Flourishing romance tourism

Taudaha, which lies on the way to Pharping, is quite some distance from the outer limits of the city. But it is a very popular hangout destination for youngsters. The road is admittedly scenic, and the lake itself as pretty as it could be. But a signboard that used to stand on the premises spoke eloquently about the major attraction of Taudaha, above and beyond its beauty.

The approximately 4x8’ sign forbade patrons from indulging in amorous activities. It went on to give graphic illustrations of the activities and the fines they entailed: Rs. 1,500 for hugging, Rs. 2,000 for kissing and Rs. 500 for entering in school dress. The signboard has long since disappeared because the wind tore it away, but was only mildly effective when it was present.

“Those who are civilized took the hint, and those who do know the value of morality still continue to exhibit these antics,” said Parvati, a local who mans the counter from time to time.

Deepa Karki, another counter staff at Taudaha, is witness to many couples engaging in handholding, hugging and kissing, and sometimes more. Dating spots like these are found aplenty all over Kathmandu, but what makes Taudaha stand out is its restaurants. Making use of the ample space around the lake, each restaurant has set up a dozen or so of little cabins which cannot fit more than two persons by any stretch of imagination.

Couples are forced to seek private spaces like these because in public, they become the cynosure of hostile eyes. Poet Anoopam Pokharel, 26, recounts an incident when he was spending time with his girlfriend in a park, and was harassed by a policeman who threatened to publish their photos in the newspaper. Luckily, Anoopam and his girlfriend were unafraid, and his girlfriend even got up and told the police to take her to the police station if he dared. That was the end of that incident, but Anoopam shares that couples walking together face harassment from everyone, including police, passersby, and even beggars.

Even in private spaces like hotels, the socially defined rules hound couples. Writer Sujit Basnet* had once gone to Chitwan with his friends. While their hotel room was being cleaned up, they and another group waited outside. After a while, a young man and a woman emerged from one of the hotel rooms. The couple was visibly discomfited at the sight of so many people, and the young man started addressing the woman as “Shreemati!”

Immediately, Sujit and his friends burst into laughter. The response was more drastic from the nearby table. “Bullshit!” someone shouted, “who calls their wife shreemati?”

The couple stalked off angrily, but the incident stuck in Sujit’s mind. The couple had taken the room for a very short time, and now Sujit analyzes that they must have been a romantic couple desperate for privacy. “It’s no secret that many hotels also double up as love nests,” he said.

Couples go to such lengths to prove they are married because unmarried couples face harassment from the police even in private spaces like hotels, where the police randomly conduct raids to root out “immoral behavior.” When questioned about such harassment, Nepal Police spokesperson SSP Ganesh KC replied that the police are liable to take action against “immoral activities,” which includes any amorous activity, whether private or commercial.

SSP Hemanta Bahadur Pal, spokesperson at the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s Office, defended the actions of field officers, stating that they only conduct raids if someone notifies them about immoral activities.

“We leave private activities alone,” he claimed, “except when other citizens complain about them.” He stated that even though there are no particular laws concerning behavior in public, the police are bound to intervene in activities that are not acceptable to contemporary society.

Software developer Badal Singh*, 34, is well aware of the need to hide such unacceptable activities from society. He remembers his days of hopping cabin restaurants with fondness, describing his activities as “harmless fun” and “nothing too big.” He went there because he did not want to be seen, and as a teenager, never gave a thought to morality.

But today he believes that although his activities were not immoral, intimacy should still be private because society places a large premium on women’s character. He would not have liked his girlfriend to face problems because of him, so he thanks the restaurants for providing them a place to indulge in activities unacceptable in public.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are Deepa and Parvati Karki who disagree with the statement. To Parvati, these activities are indicative of “uncivilized” and “immoral” people, which embarrass them and the rest of society.

Over and over again, the question of morality comes up, which seems to be at the center of this debate, of what level of display of affection is accepted in public and what is not. The tolerance limit for amorous activities varies from person to person. For Anoopam, intimacy is something very natural, but social restrictions have made it seem unnatural and immoral.

“The guardians of these restrictions make life difficult for people like us,” he concludes.

The ones who benefit from this situation are the cabin restaurants which have everything to gain by providing youngsters with what they want. Anoopam, a veteran of such restaurants, describes the staff’s behavior as always courteous and respectful.

