TRAVEL TRAIL

Shangri-la: A quest in Kathmandu-II

Raana Haider

My doggedness on the research trail kept yielding returns from unexpected quarters. Next morning, I opened the room door in response to sharp knocking sounds - to find the young receptionist with a book in hand. "We thought you would be interested in this book" she remarked. It was Shangri-la: Kathmandu: 25 Years Your Private Paradise. This collector's item yielded memorable anecdotes and is a mine of information. Only while engrossed in reading it, did I realise that we were residents of a legendary hotel. Sir Edmund Hillary, the Mount Everest history-maker was a guest at this hotel. He wrote in the guest book: "Absolutely first class." This was on 13th November 1980. A repeated resident of the hotel, The Everest Golden Jubilee was celebrated here in 2003. Dame Freya Stark, the British-born doyenne of Middle East travels (1893-1993) noted on 20th February 1980: "This is the pleasantest hotel I have ever been in, with the most agreeable company inside it." A formidable traveler, Freya Starke was one who would look at the horizon and see not an insurmountable obstacle but something to go beyond. One of her immortal quotes runs as follows: 'The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised."
   Some hotels are destinations in themselves. Such hotels are Hotel Cataract in Aswan, Egypt; the Taj in Bombay; the Grand Hotel in Calcutta, the Oriental in Bangkok, Raffles in Singapore, Cathay Hotel in Shanghai...If only the walls could speak, what tales to tattle. The same Shangri-la Hotel has been immortalized in one of Tin Tin's Belgian comic books. 'Lazimpat' is the name of the neighbourhood. The origin of the name is a golden nugget of information retrieved from the hotel's commemorative issue. In the eighteenth century, the British built camp housing for their army contingent. The area came to be known in time as 'Lodging Path' (aka 'Lazimpat.). Desmond Doig was born in Kurseong in north-east India, spent early years in Mussoorie and Dehradun, joined the 5th Royal Gorkha regiment and was a man in love with the Himalayas. Employed at the prestigious 'The Statesman' newspaper in Calcutta; first as an artist and then copy editor; he then moved to Nepal and continued to write and sketch what he loved best - Nepal and the Himalayan heights. He died in 1983. Only in 1999, was Desmond Doig's book In the Kingdom of the Clouds: An Artists Impression of the Emerald Valle' published.
   Desmond Doig first came to Nepal in 1954. Repeated visits finally led him to move to Nepal in 1977. In his passion for the country and the region, Doig incorporated the motifs and decorative features of the land. In his book My Kind of Kathmandu, he writes: "Inside the Shangri-la, befitting its name are simulated monastery pillars, copper pelmets embellished with traditional designs, murals of the Lost Horizon, a tended bar draped with brocade, a lintel of terracotta brackets repeating a Rana Maharani 125 times and a Himalayan pride of uniforms. Shyam said 'my goodness' to every new idea, be it a burst of brass flames above a bed in one of the suites, or an illuminated glass mandala, or a fountain of youth." While some features such as brocade - no longer drapes the bar - mini-stupas in the Shambala garden and many a Buddhism-inspired decorative feature keep the initial conceptual design alive. In sight of towering snow-capped mountains - regal and radiant, bathed in the soft November afternoon sun while 'blanking-out' in the Shambala garden - is to retreat into one's own nirvana and one's own sense of Shangri-la.
   Back in Dhaka, reading through a backlog of International Herald Tribune newspapers, it was with considerable delight that I came across the article by H.D.S. Greenway 'China's grip on Tibet.' Greenway writes: "Since Shangri-La was invented by novelist James Hilton in 'Lost Horizon' 70 years ago, the name has graced an American aircraft carrier, a hotel chain, Franklin 'Roosevelt's presidential retreat, but, above all, it is a generic term for a heaven on earth."
   Browsing through one of the many bookshops in Pokhara - labeled as Nepals's 'Paradise on earth', a friend in our group pounced on a second-hand copy of the book 'Lost Horizon.' The thrill of locating a book on site...Having kindly lent me the book, I read 'Lost Horizon' and recaptured the faint memories of the film I had seen many decades back and now relived in Nepal - at a singular moment in time - when the mingling of light, clouds, hills, mountains and sky fuse together to truly create the vision of Lost Horizon.
   "Conway could see the outline of a long valley, with rounded, sad-looking low hills on either side jet-black against the deep electric blue of the night-sky. But it was to the head of the valley that his eyes were led irresistibly, for there, soaring into the gap, and magnificent in the full shimmer of moonlight, appeared what he took to be the loveliest mountain on earth. It was an almost perfect cone of snow, simple in outline as if a child had drawn it, and impossible to classify as to size, height or nearness. It was so radiant, so serenely poised, that he wondered for a moment if it were real at all. Then, while he gazed a tiny puff clouded the edge of the pyramid, giving life to the vision before the faint rumble of the avalanche confirmed it" is Hugh Conway's spellbound sighting of the ephemeral Karakal mountain in Tibet and soon enough the Blue Mountain valley that symbolized 'Shangri-la.' Was it not Jonathon Swift who remarked: 'Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.'
   It seems appropriate to close with the following traditional ending to a Nepali story:
   'A garland of gold to you, the listener
   A garland of flowers to you, the storyteller
   Now may these stories go to heaven,
   and when it's time to retell them,
   come back immediately again.'
   
