Anil Pokhrel
Since most of the buildings that survived the 2015 disaster were reinforced concrete structures, it fed the misconception that they are safer. But Himalayan seismologists say that if the intensity and duration of the shaking had been just a little higher, many substandard concrete structures would have collapsed.&nbsp;
And that is the final gap: Nepal’s limited expertise and equipment for search and rescue inside collapsed concrete structures. Kathmandu’s high-rises need to be better prepared for the next Big One.
“Structural safety and design were at the front and the centre after the 2015 earthquake, we also revised some building codes but we are back to square one with contractor-driven construction, especially in peri-urban areas,” says Sangeeta Singh, who is also with the National Planning Commission. “We need to monitor construction as much as design.”&nbsp;
Shrestha at NSET agrees there have been improvements in building practices in the past nine years, but adds, “We have both learnt and unlearnt lessons from 2015. The awareness hasn’t yet translated into action on safety.”
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lessons-not-learned-from-2015-o2etq6zu">Lessons not learned from 2015</a>, Sonia Awale

The rise of high-rises

Midway along the stretch of the ancient trade route between Tibet and India lies the Kel Tol neighbourhood. The name is derived from the original Koligrām, and it is believed the Koli people, who were originally from Rāmagrām in present-day southern Nepal near the Indian border, settled here. The Koli were the maternal ancestors of none other than the Buddha. Kel Tol is famous for the Buddhist monastic complex of Kanak Chaitya Mahāvihar, featuring the majestic two-tiered gilded temple of the white god Karunāmaya.&nbsp; This elaborately decorated courtyard is a bustling centre of the Vajrayāna sect of Buddhism, practised widely by the indigenous Newā people of Kathmandu Valley. Karunāmaya, also known as Ārya Avalokiteshwor, is defined in great detail in the 1st century CE Buddhist text Sadharmapundarikā where he liberates all sentient beings from suffering. He helps rid the eight external fears metaphorically equated with their equivalent internal states of mind: lions (pride), wild elephants (ignorance), fire (anger), snakes (jealousy), floods (attachment), imprisonment (miserliness), thieves (wrong views) and cannibals (doubt).  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240418130432_fe370cbee75003cd3eb5dccc7c3b2671630da193b0744db2aeac1bab3ff4a85c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20240418130432_fe370cbee75003cd3eb5dccc7c3b2671630da193b0744db2aeac1bab3ff4a85c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1338" height="2000" loading="lazy" alt="Seto Machhindranath"> </figure>  In the Pancha Rakshyā Sutra, a Buddhist scripture from 200 CE, Ārya Avalokiteshwor was counted among the eight major deities. Followers of the Brāhminical god Shiva worship Ārya Avalokiteshwor as Seto Machhindranāth. For Shaivites, Machhindranāth is the Indian saint who founded the Nāth cult in the 10th century CE. He is the guru of saint Gorakhnāth. During the reign of Yakshya Malla (1428–1482 CE), a beautiful image of Ārya Avalokiteshwor was dug up by a farmer in present-day Jamal, which was then a cultivated area outside the city. The farmer, known as a Jamami (meaning the one from Jamal) took the image home for safekeeping. That night, Ārya Avalokiteshwor appeared in the farmer’s dream and told him that the proper place for him to reside is at the confluence of two rivers. The nearest confluence was at present-day Wongha (Indrachok) and the image was installed in the Kanak Chaitya Mahāvihar complex in Kel Tol near Wongha. This made it easier for city residents to pay homage to Ārya Avalokiteshwor and spread compassion. Soon, the deity came to be revered highly as Jamaleshwor, the one found in Jamal. Eventually, the name got corrupted, as happens often in Nepāl Bhāsā, to Janabahā Dyo. The courtyard where his temple is located is now popularly known as Janabahā.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240418130432_5c9b219530e400445ef4e7f64856b43e7cdb756be26d9ed4565c84044c178a7e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20240418130432_5c9b219530e400445ef4e7f64856b43e7cdb756be26d9ed4565c84044c178a7e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1668" loading="lazy" alt="Seto Machhindranath"> </figure>  The gilded temple of Janabahā Dyo, first built in the early 16th century CE, is adorned with wooden and metal artefacts that symbolise 108 forms of Ārya Avalokiteshwor. It stands out as the most decorated temple of its kind in Kathmandu. Today, Janabahā is a living heritage site where many ancient customs and rituals are widely practised as per Vajrayāna Buddhist tradition. Devotees throng the Janabahā Dyo shrine for daily worship and to receive Karunāmaya’s blessings. Being the compassionate one, Ārya Avalokiteshwor goes around town every year in his tall wooden chariot to allow sick and physically disabled devotees to pay homage to him from the comfort of their homes. One could say it is a door-to-door visit by the Compassionate One.&nbsp; For the pragmatic minded, the chariot festival is an annual renewal of communal harmony, validation of our ancient mathematical supremacy and demonstration of the need to keep practical skills alive, including the craft of building earthquake resilient houses.