Regarding morality, the restaurants take a pragmatic approach to the whole situation. For Nirajan Thapa, proprietor of Mid-Point View Restaurant at Taudaha, the restaurants are the need of the day. His restaurant has open tables for groups as well as little wooden cabins that he admits are for couples. To him, couples are normal customers like anyone else.

When questioned about the morality of his business, he sidestepped it by stating that every story has multiple sides, and each side is valid. But since he also acknowledged that he spent a lot of time in restaurants like these when he went out, it was clear which side he was on.

Like his customers, Nirajan too is sometimes harassed by the police.

“From time to time, we get directives to close down cabin restaurants,” he complained.

Cabin restaurants have long been associated with prostitution, which has given them a bad name and made them the target of law enforcement. But Nirajan is clear that his restaurant is far away from prostitution, and his cabins are simply for the convenience of friends and families.

But that is not just it. By now, restaurants are quite attuned to the needs of their customers, and are on alert to fulfill them without being asked. Sujit recounts that whenever he goes out on drives with his girlfriend, restaurant staff approach him and whisper in his ears that rooms are available even if they only want to have tea there. And this has happened invariably wherever he has gone, from Daman to Bhotechaur to Sanga.

Sujit has become accustomed to these questions and has come to expect them. Not so with his girlfriend Slesha* who wished they would tone down their approach.

“It would be very awkward for people whose romance is just budding and who have no greater intimacy in mind than holding hands,” she protests.

But to hope that restaurants be less enthusiastic may be wishful thinking for now. With changing times, our moral values are changing, and for young people it is no big deal to indulge in intimacy before marriage.

But society has not changed with them, which forces them to look for places where they can avoid the social eye. As long as hotels provide these facilities without moral judgment that the rest of the society inflicts, youngsters will continue to be attracted to such places. Romance tourism looks set to flourish in Nepal for quite a while.

*Names changed to protect privacy.

Drink and or drive

A roomful of adult men sit obediently in rows of benches resembling a classroom. They watch intently as they are shown video clips of vehicles ramming into each other, and bodies flying and landing on the ground with a thud. From time to time, a collective shudder goes up in the group as particularly gruesome accident footages are shown.

The scene is from a class, but the class was not held in any school. This took place at the premises of the Metropolitan Traffic Police Department (MTPD) at Singha Durbar as part of the MTPD’s program to curb drunk driving. Most of those who are taking the class were found to be driving after consuming alcoholic substances.

There is no doubt that MTPD’s initiative has had positive effects: accidents have gone down by 16% after the measures were introduced. While there has been a modest 2% reduction in deaths after accidents, there has been a whooping 44% reduction in serious injuries. Most individuals who took the class came out looking dazed, evidently affected by the somber nature of the videos.

“I am definitely not going to be doing MaPaSe (Nepali abbreviation for consumption of alcoholic substance) again,” said Dipendra Budhathoki, a 41-year-old businessman, as he stood in line to collect his documents after the class.

The anti-DUI (driving under influence) measure is one of the rare government initiatives to have garnered considerable public support.

Ranjita Ghale, 23, has never driven under influence. But whenever she has guests who get drunk at her house, she gets the job of dropping them home safely because they are afraid of being stopped by the police. She does not mind the extra hassle and is instead supportive. “It’s for our own safety,” she says coolly.

But at the same time, MTPD’s measures still contain many loopholes and weak points that reduce their efficiency. Many people drive after 11 o’clock at night when there is no checking, or drive by alleys where they know there are no check posts. Also, people prefer to travel in cars rather than motorcycles when they drink because cars are stopped less frequently. MTPD spokesperson Superintendent of Police (SP) Basanta Panta theorized that this is because there are 500,000 motorcycles to approximately 50,000 cars.

“We stop only one car when we stop a dozen motorcycles, which gives the impression that we’re stopping more motorcycles. But it makes sense because there are fewer cars,” stated Panta.

However, some vehicles never seem to be stopped, which includes Traffic Police insiders and high-profile vehicles. SP Panta vehemently denies this charge, claiming a lot of bigwigs have been detained. But this statement is not enough to erase the impression of favoritism among the public.

“Everyone, irrespective of status, should be checked,” maintains Sailendra Koirala, manager of Sun Café and Bar.

