| Username |
Post |
| rabi |
Posted
on 28-Sep-03 09:45 AM
I was lazily sipping morning tea with Sunday New York Times (Sep 28, 2003), when I got a surprise and then a full 240 volts jolt.
I was quicky flipping the last pages of the Styles section dedicated to "celebrations"...with pictures of smiling couples. There I see "Bikash Joshi" who turns out to be one of our own...who just married Clay Berry. I don't know either of them, but Congratulations! It's my parttime hobby to take note of what Nepalis beyond Nepali border are upto, and how Nepal/Nepalis are perceived/portrayed outside Nepal. (doctoral thesis, anyone?)
Then I turned to the Money & Business section, the last page of which is titled "Defense Job Market". Not that I am hunting that kind of job, or that I or most people I know would even qualify for any of them...but seeing CIA logo there piqued my interest. Who do they want?
On that page is a quarter page ad from the Central Intelligenca Agency targeting people speaking foreign languages. There is a fancy map of the world with names of foreign language newspapers. Guess which newspaper starts the list! Our own K0>*$M0 ! If you don't have unicode font, that was GO-RA-KHA-PA-TRA...in exactly the same font as you see in this national newspaper...together with a bunch of of other newspaper names that look like Chinese, Japanse, Arabic, Russian, and a few famous ones like New York Times, The Heralde Tribune, The Telegraph etc.
To think about it again, I am not really that surprised that CIA needs Nepali expertise. What I find interesting is the the timing of this ad, and the fact that GO-RA-KHA-PA-TRA tops the list. Coincidence? Perhaps not. I would say it's a not-so-subtle way of letting prospective candidates know where the real shortage is.
Now my teacup is empty and my blood pressure is back to normal! :)
|
| mickthesick |
Posted
on 28-Sep-03 02:16 PM
could you paste a link to that day's paper....please
|
| ashu |
Posted
on 28-Sep-03 06:15 PM
Congratulations to Bikas on his wedding.
I expect a bhoj when you are next in Kathmandu. :-)
Meantime, good luck with everything.
*******
On a completely different note, the New York Times ko wedding announcement (every Sunday) is something I read quite frequently -- for amusement, entertainment and even for occasional relationship-related edification and with hopes that I would occasionally read about friends I knew from another era. :-)
At any rate, so taken in have I been with this feature that I have been urging Ravin Lama, the big shot at Kathmandu's Himalayan Times Daily newspaper to include wedding announcements in his newspaper.
[To his credit, Ravin has started to publish photos of Nepali weddings in his Nepali-language Annapurna Post daily, and he says that the response from the readers
has been overwhelmingly positive! Village Voice, are you reading this?]
After all, hey, it's time in Kathmandu to read , say, heartwarming mini-stories that are about Julie Sharma (summa cum laude in economics from Tri Chandra College, and currently working as an analyst at Nepal Investment Bank on Durbar Marg) marrying Hari Parajuli (magna cum laude in statistics from Patan Campus and currently working
as Deputy Director at Nepal Life Insurance Company at Heritage Plaza, Kamaladi.) :-)
As columnist David Brooks has written so marvellously in his funny and on-the-mark book "Bobos in Paradise", the weddng announcement page of a newspaper is where today's meritocratic elites strut their achievements and put out news about their marital "merger and acquisition".
Not that there's anything wrong in that. :-)
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
|
| tabasco |
Posted
on 28-Sep-03 08:06 PM
here it is MTS
|
| dautari |
Posted
on 29-Sep-03 09:08 AM
Congrats, Bikash !!! I wish you a very happy marital journey from now onwards.
As for the CIA ad, my first reaction would be "WOW" ... the CIA does care about Nepal.
Then, it starts dawning on me: what the heck does that mean? Why does CIA care about a tiny country like Nepal? What's the ball game here?