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240418130432_fc8b234ceca87dee4b99e897a485cef121fb953857fb61492a413fbfcc48360c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20240418130432_fc8b234ceca87dee4b99e897a485cef121fb953857fb61492a413fbfcc48360c" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="Seto Machhindranath"> </figure>  The Janabahā Dyo chariot is pulled from Jamal, where his image was found by the farmer, through the historic heart of Kathmandu in a gala parade every year. The procession, accompanied by folk music ensembles and revellers, starts on the eighth day of the bright half of the month of Chaitra, and lasts up to a week (ending on Saturday this year). Hundreds of devotees pull the chariot along the streets as a way of expressing their gratitude to lord Karunāmaya for blessing them with compassion and well-being. Purna Ratna Vajrāchārya is an ordained priest who belongs to the clan responsible for taking care of Janabahā Dyo. He has been studying the design and architecture of the chariot for the past 40 years, and overseeing its construction for the past 15. He has learnt that the engineering principles of building the chariot are based on the mathematical system in which Buddhism is taught. For example, 365 pieces of wood are used in the chariot, each representing a day of the year. Each of the four wheels consist of 25 pieces of wood, totalling 100, representing completeness or fulfilment. The chariot is vertically divided into 13 sections, a parallel to the Buddhist concept of Trayodashi Bhuvana that describes the 13 steps that one must take to achieve the state of Nirvana.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240418130432_36d9964c9845f6d9a074786361fc5ab7d49138503ad162086998b731349b0ec0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20240418130432_36d9964c9845f6d9a074786361fc5ab7d49138503ad162086998b731349b0ec0" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1668" loading="lazy" alt="Seto Machhindranath"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240418130432_2662753a9514a682ccdfd17bf05e2be3771183a68dc86b717ab67d9aad894563.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20240418130432_2662753a9514a682ccdfd17bf05e2be3771183a68dc86b717ab67d9aad894563" data-rendition-name="original" width="1668" height="2500" loading="lazy" alt="Seto Machhindranath"> </figure>  &nbsp;Exactly nine types of wood are used, which is the sum of the four base elements that make up the universe (earth, water, fire and air) and the five human senses. The height and length of the chariot is 32 arm’s length (hāt in Sanskrit), 14.8m. The number 32 represents the maximum number of auspicious and physical qualities one could possess to be considered an outstanding human being.&nbsp; Says Vajrācharya, “Observing how the chariot is built helps one learn the fundamental pillars of the Buddha’s teachings, and find an easier path to Nirvana.” The structural design of the nearly 15m wooden chariot is not only awe-inspiring but also gravity-defying. It leverages the pliancy of the materials used in its construction -- flexible joints tied with cane soaked in water for several days. The precise proportions of the chariot ensure great manoeuverability in the narrow streets along the route of the chariot procession that include some 90° bends, without colliding into houses.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240418130432_9f5c2943f5d6b3f0010d3d5213697549945e87a6f7d3d8cbadd69f0dea6c6e2c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20240418130432_9f5c2943f5d6b3f0010d3d5213697549945e87a6f7d3d8cbadd69f0dea6c6e2c" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="3750" loading="lazy" alt="Seto Machhindranath"> </figure>  Driving and steering the chariot with brute muscle power of the mirthful crowd is a seemingly impossible task. But this has been achieved year after year, despite the fact that the devotees who tug wildly at the ropes lassoed to the two front wheels, are most likely in high-spirits (pun intended). Sanjay Manandhar, a US-based technology entrepreneur, recounts how his high school physics teacher from Canada asked his students to go observe the locals build the chariots of Karunāmaya if they were interested in becoming engineers in the future.&nbsp; “That made no sense to me then, but, after all these decades, I now see clearly how the structural design of the chariot, adopted early on by our ancestors is full of earthquake-resilient properties that need to be applied in building houses in an earthquake-prone zone like Nepal,” says Manandhar. A highlight of the chariot festival is that human goddess Kumari makes an appearance at the final destination in Lagan, usually on the third day. This is only one of the 13 times that people get to see the Kumari outside her temple abode.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240418130432_08aa39f3f004a212b33c60a2840d6013110de15dd34a0288f699dd5fda8957ab.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20240418130432_08aa39f3f004a212b33c60a2840d6013110de15dd34a0288f699dd5fda8957ab" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1667" loading="lazy" alt="Seto Machhindranath"> </figure>  On the last day of the festival (Saturday), the image of lord Karunāmaya is carried on a palanquin by priests from Janabahā in a gala procession and brought back to his permanent residence at the temple in Kel Tol.&nbsp; The chariot festival is thought to have started during the reign of King Pratap Malla of Kantipur in the 17th century CE. For close to four centuries, the construction of the chariot and its operation has proven to be a phenomenal engineering feat, and the people’s faith in divinity means the tradition is alive.&nbsp; The essence of the colourful rituals and the religious beliefs of this ancient chariot festival is now all but lost. The logic, technology and practicality must be brought back to light, as they reflect the high civilisation and wisdom of our ancestors that we can leverage in modern times and into the future. &nbsp; Alok Tuladhar is a culture and heritage documentarian.

