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On a beautiful, sunny day of April 1, I woke up happily. I was going to Pokhara for a trek with my mother, who was already there. I had lunch with my father, changed into a fresh pair of clothes, and we headed to the airport.

The next day, at around 10 am, more of my mother’s friends arrived. We all got into the car and hit the road. After about an hour and a half, we stopped at Birethanti for lunch. Another hour and a half later, we reached Thikhedunga. From there, our real trek began.

We walked from Thikhedunga to Ulleri. The stairs on the way were crooked and many of them wobbled. It was quite tough to walk on them. When we reached Ulleri, we stayed at Hotel Purnima.

The next morning, we clicked a group photo and continued our journey. The stairs this time were much better, though the first set had really tall steps that made us stretch our legs to climb. Along the trail, we saw a beautiful white flower on a tree. When we asked a local woman, she told us it was called Chaanpa. We paused for a while to admire it before moving on.

A bit further along, we found a tea shop and rested there for a while. I was sucking on a piece of ginger—my mother said it helps with altitude sickness. While walking again, I accidentally stepped on horse dung and said ‘ow’ instead of ‘eww’. It was so silly I burst out laughing!

We also came across a tap with drinkable water. It had a slightly sweet taste because of the minerals, and the water came from a natural spring. Later, we found a small waterfall that flowed into a stream. We decided to take a break and dip our feet in the water. We probably should have checked the temperature first—because it was freezing! My feet felt swollen, and when I pulled them out, the pain was so intense I screamed. The echo rang through the jungle. For the first time in my life, I wished I had socks on!

The trail to Nagthanti was tricky and a bit scary, but my mother helped me, and I luckily reached there in one piece. We had lunch, which was pretty good, and then resumed our trek. On the way, we saw a lot of buffaloes—and even watched two of them fighting! We continued walking with breaks here and there, and eventually reached Ghorepani. After a bit more walking, we arrived at our hotel: Hotel Snowland. It was one of the best places we stayed at—there was even a hot shower, which was a pleasant surprise in such a remote area.

The next day, we left early for Poon Hill. At the border of Ghorepani and Poon Hill, there was a ticket counter where we bought entry tickets. The hike took about an hour and a half, and luckily, we didn’t miss the sunrise. First, we viewed the mountains and sunrise from the ground, but then climbed up to the view tower. The view was absolutely mesmerizing.

On the way back, we walked through two Rhododendron forests filled with dark and light pink flowers. We reached Thapledanda and stopped for a snack break. It was nearly the same altitude as Poon Hill. Then we descended to Deurali, had lunch, and saw lots of ponies.

We walked through a narrow gorge and reached Banthanti for another break. After that, we continued on. I twisted my foot along the way, which really hurt, so I was limping the rest of the day. When we were near Tadapani, we heard thunder and hurried to our hotel. Just after we arrived, it started raining heavily. For dinner, I had noodles and lentil soup.

The next morning, the skies were clear, and we got some great mountain views—so we took more photos. We walked until we reached Ghandruk, where we had lunch and reunited with the rest of our group. We visited the Gurung Museum, dressed up in traditional Gurung clothes, and clicked hundreds of photos. The museum had lots of interesting items—some I already knew about, and some I had never seen before.

After the museum visit, we walked to the bus park. It took us about three hours to reach Lakeside, Pokhara. In the evening, we went window shopping, and my mother and her friends went for a foot massage.

On our final day, we went boating in Fewa Taal and visited the Tal Barahi Temple. After returning to the hotel, we headed to the airport. A short wait later, we boarded our flight and returned home. I loved the trek to Poon Hill!

Eneesha Dhakal

Grade IV 

Rato Bangala School

Despite the progress made by millennials, many deep-rooted societal norms still endure. While the new generation aspires to challenge outdated traditions, societal expectations continue to dictate decisions, particularly regarding marriage and gender roles. These norms shape our lives in ways that often go unquestioned, reinforcing outdated beliefs about relationships and responsibilities.

One prevalent example is the stigma surrounding marriage and age differences. A younger man marrying an older woman is often seen as inappropriate, whereas the reverse is widely accepted. Similarly, divorced individuals face immense social pressure when seeking remarriage. A young bachelor is unlikely to marry a divorced woman, and bachelors or bachelorettes are often discouraged from choosing a partner who has been divorced. “When actor Ayushman Desraj Joshi got married to actress Priyanka Karki, he faced quite a backlash as she was older than him and divorced.”

