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The life of a bureaucrat-scholar: an interview-essay with Upendra Man Malla (1932–2019)

La vie d’un bureaucrate-chercheur : un entretien-essai avec Upendra Man Malla (1932-2019)
Gaurab KC et Amy Leigh Johnson

Résumés

Au milieu du 20ème siècle, le Népal a connu des changements sociaux et politiques radicaux liés au déclin de la dynastie Rana, à l’ascension de celle des Shah et à l’instauration du système politique Panchayat. Les quelques népalais ayant étudié à l’étranger durant cette période ont été employés par le gouvernement pour mettre en œuvre une vision moderne du développement du pays. Avec un pied dans le monde universitaire et un autre au service du gouvernement, le ‘bureaucrate-chercheur’ est devenu une figure importante ayant pour mission de mener d’ambitieux projets nationaux tels la réforme agraire, la réorganisation des districts et la planification. Dans cet entretien, le géographe Upendra Man Mall (1932-2019) nous offre une perspective subjective de cette période de profondes tranformations politique et personnelles. Malla raconte comment il est devenu géographe (première partie) et comment il a utilisé ses connaissances sur le Népal et ses populations dans la conduite des affaires gouvernementales des années 50 à la fin du régime du Panchayat (deuxième partie). Il met aussi en lumière les premières années de l’anthropologie et du ‘terrain’ au Népal grâce à un compte rendu précis des trois mois pendant lesquels il a travaillé comme assistant de Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf qui commençait alors ses recherches sur les Sherpas (1953). L’histoire de sa vie est ici contextualisée grâce à des éclaircissements sur les processus historiques et les personnes qui ont joué un rôle dans les trajectoires entremêlées, la mémoire convergente, les récits et l’histoire de Malla et du Népal.

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Introduction

  • 1 Durbar High School was established in 1883 and was affiliated to Calcutta University, India (...)

1In the mid-19th century, English-medium and European-styled education arrived in Nepal at the behest of the Rana Premier Jung Bahadur Rana. Inspired by observations during his recent travels in Europe, Jung Bahadur Rana hired two British tutors alongside teachers from Bengal to give lessons at Thapathali Durbar in Kathmandu to the immediate male members of the ruling Rana family (Sharma 1990: 3). The curriculum was intended to instruct the sons of the Ranas in Western subjects including English, mathematics and history (see Malla 1979b). From these exclusive beginnings, the school expanded to become Durbar High School1 where, by 1902, students from outside the Rana family were permitted to study (Sharma 1990: 4).

  • 2 The Nepali national daily Gorkhapatra reported on 25 June 1948 that degrees awarded to Nepa (...)

2Access to elementary education for the general public gained ground in Nepal in the early 1900s with the establishment of bhasa pathsalas (‘language schools’) under reforms directed by Prime Minister Dev Shamsher J B Rana (see Manandhar 1983). Likewise, European-style education gained prestige with the founding of Nepal’s first college, Tri Chandra College, in 1918 by Chandra Shamsher J B Rana (who was educated in English in Calcutta and received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University during his visit to England in 1908). Thus, by the end of the Rana rule in the late 1940s, Nepalis were obtaining higher degrees in both traditional and Western subjects.2 In 1951 alone, 300 Nepalis graduated from higher education institutions at home and abroad (see Stiller and Yadav 1979). In 1959 Nepal would open its own national university, Tribhuvan University (TU), to educate Nepalis within the country. Many of the men and women who obtained higher-education degrees between the last years of the Rana Period and the ascendancy of the panchayat government in the early 1960s would have the choice of two vocations: university teaching or public service. These roles occasionally overlapped, with individuals teaching and doing research while also holding positions in government administrations, giving rise to a new kind of figure in Nepal: the bureaucrat-scholar.

  • 3 Civil administration regulations for the country were managed through the Muluki Ad (...)

3The emergence of the bureaucrat-scholar represents an important turning point in Nepal’s ‘modernization’ story (Bista 1991). The urge to rationalise government, to build industry and to secularise education can be said to have begun in Nepal at the beginning of the 20th century. Prime Minister Chandra Shamsher J B Rana’s tenure (1901–1929) saw not only the opening of Durbar High School to students from outside the Rana family, but also major administrative reforms, including the reorganisation of the Muluki Adda (the general and home department),3 the shifting of government departments from the individual palaces of Rana family members to Chandra Shamsher’s residence at Singha Durbar, and the creation of a training programme for civil servants in 1905. For the most part, Chandra Shamsher’s innovations were the sole representation of government reform throughout the remaining years of the Rana regime. Yet, as the competing winds of democratic change and communist influence swept through Asia after World War II, Prime Minister Padma Shamsher J B Rana heeded counsel from constitutional experts from India and passed the Constitutional Act of 1948 which, among other things, established a Darkhasta Parishad (Public Service Commission) to review the recruitment and activities of civil servants (Pradhan 1973: 140–141). However, the momentum for change in governance waned with the ascendance of Mohan Shamsher J B Rana to the position of Prime Minister in 1948. Pradhan notes that ‘there was no tradition of rational and impartial recruitment [into public service]’ during the final years of the Rana period (Pradhan 1973: 157).

  • 4 After Bir Shamsher had taken office as Prime Minister in 1885, he initiated reforms within (...)

4More extensive reforms to state administration would follow the 1950–1951 campaign against the Ranas, which saw dissident Rana partisans of King Tribhuvan and Nepali Congress leaders compel Mohan Shamsher Rana to resign and to restore the Shah dynasty as the head of state (Goodall 1966: 612). In 1952, the newly empowered King Tribhuvan convened a committee to identify areas for improvement in state administration (Agrawal 1976: 149). At the request of King Tribhuvan, the Indian government sent three experts from the Indian Civil Service (ICS) to serve on the committee alongside two members from the Rana family (one a bada hakim)4 who had been appointed by King Tribhuvan. An American advisor to Nepal, Merrill R Goodall, provided Prime Minister Matrika Prasad Koirala with a parallel review of the administration for the period April and May 1952 before the Indian team’s arrival in Kathmandu. The Buch Committee (named after the joint secretary of the Home Ministry of India, N M Buch) proposed 143 recommendations for reform, some but not all of which were adopted (Agrawal 1976: 164). During the tenure of Prime Minister Tanka Prasad Acharya (1956–1957) the need for administrative reform, particularly the overthrow of ‘rusty procedures, laws, regulations, and practices’ of the inherited ‘administrative machinery’, was stressed as being essential to development planning (Goodall 1966: 621). As a result, an Administrative Reorganisation Planning Commission (ARPC) was formed by Prime Minister Acharya in 1956. Chaired by Prime Minister Acharya and manned by senior civil servants, the ARPC bolstered the powers of the Public Service Commission through the drafting of the Civil Service Act of Nepal 1956, modified the duties of district officers and bada hakims, and revised district boundaries (Goodall 1966: 622–623).

5The strengthening of the Public Service Commission, among other reforms, signalled that ties to the ruling Rana family were no longer to be regarded as the primary consideration for employment in bureaucracy. However, education remained paramount for entry into this exclusive circle of prestige and power. Moreover, the kind of education required to carry out high-level administrative duties remained restricted to ‘the upper middle-class or the wealthy section of the people’ who held a monopoly on educational opportunities in Nepal at the time (Pradhan 1973: 162). Nepalis educated in European-style subjects at home and abroad found that fluency in Anglo-European languages, exposure to Western knowledge and habits of mind, and experience of living and studying abroad in countries like the United Kingdom, the United States and India made them uniquely qualified to manage the transition from the Rana administration to King Tribhuvan’s more Western-oriented model of government.

  • 5 The public reaction to King Mahendra’s dismantling of the elected government allegedly rang (...)
  • 6 When forming the panchayat system of government in Nepal, four high officials of th (...)
  • 7 King Mahendra’s speech alluded to the significance of village councils or panchayats (...)

6However, it was hardly a time for educated elites to rest on their laurels. After the death of King Tribhuvan in 1955, the baton of leadership was passed to his son, King Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah. On ascending to the throne, the king toured many parts of Nepal, meeting people living outside Kathmandu to understand their life situation and points of view (see Muni 1977). He subsequently positioned himself as both a modern and devotional sovereign. During those years he appeared to be wary of elected democratic politicians and of the implications multiparty democracy had for the exercise of kingly sovereignty. On 15 December 1960 King Mahendra took power into his own hands by dismissing the Nepali Congress-led government.5 In 1962, he ratified a guided-democracy government, known as the panchayat,6 through the promulgation of a new constitution. Mahendra announced, ‘we have now to build democracy gradually layer by layer from the bottom upward’ (Baral 1972: 12).7

  • 8 In Goodall’s study from the early 1960s, it is recorded that Nepal ‘receives aid from the U (...)
  • 9 As an international organisation, the United Nations appeared to be a more acceptab (...)

7Although the panchayat system appeared to be a bottom-up form of governance, King Mahendra and his son King Birendra depended on individuals of intellect and imagination to oversee the formation of the panchayat government and to execute its plans and policies, especially as the latter were to develop through interactions with foreign advisors and technicians. Indeed, foreign language skills and exposure to Western knowledge perhaps gained wider currency during the first decade or so of panchayat rule than at any former period of time. Foreign assistance financed Nepal’s budget8 and foreign advisors guided the government in its decisions and policies, with Goodall reporting that in 1964 there was ‘nearly one foreign technician for every three Nepalese gazetted officers’ (1966: 615). These foreign institutions – bilateral and international9 – introduced new organisations within the bureaucracy in order to execute novel economic development goals and decentralisation strategies. As these new offices and positions needed to be staffed, foreign aid missions provided scholarships for 2,900 Nepalis to be trained abroad between 1951 and 1964, with 700 finding employment within Nepal after their studies (Goodall 1966: 633). Relative to this, in 1964 four Nepali men were granted scholarships for overseas training in public administration programmes under the United Nations and subsequently took up leadership positions within the Public Administration Department (Goodall 1966: 630–631). The gateway between higher education and government service, especially for those with degrees from outside South Asia, led Kamal Prakash Malla to conclude that ‘the administrative services of the country have in the past decade or two absorbed some of the finest intellects Nepal has produced’ (1979a: 171). Furthermore, by 1971, Nepali scholars were brought directly into the palace to tutor King Birendra on subjects deemed crucial to modern governance, such as development economics, and to assist with royal planning (Pandey 1971; Shah 1978; Stiller and Yadav 1979).

  • 10 The rule of experts is best examined in Timothy Mitchell’s (2002) study of political econom (...)
  • 11 Dr Harka Bahadur Gurung (1939–2006) was born in Lamjung and educated at Tri Chandra College (...)

8The three decades of the panchayat (1962–1990) thus became characteristic of a high modernist and technocratic approach to government, one in which scientific knowledge and principles of rationalisation were applied to address social problems in an attempt to insulate society from politics.10 Given their dual roles in academia and administration, the Nepali bureaucrat-scholar oversaw some of the country’s major techno-administrative reforms of the 20th century, including land reform, district reorganisation and regional development planning. Thus, the profiles of some bureaucrat-scholars, such as the influential geographer Dr Harka Gurung,11 are well known to historians of 20th-century Nepal. Yet, while the professional achievements of some bureaucrat-scholars have been documented, the positionality, character and subjective experiences of these individuals have escaped scholarly notice. And this despite Pradhan’s observation that, ‘the bureaucratic elite tends to have different values, norms and outlook compared to the rest of the bureaucracy and particularly in relation to the common people’ (1979: 162), given the unique educational backgrounds among the upper echelons of the bureaucracy and their tendency to enjoy unusual continuity and stability in their positions compared to other national figures, such as individuals appointed to the Council of Ministers. Furthermore, the youth and energy of the cohort of bureaucratic elites active in the early years of the panchayat represents a radical departure from past tradition that should not escape notice. To quote Goodall again, ‘Too much praise cannot be heaped upon many of these young people, some of whom captain entire ministries as senior-most secretaries when still in their mid-twenties; they would grace any administrative system in the world’ (1966: 641).

  • 12 For example, Hemanta Raj Mishra, who started his career in conservation during the panchaya (...)

9The return to multiparty democracy after the People’s Movement of 1990 and the introduction of neoliberal reforms in the 1990s and 2000s overturned the panchayat principles on which bureaucrat-scholars of the time had staked their professional lives and careers. As the political trajectory of the country changed, many bureaucrat-scholars appointed during the panchayat years left government service. However, it can be argued that some never left ‘His Majesty’s’ service, as this term of address has anecdotally remained common among them.12 Affection for the monarchy and the panchayat era may account for the declining academic and public attention to their roles in shaping Nepal’s modern state and political landscape in the post-1990 period. But telling the story of political transformation in mid-20th-century Nepal is arguably incomplete without accounting for the memories and lived experiences of those who served the interests of the state during this period. Who, then, were the scholars who crafted technocratic governance in Nepal’s panchayat era? How did they find themselves in such positions of authority? And, once there, how did they negotiate loyalties to the state, the palace, the university and ultimately the self?

Upendra Man Malla: a bureaucrat-scholar

  • 13 In 1970 VS (1913) Chandra Shamsher set up an office named, ‘Gorkha Bhasa Prakasini Samiti(...)
  • 14 ‘Board topper’ was a momentous achievement for Nepali students at the time. Being a board t (...)

