Signboards with  names like Jhakkas tequila with Dance or  Moonlight Cabin Restaurant or  Welcome Massage dot the crowded streets of  Thamel,  Purano Baneshwor, Gaushala and other localities in  Kathmandu. A little more than a decade ago commercial sex work and prostitution began to thrive behind the thin veil of cabin restaurants, dance bars and massage parlours in Kathmandu catering […]

Even when I was growing up in Kathmandu during the past two decades, there were obvious signs that the city was increasingly connecting up to a globalized world. International brandnames, for instance, were slowly making their appearance in Kathmandu’s street retail outlets. You used to go to the big bazaars, […]

Although Nepal has a rich and ancient culture, the country has become more famous as an adventure playground for tourism, especially mountain tourism. The Everest range and the Annapurna circuit –mountaineering’s most prestigious venues – are beloved of mountaineers and have generated substantial amounts of income for the country and still continue to […]

Kanchi Tamang from a village near Pokhara, the second largest city in Nepal, has been working in Saudi Arabia for the past three years. Her two children aged eight and ten years go to a nearby private school. Her sister in law and neighbour and husband take turns to take […]

The first time I had to explain my nationality to  a stranger was back in 1996. I was a 15 year old high school student then, hundreds of miles away from home. My Keralite school mate had never heard of a country by the name of “Nepal”, she thought I […]