Intercaste marriages are still viewed as unacceptable in millennial societies, yet friendships across lower castes are considered normal. These contradictions highlight how arbitrary and deeply ingrained these biases are. Women, in particular, face pressure to marry before their thirties, as if their worth is tied to their age and marital status. They are led to believe that they need a man for financial and social security. It is rooted in them from a young age, with sayings like “chori manche poi ko ghar jane jaat.” Meanwhile, men are conditioned to believe they must be financially settled before their thirties to be considered eligible for marriage. But why do we continue to let these expectations dictate our lives?

This societal conditioning extends beyond marriage and affects household responsibilities. A long-standing belief persists that household chores are solely a woman's duty. Even in modern households where both partners work, women are still expected to manage cooking and cleaning. It is ingrained from childhood that the kitchen is a woman’s responsibility, while men are rarely taught these essential life skills. Even if they acquire these skills, they still believe it is a woman’s responsibility. The expectation that men should not cook and that food should be served to them at the dining table still exists in our societies, even among millennials. Even some feminist women unconsciously uphold these norms, demonstrating how deeply these beliefs are embedded in society. Men rarely consider tasks like washing clothes or managing household chores because they have been conditioned to believe it is not their duty.

A crucial question arises: why are we not breaking these norms? Are we not educated enough to challenge them? The reason often lies in fear—the fear of being judged or stigmatized for defying societal expectations. Perhaps we continue to follow these outdated norms because they provide a sense of security, or maybe, subconsciously, we are too deeply rooted in them to let go. The irony of all this is that, despite knowing these dictations have no rationale behind them, we decide to hide behind the curtain of society, saying “samaj le k bhancha,” while subtly hindering our own lives.

“No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century”, said Mark Twain (1835-1910), a great American author. When I came across this quote, I wished all the people really felt loved, respected, and dignified in their married lives. As unfortunate as this observation is, it overwhelms me when I recall that marriage can be arduous for some women. 

I wish to explore in this article certain intricacies of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), also referred to as domestic violence (DV). I aim to make readers contemplate on the grievous issues of IPV and its paraphernalia pertaining to married women. WHO explains IPV as acts between intimate partners which culminate in physical, sexual or psychological harm. It includes current as well as former partners.

IPV in Nepali context is mostly known as ‘domestic violence’ or gharelu hinsa. Section 2(a) of Domestic Violence (Crime and Punishment) Act, 2008 defines domestic violence as any form of physical, mental, sexual and economic abuse perpetrated by any person to the other person with whom he has a family relationship. The punishment for this crime varies from six months to twenty years depending on the modus operandi of the perpetrator. 

News about women experiencing IPV are frequent in Nepali media and many women lose their lives to this atrocity. Is it really that common or is it a conspiracy to shake the strong social foundation? 

The WHO estimates that IPV affects 1 in 3 women worldwide. A 2012 data from the Ministry of Health and Population recorded that more than 1 in 4 women in Nepal of reproductive age experienced IPV in their lifetimes. Also, a 2024 study showed that out of 3,853 women, 27.2 percent had experienced at least one form of IPV. Women belonging to poor households and those with uneducated partners were more prone to experiencing sexual violence.

Is it a declining problem? Definitely not. How can it be that people, since their childhood, are taught to respect everybody and harm nobody, but end up becoming the exact opposite individual, who harms his wife, the one individual he is supposed to respect and protect? 

Many concerned individuals in social media are quick to blame our philosophical foundations that our ancient Hindu texts have episodes of gender-based discriminations, exemplifying Draupadi’s tragedy at the Pandava-Kaurava dice game, or Sita’s kidnapping by Ravana, indicating that the very figures we worship and stories we preach morality to children with, have suffuse this discrimination into the following centuries. However, there is another side to it. Our ancient moral-legal codes have been protective of human life and stringent against harms against women. 

Manusmriti (c. 2nd Century BC) is one of the most influential laws in Hindu philosophy. It says the following.

yatra nāryastu pūjyante ramante tatra devatāḥ | 

yatraitāstu na pūjyante sarvāstatrāphalāḥ kriyāḥ ||

This verse is from the chapter of Rules Regarding Marriage. It translates into “where women are respected and honored, there the Gods rejoice; and where women are disrespected, no task produces success.” This law had imposed, about more than two thousand years earlier, moral and legal obligations on people to respect married women to ensure peace and prosperity. Do people adhere to this moral code when they welcome brides into their homes? Does it empower women to speak against the atrocity subjected to them knowing that their forefathers had envisaged a benevolent moral-legal foundation?

