Half-seriously speaking
Nepali Times ईspecial 19 - 25 December 2025 #1290
Greeting Earthlings
As we near the end of the year and the second anniversary of this ईspecial Newsletter, I have to be careful about satire people don’t seem to get. For example, proposing that COP31 be held in Kathmandu was a joke, silly.
And I did not mean to poke fun at cricket fans in the last column, just at cricket the insect, so lighten up you there in the groin guard.
Also, the proposal to balance Nepal’s trade deficit with India by exporting Khukri Rum through the Amlekhganj petroleum pipeline is not to be taken seriously by the Interim Dispensation.
So, here is an advance apology to anyone who in 2026 may be outraged by this weekly newsletter in the coming year.
I must tread carefully when I write about my clever one-shot solution to all of Nepal’s many problems. How about restoring the Valley to its pristine state before Manjushree foolishly cleft the Chobhar ridge with his flaming sword by damming the Bagmati?
This will create a massive reservoir submerging Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur — not just adding another 20,000 megawatt to the national grid, but also removing most of our country’s crises in one swell foop. By drowning Kathmandu Metropolis and the Patan Metropolitan City, we will have simultaneously solved the garbage crisis, the pollution problem, the water shortage, endemic corruption, political instability, traffic jams, and the chronic problem of stray dogs.
The question then arises, where should the capital of the New Nepal be located? That is a very good point, and luckily for you I have the answer: Kalapani. That way we also solve the other problem and restore the disputed border region to Nepali sovereignty.
From here on, while still on the subject of maps, this newsletter switches to serious mode. Defence analyst Shyam Tekwani in his Guest Editorial on page 2, related three recent events that show territorial sensitivities. One of them is Nepal unveiling new banknotes with the Limpiyadhura map. Tekwani takes this as an example of how colonial cartography has left the Subcontinent with post-colonial angst about ‘borders we never drew and histories we cannot fully escape’ (When Maps Move, page 2).
This edition of the paper marks International Migrants’ Day and the completion of 75 episodes of the series Diaspora Diaries in the past three years. In her Labour Mobility column, Upasana Khadka recaps the series and finds out how those profiled are faring. Some have prospered, some migrated again, others have passed the baton to their sons (Our Great Stories, and My Father’s Son, page 10-11).
Two books by unrelated Upadhyays are reviewed in this issue. Akhilesh Upadhyay’s In the Margins of Empires is reviewed by Sudiksha Tuladhar (Some Chicken, Some Neck, page 4) and Darkmotherland by Samrat Upadhyay (A Dystopian. Motherland, page 9) is reviewed by Vishad Raj Onta, who also interviews the author.
Enjoy the centrefold photo-feature by Thomas Kelly about the Karnali, Nepal’s only remaining major river that is free-flowing, and why it is important to save it from over-development (The River of Life by Thomas Kelly, page 6-7).
And last but not least, Editor Sonia Awale summarises how political parties old and new are gearing up for elections in less than three months. The established parties have not said sorry like they mean it, while infighting and clashing egos have diminished GenZ clout (Establishmentarianism, page 1).
Take a long time to enjoy the year’s shortest day.
Kunda Dixit
Also, work on how to enhance Nepal and Nepali people's intellectual imagination and reimagination of a culturally and civilizationally intact country.