Despite all these flaws, the point that gets the most flak has to be the zero tolerance of alcohol that the police enforce today. Medical literature tells us that tiny amounts of alcohol in our body don’t hamper our ability to make rational decisions. Sometimes we even absorb alcohol from harmless items like chocolates without realizing it. But in Nepal, the slightest amount of BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration) can get your vehicleconfiscated for the night. A visibly hassled businessman Naresh Sah called the measure “terrorizing the people,” as he tried to get to the correction class on time.

Indeed, international standards are much more sensible. For example, in the US, 0.08% BAC is accepted. Though stricter than the US, most European countries are still more lenient than Nepal with a permissible limit of 0.05% BAC. But in Nepal, ASI Harisharan Poudel informed the class that the MTPD follows the Transport Management Act formulated in 1992. The Act in question specifies that a person who has consumed alcohol or addictive substances should not be allowed to drive.

“In the Newar community, it’s even traditional to take alcohol as sagun,” says Sangya Shrestha, 27, Associate Program Support Officer at Action Aid. “And in our times, drinking has become a part of socializing. The provision of zero tolerance in our law doesn’t make sense!”

SP Panta disagreed, claiming that zero tolerance is necessary, at least for a few years, because drinking and driving is so pervasive in Nepal. “We also know that alcohol is brewed in many homes,” he asserted, “so we cannot be lenient right now.”

But then, there are some areas where the MTPD is perhaps more than lenient, which provides loopholes to get away with drunk driving. One of them is their attitude towards female drivers. Far fewer women than men are stopped and checked. This has led to the trend of getting a woman to drive, even if she has consumed alcohol, because there is less chance that she will be caught. There are very few women performing the checks, the majority of the police on the field are men. And female drivers find it easy to avoid being checked by them.

SP Panta claimed that they were not lenient with women, and yet there was no woman to be found in the correction class. “Often we can tell by a woman’s appearance and behavior if she has been drinking. Since we know most Nepali women are not into drinking, we try not to harass them,” he explained, shedding light on how that could have happened.

Harassment, however, is something that a lot of drivers complain about, even those who are supportive of the measures to control drunk driving. When the police try to assess the driver’s drunkenness on the basis of appearance (read: by sniffing), sometimes they come too close and end up invading the driver’s physical space. This makes many uncomfortable, but surprisingly, this is not because the police lack breathalyzers. SP Panta stated that they had enough breathalyzers to go around for the field staff, and some to spare as well. “We have just ordered some more of them, so now we have 300 extra pieces of breathalyzers in our office,” he stated. But the practice of sniffing to assess drunkenness continues unabated.

Private sector employee Prabin Thapa, 27, has been a victim of harassment of another kind. Once, when he was going home on a Friday night, a policeman stopped him at Balkhu, and asked him “Why are you not drunk?” Prabin answered that he did not want to drink. “It’s Friday night, you must get drunk! Or maybe you’re carrying some in your bag?” the policeman asked.

It was then that Prabin realized that the policeman’s eyes were red and his speech was slurred. “Maybe we should check your alcohol level,” he remarked. The policeman instead yelled at him to shut up, and sent him on his way with a cheery “Go and get drunk now!”

Such incidents are not as rare as one would hope. Sangya, when she was halted for the umpteenth time, informed the policeman that she had been checked several times that day already. They replied with their most common refrain, that they were not there for recreation, and she must do what she was asked. And then she was asked silly questions including what is the color of a passerby’s dress, and what is the color of the traffic light.

SP Panta is well aware of these shortcomings of the field staff, and assured that MTPD will soon be providing “Service with a Smile.” Training for this program has already begun, and MTPD hopes to reach out to the people more effectively with this winning way.

One would hope that along with improving the services, MTPD would also work to tweak other loose ends. That would include avoiding multiple checkpoints on a single stretch of road, making sure all kinds of travelers are checked equally, and holding the checks at appropriate time. Most importantly, this would mean taking steps to alter the law of zero tolerance and giving the residents of the city more reasonable limits of drinking.

You drink, who drives?

While the ratio of drinks to food used to be 60-40 previously, now it is 40-60 in most restaurants. Sailendra Koirala, manager of Sun Café and Bar in Jhamsikhel, can testify to it. It is the same story with Backyard Food Joint and Pub where Neha Shah, the manager, informed that customers now leave earlier.

