READER’S VIEW: NEPALNAMCHA IS MY ADDICTION

nepalnamcha.com२०७८ असार ११

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DAHLIA TERA
Paris, France

Hello Nepalnamcha’ readers and writers, friends in words in some way…,

Maybe in these last months you read some poems or short texts by me, published on Nepalnamcha newsportal. I’m certainly not a great writer or poet but I love searching and using words, trying to express ideas and feelings.

The opportunity was casually given to me by a friend. We were talking about job loss in this pandemic period. He told me about one of his friends who had just begun a new activity as editor on line, having to give up, for the moment, his passion for guiding tourists, he is somehow returned to his first journalistic love.

‘He is a smart guy’, he said ‘with a lot of experience as teacher too, as trekker, as photographer; he is Langtang Goodwill Ambassador and writer. I think he will do a good work. The domain name is nepalnamcha.com. You know why ‘namcha’ ? It means daybook, a kind of journal, of logbook … focusing on Nepal and Nepalese … so ‘nepalnamcha’.’

Backing home, I was curious and I started watching and reading some texts. Every day, I was discovering or learning something pleasantly, in agile way. And often, at the end of the text, there was the invitation of the editor: ‘If you want to publish anything, we welcome you with a smile. Just remember: nepalnamcha@gmail.com

So, I sent my first poem on 14th December 2020, in full lockdown. It was a poem in the context of the pandemic: ‘Opposites are not always opposite’ meaning ….

‘The is the darkness but there will be the light,
There is the rain but there will be the sun …’

And what a surprise and a joy when, the day after, my poem was published with a beautiful pink flower picture !

I felt really happy, satisfied and grateful…

I felt admiration for this new editor because I like people who don’t wait for things to fall out of the sky but react and try to use all their abilities, striving.

Since then, I have been emailing regularly poems and some reflections in prose.

So today , I decided I would write something about Nepalnamcha itself..

This name, in my mind and heart, sounds now like a friend with whom I share agreements and disagreements, thoughts and feelings, pieces of the country, of the story, of the people, of the culture, of life….of these so difficult moments between pandemics, wild forests fires and latest on floods and landslides in Melamchi and also good moments…

I would like to explain and transmit what I found in this varied and lively reading, became almost a daily ‘addiction’!!

I would like to encourage those who are shy to write and send maybe.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the editor Ashok SILWAL for his availability, his open-mindedness, his professionalism, his generosity..

Now, may we start with the contents? They are then the most important things.

The range from many interests and fields. The pages that flow under your fingers in the screen, are a small firework.

Everyday, you can read about different subjects but that does not mean quantity instead of quality. The articles are entrusted to specialists who know how to be simple, not pedantic but precise and informed, in the literary field or in the scientific field.

So, it is beautiful to read and learn about birds, about growing vegetables on the roofs, about politics and elections, about astrology, about health diet, about the school, about women’s problems, about happy or unhappy love stories, about clothes, about rice paddies, about families’ lives, about…………………….. many many subjects of the daily life and of culture, of economy, of sport, of feelings, of sadness and joy…..

So one day, you are trekking on new itineraries in the context of tourism, one day you are crying in front of the wild forests burning, one day you are dancing, one day you are reading a book with his writer, one day you are learning about medicinal herbs, one day you are in the past of history, one day you are in the present of today ….

I read about music, for example, on the anniversary of the death of Bob Marley; I read about religion on Christian Eastern, I read about Maradona and about Nepali climbers’ team on the K2 in winter ; I read about animals as dogs, buffalos and elephants, I read about Corona virus, I read about pilgrimages …. an infinite number of topics always enjoyable to read because many informations but told as stories.

No text is very long so even if you don’t have much time, you can spend a moment of distraction, learning , discovering some aspects, wondering of something you didn’t know.

Sometimes, especially in cultural arguments, reading obviously requires more effort and more knowledge: use of Sanskrit, some review of a history or philosophy book, literature, Gods and Goddesses….

A lot of space is dedicated to women and this is valuable and rather new attitude from the editor. Women speak in the first person, in poetry and prose stories about their place in the family, their role as mother, daughter, wife, as they place in the society which often judges them negatively.

Texts are touching because it is easy to find something of your personal experience inside. Nepalnamcha, for example, has no problem, no taboo, speaking about mestruation and the necessity that things change.

And clearly, Namcha gave much space to lockdown and pandemic. I’m sure that the editor understood that people needed and need to talk, to express their experience, their dismay, their pain and many writers and poets sent very deep, strong, and touching poems and stories, even very good children from the school.

The is a therapy aspect. In this way of writing and sharing; a special empathy is created between the writer and the reader. And the editor himself appears sometimes, he does not stand ‘in its ivory tower’: he introduces himself to the reader, as photographer, as journalist, as teacher, as guide, as dancer… as dad too .. in some pictures .. and I think that it is very nice; it makes him less anonymous.

Its multi-faceted experience leads him to tolerance, open-mindedness, curiosity, listening to the other. Surely there will be a great work of selection from his part but everything seems to be done in the name of spontaneity and simplicity, from the article by the University Professor to the little drawings of the schoolchild.

And it is in this way that you can read an arduous article on the past Monarchy as a delight short love poem, deep reflections on the choices and ways of life as the metaphorical lesson of the fisherman who cannot go out to the sea so mends his nets…

Many texts have remained etched in me, precisely because they suggest universal emotions and almost always have didactic aspects. You feel that they have been chosen also to contribute to change something in the country, in the society, …. Maybe in the human behaviors…

A great variety of forms correspond to this variety of topics. Namcha proposes interviews with poets, writers, journalists, politicians, teachers…

And there are poems, stories, reviews, pictures, drawings, videos…

A real content and formal mine!!

Yes, Nepalnamcha, rightly, speaks first about Nepal and Nepali and that makes me very happy but you can read also from India, Saudi Arabia, Australia, USA…..in particular by Nepali abroad, leaving always very interesting experiences and testimonies and nostalgia of their country….

Namcha proposes also a special ‘English & more’ in the English language and it is nice, giving as a larger size to the portal and to our country.

After all, it participates with enthusiasm to the various ‘World Days’ for Environment, Book, Female, Mother, Press Freedom…

This ‘mixture’ of tones is the real wealth of namcha: descriptive, romantic, scientific, journalistic, spiritualist, poetic, childish….

It knows how to be pleasant to many people without submitting to market needs.

Writing to Namcha, being published and reading it, you feel that it is created and has built with passion, not for money.

The multiple experience of its editor is a nice and good guarantee of quality and I think, as writer and as reader, that has you can understand and feel it very well.

One thing ending: the pictures that introduce the texts are always beautiful and captivating even if, in my opinion, they are not always clearly connected .. so sometimes, you expect something watching at the picture and you find another thing in the text… it is part of the ‘game’ probably… each has also his own way of feeling…just an observation…

And now, writers and readers…. Seeing is believing!

So, concluding, why I think Nepalnamcha is a nice, new, various, bright, pleasant and enjoyable newsportal ?