Laws against sexual harassment and marital rape in Nepal have left a fetid void for married women, rendering them helpless against such crimes. Section 224 of the National Penal Code, 2017 explains that sexual harassment involves acts, inter alia, such as unwanted physical contact or attempts to touch sensitive areas, interfering with someone’s undergarments, showing pornography non-consensually, teasing or annoying someone with a sexual motive, behaving in an undesirable or indecent manner, such person not being one’s wife or husband. This definition blatantly contradicts the definition of domestic violence mentioned in the Act against domestic violence. Similarly, Section 219(4) criminalizes marital rape and sanctions imprisonment of “up to” five years. It means that the husband can be imprisoned for a day, at least, and five years, for the most. 

The legal provisions demand a question as to what legal remedy is available if a wife experiences such behaviors from her husband. Do wives not get to exercise their free consent? Do husbands get an “all-time” access card to their wives’ bodies after marriage? Does martial relationship reduce the gravity of rape crimes?

If you search for married women being abused, battered, and killed, you will be presented with numerous sources which will inform you that they die due to reasons like intoxicated husbands, infertility, inadequate dowry, extra-marital preferences, gender dynamics and so on. 

What is the solution to this atrocity? How can we revise the provenance of a peaceful and tranquil marital relationship in our society? Early education? Research conducted titled “Interventions to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence” by Alsina et al (2024), suggests that education methodologies such as gender-transformative education, small-group counselling, community mobilization, economic empowerment, cooperative workshops involving men and women are some of the ways to reduce IPV/DV. I too believe that early philosophical, moral, and social education to boys and girls can allow them to become better men and resilient women, who would break the trend of DV/IPV.

Mutual respect, dignity, freedom, equal rights, and rule of law are the basic foundations of our modern civilized society. We pride ourselves on belonging to a federal democratic republic country where laws are created for the sole benefit of the citizens and people. Yet, there are certain populations who do not get to enjoy such freedom. I wish to conclude with one question. If we fail to create a harmonious society where marital relationship is revered, then why would women today want to marry someone knowing their rights will become fewer after getting married?

Aawesh Bhadra Karn

BA LLB 5th Year

Kathmandu School of Law

While pursuing a Bachelor of Development Studies back in 2011, I was engrossed in questions of development and prosperity. Along with some economics, sociology, development, and research courses, a series of unresolved questions occupied my mind: What routes lead to development and prosperity? What policies benefit  the country and its residents the most? Is it better to have a market-led development or a government-led development? Back then, pursuing a degree in development studies wasn’t only about getting a job; I was also concerned about the country’s development, a sentiment that may have arisen as a result of indoctrinated nationalism during my school days.

During my undergraduate studies, I had the opportunity to observe the work of  some non-governmental development organizations. The more I saw of their work, the more  dissatisfied I became: their huge administrative costs, including handsomely paid overseas consultants, in comparison to the amount that reaches targeted people, and their hidden goals. As a result, a critical attitude toward such groups began to emerge. During one of my field visits to Saktikhor, Chitwan, I was shocked to learn that one of the development agencies had structured a  health camp in such a way that residents would be required to bring home medicine as well as a bible. This acknowledgment made me more critical of non-governmental development agencies  and piqued my interest in research as another option to pursue.

Think tank to rehabilitation center

I had the opportunity to work as an intern in a Kathmandu-based research institute during  the fifth semester. On one of the working days, my immediate supervisor said, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” The quote convinced me enough; after all, one is paid for his job, while  we are given nothing for free. Along with my internship, I eventually came across prominent  names like Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Friedrich Hayek, as well as their concepts. I was also learning to write blogs and articles at the same time. Market-led development, I was taught, is better for a country. I was taught that the smaller the government, the greater the chance of  prosperity. My college lecturers, on the other hand, taught that huge government interventions  lead to prosperity. I wasn’t old enough to understand what was right and wrong. I was perplexed.

In one of my senior’s conversations, he emphasized why governments should not set  minimum wages by recounting an anecdote of the Cobra Effect (unintended consequences of public policy) in ancient India. He claimed that while populist politicians may set a higher  minimum wage, it ultimately hurts workers since businesses lay off employees to decrease costs  in order to sustain profit. I was persuaded by his logic, but I could not readily accept that the  government should not set a minimum wage because my single mother worked as a housemaid at one of Kathmandu’s casinos. I still wonder what one should hold on to—reasoning or lived  and witnessed experiences. I continued to be perplexed. What is right and what is wrong, what is  good and what is bad kept flowing through my mind. He went to the extent of saying that there is  no such thing as a public interest for the public is nothing but conglomeration of individuals. I was perplexed again. He recommended a few works the following days, including George Orwell’s Animal Farm, James D Gwartney’s Common Sense Economics, and Ayn Rand’s The  Fountainhead. 