10Some answers to these questions can be gleaned from the life history of Upendra Man Malla, a human geographer and one of the ‘finest intellects’ (K P Malla 1979a: 171) who entered government and academic service in the mid-20th century. Born into a prominent and well-to-do Newari family in Wotu, Guchha Tole, Kathmandu on 27 November 1932, Malla, like many of his peers in the higher echelons of government, had the advantage of a dual Western and traditional education. His father Khadga Man Malla (figure 1) was a learned man who had been directly appointed by Prime Minister Juddha Shamsher J B Rana to the Nepali Bhasa Prakasini Samiti (Nepali Language Publishing Committee).13 Malla learned Sanskrit as a child and enrolled in Durbar High School at class four, passing his School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examination as board topper14 in 1947. After his SLC, he wished to pursue studies in medicine. However, Mrigendra Shamsher Rana (director general of the Education Department and friend of Malla’s father) encouraged him to study geography instead. After his SLC, Malla journeyed to Patna, India, to pursue his Intermediate of Arts (1949) and Bachelor of Arts (1951) honours course at Patna University. In 1953 he completed his master’s degree (MA) in Geography at Patna University with a distinction. He was 21 years old.

Fig 1: Khadga Man Malla is standing third from the right with his arms folded. Khadga Man Malla’s father, Divya Man Malla, is seated on the chair in the middle.

Fig 1: Khadga Man Malla is standing third from the right with           his arms folded. Khadga Man Malla’s father, Divya Man Malla, is           seated on the chair in the middle.

Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.

  • 15 Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (1909–1995) was a noted anthropologist of Northeast India an (...)

11After graduating from Patna University in 1953, Malla returned to Nepal. It also happened to be the year that the Austrian anthropologist Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, based at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), arrived in Nepal to carry out a preliminary study of the Sherpas in Khumbu district.15 Fürer-Haimendorf’s presence in Nepal in the 1950s is regarded as an important moment in the development of the anthropology of Nepal and Himalayan Studies. By coincidence, Malla and Fürer-Haimendorf became acquainted in Kathmandu. Malla was hired to assist Fürer-Haimendorf for three months, during which time they journeyed together through the hills and mountains east and northeast of Kathmandu to their final destination, Khumbu, where Malla assisted Fürer-Haimendorf in his study of the Khumbu Sherpas.

  • 16 Newar ethnicity is based on a hierarchical caste system. Fürer-Haimendorf specifies that U  (...)
  • 17 To quote Fürer-Haimendorf, ‘I owe this information to Mr Upendra Man Malla, who kindly tran (...)

12Fürer-Haimendorf acknowledged the help of Malla, whom he described as ‘a Newar of Sheshyo16 caste from Kathmandu’ (1956: 16), in various publications including ‘Elements of Newar social structure’ (1956), The Sherpas of Nepal: Buddhist highlanders (1964), and Life among Indian Tribes: An autobiography of an anthropologist (1990). In ‘Elements of Newar social structure’ (1956), Malla was credited with translating for Fürer-Haimendorf historical periodicals written by a Nepali historian and published in the Nepali language,.17 For this study, Fürer-Haimendorf and Malla had each collected data about Newars in the Kathmandu Valley and the districts of Dhulikhel, Charikot, Ramechhap and Okhaldhunga. The data was subsequently verified with help from Malla prior to its publication in 1956 (Fürer-Haimendorf 1956: 16). Likewise, in The Sherpas of Nepal: Buddhist highlanders (1964) Fürer-Haimendorf credits Malla with help in his research:

  • 18 Dor Bahadur Bista (1928–missing since 1996) is known as Nepal’s first anthropologist. He (...)

On our journey in 1953 we were accompanied by Upendra Man Malla, and in the years 1957, 1958 and 1962 we benefitted by the assistance of Dor Bahadur Bista.18 To both of these Nepalese scholars I am greatly indebted for their co-operation, given in a spirit of unflagging enthusiasm for the work we were doing (1964: xiii).

13Finally, in his 1990 autobiography, Fürer-Haimendorf reminisced in detail about his fieldwork experiences with Malla. He recorded a vivid scene depicting the working relationship that had developed between the two men:

That afternoon Malla and I went to one of the Tamang houses and sitting in the open veranda talked to the men who had gathered. They gladly accepted the cigarettes we distributed, and we were soon in the middle of an animated conversation about clan-names and migrations, which served as much to initiate Malla into the tricky art of interpreting as to give me some orientation in regard to the various groups of Tamangs. With a knowledge of Hindi and one or two other Indian languages I was never completely at a sea in Nepal, and I soon learnt to follow the gist of conversation. But it was important to work out a system by which Malla would accurately interpret my questions and at the same time jolly along our informants and encourage them to speak freely without getting bored by the interruptions necessitated by his translations of what they had said (1990: 137).

  • 19 Malla’s description of his fieldwork with Fürer-Haimendorf covers his experiences with the (...)

14Malla’s skills in translation and interpretation were valued by Fürer-Haimendorf, as documented in his publications. However, in addition to these duties, Malla also took detailed fieldnotes and prepared genealogies as part of his work as Fürer-Haimendorf’s fieldwork assistant. Malla’s recollection of his fieldwork experience is presented later in part 1 of this interview-essay and provides a Nepali counterpoint to what is known about researcher-assistant relations in Nepal during the 1950s. His account also bears witness to a Kathmanduite’s growing ethnographic knowledge of his own country as Malla encounters people and places socially and geographically distant from his comfortable Newar upbringing in Guchha Tole.19

15English-speaking Nepalis, such as Malla, benefited from their contact with foreign scholars like Fürer-Haimendorf, not only in sharing knowledge and ideas but also in terms of travel inside and outside the country, advancing their education and laying the foundation for their careers (K C and Fisher 2014). Inspired in part by his experience with Fürer-Haimendorf, Malla travelled to England to study Human Geography at Oxford University. He received his Bachelor of Letters (BLitt) in Human Geography from Oxford University in 1957, with a thesis entitled the ‘Human Geography of the Nepal Valley’. As Kamal Prakash Malla, a contemporary of Malla, acknowledged, ‘In the 1950s the number of the Nepalese to go overseas, as compared with those who went to India, was microscopic. The first few to go and get a research degree from Britain were Dr Dhruba Man Amatya, Dr and Mrs Balaram Joshi, Mr Trilokya Man Shrestha and Mr Upendra Man Malla’ (1979: 193, emphasis added).

16At this point in his life, Malla would have found himself at a historical crossroads. The Rana government had come to an end and the spirit of popular democracy was gaining ground even as the Shah monarchs gained control of political affairs. With training in geography from Patna and Oxford and ties to the privileged class of Rana elites, Malla was positioned to take a role in government and higher education. Over the course of his long life, he would combine his intellectual curiosity about Nepal’s geography and peoples with a desire to contribute to Nepal’s development as a modern nation-state. Along the way, he created a profession for himself as a bureaucrat-scholar, contributing to the growth of a techno-administrative modality of governance that would become the hallmark of 20th-century Nepal.

17Malla began to experiment with the bridging of academic and administrative worlds in 1954 when, fresh from his excursions with Fürer-Haimendorf, he was recruited as an officer-on-special duty at the Ministry of Planning and Development. He was promptly appointed to other government positions, serving as officiating secretary at the Ministry of Planning and Development from 1954 to 1955 and as acting secretary at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce from 1954 to 1957. In 1957, on graduating from Oxford, Malla joined Tri Chandra College as Professor of Geography and later joined the Central Department of Geography at Tribhuvan University when it opened in 1959. He would hold dual appointments at Tri Chandra College and Tribhuvan University until 1979.

  • 20 Vishwabandhu Thapa [Bishwa Bandhu Thapa] (1927–) was a ‘panchayat theoretician’ alongside T (...)
  • 21 Toni Hagen (1917–2003), a geologist, is credited with being the first European to trek 14,0 (...)
  • 22 Malla’s colleague, Prachanda Man Pradhan, who also had experience of working in the (...)

18Throughout the panchayat period, geographers like Malla continued to be recruited for government work where they contributed to initiatives in land reforms, administrative restructuring, rural development and the physical planning of the Kathmandu Valley (see Malla’s presidential address in The Himalayan Review, 1969–1970, Vol II–III: 6–15). In 1961 Malla was appointed member-secretary of the Committee to His Majesty’s Government in Regional Planning. Shortly afterwards, Malla was appointed member of the Development District and Zone Division Committee, which was chaired by Vishwabandhu Thapa20 and included the Swiss geologist and UN advisor Dr Toni Hagen.21 As member of this committee, Malla helped reorganise district administration to reflect the new panchayat system of governance. He advised on the location of boundaries for Nepal’s 75 development districts and 14 zones and was also responsible for preparing district and zonal maps.22

Fig 2: This group photo was included in the report of the Development District and Zone Division Committee. It shows all committee members and the chair, Vishwabandhu Thapa. Upendra Man Malla is seated in the second chair on the left. Seated in the centre of the group, smoking his pipe, is Toni Hagen.

Fig 2: This group photo was included in the report of the           Development District and Zone Division Committee. It shows all           committee members and the chair, Vishwabandhu Thapa. Upendra Man           Malla is seated in the second chair on the left. Seated in the           centre of the group, smoking his pipe, is Toni Hagen.

Photo Courtesy of Suresh Malla.

19While remaining focused on his government work and teaching, Malla also made it a priority to support geographical research in Nepal. He was elected president of the Nepal Geographical Society in 1966 and held the position multiple times over the following 30 years. He also served on the editorial board of the Nepal Geographical Society’s flagship journal The Himalayan Review from its creation and wrote many articles published in the journal. In 1967, Malla was appointed head of the Department of Geography and Geology at Tribhuvan University and Tri Chandra College. He held the position of Dean for Humanities and Social Sciences at Tribhuvan University from 1973 to 1976. The joint influence of governance and academia became apparent in Malla’s last year as dean in 1976 when the curriculum department of Tribhuvan University introduced a compulsory course called ‘Nepal Parichaya’ (Introducing Nepal) for intermediate-level students. The aim of the course was to make students familiar with Nepal’s geography, society, history, culture and political system. Malla co-authored the first paper for the course, ‘Jeevan Padhatira Bhaugolik Vatabaran’ (Way of life and geographical environment). This chapter – written in the Nepali language and introducing Nepal using the now familiar topographical scheme of mountains, hill, and Tarai regions – was the core of many young students’ education in the geography of Nepal (Malla and Shrestha 2032 VS).

20In 1979, at the age of 47, Malla was appointed to the National Planning Commission (NPC), and gave his full attention to national development concerns. He served as a member of the NPC from 1979 to 1989. During this decade, Malla helped produce the Sixth and Seventh Plans of Nepal. In 1989 Malla stepped down from his career in government and returned full-time to the classroom, teaching courses in social geography, natural resources, mountain environments and tourism, while supervising MA and PhD students at Tribhuvan University. He retired from teaching in 1995 and yet, until the end of his life, Malla remained active in the field of geography and development. In addition to maintaining close ties with the Nepal Geographical Society, Malla served as consultant for numerous environmental and natural resource development programmes in Nepal, promoting biogas, community forestry, health and nutrition, hydropower and rural development. His dedication to his country was recognised in Nepal and abroad. In 2008 he was awarded Nepal’s ‘Man of the Year Award’ by the American Biographical Institute.

The interview-essay: origins and organisation

  • 23 At the time Gaurab K C was documenting the lives of panchayat intellectuals and Amy (...)

21Malla’s influence on academia and the government in mid-to-late-20th-century Nepal captured the attention of the authors, both anthropologists with interests in development, governance and the Rana and panchayat periods of Nepali history. In 2016 we jointly interviewed Malla on several occasions at his prefabricated ‘earthquake house’ on the grounds of his family home in Kupondole.23 Both of us were fascinated with the lived experiences of Nepali bureaucrat-scholars of the panchayat period and, after speaking with Malla, we envisaged publishing our interviews with him for the benefit of all those interested in Nepali experiences of modernisation, panchayat governance and administration, assistantship and fieldwork accounts in geography and anthropology, and individual life histories. On discussing our idea with him, we transcribed a three-hour audio recording of our initial interview for his review.

22To our surprise, despite what we felt were valuable responses, Malla was dissatisfied with the answers he had given to our questions. He suggested that we send him questions to which he could write answers after careful consideration, while consulting the copious notes and records he had kept over his lifetime for the sake of accuracy and in order to refresh his memory. On his suggestion, we consulted our interview transcripts and recordings and sent a set of questions to him by email on 15 August 2016. Malla then sent his written responses, at which point we reviewed them and asked for clarification of certain points. The written interview format yielded intriguing results. For example, in our recorded interview, Malla did not answer questions about his assistantship with Fürer-Haimendorf with the same level of detail as he did in his written responses. Indeed, we were amazed to find that a significant portion of the manuscript he returned to us was dedicated to his excursion with Fürer-Haimendorf in 1953.

  • 24 We have done our upmost to provide standard common-use spellings throughout the int (...)

23We shared a final formatted version of the typed interview responses with Malla in 2017. He gave his approval and waited for it to be published. However, setbacks in finding a publisher for the manuscript held up its publication due to the fact that Malla wished to publish his responses exactly as written, with no deletions or changes to the text. For a few years he would ask us, ‘when will it get published?’ To our eternal regret, Malla passed away on 26 November 2019 without seeing his life story in print. In our subsequent efforts after his passing to bring his interview to publication, we allowed ourselves to slightly modify the document he provided us with. We have inserted footnotes to give contextual and background information, subheadings to lend further structure and signposting for the reader, and grammatical edits for spelling and syntax.24 We are indebted to Malla’s son, Suresh Malla, for his generosity in granting us access to his father’s personal library and in providing invaluable photographs of his father, which are included here.

24On the whole, this ‘interview-essay’, as we think of it, remains unchanged, in keeping with Malla’s request. We have included the original prompts sent to Malla. Publishing the interview-essay without significant alteration was Malla’s personal wish, but it is for the benefit of the reader as well. Malla had a precise recollection of his life and memorable events. He related details accurately and meticulously, making it relatively easy for the authors to verify the dates and individuals he referred to in his recollections. He also drew links between his early life and education and his involvement in government in ways that give insight into the mind, character and position of bureaucrat-scholars of his generation. Malla did all of this indefatigably, seeming to never tire of talking about his life and times as he remembered them. As his listeners, we were swept up into his vividly described world. Our attention was rewarded by Malla’s hearty laughter, puckish smile and, on most occasions, sugary tea and biscuits. Readers, we hope, will sense the echoes of his humour and distinctive storytelling style in these pages.

