a life inspired

The month of December is shaping up to be a hectic month for bhandas. The political situation is tense with a recent outbreak of small violence in some of the far western regions of Nepal. Accusations are flying about who is responsible for the death of a group of landless individuals who [...]

waiting just below the surface, it simmers
burping and belching malice, deceit, and mistrust
we all know you are there and you know we are waiting
the vibrations of daily life continue but your infections fester with discontent
it is power that manipulates you, twists you, sharpens you
they choke on their hope and drown in their patience
and their fear [...]

To help understand the political history of Nepal, which in some ways can help put the recent events into some perspective, I recommend this neat and tidy little timeline from the BBC.  And while it is much more complex than this timeline shows, it does highlight just how long these struggles have been happening and [...]

It has been a month full of political maneuvering and an notable air of tension as the government has slowly unraveled for the past week in Nepal.
The root issue: whether or not the Chief of the Nepal Army should be fired. He is said to have obstructed the process of integrating the Maoist [...]

It has been a pretty quiet month for news in Nepal actually – no major headlines but lots of great small ones that are interesting to me, so I will share.

The Maoist government is having their annual convention this week, full of many many closed-door meetings.  The political party system here is incredibly complex, with [...]

Up to this point, I have not spent much time commenting on the political situation in Nepal.  My first hesitation is that I am hardly a reliable source of information about the political situation – I have only been here 2 months and most of that time we have spent under the kind and watchful [...]

Today is my first bandh. A bandh is a strike, by a organized group of workers, ethnic minorities or a union, to remind the political wheels of their desires and needs.  It can involve large demonstrations, many road closures, which shuts and entire city down.  Not unlike a strike in Canada in fact, except that [...]