Nepal's Strengths, Struggles and Strains- Witnessing Five Decades of the Country's Progress and Changes

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About the Book The 'story in the story' told by Mr. Thapa (Spectacles with a Gaping Hole), the farmer expert on animal diseases and medicinal herbs, reflects the spirit of this book. It tells of a frog that struggles for a long time against a snake. Although part of its body is already in the jaw of the snake, the hope is not lost but, relentlessly, it tries to free itself, until it succeeds. Once it slips out of the snake's hold, poisoned slime can be seen covering part of its body. The serpent is exhausted by the persistence of the frog, hence withdraws and leaves. The frog, on the other hand, moves towards an herb against which it rubs herself. Indeed, thanks to the curative effects of the herb the frog recovers and is free to jump off. This story is told by Mr. Thapa with the aim of highlighting another important matter, namely the sharing of knowledge gained through direct experiences. Yet, I find this 'story in the story' a more general metaphor for the whole book. The persistence and resilience of the frog is reflected in many of the stories told by Kk. Panday. His book is about the strength and richness of knowledge of the people, their fights and hope; it is about the possibility of overcoming poverty and adversities against the most poisoned and economic structures. In the book, this 'poison' takes many forms, indifference, heartlessness, negligence, but, above all, lack of understanding of the local conditions, of their resources and needs.

Beyond the failures and disgraceful happenings, the virtue of this book lies in the people, including the author himself, who gave, through their stories, a resilient, hopeful and heartful portrait of Nepal.

Preface In mid-summer 2019, Kk. Panday my friend Krishnakumar since 50 years sent an e-mail letter to me with an attached typescript of more than a hundred pages. He apologized for the still unpolished draft form of that text and confronted me with a number of straightforward questions: Would you have time to glance over these stories? May I send more of them in the course of the next few weeks? Do you find any value in such personal « Over the following two weeks, sitting in an alpine hut in southern Switzerland, I read most of KKP's stories, picking them at random, two or three every day. And while chopping firewood or stirring the polenta in the iron pot on the hearth, I was pondering over Krishnakumar's narratives: I imagined myself in the Hills of Nepal, listened to the grievances of a slab miner from Bigu and remembered the energetic anti-alcohol campaign of a women's group. Again and again, I felt touched and drawn into the atmosphere conjured up by the author. Sometimes, I could even remember some of the actors' faces, as I had met them personally during the times of my professional activities in Nepal.

**Contents and Sample Pages**