Any conspiracy theories?
|
| john doe |
Posted
on 29-Sep-03 09:59 AM
MicktheSick, what is your take on this? I'm sure u have a conspiracy theory or two up your sleeves regarding this ad.
|
| tabasco |
Posted
on 29-Sep-03 08:17 PM
I hope you would all like this LOVE STORY
Courtesy NY Times
Copyright New York Times Company Sep 28, 2003
Elizabeth Clay Berry, the daughter of Mary and John M. Berry of Alexandria, Va., was married yesterday to Bikas Joshi, the son of Shakuntala Joshi and Basu Deb Ram Joshi of Kathmandu, Nepal. Michael Berry, who is the bride's brother and a Universal Life minister, officiated at the family's vacation house in Randolph, N.H.
The bride, 32, and the bridegroom, 29, are economists in Washington, she at the Treasury Department, he at the International Monetary Fund.
Ms. Berry, who is known as Clay, is keeping her surname. She graduated magna cum laude from Bowdoin College and received a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University. Her father, a reporter for The Washington Post, covers the Federal Reserve and economics. Her mother is the author of ''Voices From the Century Before: The Odyssey of a 19th-Century Kentucky Family'' (Arcade Books, 1996), a collection of her family's letters from the Civil War period.
Mr. Joshi, who received a master's degree in economics at Columbia, is a doctoral candidate in that subject there. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. His mother is an account officer at the Rastriya Banijya Bank in Kathmandu, of which his father is the chairman. His father retired as executive director of the Nepal Rastra Bank in Kathmandu.
Ms. Berry and Mr. Joshi met at Columbia in 1998 in a class on international trade. He was the teaching assistant, and she was a student. They did not become friends until the following summer, when she was consulting at the World Bank in Washington, and he worked nearby as an I.M.F. intern.
''She was one of the few people I knew in Washington,'' he remembered, ''So I e-mailed her for lunch.'' By August, after two months of friendly outings, a relationship developed, which continued in New York. She was working as a trader and analyst at the Federal Reserve, and he was doing his doctoral studies at Columbia.
By October, they agreed that perhaps Mr. Joshi wanted more from the relationship than Ms. Berry was willing to give at that point, and they broke up.
''I had just moved back to New York, was starting a new job and looking for a new apartment,'' Ms. Berry explained. She sent him a Christmas card. ''After a month or so, when I didn't hear back from him, I figured that's that,'' she recalled.
Indeed, things might have ended there, were it not for the United States Postal Service. The next June, Mr. Joshi received what he described as an ''ink-smudged, dirty, battered envelope.'' It was the Christmas card.
''If I'd received her card in December, I would have tossed it out because I was still angry,'' Mr. Joshi said. Instead, he was pleasantly surprised and sent her an e-mail note, which rekindled their friendship and eventually led them to the altar.
|
| mickthesick |
Posted
on 10-Oct-03 09:58 AM
.dear friend john doe !!
thank you for remembering me..or shall i say reminding me??
yes...there is a conspiracy theory in this advertisement. The united states now wants to learn all the languages in the world because it is not sure which country it will be attacking next. It might as well be nepal !!
remember..some american and european firms have published their reports about the findings of oil wells in nepal?? yes..that will definitely motivate mr. bush to launch an attack in nepal. He also has a valid reason for attacking nepal. Maoists are terrorists. And one of the things that the constituition of america says first is to wipe out terrorism. So be prepared.
also...coming to the main point. The main reason why american government is so eager to learn different world languages is that they have learnt a lesson from japan in the second world war. American attack in Japan and towards japan's allies was very successful because of one and only thing- an unknown language to the japanese. Yes my friend. The native american language of "navajo" pronounced as "navaho".
american soldiers and commanders were relaying messages in navajo language and japanese troops could not decode the messages. so apparently the united states had an upper-hand in the war since the beginning.
united states doesn't want to be in the position of japan....so it is eager to learn all the languages of the world so that america may not have to suffer like japan in the second world war.
the bottom line: this is all politics my friend.
god bless us ( i'm not saying the US)
|
| john doe |
Posted
on 10-Oct-03 10:23 AM
I knew u wouldnt disappoint us. :)
|
| mickthesick |
Posted
on 10-Oct-03 12:13 PM
..thank you very much for believing in me.
|