Kathmandu’s gravity-defying chariot festival

In the run-up to the third Nepal Investment Summit this weekend, there have been seminars, conferences and workshops where the discourse has revolved around the economy and the investment climate.
The consensus that Nepal needs foreign direct investments (FDI) to grow was repeated, and the familiar litany of reasons about why it has not been able to was discussed.&nbsp;
Policy advocates and regulators have understood that the lack of urgency is compounded by procedural inconsistencies, on top of the already deficient investment environment in the country.
It is a welcome change from what used to be flippantly accepting matters as given. There now seems to be a sense of urgency, with procedural inconsistencies and lack of harmonisation between various Acts and regulations openly discussed.&nbsp;
Government stakeholders also appear more willing to learn and attempt to be part of the solution. Whatever policy changes have been introduced in the past have been piecemeal and address the few rather than the entire industry. This left dual regulatory approaches aimed at similar players.&nbsp;
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/killing-investment-in-nepal-in-10-easy-steps">Killing investment in Nepal in 10 easy steps</a>, Dibesh Karmacharya
This time, unlike in the past two Summits, the government seems to be committed to amending 9 Acts, a positive step towards showing commitment to change. However, the deadline to do so during the winter session of Parliament is over. The option mooted has been to have it passed through ordinance, a lesser appealing step; albeit, a positive one moving forward.&nbsp;
To attract FDI in a competitive global market means that Nepal has to demonstrate that it is serious about bringing in investments with a more consultative and collaborative approach with investors. A departure from procedural to a result-oriented focus is needed.&nbsp;
To put issues in perspective, Nepal needs US$20 billion in investments to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets by 2030. If net-zero decarbonisation targets are to be met by 2045, another US$7 billion will be required annually.&nbsp;
Looking at our investment history and poor government capital expenditure, the gap is long and wide. In fiscal year 2022-23 Nepal booked a lamentable ~$59 million in FDI (equity). Nepal is in fact the lowest market in South Asia for FDI with 0.3% of the regional average.&nbsp;
What is it that we can do to fill the gap?&nbsp;
First, we need to move away from the notion that Nepal only needs large investments. This has proven to be a mistake, and time series data have proven that smaller investments, in aggregate, make a larger impact on economies.&nbsp;
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/poor-cash-rich-nepal">Poor cash-rich Nepal</a>, Sonia Awale
We talk about an ‘enabling environment’ but without the right tools. We place restrictions on interest on debt ceiling (SOFR +5.5), without risk premium adjustments, we do not have an active secondary market for bond trading, nor do we have a yield curve, an integral part of the bond market, which is inhibiting us from tapping into the trillion dollar green bond market.&nbsp;
In order to attract green financing, Nepal needs to develop its bond market. Sovereign risk rating has been mooted and was expected to be operationalised before the Investment Summit.&nbsp;
However, to be rated in an adverse economic environment could further deteriorate investment potential due to a lesser-than-expected rating.&nbsp;
Hedging is another instrument that needs further research on. A commercial bank last year showcased the first risk-hedging mechanism for an investment of $8 million. This can be the beginning to expand on its modality. &nbsp;