25To help the reader navigate through Malla’s memories of his life and times, we have divided the interview-essay into two thematic parts. Part one describes young Malla’s experience meeting Fürer-Haimendorf in 1953 and his travels to the Khumbu region as Fürer-Haimendorf’s assistant. From this section, the reader can gain insight into the practice of anthropology in Nepal in the 1950s and the role that guides in the field and research assistants, like Malla, have had in shaping the ethnographic impressions and fieldwork trajectories of non-local scholars. Part two of the interview-essay contains Malla’s reflections on his education in England, his career as a geographer and his various government-administrative roles, including in district reorganisation and in the National Planning Commission. It is in the latter section that we become cognizant of how academic interests and governance overlapped in the mid-20th-century Nepali state, giving rise to the panchayat period’s characteristic high modernist approach to national development.

Memory and history: a note on reconstructing the recent past

26As we conclude this introduction to Malla’s interview, we reflect on the fact that, fundamentally, two approaches are needed to understand and engage with the recent past – a period of history that hovers on the very edge of living memory. One approach relies on the availability of textual works and the other on the opportunity to engage in conversation with individuals who have experienced those times themselves, thereby capturing the personal narrative and substance of their life experiences. This interview-essay largely adopts the second approach, aiming to provide a coherent understanding of the social and political past by relying on an individual’s memory and on avoiding presentism as far as possible.

  • 25 There exists a large volume of academic and popular literature that addresses the political (...)

27However, our decision to foreground Malla’s memory should not be interpreted as a dismissal of the first approach. Numerous publications have been produced regarding the end of the Rana era and the rise and fall of the panchayat era in Nepal, each presenting its particular narrative framework.25 The nature of these writings is in keeping with the predilection of the authors, oscillating between praise and criticism or, in the Nepali language, prasamsa and ninda. As historian Yogesh Raj reasonably opines, ‘The modes of presentation depend on who is writing them and for whom’ (2010: ix). In our interview-essay we have tried to let Malla’s narrative responses stand alone with minimal commentary on our part. We have taken some notes from Bista (1971) who in his article about panchayat bureaucrats, entitled ‘Frustration in Nepali Bureaucracy’, wrote that, ‘Many of us have directly or indirectly contributed to the situation of disillusionment of frustration [with the panchayat bureaucracy] by laying all the blame upon the Rana regime and making it appear as if everybody else was either an angel or direct victim of the regime’ (Bista 1971: 36). To help the reader in their analysis of Malla’s life and actions, we have primarily cited sources from scholars who wrote during the times described (1950s–1980s), thus providing a window into the mental landscape in which Malla’s life unfolded. We hope that this decision leaves room for the reader to interpret Malla’s life and times in different ways.

28Nevertheless, a couple of nagging questions remain: who was Malla writing for when he prepared his responses? Who did we imagine would read them? While we cannot definitively answer the first question, we know that Malla, as a scholar, wanted his memories to inform the way other scholars and intellectually curious persons think about and interpret Nepal’s recent past and the people who made it. This motivation is important because, by and large, the subjective experiences of individuals who lived through, worked in and closely observed both the Rana and panchayat eras are found to be largely absent from written political histories of Nepal, and are instead limited to genres of autobiography and biography, for which there is now a large market in Nepal. If we are not careful, however, memories may vanish entirely, reach a point of no return or become past history as the individual leaves this life for the next. To stress the importance of combining memory and history, we once again draw on the insights of historian Yogesh Raj (2010: 9), who asserts that

…as all (historical) narration involves memory, our concern should focus more on devising appropriate method of narration that uses memory for historical reconstruction: for it is only in the memory that micro/macro dichotomies converge, real and representational aspects coagulate, and past/present distinction coalesce.

29In Malla’s interview, we observe the intersection between his personal life and the events that have come to define the times in which he lived. We also see the formation of a distinct kind of person, the bureaucrat-scholar, who helped achieve the technocratic style of governance which first dazzled the palace and national elites in the 1950s and has since continued to inform planning and development. By privileging memory and contextualising it by means of historical sources, as we have done here, we hope, above all, that Malla as an individual is fully visible and, in his own words, attests to the life he lived.

Fig 3: A photograph of Upendra Man Malla taken in the 1950s before leaving for Oxford.

Fig 3: A photograph of Upendra Man Malla taken in the 1950s           before leaving for Oxford.

Photo Courtesy of Suresh Malla.

Part 1. Out of the valley: travels with Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (1953)

GKC/ALJ: Many anthropologists in Nepal believe that professional anthropological exploration in Nepal began with the arrival of the Austrian born anthropologist Christoph Von Fürer-Haimendorf. When he arrived in Nepal with his wife Betty Barnardo in 1953 to conduct a preliminary survey of the Sherpas, you accompanied both of them throughout Professor Haimendorf’s field research. During our informal conversations, you mentioned that this experience inspired you intellectually, especially regarding your decision to attend Oxford and take Human Geography as a major subject. In 1957, when Professor Haimendorf returned to do a comprehensive ethnographic study, you were at Oxford, and you recommended your school friend Dor Bahadur Bista to assist Haimendorf in his research. Your assistance to Professor Haimendorf has been acknowledged in his books, The Sherpas of Nepal (1964) and Life Among Indian Tribes (1990). As you have mentioned, the Nepal section is not described in detail in his latter book. Given your strong memory of your companionship with Professor Haimendorf, could you tell us the story of your assistantship with Professor Haimendorf in detail: what you did, where you went, what he did, and whatever you remember and find interesting, especially about your time in the Sherpa region?

  • 26 Daman Shamsher J B Rana was the Nepali ambassador in New Delhi at this time.
  • 27 Elizabeth ‘Betty’ von Fürer-Haimendorf (née Barnardo) (1911–1987). The daughter (...)
  • 28 Evans was a noted British surgeon and mountaineer. He is remembered as the firs (...)

UMM: It was in September 1953 that I had the opportunity of meeting Professor Haimendorf. I had not heard of him before and I did not know anything about him or his work. Mr Govinda Raj Bhandari, our neighbour and a very close friend of my father, was a senior staff in the Nepal Bank Ltd (NBL). It was the only bank of Nepal and there was no central bank yet. So all the banking services were provided by this bank and Mr Raj Bhandari was responsible for the foreign exchange section and he used to have to deal with currency matters for all the foreigners who would visit Nepal.
It was almost every day that he used to come to our house on his way back from his office and have a short chat with my father. One afternoon he happened to tell my father about the visit of a London University Professor. As soon as I heard it, I was eager to know more about him since I was thinking of going to UK some time sooner or later for further studies and I wanted to know as much as possible about the prospect of getting admission and other details regarding further studies. He told me that he was a Professor of Anthropology, and this information further strengthened the intensity of my desire to meet him.
Next day Professor Haimendorf fixed an appointment and Mr Raj Bhandari, my father and I went to see him at the Government Guest House at Tripureshwor where he was staying. I was very much fascinated by his various achievements in his anthropological research among the tribal population in India. In course of conversation, he told us how he was planning to have first of all a broad survey of the various peoples of Nepal and later choose any one or two ethnic groups for undertaking a more detailed investigation. Apparently, he was advised in New Delhi by the Nepalese Ambassador26 to visit the eastern hill regions of Nepal including the higher Himalayan Regions along the Tibetan border. So, he also told us how he would first go to Sherpa land to get a general picture of the environmental background of the highland so that he would be able to understand the peculiarities of the social and economic behavior of the people living there. Then he would like to travel to other parts of Nepal and explore the distribution of the various ethnic groups so that he would have a workable picture of the ethnic mosaic that constituted the Kingdom of Nepal which was so well known as the ‘Land of the Gurkhas’ among the British people. He was quite happy to be able to get all the necessary materials such as provision to last for a month or two, money (in coins but not in general currency notes), topographical maps etc. But he looked worried that he had not anyone to go with him to those unfamiliar areas for necessary interpretation.
I was quick enough to say, ‘Why don’t you take me along?’ Everybody in the room got startled apparently because my reply in the form of a query was so abruptly spontaneous. I could see in my father’s eyes a sense of surprise. The professor seemed to be totally astonished to find an unexpected offer.
His wife Betty Barnardo27 seemed to be utterly happy that at last the nagging problem of getting an interpreter looked to be over so satisfactorily at the spark of a moment, but Mr Rajbhandari did not have any particular reaction, I guess. But I was a little abashed that I spoke my mind so automatically as if I was speaking without thinking. Professor Haimendorf broke the silence and said, “Oh, would you?” I said quite emphatically, “Yes, I will be glad to go with you to help you. Why not?” It was decided then and there that I would accompany Professor Haimendorf as member of the team and assist him in his research during his fieldwork in the eastern hills of Nepal.
But when I reached home, it took a little more time in reaching the really final decision regarding my journey and role. My mother looked quite happy at our decision since I would get an opportunity of some exposure to the British way of life and language which will be very useful for me when I would be accepted by the British Council for my further studies in Britain. My parents, however, said that my journey with the Westerners would be possible only if we would be able to get someone to go with me as my cook and companion, since I was not supposed to eat beef or pork and food prepared by someone other than Brahmin or Newar. It was very fortunate that my father could soon contact a Newar fellow who was quite well known to me. His name was Bishnu Lal – but he was more well known as Bislal (short form) – and he accepted to go with me. That was immediately communicated to Betty who accepted in no time to take an additional fellow in her team and she thought that he would be also an additional help to the kitchen but I hurriedly made it clear to her that he will be able to participate in the common kitchen only partially since he will be responsible for my food which must be prepared with complete caution and care without letting anyone touch it in its cooked form.
Following the practical advice of Dr Charles Evans,28 the famous surgeon-cum-mountaineer, the professor had decided to visit Khumbu area before the onset of the winter season so that he would be able to use the colder season for investigating other ethnic groups residing in lower hills in the south thus reaping the best benefit from his short preliminary anthropological exploration which he hoped would be useful for the future detailed study for himself or any other scholar.
When I reached the guest house early in the morning on 6 September, Mrs. Haimendorf was happy to see me with a companion but she thought it impractical to wear a coat since we were not going to any party but to remote areas far from modern “civilisation” with a purpose of collecting information through intensive fieldwork. As a very obedient student I took my coat off and handed it over to my brother who had come with to see me off. After some time, we left for Bhotahity near the Ranipokhari to catch a vehicle to Bhaktapur, situated just about seven miles away. This was the last point of our journey on a vehicle, and after this we had to rely on our legs to carry us all the way to Namche Bazaar and beyond.

Day One – Leaving the Kathmandu Valley (Sanga Pass to Banepa)29

  • 29 Malla opted to present his fieldwork experience with the Fürer-Haimendorfs and Dr (...)
  • 30 The four historic passes into the Kathmandu Valley are Sanga Bhanjyang (in the east), B (...)

I had no idea of my own country because I never studied the geography of Nepal after my high school. I knew more about other countries around the world in almost all the continents much better than my own since we did not have any university in Nepal and our college was affiliated to Patna University. The prescribed course of study therefore did not include geography of Nepal. Thus, I enjoyed the change of physical as well cultural landscape with the same degree of curiosity as my co-travelers from abroad. Soon after crossing the dense settlement of Bhaktapur, I was surprised to see a small cluster of poorly developed houses which was known as Jagati which I was told was once upon a time a checkpost which collected taxes in the old days. It was also found out that one could drive up to Banepa but most people preferred walking to driving because of the poor condition of the so-called motorable road. As the surrounding was quite pleasant, I felt we reached the town of Banepa soon after crossing Sanga pass, which is known to be one of the four important passes to enter the Nepal Valley.30
I was quite aware of my duty there as a research assistant and interpreter. I did not waste any time without talking to the people along the road or wherever we happened to rest awhile. At Bhaktapur, and all the way from there to Banepa, I talked to the people randomly without any specific topic on my own or as asked by professor, and related to him what I learnt from them. I explained to him, for example, why, according to the informants, they do not plough with the help of the bullocks; why they take along with them a person clad in Tibetan dress during a marriage procession; and how different the Gai Jatra festival celebrated at Bhaktapur is from that at Kathmandu. At Banepa we were impressed by the similarity of the style of the houses and the layout of the various parts of the settlement. Very soon we entered into a courtyard where there was a tall temple dedicated to Chandeshwari. Dr Evans caught sight of a child who looked so emaciated that he virtually looked like a living skeleton. After proper inquiry Dr Evans felt that there was no hope of any recovery.
We then started ascending the higher hill area and from the pass we had a wonderful view below to the east. I had not had till then any experience of travelling beyond Bhaktapur and on that day I was taken by surprise that I was having a view of what I had never imagined to get in this part of my country which was only well known as a maelstrom of mountains. I saw in front of me a scenery which was no less enchanting than that of the Valley of Kashmir as seen suddenly from the exit point of the Banihal tunnel during one of my geographical excursions the previous year as a student; the only thing that was actually lacking was the splendid array of slim poplars. Very soon Dr Evans found a suitable site for camping for the day although it was not yet so dark; it was the first day of our eventful journey and he thought it better to rest earlier. It was a welcome proposal for Professor Haimendorf as well since he would get some more time to meet some villagers at Rabigaun. Before we left towards the settlement, we took some bread and tea with some Australian pork which is mentionable here because that was the first time that I took any pork, which traditionally speaking I was not expected to eat on the very first day away from home.
However, I must say that on the very first day I was impressed by the enthusiasm of Professor Haimendorf who immediately took me into the village and started talking to the local people and eliciting information about their social life and economic activities. It seemed that he was aware of the fact that he had very little time within which he was committed to gather as much information as possible and he would not like to allow a single moment to pass without doing something to fulfil his interest. He could do so on the very first day of his expedition simply because he was so fortunate to have Betty as his life partner who looked so efficient when organising everything in managing the logistics, which is itself a very great advantage to a serious fieldworker; it seemed he did not have to worry about any other important matters such as selection of the camping site, putting the cooks and porters in good order etc.