“Checking starts from 7 pm, and customers just have a sip or two of beer and leave at 6:30 pm,” she analyzed. She informed that if the customers stayed for an hour or two more, they would definitely drink more.

It is no secret that the entities hardest hit by Drink and Drive checks are the restaurants around town. Consumption of drinks in restaurants has reduced considerably after MTPD began checking for drunk drivers. Even though the number of customers has not reduced drastically, they tend to concentrate more on food than drink nowadays. This has resulted in a steep decline in profits for restaurants.

Neha believes many customers can drive perfectly well after a peg or two, and argues for alternatives that allow people to drink up to a healthy limit. “After all, restaurants that serve drinks are open until late at night, so how can you not drink?” she asks.

Neha herself employs one of the alternatives she talked about. Whenever her patrons need drivers, she calls Vigya IT Solutions. They provide drivers who can either drop the customer home in a taxi, or drive the customer’s vehicle. There is even a signboard prominently displayed on the wall of Backyard that says: “You drink, we drive.”

Tanka Ram Poudel, Director of Vigya IT Solutions, informed that the service they provide to Backyard is part of a pilot program that is in its third month now. Vigya IT Solutions is the technical consultant of the Taxi Association of Nepal, and they have handpicked about a dozen drivers from the Association who are on call to attend to restaurants. They now provide the “You Drink, We Drive” service to six restaurants: Moksh, GG Machaan, FC Sports Bar, Backyard, Falcha, and Retro.

“Services for drunk drivers are just one part of our program,” says Tanka. “In the long term, it is about providing organized night transport service.” To that end, Vigya IT Solutions also keeps a log of all the requests made and fulfilled, so that it is easy to go back and see which driver went where. This comes in handy whenever customers lose their possessions: their log makes tracking possessions easy. Tanka informed that this has turned out to be one of their strengths and most lost possessions have been found.

Vigya IT Solutions is looking to get restaurants and liquor companies to subsidize these rides so that the entire burden does not fall on the customer. “It will take a long time, but in the long term, the prospects for this business are endless,” says Tanka hopefully.

Indeed, drinking as a means of socializing has become a part of our culture, and the restriction on drunk driving has created a vacuum. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and the need for responsible drivers who can fill this vacuum has invented a new breed of services. In many countries like South Korea, drivers for drunks have become entrenched in society. And by the look of things, it seems not long before they become a permanent fixture of Nepali society too.

Teacher of cultivation - Chandannath of Jumla

While everywhere else in Nepal, rice is planted on Ashadh 15th with a lot of celebration, in Jumla, Ashadh is the time for the first weeding of rice fields. That is because Jumla has a much shorter summer than other regions that grow rice, and thus it is planted much earlier in Jestha. In fact, it is a wonder that rice, a tropical crop, even grows in Jumla which is more than 2,000 meters above sea level.

But the Kalo Marsi rice variety not just thrives in Jumla, it is also famous for its medicinal properties—it is the only rice that diabetics can eat. Over time, it has come to shape not only the identity of the Jumli people but also their lifestyle. The people of Jumla worship the man who first taught them to cultivate rice—Chandannath. In fact, the famous Chandannath Temple in the town of Khalanga is named after him, even though he simply identified the deity inside the temple, and the temple actually houses God Dattatreya.

Ramananda Acharya, Sanskrit scholar and resident of Jumla, has interesting stories to share about the temple. In the fifteenth century, Baliraj established the Kalyal dynasty in Jumla, which went on to become the most powerful of the Baaisi (twenty-two) kingdoms. King Baliraj’s horse frequently went to a particular marshy area and neighed every time it got the chance. Curious, Baliraj had the area dug out, and found mysterious footsteps on a black stone.

Acharya informs that Baliraj had the stone taken to his palace, where he waited for some learned person to identify it. Baba Chandannath, who was going to Mansarovar, happened upon the palace. He and his three companions from Girnar, Baba Taranath, Muktinath, and Ratannath, were devotees of Dattatreya. Chandannath declared that the footsteps belonged to Lord Dattatreya. He advised King Baliraj to enshrine the stone –known as Charan Paduka –in a temple at the original location.

Since then, the temple has been a centre of faith for the locals. Dattatreya, meaning trinity of divinity, is the combined physical form of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Hence, the temple attracts Shaivas, Vaishnavs, and Hindus of every other stripe. Besides, with time the temple came to house other deities like the Buddha, and thus it attracts people of many faiths.