   [Concluded]
   The author is a researcher and writer on travel.

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Md. Masum Billah

Community radio is a type of broadcasting service that caters to the interests of a certain area by broadcasting material that is popular with a local audience but is neglected by dominant broadcasting organisations. The term has to some extent different meanings in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia. In US, community radio is commonly non-profit and non-commercial. Canadian and Australian community stations operate somewhat similarly to their American counterparts.
   Its reception is dependent neither on electricity nor on the costly energy sources. A radio is mobile and physically more robust than other equipment of communication. Radio is the only medium which can reach any part of Bangladesh. It can reach people who live in isolated areas. Community radio successfully operates in our neighbouring countries namely Sri Lanka, India and Nepal.
   The main objective of such a radio station is to enhance democratic process at local levels by giving voice to the voiceless. Such an outlet helps in circulating information at the local level in order to promote culture. It encourages participation and sharing of information. The purpose of socio-cultural, political and economic growth as well as raising awareness regarding risk reduction of disaster can be served through the community radio. Among the various media, it is proved that it can be a medium to circulate information and discuss different issues.
   The statistics show that ownership of radio seemed to be declining. Only 32 per cent people own radio set and among them only 27.3 per cent radios are in working order. This is perhaps because of the rapid increase in the opportunity to watch TV in the country and the failure of the public radio. The number of radio listeners declined significantly in urban areas. Dhaka is the most popular radio station in the country which has 31.3 per cent listeners.
   Almost 41 per cent households own TV. Although there was wide variation between urban (78 per cent) and rural (27 per cent) areas 26 per cent households own black and white and 15 per cent own colour TV sets. Nearly 10.4 per cent households have cable /dish connections. Viewers of TV in the year 2004 was about 64 per cent which was one and half times higher than that in 1998 (42 per cent) and two times higher than viewer ship in 1995 (31 per cent). People having access to TV in urban is 87.9 per cent and rural 55.5 per cent. The number of newspaper readers has also declined comparing to the increasing population.
   Bangladesh has a huge population of about 150 million where literacy rate is poor. They are not aware of the major social problems, health issues like arsenicosis, causes of poverty etc. In these circumstances community radio could be of use to the people in Bangladesh and NGOs can play major role to transform the situation into a positive one for the poor people.
   Community radio already proved that this media can be the right place for the local people by broadcasting local happenings and news, localised news on health, local agricultural news, weather warning, local commodity market, folk songs, myths and stories. A number of NGOs have been trying to satisfy this practical demand of the rural populace. They are trying to establish independent community radio stations. It will give us the opportunity to disseminate grassroots-based experience which will turn into a social change movement among the rural community. It will help people to get access to the media and community networking. It will help to establish a two-way communication between the recipient and the givers.
   The people of Bangladesh are yet to be motivated, educated and informed about the advantage they will have through the use of community radio. So the demand for community radio is not coming that heavily from the micro level. People concerned expect that soon its necessity and utility will be reflected in the community.
   The Article 39 of the Constitution of Bangladesh has granted the freedom of expression and speech with reasonable restrictions. The basic rationale for community radio is the need and the right to information of the communities living in far-flung areas.

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