Start of the survey

  • 31 Malla’s spelling ‘Shiagntang’ is not the standard spelling. The Tamang Budd (...)

In the village, as soon as the professor saw a man, he folded his hands and said ‘Ram Ram’ and started the conversation. I was totally surprised to see his gesture and so was the informant. I did not know who had suggested him to do so but I guessed it must have been his usual way that he had adopted in India to befriend the informant for establishing good public relation to get the necessary information as quickly as possible. He then started asking the villager questions regarding the population of the village along with the distribution and comparative density of each ethnic group residing there. It was a village dominated by Brahmins (about 85 houses) and Tamangs (about 55 houses). There were two Kami and three Damain families. Among the Brahmins there were Upadhyayas and Jaisis who spoke Nepali while the Tamangs spoke their own language among themselves but also could speak Nepali while communicating with other members of the community. After interviewing a few more people over there we came to know about the various clans among the Tamangs such as Shiagntang,31 Pakhrin, Muktan, Waiba etc. and their social and agricultural activities.
Since it was the first day of our journey, Mrs Haimendorf was good enough to give instructions regarding some rules I shall have to observe in the camp. As affectionately as a good guardian, she instructed me to keep my things neatly in the tent allocated to me. At that time, I was just 20 years old, whereas professor was 44 years old. As a very good child, I obeyed them and felt very grateful to them for getting such practical lessons along with other useful tips concerning fieldwork and various ways of eliciting the necessary information – important beginning of getting some more additional methods of inquiry for my future researches.

Fig 4: Upendra Man Malla on the way to Solukhumbu during his fieldwork with Fürer-Haimendorf in 1953. He appears to be writing in his field notebook.

Fig 4: Upendra Man Malla on the way to Solukhumbu during his             fieldwork with Fürer-Haimendorf in 1953. He appears to be writing             in his field notebook.

Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.

Day two – Panch Khal, Hukse and Dolalghat

  • 32 Malla did not offer an explanation for what he meant by the ‘3 Rs’ but a reasonable (...)
  • 33 Bodhichitta beads come from the seeds of the tree Ziziphus budhensis.
  • 34 The prices referenced are Malla’s estimates from the time of the interview in 2016.

Next morning we started the day’s journey at six. The track was very narrow and steep, and the previous night’s rain had made it slippery, adding discomfort to the travellers. We were much relieved when after a few hours we reached Panch Khal, which was a very wide and fairly level-looking plain. We halted for the morning meal by the ubiquitous chautara [resting place]. I was a little surprised to find that Professor Haimendorf looked astonished to see such a chautara and wanted to know about it. I explained to him that such raised platforms are not unique to this place but it is to be found on almost every main route in Nepalese hill areas. Not only in Nepal but also in India we have heard that such resting platforms were put up even at the time of Ashoka the Great. They were supposed to provide comfort to the travellers who required some rest when travelling long distances particularly in the warm periods of the year. These resting places were built by some benevolent people who could afford since it is regarded as an act of piety and such people are amply rewarded by God or unknown power for their virtue. The platforms almost everywhere will have shady trees, mainly pipal (Ficus religiosa) and bar (banyan). There is also a custom of performing wedding of pipal with bar. In the hillside of Nepal some virtuous people plant bar and pipal trees in the middle of the slope with some distance from each other, raise them until they have a height of about nine or ten feet. Then they marry them with some degree of pomp and rejoice accompanied with traditional Vedic mantras and rituals; and construct a chautara (resting platform) around the trees.
Bishnu Lal looked quite miserable when he was serving my meal this morning. He was already feeling homesick and was telling me that he had lost his appetite and might be going to be sick very soon. I told him to go back if he would not have the confidence in completing the unknown journey. He would not dare to do so either since he was afraid lest my father would dislike it as he had sent him with full confidence that he will take me to the destination and bring me back home safe and sound, as well as in a pure form of my caste even after coming into contact with the various ethnic groups of different social status and recognition. I even told him that he need not worry a bit since I would write a letter to my father in detail about his understandable difficulty and if we would press him any further, he would in turn be an insurmountable burden to me instead. No, he did not venture to do so.
So, we continued our journey and soon I forgot about my cook since perhaps I was quite busy crossing various side streams or channels of water all over probably owing to the continuous rainfall last night. At Hukse, a small market-looking village inhabited by Newars, the channels looked a little constrained and they flowed briskly through a confined passage by the side of the fairly close built houses of the comparatively compact settlement. Then we descended to the Chak Khola, which was a tributary to the Indravati. People were a little shy to mention the name of the river in their conversation and preferred to call it Cha Khola. Following the right bank of the river to some distance we saw on the right-hand side a slope which contained a fluted landform with a precipitous escarpment. It was probably an example of differential erosion – both chemical and physical – on a limestone predominant area.
A little further away we met a fellow from Dolalghat, which was not so far away. He seemed to have enjoyed our company as he agreed to walk along with us. He was a Padhne Lama, a Tamang priest who performed various religious chores and rituals in the life cycle of the Tamangs and also taught the 3 Rs32 to the willing students of his locality. He had also travelled abroad to Burma and Tibet and a greater part of north-eastern Area of India. He also knew various languages such as Assamese, Bangla, Hindi, Tibetan and a little English. He sold wooden beads at those places where he visited.
At that time, I had translated what he had told me but today I think he was perhaps telling me about the much well known Bodhichitta33 beads which have at present attracted the attention of the people in Nepal and abroad with the great demand that they have created in the market and the Bodhichitta traders are witnessing a boom in business. Today some people have gone so far as to claim that Bodhichitta is a holy tree and Lord Buddha had received enlightenment under the same species of tree. These beads are threaded to make rosaries which are used to count mantras. So, they are considered to have a great religious significance which in turn has helped in raising their market prices that differ on the basis of their size and quality. A single tree produces more than five different variants which are priced as high as Rs5,000/- to Rs300,000/- per unit.34 These beads are exported to Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan, Sri Lanka and the United States. According to legends it is believed that a Shakyamuni had left behind three plants at Lumbini, Namobuddha and Temal Hill.
Soon we reached the confluence of the Chak Khola and the Indravati, the water of which looked much clearer than that of the smaller river. Not far from there we came across the settlement of Dolalghat with its comparatively compact conglomeration of a few houses with shops owned by the Newars and Tamangs. However, a little above the slope there were some dwellings of Chhetris and Sanyasis as well. A few Danwars who lived on fishing were known to have been living in the small settlement. We crossed the well-built suspension bridge over the river and stayed at a small rest house situated at the narrow spur between the two rivers, the Sun Kosi and the Indravati.

Day three – Hiplu, Dumre, Bhumlu, Chaubas and Rishingo

  • 35 Prior to 1963, Nepal was organised into 35 administrative districts, includ (...)
  • 36 Malla’s use of hikis is unclear. If it is in the Newari language, it may be hiti, which (...)
  • 37 The Tamang village Rishingo or Risingo is known as Lisankhu in the Nepali language. Ris (...)

Next day, as soon as we started the day’s journey, we crossed the Sun Kosi River by a very good suspension bridge which was similar to the one which brought us to our destination last evening. But the ascent that we had to climb was a very steep one. Very near there was Hiplu village in the same district (then called ‘East No1’35), which covered Sindhupalchok and Kavrepalanchok districts of today. There were a few Newar dwellings and the dwellers looked a little different from the Newars of Kathmandu. A little further we met some people from Dolakha. They said that they were also Newars but they seemed to speak a language which sounded completely different from what I, a Newar myself, knew as Newari, my mother tongue. But the Hiplu Newars were speaking a language which I did not have any difficulty in understanding. It was very astonishing to note that even the Hiplu Newars said that they could not understand the Dolakha people and so when they wanted to communicate with each other they spoke Nepali. Thus, I felt the importance of Nepali, the lingua-franca of Nepal, since even the people of a single ethnic group (sharing a common language) take recourse to Nepali. The Dolakha Newars were carrying some substantial loads of yarn which they had purchased from the Kathmandu merchants. After reaching their home they would weave them into cloth.
Very soon afterwards we reached Dumre and Bhumlu. We saw some hikis36,which were nothing but a conglomeration of stone tablets with very nice-looking inscriptions. The letters that were used there were quite attractive and they looked like Ranjanakshar that was adopted by the Tibetans or high mountain dwellers as the script for their inscriptions. As a matter of fact, these hikislooked very much like the manes which were erected there in memory of the deceased and regarded as an expression of reverence towards the departed souls. Very soon we reached Chaubas where we pitched our tent and spent the night there.
Chaubas was a Tamang village and the inhabitants produced food crops, mainly maize and millet, which would not last for the whole year and so they would look for some other work nearby and earn money to feed the family. They would get just one rupee as their daily wage. The standing crop in the fields was mainly millet (kodo) and some girls were seen engaged in weeding. The general landscape reminded Professor Haimendorf of Austrian scenery with distant rivers flanked by sloping spurs covered by short grasses and sporadic distribution of trees here and there.
I was a little surprised to find that the Professor and his wife were much alarmed to cross even a shallow and small stream over which there would be erected a narrow device that, of course, could hardly be called a bridge. It was not because of the river but because of the very flimsy and poorly maintained plank that they were afraid to tread upon. Particularly Mrs. Haimendorf was unbelievably so much afraid that she was nearly falling into the stream below probably because she had slightly lost her power, but I hastened to hold her by her waist and prevent her from falling. Even if she would have fallen down, she would not have been hurt much physically, but it would of course have created an uncomfortably embarrassing scene.
People were carrying live chickens and ducks on their way to Dhulikhel, Banepa or Kathmandu. They would dispose of them wherever they would get a satisfactory price and get some other necessities such as cloths and bangles from the urban markets. We met some more people on the way and I was surprised to hear from a woman who said that ‘India is a better place to live in because there we get everything we need close by’.
It was still raining when we reached the village of Rishingo.37 It was a big village compared to the others around inhabited by Tamangs. The buildings were better built than those in other villages. Most of the houses were painted white and they presented a lovelier look. Almost all of them had their own courtyards, which were neat and clean and surrounded by stone walls which were about three-feet high. The house had a verandah, which may be called pindhi, but here it looked much wider and at one of its corners there was a raised platform where the elderly patriarch of the family would sit or rest. The kitchen was on the ground floor. The cattle were kept outside in a shed, which was built separately, but quite close to the house. It had two stories, and at the upper floor they kept grass and fodder. The harvested maize was kept on the roof as if to decorate the house. But some others built a stack to store the maize in a neat manner much above the ground. Most of the houses here had wooden planks for roofing.
Very soon we engaged ourselves in conversation with the local people. One of them was very good in explaining the religious aspects in a wonderful manner so that the listeners would not only understand the various rituals but also the significance of each of them. He led us to his room upstairs and was good enough to let us know the intricate aspects of the various religious texts that had been stacked there. He didn’t even care for his tea which was getting colder while he spoke extensively about what he knew about the rituals that they followed while worshipping their deities, of whom Guru Rimpoche was supposed to be the main one as far as I could understand. After that we were taken to a place where a painter was busy painting a very beautiful image of some deity in a traditional style with various colours that, as he claimed, were prepared by himself from the woods to be found in the vicinity. The image itself was a very beautiful piece of art and that would decorate the chapel of a person in the village, who had placed the order for the painting.

Day four – Rishingo and Chitre

  • 38 In his autobiography, Fürer-Haimendorf records Bishnu Lal’s departure and i (...)

Next morning, I was surprised that my cook most unwillingly put forward his proposal that he will not be able to continue to serve me throughout the long journey that I was contemplating upon. It was too much for him, he said. As in spite of his perseverance he said he will not be able to go any further, he asked me if I could write a letter to my father that he was too sick to help me. I was happy to find that he was himself willing to go back since he was almost a burden to me with his poor face, which was an index of his mind. At the same time, he was not without grievances regarding the food that he was getting for me and himself. Quite eagerly I wrote a letter to my father and I asked my cook to go back without wasting any more time and reach Kathmandu as soon as possible. When I told the Haimendorfs about it they were also very happy. Mrs Haimendorf said to me, “I was going to say that I would not approve of what he was doing in kitchen. Now I’m relieved that you are sending him back without my intervention.”38
Now onwards I was free to consume the food prepared by anybody, whoever he may be – a Sherpa or a Tamang or an Englishman. Beyond Risingo, the natural landscape was still very nice and enjoyable. That night we rested at Chitre which is a village above Risingo in altitude but it was a little bit of a surprise that the Newars were living at an altitude higher than the Tamang settlement. The population was not so high and the Newars there didn’t speak Newari. I felt it was very strange that Dolakha was not very far and there people spoke Newari. It was found that this Newar family at whose house we spent the night had come from Dhulikhel in the past and within a few generations they seem to have forgotten the language probably because they had less contact with their own people but had to deal with people of other ethnic groups and they were bound to speak Nepali. In the evening, we were greeted with a nice programme of music and dance, but here again it was totally a non-Newar show.

Day five – Chitre, Katakuti and Kiratechhap

  • 39 Malla is referring to the anthropologist Sara Shneiderman whose ethnographic research w (...)
  • 40 Malla could be referring to the Pahari community in this instance.