On one of my holidays, I decided to buy those books and went to the bookstore. I  bought the books that were recommended to me because I have been writing poems since middle  school and also a big fan of literary works. Apart from the books that were recommended to me, I also bought Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, despite not knowing who Nietzsche was at  the time, because I liked several of his aphorisms and verses.

While learning the fundamentals of research, I attended an event hosted by the institution where I worked. It had convened a meeting of our country’s top legislators and business leaders. My responsibility as an intern was to take notes on the event's speakers. As the sessions came to  an end, I realized that capitalists were pressing for legislative changes that would benefit them. Following the seminars, there was a grand closing party, with attendees approaching each other with drinks in hand and engaging in informal lobbying.

Wouldn’t such lobbying conflict with  public interests, I wondered! With the passage of time while I was learning to write, read and  make sense of the world; I came to realize that as an intern there I, rather than working as an  independent researcher, was merely working to promote the ideas of free-market and capitalism.

After six months of working at the institute, my internship period came to an end. I wrote several blogs to promote the ideas of free-market capitalism and Austrian economics, as well as co-authoring one working paper on property rights. It was as if I was praying to a god who I didn’t believe in. 

I was looking forward to working in another research institute since I wanted to improve  my research skills. Fortunately, after finishing my undergraduate studies, I was given the  opportunity to conduct study on the post-earthquake scenario. I was hoping for step-by-step  guidance from seniors because I was new to research. Unfortunately, the research institution  fired me in the middle of a three-month assignment citing reasons such as sharing a research  project with members outside the organization. Back then, I had written some emails to people  outside the organization seeking help for the project I was assigned.

I began to feel restless after being sacked from my work. For several nights, I was unable  to sleep. Questions like “what is right and what is wrong,” “what is good and what is bad,” made  me more agitated. My inability to work as a researcher, as well as my own thoughts, along with  marijuana use, made me increasingly restless, insomniac, and delusional. I was ultimately  admitted to a mental rehabilitation center. 

“God gives me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things  I can change, and wisdom to know the difference,” was inscribed on one of the walls of my  rehabilitation, where I lived for a month. These words had spoken to my soul. I was dissatisfied  with the way aid organizations operated in Nepal, but I eventually understood there was little I could do about it. 

Reflecting back with aphorisms and books 

After I got out of the rehabilitation center, books became my friends. Instead of going out  and meeting up with friends, I discovered solace in poetry and literature. Instead of visiting  friends, I would write poems and read books because I was embarrassed to meet them. In  Nietzsche's The Gay Science, I felt as if I found some answers to questions I had previously. To  be honest, I had no idea who Nietzsche was when I bought it.  

“There are no facts, only interpretations,” he writes, and “whichever interpretation  prevails at the given time is a function of power not truth.” These words spoke to my soul.  Maybe what I was taught (capitalism and free market as ultimate truth) is the virtue of power not of  truth. Concessional loans and grants provided to developing countries like Nepal by institutions  such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are frequently subject to conditions. 

The conditions they propose best serve ideas of free market capitalism, and the Structural  Adjustment Program is one of the pieces of evidence. Meanwhile, in a world where capitalism  has developed the belief that people can do whatever they want for profit and self-interest, Nietzsche’s other aphorism makes a lot of sense. “That which is done out of love takes place beyond good and evil,” he writes in his book Beyond Good and Evil. Because businesses work  for the exclusive sake of profit, capitalism is subject to questions on morality. 

Another Nietzsche aphorism spoke to my spirit while I was still in a state of intellectual  perplexity. “Every profound thinker fears being understood more than being misunderstood,” he writes. The latter may hurt his vanity, but the former hurts his heart, his sympathy, which  continually cries, “Alas, why do you wish to go through what I went through?”

Because the aphorisms and phrases attracted my interest in Nietzsche, I began watching  Professor Jordan B Peterson’s online lectures, where he frequently discussed Nietzsche. I  purchased a book by Peterson and discovered that it partially answered my confusion  about political-economy. He writes in his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, “....Almost every political or economic conversation follows this pattern, with each participant  striving to justify a predetermined, a priori viewpoint rather than learning something new or  adopting a different perspective (even for the novelty). As a result, both conservatives and  liberals believe their positions are self-evident, especially as they get more radical.”

Suraj Dhakal