Healthy Fooding Habit

Travelling to Gingee- A Photo blog

A one and half hour ride from Pondicherry (70 kms) and you will be able to reach this beautiful maintained fort- Gingee Fort which was built in the 9th century in India as told by one of the staffs in the Fort.

If you like history and are interested in hiking I would recommend you visit this historical place. But, do bring enough water bottles, sun block, hat and everything you need to make yourself cool from the scorching heat of the sun or travel in the winter to avoid the dehydrating summer heat 😛

You will need to pay ticket of Indian Rupees 25 for Indian nationals and Indian rupees 200 for Foreigners. I paid 25 as I faked myself being an internal tourist from North East 🤣

The fort has been believed to be built by the Chola rulers of India and considered as India’s most impregnable fort.

The Kalyana Mahal is an interesting piece of work. It is 7 storeyed ( i felt like 8!.. needs rechecking) pyramid structure used by Rulers for entertaintment purpose like swimming, dancing, food storage, etc (as told by the staff)

The swimming pool has a stage like structure as seen in the picture where dancers used to dance and artists performed.

The Gingee fort forms a huge triangular enclosed area with three hillocks- Raja giri, Krishna giri and Chandrayanadurg. I could manage only to go to the Raja giri (Kings fort) as the heat was too much for me to hike 2 more hills 😥

The area is rich in architecture and you will not be disappointed !

A fascinating view is seen from the top of the fort with hills, temples, lakes, fields and some beautiful parts of the Villupuram district.

If you are a history enthusaistic who loves to hike , be there! But remember to hydrate yourself!

Panaromic shot of Gingee fort taken from Kalyana Mahal

#india #tourism #history #gingee #travel #photoblog

Story: The-Flag-Bearer-Of-Kathmandu

February 19, 2015, I was walking with  my friends in Basantapur, a famous World Heritage enlisted site by UNESCO, before and after the advent of Nepal Earthquake 2015, for gatherings. be it a college reunion, or you wanna have a sip of Nepali style tea with  some chitchats, you can always count Basantapur in. While we were waiting for our all friends to arrive, we were posing for pictures (its natural i guess, everyone don’t come on time). We saw a man on his 50s, wearing Daura Suruwal ( Nepali national dress) waving Nepali National flag and passers by were staring at him and clicking some photos of him, with him- portrait, selfie, wefie and in every possible forms. One of my friends was curious to know who that man was? where did he come from?

I was also curious about him and I wanted to take a picture with him and Nepali National Flag. I insisted my friend to go and ask him. He went and asked for permission to take picture with the flag and him. We took some pictures and all of us were happy and smiling.

My friend salutes with The Flag Bearer of Kathmandu 🙂

I was curious about him and asked where is he from and why he does this all day?

Based on conversation with him

” I am from Kalimati. A small town from Kathmandu famously known as the ‘tarkari bazaar’:vegetable market.  All I want is my country’s flag to be known by people around the globe. Firstly, I want to start it from ourselves, within our citizens. I want everyone to Respect for country’s flag, build patriotism.

Here, I am not representing any organizations , I represent myself, a Nepali! ”

 

The Flag Bearer of Kathmandu with Nepali National Flag in front of Trailokya Narayan temple. Unfortunately, the temple was ramsacled by Nepal Earthquake 2015 and is now under reconstruction.

Nepal’s national flag is a unique triangular flag as you can see in the picture above- one of it’s kind in the world.

I was very inspired by what he said.It mesmerized me and my mind was striked with a thiught that day. Yes! an individual can start on his own for a change, why not we? He started on his own and continues to do so. Let’s start from ourselves!

At present date as well, after the Nepal Earthquake 2015, The Flag Bearer of Kathmandu- Laxmi Narayan Shilpakar stands at Basantapur premises and waves Nepali national flag.
You can find him on facebook. See the image below :

The Flag Bearer of Kathmandu with his id card and facebook page 🙂

Responsibility + Being a Part= Meaning

As i am home for celebrating tihar one of the greatest festivals of hindus and my favourite,
i come with more awakening.I am back home with more sense of responsibility. My
responsibility towards the community that i’m starting to work with, “Community in BETHAN!”
Before coming home for celebrating tihar, we had a session regarding community feeling.
During that session only, i happened to think about how we have so much responsbility
towards the community and its development.

The session in our LTS(Long Term Service ) residential training house was for us to think
and discuss about the three main aspects of how-

• we feel being Responsible
• we felt as a Part of community and
• we find Meaning in our work in community

Flashback started in my mind and all actions started coming reversed.