The unassuming temple is located in Khalanga, the headquarters of Jumla District, which has rightly been called the Switzerland of Nepal. Apart from this altar steeped in history, visitors can enjoy views of pristine rivers, imposing pine forests, vast swathes of grassland, and of course, miles of farmland where Kalo Marsi rice is cultivated with the waters of the Tila River.

After his return from Mansarovar, Chandannath went to Tatopani which is near the town of Khalanga, and experimented for years on strains of rice. In time, he came up with an exact method and dates of cultivating Kalo Marsi that the residents still follow, beginning with first plowing on Shree Panchami, planting by Jestha 15, and harvesting by Ghatasthapana. These methods have served them well, because it has been found impossible to grow the variety anywhere else on earth. To show their respect to Baba Chandannath, Jumla residents offer their harvest to the Temple of Chadannath first, and then have a feast of the first harvest. These stories depict how central the Kalo Marsi is to the life of Jumla and how much locals revere sage Chandannath.

Ghatasthapana, which marks the rice harvest, is thus central to the temple. On this day, two flags (lingo) are raised on the temple and one on the nearby temple of Bhairabnath. The lingo is 52 feet tall to represent the 52 weeks of the year, and the flag is just as long. Acharya stated that the tradition of raising the lingos is a remnant from the times of the Kalyal era, but since the Gorkhali conquest of the area, there is also the tradition of raising a victory pillar on the same day.

Previously, the wood for one lingo was brought by government officials and Chhetris, another by Brahmins, and another by Dalits. But in modern times, it has been hard to get enough people from each community to bring the wood. Hence, it has been recently decided that everyone should bring all three of the materials together.

Thus, the history of the Temple Chandannath gives a glimpse of the evolution of lifestyle of Jumla. Our gods stand for what we hold dear, and Chandannath’s relationship with the area’s staple grain reflects what is dear to an agrarian community.

Published in Republica on May 9, Page 14

By-Road Buses: Come a long way

The name says “Kakadbhitta Express,” but the bus is anything but an ‘Express.’ Sleeping passengers are jolted awake every few minutes because the bus stops to pick up local passengers, who are squashed into the bus until every inch of free space is filled. As a result, the Express bus does not reach Kakadbhitta before one in the afternoon, though it could be there by eight in the morning.

A decade ago, this scene was common in any long-distance vehicle. Leaky roofs and windows that did not close were other complaints passengers made. In fact, so stressful was it to travel by these buses that those with even slightly above averages means preferred to travel by plane.

But in the past decade, long-distance travel has changed drastically. New breeds of comfortable ‘Deluxe’ and ‘A/C’ buses have emerged. They seat 30 people instead of the 42 that the regular night buses contained, which provides a lot of leg room. Their doors and windows close tight, and some of them even distribute water and peanuts. A few claim to have WiFi facilities too.

All things considered, these buses have emerged as the alternatives to planes today. Sushrika Thapa, 26, is a frequent traveler in night buses. “Deluxe buses are more expensive, but they are worth it,” she claims. “They don’t take local passengers, which makes me feel safer.”

Over the years, the hygiene situation has improved too, restrooms and eateries in particular. Sushrika agrees that while earlier women were forced to go to the jungles for a toilet break, today there are well managed toilets with running water on highways.

Food on the highway is another aspect that has changed. Until a few years ago, buses would stop at lonely eateries placed strategically in the middle of a jungle without any option nearby. Passengers were forced to eat the indifferently prepared food of questionable hygiene, with prices that exceeded all bounds of reason.

“Drivers and conductors were led in for special dinners, because without their special patronage, the eatery wouldn’t survive” remembers Pradeep Tamang, 36, who has been a bus conductor for six years. “No matter what the passengers ate, the bus staff would be treated to good, fresh meals.”

But today there are so many options that the competition has forced buses and eateries to improve standards for passengers. Bus staff may be treated to extra pieces of meat, but passengers also report that they are satisfied with the quality and freshness of the food on highways.

But one thing that has not changed much is the entertainment in buses. The night-buses-of-old had cassette players in which bus staff played songs of their choice: which were invariably either dohoris or old Hindi songs. Today, songs are played via MP3 players and pen drives. But the choice of songs remains the same. “The old Kumar Sanu songs, I enjoy them a lot,” says Abbas Alam, 24, who travels once or twice a month to Birgunj on these buses.

