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Nitin Cerebral Palsy Society at Nayabasti (about 5km from Mitrapark, Chabahil) has since 2014 been providing a homely environment for special-needs children. It is an initiative of Urmila Maharjan in memory of her son Nitin, who suffered from severe cerebral palsy and died young at 14. Maharjan, now 55, had worked as a special education teacher for 25 years at ‘Mastiska Pakshyaghat Swawalamban Samuha’ during which time she also trained at the Greenmead Special School London. 

Cerebral palsy is a collective name for a number of permanent movement disorders caused by brain damage in early childhood. The Nitin CP Society opened with seven children but is now providing care for 16 of them, who suffer either from cerebral palsy or mild autism. Since its establishment, the school has been a second home to 36 children, and the 16 children currently there are between four and 19. “They remind me of my son. I would like to be devoted to their care for the rest of my life,” says Maharjan. 

Tough but rewarding

It’s not easy to take care of children affected by cerebral palsy. They are usually stubborn and angry, and some families consider them a nuisance. But they have to be treated with more affection than children with other mental disabilities. It is particularly challenging taking care of teenage girls during their monthly periods. 

The school has a checklist to keep record of each child’s behavior and ailments. When a new child is admitted, a six-month plan is drafted to cater to his or her needs. The goal is to make children able to complete basic tasks on their own and maximize their physical and mental well-being. Those above 14 are also involved in various vocabulary-building activities. The school also provides them with transport services and two meals a day. 

Maharjan says she does not want these children to be a burden on their parents and a hindrance to their career paths. Taking care of their children throughout the day, she adds, frees up time for parents to focus on their work or to attend to other matters.      

She gives the example of a seven-year-old who has shown remarkable improvement. He was three when he was admitted to the school and could not even crawl. But now he walks independently, interacts with people, solves jigsaw puzzles, plays computer games, and is even making progress interpreting numbers. 

Fund crunch

Lack of adequate resources means the organization can afford only four staff members, each working for a nominal salary. They are responsible for the entirety of the children’s activities—from feeding them to taking care of their hygiene and sanitation. The school also has a professional physiotherapist. 

The school collects a token fee from the parents, which they give willingly. (The highest amount it gets is Rs 7,000 a month a child.) The parents of three children do not pay, given their poor financial status. As the amount the school raises every month varies, it is difficult to plan ahead. Maharjan says many big organizations and renowned personalities have made promises to visit the school and contribute financially, but little of the promise has materialized thus far. 

The school pays a monthly rent of Rs 35,000 and Rs 45,000 for transport services. It is struggling to meet these expenses and may have to shut down if it continues to fail to secure steady income. 

Nitin Cerebral Palsy Society is not a huge organization providing service to hundreds of clients. It is a small but noble initiative—one that requires tremendous dedication. Surely, endeavors like these deserve our support.

If you would like to donate, contact the society at [email protected] or call them at +977 9861098189

Kuntal Joisher, a mountaineer, has been part of over 25 Himalayan climbing expeditions. He has been a vegan for the past 17 years. This year, he used a completely ‘vegan gear’ to summit Mt Everest on 23 May.

After two failed attempts in 2014 and 2015, he finally reached the top of Everest for the first time in May 2016 in a down suit. But he felt guilty using a down suit and mittens with leather palms. It was then that he decided that he would thenceforth climb only in vegan gear.

Joisher grew up as a vegetarian in India. But it was when he went to the United States in 2001 to pursue his Master’s degree that his roommate exposed him to the horrors of the eggs, dairy and leather industries. “After meeting him, I connected the dots that a piece of meat, a cake made with eggs, a glass of milk, a block of cheese, a leather belt, or the down jacket I was wearing all came from abused animals,” he says. When he realized that even as a vegetarian he had contributed to animal abuse and slaughter, he decided to turn vegan.

Going vegan is the bare minimum people can do for animals and the planet, he contends. However, when news spread about his expedition to Everest as a vegan, there was a lot of pushback from his friend and family circles. Joisher says, “They kept telling me that the vegan diet is nutritionally deficient as it lacks protein.” He wanted to dispel that myth, and climb Everest to show vegan products are not only compassionately made but also of the highest quality, for both nutrition and clothing uses.

The difficult part was finding vegan climbing gear, meaning gear without leather, down, and wool. When his climbing journey started, he could find replacements for down, leather and wool while climbing smaller mountains up to 6,500 meters. However, there were two pieces of gear that were a problem for bigger mountains: a one-piece climbing suit, and high-altitude mittens. Every single suit in the market was made from down feathers, he reveals. The mittens that protect fingers from frostbite were made of both down and feather.

In 2014, he had written to several companies including North Face, Mountain Hardwear and Rab, requesting them to create a synthetic vegan one-piece suit for his Everest expedition. All of them said it’s pretty much impossible. “I was dejected. I decided to make my own synthetic suit using synthetic Primaloft material. But I quickly realized that the end product would be so bulky and heavy I would look like a Michelin man. At the end of this exercise, I gave up. Doesn’t happen often, but I did,” he says.

When he was back from Everest in 2016, he again started his search for an animal-free suit because he was “not going to wear a dead animal” on his body again. He wrote to a company in Italy called ‘Save the Duck’. They didn’t have mountaineering gear in their catalog, but agreed to work on one for him, for they shared his vision. After eight months, they came up with the world’s first ever one-piece down-free suit for above 8,000m mountains. Around 50 per cent of the suit is made from recycled materials. For the mittens, he collaborated with Holyland Hiking, a trekking shop in Thamel. Biden Rai, the shop owner, is a climber too and he understood Joisher’s needs, and his animal-free mittens were ready in quick time.