The next morning was a marvellous start and it showed a prospect for a nice and sunny day as a contrast to what we had during the earlier days. The sky was clear and it was dominated by the beautiful sight of Gauri Shanker and Meluntse [Melungtse] peaks in the north, which brought forth an outburst of spontaneous admiration from Professor Haimendorf who just stood on the trail dumbfounded for a moment and exclaimed ‘Fantastic!’ The fields on the way were prepared by cutting the slope of the hill almost to the crest, startling the foreigners who had apparently no idea about the nature of settlement and agriculture in the Nepalese hills. He admitted that he was surprised to find so many people in the hills and such a great variety of activities of human beings; rather, he had thought that there would be a complete wilderness with just a few people distributed thinly over the well-forested slopes.
In course of conversation with some local people on the way we heard about Thamis [Thangmi] which was till then quite unknown to me as an ethnic group in Nepal. Later I met a Thami and he told us about themselves. He was on his way to Risingo and lived in a village north of Dolakha village. They were very few in number but had their own ways of life which was different from the Newars of Dolakha or the Tamangs around. I could see that he looked like a Newar in appearance but his language was not understandable. I tried to get the words for some kinship terms and was surprised to find that sister was called ‘tete’, which was not very different from what a Newar calls for a sister – ‘tataa’. When I heard this, I felt it gave me a little hint that they may be somehow related to a Newar group but other customs and rituals that I could gather from him were different from what were adopted by Newars. They had a peculiar custom as a part of the ritual of marriage. The bride would have to go through a test while entering the house. At the gate of the house, they would hang a live rat by its tail and while passing under the sill of the door she would be declared an auspicious daughter-in-law of the house if the rat will touch her head or inauspicious if otherwise. That was a peculiar custom but, since we did not go to their village and we did not meet any other Thami in our further journey, I kept in my mind that in future this group of people will be a very suitable topic for further investigation; now I know that they are being studied by some researchers, notably Sara Shneiderman.39
Another group of people that I had never heard of before was ‘Pohari’.40 There was even a story told about the origin of their name. According to them the story which, I think, was not an authentic one but nevertheless very popular in those areas relates that the forefathers of the Poharis were employed in some king’s palace as the royal cooks and a king enjoyed the delicious meal that they prepared. The result was that the other cooks who were Brahmins were dismissed and sent away in their favour. Then the outgoing cooks were very much disappointed that they were deprived of their traditional prestigious job at the palace. They tried to find out the special skill of the new cooks by means of which they could win the heart of the king and make him happy. After some time, they discovered the secret. In fact, the new employees were not professional cooks and they did not possess any culinary skill at all. But they were so clever that they cooked various types of food, and before serving the meal they would taste each item so that only the tasteful ones were served. While doing so secretly they used their fingers and did not wash their dirty hands, which would be polluted by such actions. Then the older cooks went to the king and related to him the detailed story including how the new cooks served the meals by dirtying their hands. So he summoned the cooks, called them phōhōri, meaning ‘dirty’, and sent them away. It is since then that they were known as ‘phōhōri’. According to what the co-traveller related to us about them, they are found in Kathmandu Valley and Palanchok area towards the north of East No1. There was hardly any time to think over more about their origin, customs and manners, but we did feel that they were also among the almost forgotten ethnic groups of Nepal.
We left Chitre in time and we came to Katakuti which in itself was a peculiar name. Here I was surprised to see the utilizsation of waterpower to run a revolving prayer wheel constantly for 24 hours a day. I knew that the cylindrical prayer wheel contained a huge number of paper sheets with several repetitions of the ubiquitous mantra – om mani padme hum – compacted within it. Well, it was an ingeniously novel idea and I wished it could also be utilised for more productive purposes. At various western parts of Nepal, we had seen similar utilisation of water power for grinding corn.
The general landscape along the way and in the area within our sight was dominated by pine forests with highly scattered houses painted white. They had plank roofing and almost all of them were two storied. Very soon we reached a spot where we had to cross a river, which did not look very big but was flowing through a wide valley. There was a bridge to facilitate us for crossing the river but its look was not at all so attractive. It was a suspended bridge which was locally built by local smiths by using locally prepared chain out of locally mined iron. Two parallel chains were firmly hooked at the bottom of the two solid looking walls constructed with locally collected massive rocks at the edge of the ridge at each side of the river which is called Charanawati River, but better known locally as Charange Khola. The bridge was about 100 feet above the water level and as seen from the track a little above it seemed to be dangling precariously in the air. The chains were wide apart from each other and on each of them were suspended about fifty vertical iron sided containers which were placed from one end of the main chain to the other at an equal distance from one another to accommodate the long passage running all along the bridge. This stepping passage was formed by a string of long but narrow planks which were held together with the help of some iron bolts at the end of each one of them. Thus, the bridge presented a picture which was far from being a favourable or welcome one. But since there was no other alternative, we had to make ourselves so courageous as to cross the river by the rickety contraption that could hardly be called a bridge. While putting the first step with trembling knees Mrs Haimendorf said to me, ‘I am sure, Malla, I shall fall down’. I was myself no less frightened. But as a younger man I could not show any sign of fear on my face or speech. So, as to encourage her I said, ‘Do not worry, madam, I am behind you and I am sure we will do it. Don’t look down at the water’. But I must admit that I was myself feeling dizzy. However, I looked straight ahead and pushed myself forwards on the planks which were not very firmly bound together and some of which were already worn down badly. Well eventually we did it. We successfully crossed the river dragging our heavy steps sluggishly over the swaying planks of the precarious bridge dangling in the air. We rested on the other side of the notorious river for a considerable length of time. While getting rid of the dizziness by taking a complete rest I was trying to recapitulate what I had been through and found that the bridge looked so rickety not because of any construction material but this indigenously constructed bridge was suffering because of poor maintenance.
I wanted to take a photograph of this unforgettable bridge but as my Newar cook had already gone back along with my films I was hesitating to do so because I had to save the film for more interesting subjects at the more distant region of Khumbu. Taking pity on my dilemma, the professor assured me that I could borrow his camera for a day there but looking at his enthusiasm in snapping pictures so far, I doubted that I would be able to deprive him from taking pictures there as Walter Scott is often quoted to have said, ‘Thy need is greater than mine’. After crossing the river, the other side did not look as good as the one we left behind. The landscape looked bleak and boring. It contained a few dwarf sal (Shorea robusta) plants randomly scattered here and there. There was much soil erosion and scars of old landslides. Occasionally we would come across some cultivated portions of land with the standing crops of rice of mansuri variety. Soon we reached Kiratechhap where we spent the eventful day.

Day six – Namdu and Kabre

  • 41 Malla is highlighting what seemed to him to be an uncommon occurrence since (...)

Next morning we left Kiratechhap and the spur which we followed had loose sandy soil. It was, however, a much-cultivated slope and contained many pines in the landscape. There were many rice fields on the mountain somewhere as far down as the river. Sooner we came to the Tama Koshi River, one of the main tributaries of the Sapta Koshi. It had a good modern suspension bridge, quite a contrast with what we had come across yesterday while crossing the Charange Khola. The Tama Koshi, a glacier-fed river, was quite full and looked very deep and narrow. The ascent after the river was steep and the jungle was amazingly pine-less. This I account for the steep slope and also this absence of loose sandy soils. I remembered the pine region of yesterday; it looked like the pine groves of the British Embassy and Shivapuri areas in Kathmandu. Higher above the slope there was a solitary house which was now empty. The soil was red and there was some cultivation. Some pines grew on the slopes and the rocks were mostly stone and mica schist. Namdu was a village inhabited mostly by Tamangs and a few Newars. On the way we came across a small temple of Mahadev with four taps of spring water. Now the type of the houses also changed to some extent. The houses had thatched roofs and some of them had small verandas. Quite a few of them had separate sheds for the pigs and others had built rooms where they stored the agricultural implements and some domestic appliances such as pounding troughs etc.
After Namdu there was a stream which we had to cross. The rain had fallen heavily, and we had to take refuge in a shelter. Professor Haimendorf could cross the log bridge. We had to cross the same river five times, and the last time there was no bridge and the stream was full of cold water with speedy current. The river looked very ferocious although the depth was not much. I crossed with my boots, trousers and everything on. The depth was only knee deep, but the speed was too great, and the current very strong. Professor Haimendorf took off his pants and crossed the stream. Unfortunately, I could not take any photographs since I was entrusted to look after the things at the bank. We crossed another swollen river in the same manner and we climbed the steep ascent along the next slope. It was a well forested slope and in the occasional fields along the ill-built terraces, millet was seen along the slope. There were also some dead twigs here and there on the fields. They were perhaps there to prevent soil erosion. As we went higher the vegetation consisted mainly of rhododendron and some dwarf pines.
The ascent in general was comparatively gentle. Soon we came to the village of Kabre. It was not a clean village. It was full of mud and dungs. In the distance however there were some beautiful waterfalls to be seen. The village is a very good example of scattered settlement which was divided in small clusters of four or five dwellings in each of them. We were a bit anxious since the porters who were carrying much of our belongings were not to be seen yet. We did not feel as happy as in other earlier days to decide to break the journey for the day because of anxiety. However, since we had to collect as much information as possible in a short time, I hastened to suggest that we should not sit there thinking of the unpredictable future which was beyond our control but go inside the village and meet people there. So, leaving Mrs Haimendorf with Dr Evans and the cooks behind to wait for the porters we went to see and try our luck with some informants in the village.
The whole village was inhabited by 67 families of Brahmins, 15 homesteads of Chhetris, 4 Kamis and 1 Damai. Among the Brahmins they were all Purviya [eastern] and there were 58 houses of Dahals, 5 of Dhungels and 4 of Neupanes. They were exogamous clans and since Dahals were many, they would have to get their brides from other villages. The Mahadev temple was built a long time ago. The pujari(priest) was not a Brahmin but a Sanyasi Giri.41

Day seven – crossing the Sikri River

Next day our movement was obstructed by the downpour of rain and although we had targeted to reach those villages, we couldn’t do so because of delay in crossing a river which probably was the River Sikri and some of its tributaries. They did not look very big but due to the rains in the upstream there was a fierce current in the rivers and the volume had also increased to a great extent.
At one crossing there was a means which was supposed to help us in getting to the other side of the running water, but it could not be called a bridge in any sense of the term. But since there was a means, we had to use it. Professor Haimendorf did cross the stream successfully, though with trembling legs, by treading upon a shaking log which was put precariously over two big boulders at either side of the fast-running stream. All of us followed him and we crossed the same river for more than three times and in the last one there was no means put across the river. Fortunately, we had Dr Evans who had great experience in the wild rivers of Nepal, who advised us not to try to cross the river but to stay on the right bank and wait for his directions. He very deftly cut a pole or a single slender tree and asked the porters to hold the trunk from one bank so that by taking the help of the tree another porter can cross the river to go to the other side. Then with the help of that person and these porters on this side, other porters also crossed the river. Then he went to the other side alone and asked us to walk along the river holding the tree one by one. We did as instructed and the main reason for such a precaution was that we didn’t have an experience of crossing the torrential mountain stream. As a matter of fact, I had not taken off my clothes and boots while crossing it since he felt that we could have trouble crossing the river where the bedrocks were slippery and strewn with pebbles and rubbles brought by the stream during the flood. It was really a very difficult river. However, Professor Haimendorf took off his trousers and crossed the stream. Unfortunately, I was deputed to look after the things and could not take any photographs. After the adventure in the streams, Dr Evans said he would soon be writing a book on ‘The Rivers of the Darker Nepal’. We had planned to reach Those, and it was a short stretch of our journey, but due to the delay while crossing the torrential streams we were bound to spend the night before we reached our planned destination.

Day eight – Those, Chyangma and Bhandar

  • 42 A doko is a large conical bamboo basket carried on the back and secured by a strap (...)

