| Biswo |
Posted
on 22-Aug-01 10:56 AM
It was kind of refreshing to read about Samrat. May be we can start a thread here
about his book one day. People, may be out of personal malice, have been slow in
celebrating his success here. Foreigners can give him honour, but we are the one
who can judge how close to reality he is , esp since he writes in our perspective.
He has charted the terriroty no other Nepali has charted before. We should
recognize that. New York Times review is considered one of the most prestigeous
reviews in literary circle of USA, and I hope his book gets rave review there.
Who knows we may get our own Pulitzer prize winner one day:-) (if only we stop
bickering with each other, and work hard in our field)
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It is easy to get lost in the morass of these sleazy talks about miss Nepal/USA, and
signs of Indian dude, Nepali dude etc. These talks are funny,but they promote
use of racial slur. A gentleman is gentleman, whether he is from India or China.
A nice Nepali girl can like whoever she wants, and other Nepali boys shouldn't
worry about that.
A lot of Nepali girls are harrassed by those boys who like them,but whom they
don't like because boys are possessive and authoritarian in Nepal. Boys who are
slighted,or jilted by a specific girl often become disenchanted by the girl to the
extent that theu start bad-mouthing the girl.I think we in USA, mostly
the bright ones from Nepal and at least attending college, should outgrow this
mentality. Nepalese girls are much stronger than what we think they are.
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I was aghast with surprise when someone wrote negatively about Itihas Shiromani.
I guess it was Ritu. I missed the posting for a few days, so couldn't post
rightaway. Well, Rituji, for your information, you shouldn't write anything without
any research on the subject. It can be a sensitive subject to others,like me.
Itihas Shiromani is the most respected figure in Nepali historian circle. He used to
teach king Birendra the history class also. He worked until he was blind, and
didn't do that for money. Everybody knew he was a living history of Nepal. His
books are full of references.His comment about the rule of Pratap Singh Shaha,
Rana Bahadur Shaha, Rajendra Shah, Surendra Shaha is very scathing. He termed
them profligate, reckless, feckless, and inconsiderate the people's aspiration. If
he were sycophant of Shahas, why would he do that?If you had read 'king Prithvi
Naryan ko jivani' you would find he discussed about Kirtipur aftermath.
In those days, there was no Viena Convention. British , your so called civil society,
were killing armless innocent people until after 100 years (in Jaliawala etc).In China, Qing dynasty was equally brutal.King Prithvi lost his best warrior, his
brother's eyes and almost himself in the war. But the king was not colonialist, as
you hinted. No colonial power changes his empire's name after the name of the
conquered state. In fact, he continued all the tradition of Kathmandu, and didn't
bring any tradition of Gorkha to Nepal.The reason why Gorkhali local traditions
we don't know about now.But Gaijatra,Kumari etc are still continuing.And you
probably know that the most powerful ministers then (until Rana Bdr Shaha) were
Tribhuvan Khawas(Pradhan), Narsimha Gurung etc from conquered state.
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Another poster says Nepali historians didn't write negatively about nepali kings.
That's totally wrong. Read any of historians from Babu Ram Acharya to Rajesh
Gautam, from Dilli Raman Regmi to Yogi Narahari Nath, and you will be amazed
how they followed the true path. Please, don't denigrate our own people. Esp
Babu Ram Acharya is not the one who we should make target.
In his talk to BP, Chinese great helmsman Mao said, "How can Mt Everest be Nepali
since Nepal doesn't even have name for that ?" And our first elected prime minister
replied, "It is Sagarmatha." The man who made us proud by christening the name
earlier was Babu Ram Acharya.
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Foreign Historians.Writers.
Even if they are sincere, they commit mistakes.Before Dilli Raman Regmi refuted,
French Historian Levi(Sylvian?) claimed Nepal was part of Tibet in 8th century.
In the much talked about New Yorker article (of July 30), the writer says Rajendra
Shah died in 1904(he died in 1938). We probably have noticed a lot of such factual
errors in the articles in the aftermath of royal massacre. Even in the reliable
sources like New Yorker, and others.
Well, if you love to say your country was independent all but in 8th century, go
ahead, boys.
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Here is best wishes for Ashu in his life in Glasgow. Ashu is a very good friend of
this site, and a man of infinite courage and indefatiguable spirit to say what he
thinks is right "using his own name".
Hope to see you here when ever it is possible.
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