Patan | Breath of centuries - Utsav Shakya Patan is easy to love. It’s a city that is full of life, one that breathes culture and art and history. This is its heritage. Its streets bustle with more people and less traffic. The shops are still small where the shop keepers will actually remember what you bought the last time you were there. They will ask after you. Like most great cities, Patan has a good mix of people of all cultures. Also like most great cities, it cannot be compared to others. The city has a charm of its own, an old world quality that has somehow managed to not give in to the seduction of Western lifestyles that the capital’s district of Kathmandu has adopted so easily. The older streets are cobbled, most houses have preserved the wooden tiki jhya- windows with ornate etching and most roads can only accommodate one-way traffic. When one moves deeper into the city, the roads become even narrower as if to discourage the vehicles from trespassing. Patan runs on its old laid back clock too, with men sitting out on their porches all day, smoking hukkas and having countless cups of tea as they discuss politics or chit chat casually. There is absolutely no sense in honking on your car or motorcycle’s horn in Patan, especially in the ever busy Mangal Bazaar. A traditional market place offering everything from the Nepali bhadgaule topi to ayurvedic herbs for every kind of ailment, shoppers seldom budge until they get a good deal and move on.

As Nepal’s Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal Friday kicks off a campaign to draw 1 million tourists to the country next year, the campaign will receive a boost from the launch of a forgotten epic on the life and teachings of the Buddha, that has been resurrected by a prestigious western publisher. The Oxford University Press, US has brought out an English translation of “Sugata Saurabha” - literally meaning the fragrance of the Buddha, an epic written in Newari, the language used by the indigenous Newar community of Kathmandu valley who claim to have descended from the same Shakya dynasty in which the Buddha was born nearly 2,500 years ago. It is the work of Newar poet Chittadhar Hridaya, regarded as one of the greatest literary figures in Nepal in the 20th century. The epic was said to have been written by Hridaya while he was imprisoned by Nepal’s dictatorial Rana rulers for having written a poem that displeased them. It has been translated ...

The Day Women Descend On the Streets - Utsav Shakya The Rato Matsyendranath festival: a celebration that mixes religion, culture and everyday life into a heady concoction might as well be famous for something other than just that - primal screaming sounds from women of all ages as they pull the famous chariot on the ‘yaka bhujya’ day of the festival. For a moment, this scribe was reminded of maternity wards in hospitals! Armies of women of all ages fill the streets. Some in comfortable kurta salwars or jeans and others in bright, red saris tucked tightly into their hips tug at the towering chariot, their sneaker adorned or sometimes bare feet digging into the earth as they heave at the chariot of god, demonstrating a freakish strength. Whoever said women are only emotionally ...