Subordinated debt instruments have been introduced, but on a special nod basis, this now needs to be institutionalised as it is the most applicable form of investment after equity in a market that has volatile forex reserves.&nbsp;
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/editorial/invest-in-investment">Invest in investment</a>, Nepali Times
Viability Gap Funding has been introduced by multilateral development agencies implemented in solar installations. It is a tool to incentivise the private sector to invest in projects that are not financially lucrative initially, but have potential for profitability in the long run. This needs to be scaled up and replicated in sectors like infrastructure, where returns may not be immediate.
Moving forward, to attract FDI, Nepal needs to tap into the funds that are available for the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and climate change. Alternative investments such as Private Equity Venture Capital (PEVC) have been around in a structured manner in Nepal for nearly a decade now.
These funds have blended finance components and have attracted climate funding as well. PEVC is a new asset class and can address the issues of penetrating into SME financing by incorporating environment, social and governance issues into their investment process.&nbsp;
SMEs are the backbone of any economy, PEVC comes with the ability not only to scale up the enterprise with risk capital, but with the ability to bring technical knowhow to enhance not only the enterprise but also the entrepreneur.&nbsp;
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/success-in-nepal-means-not-having-to-work">Success in Nepal means not having to work</a>, Anil Chitrakar
A differentiator from all other forms of financing available till date in Nepal. Blended finance is a way of de-risking investments, especially in frontier markets. Business Oxygen (BO2) is an example of blended finance with subordinated debt investments of IFC (World Bank Group) taking the lead and Climate Investment Funds along with FCDO as co-investors.&nbsp;
On a larger scale, the 216MW Upper Trisuli 1 is another example of blended finance with IFC, a Korean consortium and local investments. So far, we see that development finance Institutions have been taking the lead in Nepal as their risk appetite is greater than commercial investors and they are eager to help develop the financial markets.&nbsp;
In order to be sustainable, we need to step on this and attract commercial capital from all over the world. To do this there has to be political will to make that pivot.&nbsp;
Instead of being a means to an end, the two previous Investment Summits turned out to be intermittent and cosmetic, providing hardly any results. The third one’s success will depend on how the event will be implemented as a platform for continuous marketing for the country and facilitation for investors in future.&nbsp;
Nepal has outdone many countries in its macro-economic indicators, with sound forex reserves and a stellar history of debt payments to its creditors. This story needs to be propagated along with the drive for change to attract potential investors.
Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/alternative-investments-to-attract-fdi">Alternative investments to attract FDI</a>, Siddhant Raj Pandey

gurkha

Retelling Gurkha history

Ex-soldier dives into business and politics

Beginning of the end of the Gorkha Empire

He shot down a fighter, then shot to fame

A forgotten Gurkha rebellion

A forgotten Gurkha rebellion

Diary of a Nepali soldier in France

Atom bomb saved his life, Covid killed him

Former Gurkha soldier turns author

The atom bomb saved my life

The return of the natives

The rise of high-rises

Kathmandu’s gravity-defying chariot festival

Nepal looks at alternative investments