For bus operators, the audio-visual entertainment is more to entertain the passengers than themselves. “Nowadays you don’t even have to bother with songs, you can just put on a movie and let the passengers relax,” says Ganesh Shrestha, 31, office staff of Mero Transport. Though the bus staffs choose the entertainment, they play the passengers’ choices if they give songs in portable devices.

With so many facilities for travelers, the one thing that continues to impede their travel experience is the roads. Suman Subedi, driver for 16 years, has driven every kind of bus in this duration. He sums up the situation best when he says: “Deluxe buses are faster than old night buses. But they reach their destination slower, because the roads are so bad.” The buses may be new and improved, but the passengers will not feel much better about them unless they can reach their destination on time on good roads.

Despite the advent of these luxury buses, the older kinds of long-distance buses are still running too. One attraction is their price, which is Rs. 300-400 cheaper than Deluxe buses. Besides, like planes, the Deluxe buses don’t carry much luggage. “They don’t have hoods to tie up luggage,” says Pradeep, “and on long distance travel, people will always need to ferry stuffs like rice and potatoes.”

The proliferation of different kinds of buses has given travelers a wide range of choices. Travelers can take their pick from different combinations of price ranges and facilities like luggage, comfort, hygiene and safety.

What’s in a name?

Even until a few years ago, buses had sensible names like Agni and Makalu. But increasingly, there is the trend of naming buses after Mumbai movies. ‘Dabbang,’ ‘Bodyguard,, and ‘Chennai Express’ are just a few examples. There are also ‘Jai Ho’ and ‘Singham’ Travels.

When probed about these names, bus operators seemed to think they aid business. “These buses run to border areas and rural villages,” says Ganesh Shrestha, office staff of Metro Buses at Kalanki. “And they seem popular among the passengers.” Indeed, most of the names belong to action movies that are known to be popular in rural areas.

Of late, there are many buses climbing the bandwagon. One bus to Dharan is called ‘Loveism’ which is not even the name of a movie but simply a name that may attract youngsters. Indeed, the increasing number of buses with such attractive names is proof enough that these buses are sustainable.

Life on the move

If your back is aching from spending one night in a bus, think of conductors who sleep in a bus every night. “The bus departs from Kathmandu at four in the afternoon and arrives at Itahari at six in the morning,” says Pradeep Tamang, a conductor. “I spend a few hours at home, and then it’s time to leave. The bus departs from Itahari again at four.”

Pradeep gets no day off on weekends; he is on the move seven days a week, five weeks a month. The only time he really gets to rest is when the roads are closed due to strikes or landslides. At these times, he has spent up to a week at one place. Festivals like Dashain are times of even greater pressure for buses, with a major chunk of the Valley’s residents leaving for their native places. Bus companies hire extra drivers and conductors during these times, so that everyone can take turns to go home and celebrate with family. Pradeep is so tired of this constant moving that he would like to retire from life as a conductor and do some small business at home instead.

A driver’s life is slightly easier in this regard. Since their job on the bus is more stressful than a conductor’s, they only work for part of the way. Some buses change drivers at Hetauda. This is more popular with buses that go east, which have a high flow of buses and passengers. Drivers either live in Hetauda or are provided a lodge to sleep in.

Buses that go west are less frequent, and their drivers often don’t have permanent arrangements at resting stops. Chhatra Bahadur Magar, 45, who drives a bus to and from Baglung, shared that he and another driver came all the way from Baglung, and they changed places midway. Either way, drivers and conductors are constantly in need of rest and craving to spend time with their families.

Published in Republica on May 9, Page 10

The thrill-maker of Kathmandu: builder of ride at zoo

Surya Bhakta Nakarmi is the owner, designer and technical officer of Funny Temple, an amusement ride in the Central Zoo, Jawalakhel. With just a certificate degree from Thapathali Technical Institute, Nakarmi built the ride from scratch, based on “trial and error” method. He expounds on his rollercoaster journey.

How did you get the idea to make Funny Temple?

I was employed at the airport, and frequently went on foreign trips. In Bangkok, I rode a ride and it inspired me to make one. I went to Bangkok several times to study the design.

Did you talk to the ride engineer?

