Reasons to Love the Tarai

All too often the beauty of Nepal's Tarai region is overlooked. The hot and dusty plains may not be what comes to mind when most people in the world think of 'Nepal', the land of Mount Everest, Sherpas and Durbar Squares, but they are a massive part of Nepali cultural, political and economic reality.

When I came to Nepal as a traveler for the first time in 2008 I arrived expecting mountain views, rice terraces and prayer flags. I ended up going on 'holiday' in Nepalganj (any guesses whose idea this was?) for part of the trip. Being down by the Indian border during the monsoon quickly dispelled any picture-postcard preconceptions I had about Nepal, but it gave me the chance to appreciate a side of the country that I would have missed out on altogether if I'd just landed in Thamel and headed straight up to the trekking routes.

Aside from Lumbini and Chitwan National Park, few places in the Tarai see foreign tourists, and the whole region has been sorely neglected by travel writers and academics. Granted, there aren't that many tourist 'attractions' and, well, the security situation often leaves something to be desired, but the Tarai is one of the most culturally diverse and beautiful parts of the country.

And by beautiful, I mean to say that the Tarai has its own special beauty - the plains aren't as immediately striking as Nepal's famous mountains, and indeed, many of the Tarai's grubby bazaars and brash border towns are enough to put off the hardiest traveler. But if you stick around here long enough, you'll come to see why this region is so compelling. In the rural areas you'll find acid green rice fields, loudly-coloured and much-loved shrines to Hindu gods in villages and at the side of the highway, wall paintings and mud decorations on houses - and of course, hoardes of very cute children. The cultural diversity is phenomenal - in few places in the world will you find such a range of different ethnicities, languages and religions crammed into such a (relatively) small space. Sure, they don't always sit comfortably alongside one another, but the crazy mixture is fascinating nonetheless. Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, animists and Christians inhabit this stretch of land, and languages spoken include Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Hindi, Tharu, Dhimal, Danuwar, Hindi... and of course, Nepali.

I realize I may be sounding a bit like a Lonely Planet entry for 'Things to do in Rupandehi' here. But many of my happiest moments in this country have been spent hanging out drinking tea in villages in the Tarai or driving off into the big plains sunset on rickety local transport.

The Tarai is an amazing place, and not enough people know that.

Spare a thought for the Interpreter

Any journalist, businessman, NGO worker or academic working in a country where they don't speak the local language will know that a good interpreter is worth their weight in gold.

As crucial as these individuals are to the functioning of any international mission, summit or news bureau, their contribution generally goes unnoticed. As this editorial from The Guardian puts it:

They are in almost every shot yet they pass unnoticed, discreet facilitators at the elbow of power, perpetual outsiders. They are on the soundtrack of the post-communiqué press conference, and the monotone accompaniment of the dreary images of international gatherings, voices threading mechanically through anger and joy alike. But these latter are lesser mortals than the hand-picked interpreters at the ear of every head of delegation making the round of economic, political and military summits, three of them to every world leader, rotating through long meetings, tense bilaterals and tedious dinners. They are charged with conveying not a mere translation but an understanding of the nuance of every exchange.

In a rare incidence of an interpreter actually making it into the by-lines, the man giving the simultaneous interpretation for Colonel Gaddafis rambling speech at the UN Summit in New York last month collapsed 75 minutes into the podium-hogging monologue, screaming 'I can't take it any more!' Link here. Apparently the interpreter lost the strength to continue around the point at which Gaddafi embarked on his explanation of how the Israel-Palestine conflict could be solved by a single state called 'Isratine'.

And this leads into my other point: interpreters must also subjected on occasion to a level crushing tedium that I suspect it would be difficult for 'internationals' like me to fully appreciate. 'It's the stupidest job in the world' one ex-interpreter told me. For him, the daily ennui of translating the same banal, rambling and sometimes completely moronic interview questions became too much for him to bear, and he moved on to other things. It must be truly galling to hold two higher degrees, speak two South Asian languages and four dialects fluently and to spend most of the time using these to ask questions such as 'where can you buy toilet paper round here?'

Being an interpreter, whether at international summits or out in 'the field' is a pretty thankless job at the best of times. Perhaps it's time that the UN or news bureaus came up with an international 'Interpreters' Day' on which these men and women can come out from the shadows and be publicly thanked for their contribution. But in the meantime I urge all those who use their services - no matter how bad your day is going, whether you are sitting up a mountain being lashed with rain or stuck in an interminable meeting in stuffy office - to spare a thought for your interpreter!

The 'Going-for-an-English' Sketch Revisited

This skit from sketch show Goodness Gracious Me is essential viewing for anyone who wants to get an insight into the bizarre relationship between British people and South Asian food.



I was trying to explain to my Nepali friends the other day the British ritual of 'going for a curry' and this sketch came to mind. A British trip to an Indian restuarant is generally preceded by a visit to the pub, or, if you happen to be going to an unlicensed restaurant in Brick Lane, accompanied by lashings of cheap wine or beer from the nearest corner shop. The stereotypical Brit-in-an-Indian-restaurant will patronise the waiters, mispronounce all of the items on the menu and demonstrate his machismo by ordering 'the hottest thing on the menu'. Of course, not all of us are like this - I, for one, conduct myself with nothing but the greatest decorum when going to get my chicken tikka masala fix. However many glasses of dodgy bring-your-own rose may have accompanied it (stop laughing)


In this sketch, a group of Indians 'go for an English' after getting 'tanked up on lassis' and procede to patronise the waiter ('oooh! hasn't he got lovely pale skin.. it's really pasty'), over-order, misprounouce names of food ('I'll have the steak-and-kidney pieeeee')and of course, try to outdo one another by ordering 'the blandest thing on the menu'.

I would live to take this opportunity here on Mesocosm to apologise to all of the desis working in Indian restaurants in the UK for the revolting behaviour of my country's people.

Mesocosm Fun Fact: My fellow blogger James' nickname, Jameeeezzzz, comes from this sketch