The arrival at “Dahu”
was a warm welcome by the community people with garlands tikas and flowers and in their
traditional greeting “LHASO; Phyafulla”. They expressed us how happy they were to see all of
the international and national fellows and thanked us for being there, despite the face that
the village is a rural place to be in. All of the people were hopeful that we would do
something great for them. And with that hope sense of  was born .That was the
first time when i perceived the sense of responsibility. It then started intensifying when
we talked to the people on the way, in the house we stayed and in the community meeting at
Dahu, Bhawasa and Majhi village.

Similarly, while we were visiting and observing the village areas the next day, people from
community gave us Pomello, almonds and lots of other fruits for free. We were completely
strangers to them and they gave us those fruits. I paused and thougt for a second – if it
was my neighbourhood in Kathmandu- not even a single leaf from the plants would be given to
strangers let alone the fruits! At that moment i felt as i was also the part of community,
so that was why they offered us fruits.

And finding a meaning to our community development work in Bethan is something that’s
connected with both of the above things- being responsible and feeling as a part of
community. One of our international fellows said- it is P(part of community) R
(Responsbility) = Meaning , which i see as a very good reflection. Both of these aspects (P
and R) combine together and will give a meaning to our work in Bethan. we have expectations
of what we can give to the community people there and they have expectations from us of what
we will be giving them. And if these expectations match up then of course we will find a
meaning to our work there. For this to happen, we, the national and internationals along
with the staffs will work hard and achieve it!

we go to work in Bethan next week and we internalised all of these aspects which was
meaningful and helpful. warmly and heartly thanx to Esther and Gilli for having this
wonderful session of community feeling 🙂

Lastly, but not the least- HAPPY TIHAR everyone!! 🙂

Photos by – Hava

Commitment Task- Now, It’s not just an egg!

Commitment task

Before it was just an egg for me. It was something i would love to eat by making omelet  Also, i loved

it when i tried the 1st Israeli dish- Saksuka made by my international fellow in one of the breakfasts. But now it is not just an egg for me.
While being in one of the trainings by Nyayik Sansar, our trainer Atmaram Neupane gave us a task. Each of Nepalese fellows were given an egg. We should care for the egg regarding as a baby, till we went back home for dasain. The task was for 9 0r 10 days.
First of all, all of us felt like why should we care for an egg like baby! Egg is something to eat not to be taken care of!
Later on he explained us, it as a commitment task. He wanted to see how committed we are and what efforts we could do to protect the egg and complete our task.
We had to carry the egg where ever we went- was it kitchen, swayambhu, sessions, everywhere.
All of us did the task with much effort, we even named our eggs, mine was named SUMAN Jr. (as u see in the pic). All of us were so committed that we even made protective covers to our so called baby :P.

We took it to all the places where we went and protected it. we finished our task and went home.Al were happy.

Previously, i had thought of eating the egg once i reach home but later on i couldnt do it. i was so attached to it that i abandoned my thoughts of eating the egg. Now the egg is hanging in my room with its name written on it ‘SUman Jr.’. Forever , i will try to protect it like my baby.
The credit goes to our trainer . Previously  it was just an egg but later on after the task it was something close to my heart which i would always like to treasure. i felt an ownership for it. Also i came to realize how something strange, completely nothing to me can be so near to me.

The same goes when i work in Bethan. Bethan now is like a stranger for me but later on when i’ll start my work there, it won’t be any stranger. it would be like my place, it’s people as my people and it’s problems as my own problems which i have to deal with and solve !

Once again, the so called egg – Now, It’s not just an egg!!!

 

A snap frm Bethan VDC

My new working area .. Really excited to work at this place! Me along with my other colleagues (Volunteers, Staff, Trainers) have been working really hard. We will be training for a month and work at this Bethan VDC, Ramechap, Nepal. We started training from 24th september. Our Israeli, American and Germany friends who will work with us in Community Development will be here this week. More updates will be coming soon!!! 🙂

photo courtesy: Nyayik Sansar

Cycling… <3 lt !

Guyz felt like sharing this one.. BENEFITS OF CYCLING 🙂

just think about it…  Go Green

benefits

Safalta HIV School

Safalta HIV School

In my previous article, i had written about this Safalta HIV School. Here is its official website guys!! http://babylifehome.org/ . In this website you’ll be able to find a detailed information of the school and its activities . And yes, website is under maintenance, as i was informed by Mr. Rajkumar Pun. Also here is the link to facebook page of SAFALTA https://www.facebook.com/BabyLifeHome

Please help these HIV infected children financially or morally !!!