No, I simply observed. I’m of the Nakarmi caste, ironsmith by birth. Perhaps that helped. Also, at the airport I worked in airplane maintenance. That gave me technical knowledge.

Where do you find the parts for your products?

That’s a major challenge. We can’t get things like hydraulic cylinders, but there are specialized shops in India. I buy them there and cart them all the way up here.

How did you transport Funny Temple to the zoo?

A crane put it on a truck at my workshop, and the crane again offloaded it at the zoo. We pulled the crane, it has wheels. I built the crane myself, which is one of the reasons Funny Temple took ten years to assemble. First I had to make the equipment to make it.

How did you manage your finances during the ten years?

I had a job at the airport. Bitten by the invention bug, I took leave for one and a half  years. After the leave expired, my boss told me to either come back or quit. I chose to quit and continue inventing.

I took loans from a bank, Rs. 500,000 initially. I allotted half of it to household expenses and the rest to invention. The loan later grew to Rs. two million. Ultimately, I sold my land of 101 annas (about 97 ropanis) to pay the loan. From the sale, I had surplus money which I invested in further inventions.

What are they?

I made another ride for the zoo: an advanced helicopter ride. While the helicopters are controlled by the operator, each child riding can press a button and steer the helicopter up and down. This gives the child control.

Also, I am developing an automated seesaw. I’ve completed a model which seats one person. But what I really want to do is make a 20-foot seesaw that can accommodate many people.

I also plan to make a rollercoaster, an aero-car, and a rocket. The rocket should shoot up and give the rider the impression of being in space. Up there, we can have a mini planetarium where the rider can see heavenly objects, and then ride down.

Is the sale from the land providing you enough for these experiments?

On the contrary, the money ran out long ago. I took further loans from banks, which now amount to Rs. 15 million. Funny Temple earns more than Rs. 4.5 million per year, but I pay almost Rs. 200,000 in interest every month and Rs. 80,000 as rent to the zoo. When you factor in the salary to operators and my helpers at the workshop, I hardly get any profit.

And in all this time, I have only managed to pay the interest on my loan, haven’t even touched the principal. My contract at the zoo runs out in a couple months, and I don’t know if I’ll get the next contract. I have even no idea how I’ll manage my finances if I don’t the contract extended. If only there was financial help for inventors like me, I could work without worrying.

Who helps you in your workshop?

Relatives, cousins and nephews. I can’t pay them much. Nor can I hand out pocket money to my daughters when they ask for it. But still my brother put up our ancestral land as collateral for my loan. They all tolerate me because they know I’m selfless.

What challenges do you face in your work?

Each of my products is huge. How often can you make and break iron? If I change the cylinder from an 8-foot to a 6-foot, do I know it’ll work? What do I do with the 8-foot one? For Funny Temple, I kept experimenting until I got the exact unbalanced swing of the ride in Bangkok, I didn’t want one of those high-speed Indian rides that make you dizzy. Can I afford the same time and effort to every piece?

Would it have helped if you were an engineer?

No. I would probably be busy as a professional engineer and may never have invented.

Are you satisfied with the choice of becoming an inventor?

I am 55 years old, and have spent most of my life inventing. There’s nothing I like doing more. I just want people to have fun. If anyone wants to copy my designs and build their own rides, they are welcome too. My work is about development as well as entertainment.

Published in Republica on 18 April 2014, Page 7

How safe are the amusement rides around town?

It is New Year, and crowds throng the Exhibition Road. Thrill seekers are here by the droves, you can hear them yell from half a mile away, or so it seems. For Bhrikuti Mandap is home to Kathmandu Fun Park, which contains several amusement rides meant for both young and old. With the addition of an amusement and water park at Sanga, it would seem that youngsters in Nepal do not have to pine for Disneyland anymore. But though this nascent industry provides the thrills they desperately seek, it is still struggling to ensure complete safety of its consumers.

Kausar Javed, a teenager who often rides the Columbus and Ferris Wheel at Bhrikuti Mandap, enjoys these rides a lot. But when you ask her about safety, she grimaces. “The seat next to the last has its handles falling off,” says she. “But if you hang on tight, you won’t fall,” she concludes gaily. Forget safety harnesses, rusted handlebars are the norm, and it is not uncommon to find a few damaged bars like the one Kausar pointed out. It is only the cheerful spirit of the consumers that keeps these flaws from becoming lawsuits. It is also not unusual to find riders flinging off the safety bar and hopping down before the ride completely stops.