Next day we were greeted by a very nice morning and we had an early start. Very soon we reached Those. There was a suspension bridge to cross the river, which was probably the Khimti Khola. The houses in Those were closely built along a comparatively well-paved street lined with various shops which sold articles of interest to the villagers. But in the past, it was better known as the place where they constructed iron goods such as khukuris, sickles etc from the iron that was mined at the locality. We were told that this place is popularly known as Those Mekcheng. I thought it [Mekcheng] was a corrupted form of the word ‘magazine’, a place where arsenals were produced, and, very soon, we were told that it was actually a place where in the past they used to make various types of weapons that were used by the Nepalese army. Those is a very urban-looking settlement which consisted of a fairly wide road lying with closely built houses on both sides and they looked quite beautiful. The residents were all Newars who could speak Newari in a better manner – they were not very different from the valley people of Kathmandu; the girls were charming to look at and the rich women had golden ornaments on their body that exhibited the wealth that they possessed. In all houses there were shops where one could get anything from needles to cloths and the street was neat and clean since it was paved with stone slabs. Professor Haimendorf compared the settlement with any Austrian or any Swiss village, and Mrs Haimendorf asked me if I found any such neat and clean stone paved village street in India.
I was interested in finding out the quality of the iron ore that they mined here, but they could not tell me what percentage of pig iron they produced out of the ore that they mined. So, I asked them in a different way. I told them, ‘Suppose you smelt it ten dokos42 of ore, how many dokos of iron would you get?’ They were very enthusiastic and said, ‘Oh! Eight or nine or at least seven dokos’. I couldn’t believe it because it was too much. It must be a very good mine that would produce such a tremendous quantity of iron out of the ore with such an unbelievably high content, but they were sure about what they were telling me; but after a further inquiry I did believe them because they used to smelt only those pieces of ore which contained a greater amount of iron and throw away those which they thought would have less content. In other words, they would smelt only the iron concentrates. Then I said to myself, ‘Thank God! We produce so little iron’. I said so because while producing little iron, we were wasting little iron ore, and if the mines still contain more iron, we would be able to produce more iron from the locality in future when we would have better technology.
I had a difficulty in writing any notes because in an enthusiasm to go away from Risingo my cook had taken away most of my things which I had kept in his trunk, which I could not take back from him before he left us. They were my raincoat, pen, notebooks and about nine rolls of film. In such a journey it was great loss. I could fortunately see in one of the shops a register which was used by the shopkeeper, who was using it for recording the loans that he had advanced to his clients. When I asked him to sell that register to me, he didn’t accept to do so, but when I told him my problem, and offered him more than what he paid for it, he agreed. But I had no money to pay since I had also sent back my coat with my brother who had come to see me off at Kathmandu – together with all my money and other content. Once again Dr Evans came to my rescue and paid for the register and promised that he would provide me some loose leaves of typing paper at Khumjung where he had left some of his possessions behind during his last Everest expedition.
Those is a commercial centre rather than agriculture one. It lied on the valley of Khimti Khola, which drains the areas along the hills. It was a collection centre of ghee, which is bought here by the Sherpas who live in the hills around. But the fundamental importance of the village is due to the iron mines and the native iron was produced by smelting the ores which the Khanels would dig up to 100 feet below and then go horizontally by scraping the wasteful manner. We could not see any of the mines but from their information it looked that the iron content of the ore that was put into the ovens was very high. They were big mud-built ovens, which were powered with the charcoal blown by big bellows.
The track then followed the river and stream. There was no difference in vegetation along both sides of the valley perhaps because of the fact that the right flank of the valley contained limestone they looked comparatively bare while to the left were many better cultivated lands, probably because the rocks there were mostly sandstone. It was rainy and we missed the beautiful views of the valley and the surrounding hills. There were a few mane walls on the way and in no less number we saw plenty of leeches too – some of which were valiant enough to invade the rather private parts of the professor.
We were delighted to walk along the beautiful trail surrounded by pine trees and soon we reached Chyangma. It was the first Sherpa village that we crossed during this journey. They were quite different from the Tamangs of Risingo and the language was also quite different, but the agricultural activities were not so different. We were more interested in the people and, since our destination would be the Sherpa area, we thought it better to spend the night in this village. We met on the way some big lamas of Khumbu who offered some wine to us and it was highly appreciated by all of us. After the mane walls we had to walk along a descent which was quite steep and we soon came to Bhandar hidden under a thick blanket of mist which, however, could hardly hide the grandeur of the land which was surrounded by multicoloured landscape dotted brilliantly by beautiful scenery along the track, which in turn contained at places many good-looking waterfalls.
Bhandar has rather a most scattered type of settlement. The type of house is typical of the cold country, as they say that they get snowfall for some days in winter. There are two stories in the house – the lower stories were used for waste and the upper ones for sitting and doing other necessary things. Almost all the houses had a kennel where they kept their dogs as faithful sentinels. There was a gumba(Buddhist monastery) in the village. Maize, millet, wheat, barley and potatoes were among the main crops grown. Each house had a shed for cattle but they were placed a little far away from the homestead perhaps because it was easier for them to carry the manure to the field. They used firewood for cooking and warming the rooms. We spent the night in Bhandar which was also known as Chyangma.

Day nine – Bhandar

Next morning we visited the headman’s house, which was very neat and tidy. We were met at the living room upstairs, which was also very neat and clean. It looked like any Western standard drawing room with a hearth to heat the room. It had some logs burning already. A nice-looking carpet covered the wood-planked floor. There were many copper vessels and other domestic utensils neatly stacked on the shelves properly built on the walls in front of us. In other words, it indicated not only the comparative affluence of the owner, but also the presence of a cultured aesthetic of the dwellers. We saw similar respect for beautiful things also in other houses of the settlement. They had beautiful urns with pretty plants hanging outside their windows. The headman was not present there, but his wife and son were quite helpful and most willing to engage themselves in lively conversation with us. They could give the little information that we wanted to have. The village was situated at a height of about 7,000ft above sea level. There were 22 Sherpa households, while there were only two Chhetri households. The lady was the second wife of the headman who had married her after the death of his first wife, who had been her father’s older sister. The Sherpas grew maize, millet, potatoes, buckwheat, wheat and barley. They keep sheep and goats, cows and buffaloes. It seems that they celebrate Tihar by burning butter fed lamps in the village and by indulging in dancing and gambling. They themselves build their houses, and they have expert masons and carpenters.

Day ten – Likhu river crossing and Sete

Next morning we came down along the slope and we reached another big river, Likhu, which at this point did not have any bridge to cross it, but there was a ferryman who had a boat which, however, looked flimsy and primitive since it was not more than a long and slender piece of tree stump carved into what may be called a log boat. It was so thin that we had to crouch in a row embracing the load we were carrying with us. But anyhow the morning was calm and we could cross the river without any problem. It was really a big sense of relief when we reached the other side of the river safe and sound.
After the river we had a steeper ascent to cross but we didn’t feel so tired – that could perhaps be either because we were more practised in this sort of journey now or the surroundings looked more inviting with the occasional scenery of beautiful snowy peaks to the north, which used to make us forget the hardship. We had to walk even in the dark to some extent because there was no suitable place for pitching our tent or any suitable house to rest for the night. We were told that a little further away there was the village of Sete with many vacant houses where we could stay for the night since most of the male members had left the village due to certain problems they had to face with the local administration. Very soon we reached this village too, and we were unforgettably surprised to find that, as reported earlier, there were actually very few male members and many women in the village. We were offered the upper story of a well-built house to stay for the night. It seems that the porters had a very nice time dancing with the girls in the village since there were no other adult males in the village around to accompany the girls who were looking for some sort of enjoyment.

Day eleven – Junbesi

Next day we crossed the Lamjura Bhanjyang and headed towards Thaktu and Junbesi. We were now in real Sherpa area of Solukhumbu. At Junbesi we met a very well-travelled lama who told us about his various adventures while travelling to different part of India, including Gaya. He said that he lives at Solu, the southern part of Solukhumbu, as the area inhabited by Sherpas is called. He also described to us the various beautiful areas of Khumbu, the northern part of the Sherpa area where we were thinking of staying for at least a month.
According to the informant, who was a well-informed lama, we learnt that there were about 20 houses at Junbesi. There were three Kami (blacksmith) households and one Newar who migrated from Those only four years ago. All the rest were Sherpas. Among the Sherpas of Khumbu, he explained that there will be a special group of people called Khamba. They are the new migrants from Tibet, who have left their home because some problems there such as famine, natural calamities or similar other causes of hardship. As a matter of fact, Sherpas also had come originally from Tibet and they were called Sherpas locally to identify them as separate ethnic group. Sherpas are actually the modern transformed form of the word Shyarpa, a term which is still prevalent among the Nepalese. ‘Shyarpa’ is actually a proper adjective just as English, American, French, or Indian. ‘Shyar’ means ‘east’ and ‘pa’ is a suffix to convert the noun to the adjective part of speech to indicate the ‘people’, so that the combined word ‘Shyarpa’ means ‘people living in the east’. That made sense – they were the people from the east. At the time when the earliest group of Sherpas entered Nepal, the parts where they settled down probably belonged to the Kiratis. He told us also about the famous Chiwong Gumba which ‘is a monastery where there is one awatarelama (lama incarnate) who is believed to have been incarnated as many as sixteen times’.
We also discussed about the prospect of our journey beyond, and he suggested to us that we should take a higher route to Dudhkunda to go towards Namche Bazaar, since the lower, easier and more travelled route around Ringmo was out of order and not used these days. A physical geographer at heart, I was very much excited to get an opportunity to go along a high mountain track for necessary observation and investigation of landscape in a glacial environment.

Day twelve – Dudhkunda Lake

  • 43 Wrapping one’s head in a turban or cloth was a local palliative for a headache.

Next morning we crossed the same route that we had followed the previous day to some stretch again and took a steeper ascent, which would lead to Dudhkunda – a high altitude lake famous as a sacred pilgrimage site for Hindus and Buddhist alike at the foot of Mount Numbur and Karyalung [Karyolung] Glacier. The path was very steep, and very soon we had a very barren environment around us without any trees, and we started feeling dizzy, and we were afraid we had impending altitude sickness. The atmosphere also was rather hostile and it was drizzling.
We were further troubled by the anxiety that we may not have any place available to stay at night since we were preceded by a big retinue of government people following the Governor and Chief Administrator of district East No3 (the bada hakim). There were only four or five big boulders that could be called erratic blocks, under which we could spend the night. We might not have any place to stay.
When we reached near the rocks, I was shown where the bada hakim was staying for the night. I went to pay him a short visit. Although I did not know him personally, I thought it quite courteous to pay respect to the governor of the district, and introduce ourselves, and tell him about our future plan. He was talking to his colleagues with a big turban made from a shawl wrapped around his head. Presumably he had a headache like our own.43 I hurriedly asked him why he had a big turban around his head, and he said that he had a splitting headache. I asked him if he had any medicine or any other remedy. He said that he did not have any. I was soon generous enough to hand him over a handful of aspirin, and tell him that he should take one immediately and one every four or six hours. He was very grateful and asked me where I was staying for the night. I told him that I might have some difficulty since there were many people in his group and we had only three or four rocks below under which we could stay. As soon as he heard it, he called his people and ordered them to evacuate two of such shelters for us.
I was again quick to tell him very meekly that we did not need two shelters. One would suffice. Thus, we got rid of the anxiety of where to stay for the night. Since I was not feeling comfortable, maybe as a result of slight altitude sickness or the lousy weather, I told the cooks that I would not eat anything for the evening. Professor Haimendorf looked a little anxious or disturbed perhaps because I would be a burden to the party if I really got sick. At about eight o’clock, Mrs Haimendorf awakened me to tell that the dinner was ready. I got up and sat down for the dinner as usual without saying anything, at which the professor taunted me by saying, ‘But I thought you had told the cook that you would not be eating anything’. I looked at him and retorted, ‘Well, if I don’t eat tonight how can I walk tomorrow?’ Then everybody began to laugh and I did not feel sick; as a matter of fact, I felt very well, and light at head and all over. I had a satisfactory sleep. I was once more as happy as ever.

Day thirteen – Chauri Kharka

Next morning I felt that the downward journey was quite interesting, though the trail was not an easy one to tackle. The weather had turned better, but the last day’s drizzle had made the path a little slippery. It was no less risky to walk down the steep slope, but we were compensated by beautiful sights of snowy mountains, which were presented to us off and on. Rhododendrons were the only trees seen below. At places we also saw some green and yellow lichens and mosses over the rocks. But soon they were replaced by firs, and further below they were mixed with slender bamboos. We were constantly moving down, down and down, rapidly losing height along the trail. Occasionally Professor Haimendorf would startle us with his sudden utterance ‘Look!’ followed by his impressive exclamation of admiration, ‘Fantastic’, expressed in a very artistically meaningful manner. On the north-facing slope of the mountains, I discovered something unusual which looked like the tea bushes covering the floor at some definite stretches of the slope. So they were! Our Sherpa cook and porters told us that the bushes found there were really tea bushes growing wild, and they said that they harvested them for their use. They further disclosed that they even exported such native tea to Tibet, and added that we would find the people of Khumbu drinking this tea with butter and salt instead of milk and sugar.
Very soon we came to a stream which we could cross without much difficulty and, after climbing a small ascent, we reached the pass of Tate La from where we saw the village of Chauri Kharka. I suddenly felt much more comfortable than yesterday. I felt that I had reached where we wanted to be, our final destination, the Sherpa region. As a matter of fact, we had already met Sherpas earlier at Chyangma, Sete and Junbesi. But we were now at the gate to Khumbu, and we should soon be at Namche Bazar, and from there to Khumjung. We met the bada hakim once again, and this time he presented to us a few loaves of bread and some kalijko masu (pheasant meat). I wondered if it was a gesture of expressing his thankfulness for the handful of aspirin tablets and the subsequent relief on the previous day. We thanked him and I managed to settle an arrangement of getting replenishment of the provision on our request, if necessary, later during our long stay at Khumjung. He promised, in addition, to send us any correspondence that may be meant to be conveyed to us in future from anywhere.

Day fourteen – Tate and Ghat

Next morning we left Tate, a small village with six or seven houses. We were walking along the undulating and comparatively level ground towards the Dudh Koshi River with greenish white water. The morning sky was clear and we could enjoy the beautiful scene of magnificent snow peaks by the side of the river indicating the appropriateness of its name. Although it was one of the seven main tributaries of the Sapta Koshi River, it had a pretty narrow channel and the depth also did not look so much. The flank of the river valley with its conglomerate which, however, were not well consolidated, but clearly indicated that the level ground that we were treading upon was once the bed of the running water, thereby showing that the river was a rejuvenated one. It appeared that during its down-cutting action the river and its tributaries have left plenty of terraces, forming a number of comparatively level surfaces which have been today utilised for establishing some settlements along this very important trail. The trail along the side of the river did not show much of the natural vegetation, although a few isolated pine trees were to be seen in the midst of the green grass dotted with multicoloured flowers of all sorts. Pines became more prominent and shrubs continued to show up. At the same time there were some crops seen growing – maize, buckwheat and potatoes. They were seen all along from Tate and beyond Ghat to Monjo and Jorsale.
At Ghat we had an interesting informant. He was a 60-years -old jolly fellow who had worked at Darjeeling as a porter for twelve years. One of his sons was still working there, and another was at Calcutta. He possessed some land in and around the settlement of Ghat where he grew potatoes and buckwheat, as well as some maize. He had to serve the local residents by sewing clothes for them in order to earn some additional income. As we proceeded further, we found that buckwheat was gradually replacing the other crops and at some places the standing crop of buckwheat with crimson stems presented quite a charming scene indeed. We could see that at places people were already digging out potatoes, which were dried up and some of them turned into powder so that they would be able to prepare bread or porridge.