Regards,

Suman Kumar Nepali.

Serving Food in Safalta HIV School in Kathmandu

A day when we spend our quality time by serving food to children infected with HIV in SAFALTA HIV SIKSHYA SADAN!!!

Our group after serving the food to the HIV infected Children!!! 🙂

On saturday july 6th 2013, we , the students of M.A. (Rural Development) from KnK International College (with close friend Tripti Bataju)  went to Safalta HIV Sikshya Sadan (School) to serve food and spend some quality time with the HIV infected children. The children were really happy to see us and also our  friends were amazed to see the HIV infected children.

This HIV school has been teaching and feeding the children affected from HIV. There are 17 children who don’t have their parents to look after them. It is approved as one of the first schools of  its kind for teaching and looking after HIV infected children by the Goverment of Nepal.

The economy of the school is very poor and ‘Rajkumar Pun’ along with Uma ji and other colleagues, is taking care of all expenses of this school. He even sold his property to bear the expenses of this school. Hats off to him. IF anybody is interested in helping this school than please contact Rajkumar Pun (9841564169). And please share the pictures and this message as much as you can to help these HIV infected children!!!

You can also help by just going to this school and spend some quality time with the HIV infected children. This will boost up their morale.

Below are some of the snapshots by me.

Thank you for the food

A HIV infected child in SAFALTA HIV school

KUMARI: A Cultural Belief

Smrita- The Living Goddess

Suman reporting for GCC, Global Platform, Nepal.

“It’s because of culture and tradition and it’s a good thing to have a young girl child as KUMARI” says Babu Kaji Byanjankar.  Babu Kaji is a 58 yrs old man, residing in Patan, who belongs to a Newar community. He believes KUMARI, the girl child< will have more benefits as she is incarnated as GOD.

“I would like my daughter to be a KUMARI.” says 50 yrs old Gauri Lama who was at Patan with her friends, A buddhist by religion, she would have been more than happy to see her daughter as a living GODDESS. When asked why, she says “It’s a matter of privilege “. According to her, if the girl was a normal child, nobody would have noticed her but after being the LIVING GODDESS, KUMARI, everybody would worship her and she would be famous all over the world.

KUMARI, considered as a living goddess is chosen from young girls from Shakya or Bajracharyas who belongs to  Newar community in Nepal. She is left alone in a junction in dark room and if she isn’t scared then she is chosen as Kumari, reincarnation of the Living Goddess, wife of lord Bhairav.

There were three little girls playing at Patan who also wanted to be Kumari (though some of them were Christians). They said, they wanted to have power in order to make life of people more easy living

Grouped in three, one of my fellow participants asked a tourist, Elizabeth, from Holland how she felt about Kumari and she said it was culture that matters a lot here in Nepal and it was a good thing but she also felt pity for the young child as she was unable to distinguish between what’s right and what is wrong and what’s happening in her life at such a young age.

This is what Elizabeth told us but it’s different for Ashish Maharjan, a 21 yrs old youngster who was with his friend Prekshya at Patan. He said, “Culture is important and one should preserve it”. He liked the culture and it should go on. 18 yrs old Prekshya also said it’s good for a girl to be Kumari but she felt a bit sad as she was inbounded in between walls of Kumari Ghar (House where Kumari is supposed to live after being appointed)

Kumari, after being appointed, isn’t allowed to live freely as she used to. She is bounded inside the Kumari House where she’s not allowed to talk with strangers and she also cannot go out of the KUMARI GHAR. She sees her family members very less and even receives study at the same house.

We reached the house of Kumari and fortunately were able to see her but not talk with her. But, we interviewed her brother Sabin Bajracharya who is 18yrs old now. He said, Smrita was 11yrs old and its been three years she was appointed as KUMARI. He was happy that Smrita was appointed as Kumari. She liked the way people noticed her and worshipped her. She felt special. Her behavior though hasn’t changed at all.

Smrita who was supposed to live in Kumari House is living at her own family’s house with family. Kumari House at Patan is small and Smrita finds difficulty in accommodation so, the living Goddess resides with her family in her own house. The difference between her lifestyle now and then is, she isn’t allowed to go out from the house like she used to. She walks out of the house only in some important festivals like Dasain, Machedndranath Jatra, etc.  Another Kumari will be appointed after Smrita will shed her 1^st blood.

“I see Goddess in my sister and our family is very happy” says Sabin.

Sabin- Smrita’s Brother