Harald Bluetooth Gromson was a king of Denmark who conquered Norway during his rule and took control of Norway and promoted Christianity. Experts believe that the name Bluetooth was given to him for his dark colored teeth that he got from some accident or, as many others believe, from eating Blueberries. His unification did not however last too long.

Prithvi Narayan Shah was a king of Gorkha who conquered several tiny kingdoms to form one large country that would be known as Nepal. Unlike Harald I, his unification has remained more or less intact till now (not to forget the land lost to the East India company that was never returned). Prithvi Narayan Shah probably also promoted Hinduism in Nepal just like what Harald Bluetooth did with Christianity.

After more than a millennium of Bluetooth’s rule, when researchers were thinking about a wireless communication technology that was to unite multiple digital equipments, Bluetooth was remembered once again. So much that they would name the technology Bluetooth. After all, uniting was what both Bluetooth did.
Prithvi Narayan is also being remembered today, some 300 years after unification, but not to credit him for the unity. Instead, Prithvi Narayan is being criticized for his war-time crime not just by people who can legitimately do so (like people from Kirtipur) but by many others (including those who were responsible for similar or even more offensive crime during the recent people’s war). The unification that Prithvi Narayan started definitely played an important role in the development of Nepalese history. Then, are we not repeating the same mistake that Kalidas supposedly made: cutting the branch with ourselves on the wrong side of it!

No, I am not against abolishment of Monarchy. I am against demolition of the historical artifacts in general and against destruction of Prithvi Narayan’s monuments in particular. Willing to be an emperor is one thing, being so is another(Gyanendra is an example). Winning war is one thing, taking control is another (Iraq war is a good example). Prithvi Narayan is no ordinary man in Nepalese history. He has earned his place in history, denying him the place or undermining his contribution is injustice to the country herself.

In the making of the history, new pages are added without removing the old ones. Many people in Nepal apparently don’t know this yet. For them I have a message: मेरो सानो दु:खले आर्ज्याको ईतिहास होइन, पाना पाना गरेर पुर्खाको रगतले लेखेको ईतिहास हो, सबैलाई चेतना भया!

Every now and then, when I come across new people, I am asked this question: Are you from India? The sentence structure may differ: “So you from India?”, “Where in India are you from?” and even “Are you from Madras?” My Nepali nationality comes into action: No, I am from Nepal, toned to clearly let the questioner know that their basis for the judgement is wrong. I simply do not understand what makes some people think that they can tell the nationality of people by judging their looks. If that was possible at all, citizenship identification problem would have never existed.

I see two possible reasons why people make the mistake of asking that question. The first is their ignorance. Some people think all non-whites can be classified into three groups: African, Indian and Chinese. Just like all whites are ‘Americane’ to most people in Nepal. These people ask a person from Taiwan if he is from China and ask a Pakistani if she is from India without knowing the effect of the question. They fall in to the category of people who know not and know not they know not.

The second reason people ask the question is due to lack of proper etiquette. Why take risk predicting someones nationality when a simple question like “Where are you from?” would do the trick. If the answer is as per the expectation, one could always boast ones knowledge by saying “I thought so because….”. But if the reply is something different from the expectation, that would save a conversation from going wrong. At least that would have saved so many conversations that went wrong with me.

Nationality is something that everyone takes pride in. To me, asking if I am from a country I am not from is a serious mistake. Is that so with you?

All right folks, I am back with a new post. Those of you who have been visiting this site know that I havee been making few changes here. I am spending time developing new features which will be launched within a week or two. As about the donation for Koshi flood relief is concerned, I am not disappointed by the minimal collection. After all, we know that the blog is too young to perform!

Now about the content of today’s post. What to do in Kathmandu? Well, I am sure each of us have a different to-do list when visiting Kathmandu but this post is about a song in YouTube that is titled so.

The song is from the strangely named band Curfew Crew which, as you can figure out from the video, seems to have been formed by a group of tourists that met in Kathmandu. Nepalese politics apparently played its role in the naming of the band.
The fun nature of the music video can probably be sensed from this paragraph the band has posted in the info section:

“The plot was supposed to be a bit more complex but since we only had a 100,000-dollar budget we were not able to do everything we had initially planned. The beginning of the song is in English and the rap and traditional part are sung in Nepali. A comment on the stunts – the real actors played in the death-defyingly dangerous motorcycle stunts. Real razors were used in the shaving scene. We The Curfew Crew hope that this song leaves you with some idea of what to do whilst in Kathmandu… No animals were injured in the making of this film but one wig was utterly destroyed.“

I am not sure where the 100,000 dollar, which they say was not enough for the recording, was spent. I thought that was the budget for a typical Nepalese movie!

I like the song and enjoy it every time. There are several lines I like in the song; I will let you tell the one you liked.

Enjoy!