It is immediately apparent that much more precautions are taken for rides for very young children. For example, one of the rides at Bhrikuti Mandap is built like a cage –there is no way anyone can fall and it moves very, very slowly. Another one called Teacup has an operator constantly moving in and out of the ride to take care of fidgety children. This too moves very slowly.

But some of the times, the operators moving in and out of the ride are not taking care of the riders, but performing minor repairs with hammers and mallets. “They are trained mechanics,” says Nabin, ride operator at the Park. “First you get to be a helper, then an operator, and only then a mechanic.” He himself got to touch a machine only after working for six months as a helper.

But Nabin is a temporary staff, hired only for the holiday season. There are many other temporary operators hired for busy seasons who have no more knowledge of the machine than the on/off switch. But they can be seen going underneath the rides and checking and repairing flaws. Nabin may have got his knowledge from experience, but many credit their knowledge of the machines to intuition. The officers at Kathmandu Fun Park were unavailable for comments on its security aspects.

At Kathmandu Fun Valley in Sanga, electrical supervisor Upendra Karki informed that while he was specifically trained for the rides, all the operators are given weekly, monthly and six-monthly trainings. They also have trained lifeguards to help at the water section. The water sports there have been very popular, five-year-old Arpit Upadhyaya enjoyed himself so much that he refused to leave the Park.

But on a more serious note, though it has an experienced medical officer at hand for first aid, the Park does not have insurance for its consumers.

“Since the Park is fairly new, there have been no untoward incidents. Perhaps that is the reason we have not thought of insurance, though we take security seriously,” says Sudeshna KC, a human resources and admin staff at the Park.

Over at the Central Zoo, Surya Bhakta Nakarmi has taken an insurance policy of Rs. 500,000 on his personal initiative for his ride called Funny Temple. The lack of uniformity regarding something as crucial as insurance results from the fact that there is no central body governing the installment, management, and security of amusement parks as a whole.

“As a business, they need to take permission from whatever local body they fall under. But as for the ride itself, the owners operate it at their own risk,” said Laxman Aryal, CEO of Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office. The Park at Bhrikuti Mandap is governed by the Social Welfare Council, the one at Sanga by Bhaktapur Municipality Office, and Surya Bhakta has registered his workshop with the Department of Cottage and Small Industries.

This means that the rides operate with little or no government supervision. As businesses, they all pay taxes. But other than that, there is no interest in or monitoring of the rides from the government side. Like all fairs and carnivals, amusement parks are also governed by the Local Self Government Act. But the Act only addresses social factors like general security and peace, not specifically the technical aspects of amusement rides. Faced with a vacuum of regulations, the owners are the ones who decide crucial elements like safety, maintenance of the physical structure, and appointment of able candidates.

“Internal rules govern such issues,” confirms Sushil Chaudhari, chief of Bhrikuti Mandap Operation Committee.

International standards dictate that the speed of a ride, the height of the person who can ride in it and other precautionary notices must be put up where the consumer can see them. But no such signs are in evidence anywhere near the rides at Bhrikuti Mandap, though there are notices suggesting that people with heart disease and epilepsy refrain from riding. As for age and height of riders, Sajani Khadgi, ticket seller, informs that they do not let children ride the Columbus—one of the more dangerous rides. But without objective measures of who is a child and who is not, this rule is informal and not strictly enforced.

Questions like whether the structure can hold the specified number of people, whether it needs updating, and whether the safety harness is sufficient for the kind of ride are also decided only by the owners of the rides. As for the physical structure itself, Nakarmi informs that he plans to continue operating Funny Temple at the Zoo as long as it doesn’t fail him.

“This is Nepal, we don’t change or update the structure just for cosmetic damages,” says he.

Machines of this size require regular lubrication, maintenance, and checking for flaws. Since he is the designer and technical officer of Funny Temple, Nakarmi takes care of these tasks himself and can guarantee safety on the ride. But the same cannot be said of structures which are at the hands of untrained or semi-trained operators. This is especially true of temporary rides which are set up during carnivals and dismantled soon after, and many of them are seen in derelict conditions. Consumers who seek the adrenaline rush need to keep in mind that they do so at their own risk.

Published in Republica on 18 April 2014, Page 7