Day fifteen – Monjo, Jorasle, Namche Bazaar, Khunde and Khumjung

Next morning we had expected that the weather would be nice, but it was not so. We were hopeful that we would be able to see Mount Everest today and we had made up our minds to take breakfast only after we would get a glimpse of Mount Everest. Very soon we did see merely a tip of it. Since we were so close it was hidden behind the continuous wall of Lhotse-Nuptse range in front of it. It lasted only for a fleeting moment and it was soon covered by a narrow plume of the cloud which was enough to hide it from our sight. We reached Monjo and Jorsale where we saw well protected mane walls with brilliant inscriptions of the ubiquitous om mani padme hum, and very soon we reached Jorsale. After that the road was a bit steep and at places we had to go across the rocks by climbing them in a more difficult manner. We could have taken a lower route, but we were told that it was not yet winter and so we had to take a more difficult and dangerous route along which we had to negotiate big boulders without any well-trodden route that could even be called a trail.
At some places, however, the virtuous people had put up a log to use as a ladder which we would call lisnu. I don’t remember what Sherpas call it, but it was very helpful, though it required a little bit of skill to negotiate it. I think we had to climb over such big boulders at three places by such a device. For me, it was comparatively simple since such indigenous ladders were to be seen even at more accessible places – for example, to go to the upper story of a cattle-shed to bring down the straw and hay from there to feed the animals. But for the Haimendorfs, it was a little difficult to climb. We were apprehensive of a rickety bridge, although after Ghat we had found that the bridges were quite appreciably good. They were very well constructed, following the principle of cantilever bridges very skilfully. It was indeed a matter of great relief to find a similar and sturdy bridge across the Dudh Koshi River before it met the Bhote Koshi River, which was rushing forwards to join this main river just a few metres away. Now we felt very much excited to realise that we were then at the bottom of the ridge containing the settlement of Namche Bazar, and our destination was not very far from us.
Namche Bazar was quite close and, although the track climbed a steep ascent that could be crossed through a zigzag trail which was well constructed all along, we were compensated with a beautiful scene of green foliage on the slope which was enough to make us forget our hardship and we could enjoy the greenery around with beautiful stands of firs and pines along the slope. It was when we reached the edge of Namche Bazaar that we were overwhelmingly happy to feel that we had at last reached our destination after such a long and severe journey. There was a big bustle of people looking quite busy in their own affairs, and we crossed the street, some of which was paved at places with stone slabs of varying sizes. The houses were well built, and on the window eaves we saw beautiful flower pots hanging as decorations. Some of them were painted with nice colour, and pretty images were to be seen here and there. The settlement was quite compact to look at, and the site seemed like a big amphitheatre, which probably was carved by some glacial action in the past.
Without wasting much time here, we moved further to reach our final destination – Khumjung. The path was very beautiful with the rhododendrons here and there, but dominated by shapely juniper trees. The scenery around was really beautiful. Very soon we could see the gigantic view of Amadablang [Ama Dablam], Tamserku [Thamserku] and Khatega [Khangtega] on our right-hand side and equally attractive scene dominated by Kwangdi [Kongde Ri] range. We then went downwards and we were greeted by a gate which showed us the way to the twin villages of Khunde and Khumjung which are believed to have been well protected by the patron god Khumbi-hyulha [yul lha] who resides in or is represented by the lofty mountain of Khumbi-yila (19,000ft). It was not very attractive to look at and it did not contain any snow upon it, but it gave a sense of protection to the beautiful twin village of Khunde-Khumjung.

Time spent in Khumjung44

  • 44 Fürer-Haimendorf writes, ‘I stayed two months in the village of Khumjung and made a rapid (...)
  • 45 A seer and a mana are units of measurement, the former approximately 0.8kg (...)
  • 46 Malla is likely referring to one of two debates that were discussed in thos (...)