Joisher knew he was risking his life as the suit and the mittens had never been tested in extreme conditions. But he felt ready. He went on to summit Lhotse in May 2018 using his animal-free gear. When he succeeded, he became the first human to summit any of the above-8,000m mountains as a 100 percent vegan.

Then, this year, he decided to climb Everest from the Chinese side, a harsher and tougher challenge than climbing from the Nepali side. He says he took up the challenge to show the world that vegan diets and gear are just as good, if not superior, to the non-vegan options. On 23 May, after 46 days of climbing, he made it to the top of Everest. This time he proudly flew the vegan flag knowing that no animal had to suffer for his dream to come true.

Talking about his gear, he says that the warmth and function are the two most important aspects for him. From his research, he has found that synthetic gear is cheaper than animal gear. As making synthetic vegan gear is more efficient in terms of used resources compared to non-synthetic non-vegan gear, there is significant cost saving.
“I definitely recommend climbers to switch to synthetic gear as it is warm, keeps you safe, and above all is good for the animals and the planet,” says Joisher.

   Q. Who inspires you the most?

A. Shiva Lamichhane.

Q. What is the most important thing in your life?

A. My passion and my dream to sing, which I am doing right now.

Q. What is music to you?

A. My best friend, which supports me in every phase of life.

Q. What is one thing you want your fans to know?

A. Song making is an experiment. No one can predict its success or failure during its making.

Q. How would someone get your special attention?

A. By being humble.

Q. An opinion you hold that most people would disagree with?

A. Money is everything.

Q. What is your favorite childhood memory?

A. Time spent with my family.

Q. What is your guilty pleasure?

     A. Reading books and imagining myself in place of the main character.

How have you been taking your photos this fes­tive season? Let me guess: On your phone. But have you then printed them, or posted them directly on your Facebook?

Just six years ago, on festivals like Teej and Dashain, Lawa Kusa Photo Studio in Chikamugal, Kathmandu used to be jam packed. Studio owner Rajendra Joshi’s father had opened the studio in 1975 after studying photography in Banaras, India. Rajendra remembers a time when on the day of Teej women would start flocking to their studio from early morning.

“Even though phones had arrived by then, not everybody owned a good camera phone. People wanted good snaps and relied on photo studios for them,” says Rajendra. He remembers taking about 180-200 photos just on the day of Teej. During Gai Jatra, when the crowd passed by his studio, people used to shout loudly, “Rajendra dai, please come out and take a photo of us.” But now, people rarely come for a photo, ever.

Such is also the experience of Ravi Muni Bajra­charya, the owner of Muni’s Studio, which is just 4-5 houses away from Lawa Kusa. It was also Ravi Muni’s father who opened the studio in 1966 when he was just a little kid. He recalls coming back from school when he was in class 2 and doing home-work in that little studio, which still exists in Chikamugal.

“After clicking photos, people had to wait for about 15 days to get their color photos,” Ravi Muni fondly recalls. Back then, his father sent the reel to Bangkok for development. “Before 1983, this was how people got their photographs. A 10*8 colored photograph cost you Rs 20 to Rs 45 each; it costs Rs 150 to Rs 200 now.” Sometimes, photos destined for Kathmandu would reach Patan after they came back from Bangkok. The studio owners somehow had to find a way to make sure their customers got their photos.

“Before, there was a sense of anticipation as people waited for the development of their pho­tos, and that got me excited too. But now you can immediately see the result, which kind of spoils the fun,” says Rajendra.

Siddhi Ratna Bajracharya liked photography so much he started visiting libraries and reading photography books. In 1978 he opened his own Scenario Studio in Bagbazar. Back then people usually came for passport-size photos or family photos. “The first Miss Nepal 1994 Ruby Rana had visited my studio for a photoshoot for ‘Kamana’ magazine,” Siddhi Ratna says excitedly. Good cam-eras were expensive, costing anywhere between Rs 50,000-Rs 100,000—a big amount at the time. Even though the rich people of Kathmandu owned cameras, they would still summon professional photographers to their homes to take photos, he adds. Business was great and there was compara-tively less competition. Rajendra remembers big studios like Photo Con-cern, Hicola and Fuji Studios each doing roaring business. People had to visit studios for photos for their citizenship card, license, or for submissions to educational institutions. “Now, there is smart license, and even for citizenship, one does not need a photo,” says Rajendra, whose business has taken a hard knock. Many of Hicola’s branches have closed down while Photo Concern’s studios have shrunk in size. Sensing the inevitable changes, Siddhi Ratna closed his studio 14 years ago. His friends who also owned studios at the time said that he would regret closing a popular studio. He replied that it is they who would suffer if they refused to change with the business climate. “Soon enough, all my friends had closed their studios,” he says. “People do not even print their photos now,” says Rajendra. “They just take photos and upload them on Facebook, or store them on their comput-er.” Some still visit to get a few photos from their mobile phones printed in fear of losing important photos to viruses. “But selecting 1-2 photos from thousands in their phones is time consuming,” says Rajendra.Some studios have adapted too. Ravi Muni’s son Rishav and Siddhi Ratna’s son Sijal are now involved in event photography and digital marketing respectively. “The business now depends largely on my son,” says Ravi Muni. He believes that even though it is easier to work now, with more and more people owing good cameras, “competition has also increased exponentially.”