Probably Dr Evans had already sent a message of our arrival to an old acquaintance of his, Dawa Tenjing and, before we entered the village, we were met by him along with his wife Chhoten, daughter Ang Sarki and son Mingma who had come to welcome us. They were there in their gala dress and had brought with them some recently boiled potatoes and some other snacks as well as a theki (wooden container) of chhyang (rice beer). They greeted us with a very frank and gleeful smile. In reply to their courtesy, we were glad to take quite a generous quantity of what they gave us. We were pleasantly surprised at this gesture of exhibiting, at the very beginning, a very appreciably warm hospitality, indicating to us the coming prospect of a comfortable time waiting for us at this beautiful village situated at such a magnificent site so far away from the capital. Soon after such a warm welcome ceremony we were taken to Dawa Tenjing’s house. They offered us to stay in his house. But since we had to spend so many days, we rather preferred to use his land for pitching our tent and decided to spend our time of stay in the tents. They agreed.
Then immediately Mrs Haimendorf started making necessary arrangement so that we would be able to move ahead with our work in no time. There were three tents – one was for Professor and Mrs Haimendorf, one was for me, and the third was a bigger one which was used as a kitchen, and the cooks and porters also used that for themselves to spend the night. Thus, the household was well set up soon and was managed by the very deft activities of Mrs Haimendorf whom I found to be a lady of all jobs since she was equally proficient in helping Professor Haimendorf in his academic pursuit along with the upkeep of the kitchen and looking after necessary nutrition of the party. At the same time, she was very good in maintaining public relations so that our dealings with the people were soon greeted and appreciated by the local people, and it was very easy for us to elicit information from them immediately. Her public relations were much assisted by her knowledge of common diseases and their remedies. She was, however, very careful for safe treatment so she was not using any strong antibiotics and other remedies through injection. It was quite interesting and gratifying to note that even the simple penicillin ointment used to produce miraculous result in infections of these people who perhaps had not yet been used to such allopathic medicines.
Very soon we could quite easily engage ourselves in visiting the people and, since the number of houses in Khumjung were not unmanageable, Professor Haimendorf decided that we would visit almost all the houses in a month to get the necessary information. I did not see him using any questionnaire or checklist which were already printed. But his enquiry followed certain system from which it could be derived that he was well versed in putting appropriate questions to the informants without even consulting any of the already prepared forms or tables. First of all, I found him trying to find out the various divisions, if any, among the Sherpas of Khumjung because by this time he had already known from his experience at Chyangma and Junbesi on the way here the different clan names of those whom we come across among the Sherpas.
In course of conversation my main duty was to convey the essence of his question to the informant exactly as it was intended by his sentences of queries. Sometimes I had to expand what he had said elaborately so that the informant would be quite aware of what he would have to let us know in reply. At other times, since the informant was already familiar with the main topic of the inquiry, I would not repeat and made the query shorter than what Professor Haimendorf had uttered. In such particular cases when I used to put shorter questions as translations of his seemingly longer question, he used to ask me why I was asking less than what he had intended to do. I used to tell him that whatever he wanted to know was included in my question to the informant and it conveyed all the necessary information that he wanted to get in his long question. I hoped he understood it, but sometimes, when he repeated the same questions to me as to why my question was shorter than his, I had a feeling he did not think that I was conveying the entire set of information that he would like to get from the person whom we are interviewing. But later I felt that he must have understood what I meant from what he got from me. He was satisfied to find that he had got the answer regarding all the information that he needed from what I translated and conveyed to him.
Professor Haimendorf was very careful about the correctness of the information that he noted down in his record book. So, he always showed me before finalising the records and whatever he would write in his notebook. He was particularly very impressed by my memory. In the testimonial which he provided to me later, he stated that I had an ‘astounding memory’. So I used to go through whatever he wrote in his notebook. He wanted to see if he had missed any important information. In addition to the factual correction, sometimes I used to get some serious mistakes in spelling, particularly the names of the informants or some local words. For example, he used to write ‘Bim Bahadur’ for ‘Bhim Bahadur’, and ‘Kadga’ for ‘Khadga’, and ‘jail’ for ‘jhyal’ (which meant ‘window’), and I used to correct all those errors for him. It was simply a problem of specific phonetics. Similar to most English-speaking people, he failed to hear the sound of the aspirant ‘h’. That was all. But in this case, it became quite interesting to find that he started to add ‘h’s everywhere – even at those places where there was no aspirant. For illustration, he started writing ‘Khalu’ for ‘Kalu’, ‘Bhishnu’ for ‘Bishnu’, and ‘Khrishna’ for ‘Krishna’. Thus, he developed a practice of committing the mistake in a reverse manner. The only solution was simply to listen carefully and get the phonetic essence of the word that is uttered so differently. However, he started to remember how he spelled some often-repeated words and minimised the mistakes.
Another very interesting finding that I could realise in Khumjung was the ingenious solution to the impending problem of deforestation. Khumjung was a remote village far away, as they say, from civilisation, which could be least taken care of by the then administration. It was a part of the then Okhaldhunga district, which was so big and so inaccessible that people could not move around easily even if they wanted to pay a visit for any information – although at the time of our visit we could witness quite a rare incident of the enthusiastic journey of an energetic bada hakim who wanted to visit such a remote place. (It was a cold place at a very great height of about 12,000ft.) In the course of his conversation with the local people, the bada hakim happened to criticise them for their ‘ignorance’, and apparently very enthusiastically made an appeal that they should immediately make themselves literate and civilised. The Sherpa men of the locality came to my tent and requested me to teach them how to read and write since the bada hakim said that they were uncivilised. They were totally disheartened and demoralised. I did my best to raise their morale and bring their self-respect back. I even told them that they were much more civilised than most of the peoples in Nepal. I told them that they were not illiterate either, since so many of them could recite the holy texts. They looked happier. Then I told them that they were welcome to visit me later if they wanted to learn how to read and write Nepali.
At the time of our enquiry at Khunde, the wife of Ang Chhumbi, the chief of the village, had taken seriously ill with some unknown disease. She was treated by Dhamis, but there was no sign of recovery. The family was a famous one, and she was well known to many people, including even Mr Tiwari, who was at that time looking after a wireless station which was installed at Namche Bazar – like so many others erected at different strategic places close to the northern border of Nepal throughout the country as an aid from the Government of India. We used to visit Namche Bazar very often and, since it was an important market centre for the whole Khumbu region, we expected to meet people from different villages of Khumbu there. On these occasions, naturally we came into contact with Mr Tiwari, and almost every visit we used to see him and stay there for some time. In one of our visits, he told us that the Sherpas had a very low standard of living since such a well-known person did not take his wife to a better place like Patna or Calcutta for treatment. I then told him his inability to take his wife to such places as Kathmandu or Patna or Calcutta is not due to his low standard, but due to his greater belief in the art of faith healing. Later I told him that I have experienced in India – especially northern India, like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Bengal – that people may be rich, but the standard of living seemed lower than that of the average Nepali. He did not show any sign of disagreement, but said that the South Indian villages had a better standard of living, to which Professor Haimendorf immediately said that what most South Indian rich farmers would like to do is to besmear his body with coconut oil and roof his cottage with palm leaves. And we began to laugh.
A few days later the wife of the village chief passed away. We went to Khunde to participate in the mourning and to get an idea of the last rites the Sherpas would perform on such occasions. The dead body was covered by white sheets. The Shaman was already there, and he started his dance. The double-faced drum was slowly twirling. We were told that the drumming would enable him to concentrate and get in touch with the dark world of spirits. It sounded strange, but they were sure that he would be able to abolish time. We seemed at least to be watching an incidence in which the shaman was trying to transcend time and space on the basis of the special skill he was granted by some unidentified mystical power. It was believed that he was on his way to the world of the dead to find the present condition of the newly departed person, or soul as they would prefer to call it. After the rites were completed within the house, they brought the body out to place it upon a bier. It was arranged on the bier in a sitting position. There was a procession, which started from the house and moved towards the steeper slope of the hill close by. They are supposed to take the body higher to the top of the hill, as it were, very close to the sky, which perhaps indicated the silent emptiness of the space. There was a peculiar cacophonic sound of various instruments at the top of the hill. There were the long collapsible horns which were now extended to produce a weird sound of dirge in the air, along with some sharper sounds of a trumpet, which was perhaps made by people with skilful hands from human thigh bones, mixed with other milder tunes from somewhat smaller instruments. Above them all were the ubiquitous sound of the big cymbals, and the fast-beating drums, while the wind whispered through the prayer flags and the sanctified scarves at the bier.
It was now time for the final step. The lamas were diligently devoted to the recitation of the sacred texts of the dead. There were also some ritual articles around them – probably some spices, food grains and sanctified foodstuffs. Incense was still shedding soothing fragrance in the air and the heavy humming sound of the recital lent an atmosphere of serious pathos and pain with a subtle tinge of sadness, and yet a tacit acceptance of the inevitable.
In order to add some more fuel to the logs of wood that they had already brought with them from home, some of the enthusiastic mourners went inside the woods to gather some easily inflammable dry twigs. The pyre was finally prepared by stacking the logs around with funeral pyre filling the gaps that were visible in between the logs. A boy hurriedly came to me and asked me to lend my spectacles to him for ‘two minutes’. I was taken by surprise at this strange request and wanted to know why he needed them. The reply was still more astounding. He said that he wanted to initiate a sacred flame of pure fire that would not have been polluted by any earthly dirt but would have to be produced by direct rays of the sun intercepted by my glasses and brought to a narrowly concentrated focus that can be obtained there from. With this unpolluted piece of heated fire, he would kindle the twigs of the funeral pyre. He completely believed that it will guarantee the safe entry of the departed soul into the heaven. Realising his naive but extremely generous sentiment, I did satisfy his greatly benevolent and perfectly innocent wish by creating this type of fire with the help of the magnifying glass of our binocular. Fire burned with a gusto, and the smoke spiralled in the sky joining, as it were, the heaven and the earth to the great satisfaction of the onlookers who were happy to rest assured that the cremation of the mortal remains have eventually turned into ashes and the eternal soul has found its way to heaven riding the ephemeral carriage so visibly seen by everybody at the hill.
Later, after the magnificent completion of the funeral rites, we were once again taken to Ang Chhumbi’s house, which was now crowded with many guests who seem to have been drawn from varying categories of people from different parts of the region. They were not only from Khunde or Khumjung; they were from all the villages from Khumbu such as Namche, Thame, Thamute, Pangboche and Phortse. Looking at the dress they wore, along with the enormously precious jewels over some of them, they were from such distant and famous places as Solu Phaplu as well. Ang Chhumbi had invited all the villagers of the region and we were also invited to attend the funeral and also the reception, which will follow it at his house. On that occasion Tiwari, the wireless operator at Namche, also was invited there and Professor Haimendorf got an opportunity of reminding him of his statement regarding the Sherpa standard of living.
Since the guests were from different hierarchies of social and economic status, some of them were received at his room and some downstairs, while most of the villagers were entertained in his field, drawing parallel lines to guide the guests to line up and avoid any confusion while getting the food and other gifts. They were so many people there in a huge, but orderly crowd, and they were all lined up in a well-disciplined manner. Looking at the guests in the room and others spread at different places inside and outside the house, Professor Haimendorf was totally surprised and did not hesitate to declare that he had never seen such a big mass feeding anywhere else. Each of the guests was given a big bowl of cooked rice weighing one seer, a bowl of ghee, one manaof salt and a few other edibles.45 We were entertained with a bowl of Tibetan food, which contained a mixture of various delicacies, including meatballs. Some of the bowls were jade bowls, as recognised by Professor Haimendorf. So he pointed to this reception, including the mass feeding in the fields, and asked Tiwari if he still believed that such a reception would indicate a low living standard of the Sherpas. Tiwari was speechless.
In one of our conversations, we were talking about the panoramic beauty of the Khumbu area to the north with the superb peaks of Tamserku [Thamserku], Khatega [Khangtega], Amadablang [Ama Dablam], Tauje [Taboche], Nupche [Nup Tse], Lhotse, and Mount Everest [Chomolungma]. Mr Tiwari said that Indian mountains were more beautiful than the Nepalese. I was not convinced and I said to him, ‘Which part of Indian Himalayas do you think is most beautiful?’ He said, ‘Kashmir, of course’. I had visited Kashmir myself only last year, and I was definitely sure that the mountains of Kashmir were not as beautiful as these over here. I told him that if he felt that Kashmir was the most beautiful, I can compare the beauty of Kashmir and that of Nepal, and I find that Nepalese mountains are more beautiful than Kashmir. So, if Nepalese mountains are more beautiful than the most beautiful part of Indian Himalayas, and if Mr Tiwari would say that Indian Himalayas were more beautiful than Nepal, is proved to be absolutely wrong. He was indignant and said, ‘Oh! Brother, you are a Nepali so it is the love of the country that made you so partial and you are bound to say so’. I looked at Professor Haimendorf, but he said that he had not visited Kashmir. I said, ‘But you must have visited Austrian and Swiss Alps, haven’t you?’ He said, ‘Yes I have’. Then I asked Tiwari, ‘Let us ask the third person to compare the Swiss Alps and Nepalese Himalayas then find out which is more beautiful’. And I asked Professor Haimendorf to tell us his view after comparing the grandeur of Swiss Alps and Nepal Himalayas. He said, ‘Nepal Himalayas is certainly better in beauty and grandeur’. Then I turned towards Mr Tiwari and said to him, ‘What is your opinion now?’ He did not say anything.
Sometime about the middle of the month of October we were visited by two Indian gentlemen who introduced themselves as civil servants from Bombay. When I was introduced as ‘Mr Malla’ they mistook me for somebody they had heard about by the name of Lieutenant S B Malla. Mrs Haimendorf intervened and introduced me as a friend who would also help them in eliciting correct information from the local people. One of the gentlemen, called Mr Gandhi, said they had come to fulfil their desire of climbing a lofty mountain in the Himalayas, and they had selected Mount Pumori, the altitude of which is 23,494ft. Mr Gandhi, who looked more eager to speak of his experience, told us they reached up to 21,000ft. That was good and Professor Haimendorf admired the adventurous spirit of the mountaineers and opined that they should keep up the sportive spirit without feeling disappointed for not being able to succeed in reaching the top, nor should they care about who reached to the top first. They agreed, but I thought within myself that the latter opinion was the consequence, albeit an unconscious one, of the controversy that arose regarding the question which was raised about Hillary and Tenjing during the recent successful British Expedition to Mount Everest.46 Mr Gandhi had further talked about the difficult terrain they had to cross soon after Pheriche along the Khumbu glacier.
There is a notable incident at the only school of Namche Bazaar where our attention was imperceptibly drawn by a young boy who used to listen to our conversation with intense interest whenever we went there. On one of the occasions, he introduced himself as a resident of Khumjung but a student in the school there, and he could count up to a hundred in English. We also got interested in him and, in order to encourage him, we said to him, ‘Let us hear you counting’. Then he started with ‘one, two, three’ and after ‘ten’ he said ‘onety one, onety two, onety three’, and we began to laugh. He was bewildered and asked us why we had laughed. I told him it should be ‘eleven, twelve, thirteen’. He did not believe me and made a sour face, but I said to him, ‘Hey, you are a very intelligent boy and you will do well in the school and definitely be better in future as a person’. I heard about him even later in Kathmandu as the one who is reckoned as a pioneer in trekking services in Nepal. He owned the Sherpa Trekking Service. I did not personally meet him but had the pleasure of including his advertisement in our journal, The Himalayan Review, quite regularly. He was Kalden Sherpa.
While talking about Namche Bazaar, we found some people who were known better by non-Sherpa names, such as Ganesh Bahadur Sherpa and Bir Bahadur Sherpa. It was rather strange that they had such names, but on enquiry we were told that their given names were Sherpa names and these names were later adopted by them since they wanted to be enlisted as soldiers in the British army. I do not know whether they got what they wanted, or even the whereabouts of these people later, although I do have some contacts in Solukhumbu area, and they were the Namche people. I had my closer acquaintances in Khumjung and Khunde.
Another peculiarity of the Sherpas that I found to be notable was the quick absorption of the different ethnic groups in the general Sherpa society. Dorje Ngungtu was our cook, and he could speak Nepali more fluently than most of the other Sherpas that I have talked to. Although he put on the Sherpa dress, I was a little bit surprised to look at his facial appearance. He had an unusually long nose as compared to others, and his complexion was darker. Naturally, after a few days of our familiarity, I asked him how his nose was so long and pointed as compared to others. He said, ‘Babu Saheb, I am a Sherpa no doubt. But my father was not a Sherpa; he was a Chhetri’. Then I said to him, ‘But you should have taken your father’s surname and you could be a Chhetri, not a Sherpa’. Then he said, ‘My father himself became a Sherpa by marrying a Sherpa girl. This is what happens here’. Similarly, I found a similar incident at Chaurikharka about a month later on our way back. A person named Sonam whom one of our porters from Phorche [Phortse] used to call Min-Do, which meant ‘same name’. That means his name was also Sonam. He could not call him by his name because, among the Sherpas, I was told that they did not call the people having similar name by their real name. This fellow called Sonam did not look like a Sherpa, and I asked him what he was. He revealed that he was a Newar from Patan and, after his marriage with a Sherpa woman, he has now become Sherpa. I regret to say I could not go any further to investigate any other cases of such a quick absorption within a different community.
Some other interesting customs that I have found among them were their way of dealing with the problems in life in a very convenient and simple way. As I knew from them, I tend to divide the Sherpa community in two main divisions – Kha Dev and Kha Mendu, which literally meant ‘with mouth’ and ‘without mouth’, respectively. It meant that among the Kha Devs they could eat and drink from the pots polluted by the others belonging to the same group. Kha Devs would not accept to eat food polluted by Kha Mendu; thus, they felt they were above Kha Mendu, but if by any chance a Kha Dev youth would fall in love with another person in Kha Mendu group, they had a simple solution. There would be a small reception in which both Kha Dev and Kha Mendu will meet, and a Kha Dev elderly person would accept the drink from the pot polluted by the Kha Mendu youth or his guardian. Thus, the Kha Mendu youth from then onwards would be accepted by Kha Dev as equal as far as social status was concerned. Such a chance of falling in love with each other is facilitated by the existence of a social organisation called ngolok, which were usually divided into two types on the basis of the age of the members. One of them was called girbu ngolok and the other was called tikbe ngolok, which would literally mean the bigger organisation and the smaller one, respectively. In girbu ngolok the girls would be above 14, whereas in tikbe ngolokthey would be less than 14 in age. The boys, so far as I know, did not have any such organisation. They did, however, help one another for working in their agricultural activities.
The main objective of such an organisation was to help one another in any task that they would have to perform, such as cutting potato into pieces for dehydration so that they could carry the dried potatoes easily to Tibet and sell them there, or any other domestic chores and activity such as spinning, warping for weaving cloth etc. Such gatherings were very regular, and the girls met together at the house of any one member at a time by turn. For example, if a ngolok had 26 members, from A to Z one day all the 26 people will assemble at A’s house, and next day at B’s, and so on. When they would assemble there, they would work for the household where they would meet that evening. The boys would go and try to be in touch with the girls, and if it would be a genuine case of love, but not be a one-sided love or coercion, they would ask the girl in question to go and meet her boyfriend. Otherwise, they would drive the boys away.
Once they know each other, and they feel they should marry, the boy would go to his father and tell him his intention. Oftener than not, the father would agree and go to meet the girl’s parents with some presents, usually with liquor, and put forward the proposal. The other party would usually be aware of this, and if they agree to it they would happily express their acceptance and wait for another stage when the request will be made more formally. In such a way there would be a series of such occasions when the two families would meet, and finally zendi will take place and the actual marriage will be duly celebrated as the ultimate event. But before the marriage, the boy and girl would be allowed to meet together, after their would-be-marriage is approved by the parents following one or two formalities, as mentioned earlier. The boy might go and stay in his would-be-father-in-law’s house, and the girl might come to her would-be-husband’s father’s house and help her future family in times of need. By the time the final zendi would take place, she would eventually come to her boyfriend’s house along with one or two children that she would have begotten. The generally accepted rule is that the boy cannot take the girl to his house unless he would be able to construct his own house.
It was interesting to note that once the two families would start the above-mentioned series of nuptial agreement, they cannot ignore it or do anything that would indicate the breach of contract. There was a peculiar case in which the family of our host Da Tenjing was involved. A certain girl fell in love with his son and, as requested by the latter following the mutual decision of the boy and girl, the two families started negotiation. But before final stage was reached, the son went to India, probably to earn some money so that he would be able to build his own house and complete the series of nuptial agreements. Due to the communication gap for a long time, which was not so unusual considering the poor postal facilities of the time, the girl’s parents took it as a breach of trust and, as it was customary among them, they demanded that the boy’s family should allow the girl to marry the brother of the boy. Poor Mingma, the youngest son of Da Tenjing, was perplexed and frightfully worried, since the girl was almost 30 years old and he was only 18. They had not solved the problem by the time we left Khumjung.
In tikbe ngolok the [number of] members would be too small to have such amorous events, and so they would usually meet to play and sometimes help the elders. Once, however, I did have an opportunity of witnessing the tikbe ngolok in action where they were helping one another in agricultural activity. There were five girls – Ang Chhamji, Ang Pema, Nima Yangji, Suna Chhamji and Phum Yangji – who were known to me, except for Phum. They were digging or harvesting potatoes.
The only association that the boys sometimes formed was limited to mutual help working in the fields. It could be hardly compared to the elaborate function of the girbu ngolok.
We had very frequent conversations about the various things that we found during the progress of our inquiry among the community, and Professor Haimendorf and Betty would very enthusiastically discuss all these matters, comparing these events with what they had seen elsewhere. They seem to have been very much surprised and impressed by the different ways the Sherpas had the knack of solving problems without much discord. They agreed that the ngolok was really an outstanding and astounding system in the communal life of the Sherpas.
We had heard about polyandry that was prevalent among the Tibetans and the high-mountain tribes of Nepal as well. Since Sherpas were also such highlanders, we expected to find such instances of polyandry among the people at Khumbu region too. But during our conversation with them we did not get any such information at all. Professor Haimendorf had not yet deeply examined the kinship relations through genealogy of each of the households at Khumjung, probably for want of time, but now he found it necessary that he must take note of their genealogy in a more detailed manner so that untold facts could be revealed. At last, we did find at least one family at Khumjung that had been involved in polyandry. While drawing up the genealogy, we got the information of one woman having two husbands; but the two husbands were not from different families, they were from the same family – they were brothers. Incidentally, I asked the old lady how she would manage to serve two husbands. She laughed and, without any remorse at the interruption in her act of revolving the prayer wheels, she was quick to reply to me rather humorously, ‘You don’t know the common sense, Babu Saheb. When one husband lives here in our house to look after me, the other goes out and lives at the field house at the higher pasture to take care of the cattle. They do it in turns, you know’.
It was interesting to note that, although the mother could be sure of who the father was, only the elder brother would have the right to be called the father of the child, and the younger brother would always be called an uncle – no matter that he might have been the real biological father of the child. The fact that the people involved were rather old – the woman was about seventy-nine, the older brother was eighty-one and the younger was seventy-seven, and we did not find any other instances at Khumjung or Khunde –, it was surmised that the custom of polyandry was becoming unpopular among the younger people. Similarly, at Namche Bazar we also did hear about a family which had an instance of polyandry.
Now talking about the treatment of certain ailments of the members of any family, they usually called in a dhami (shaman) who would chant incantations to find out the causes of the ailment and the probable remedy to cure such problems. We attended a few performances of some dhamis at different families and most of them recommended worshipping Khumbi-hyulha[yul-lha] for getting rid of the ailments. Thus, the reverence for Khumbi-hyulha[yul-lha], the mountain God, was quite clear. In many other instances, however, they also took the name of Lu, the serpent responsible for creating the ailment in the body of the sick person in question. As if in order to verify his statement, the dhami would narrate some events that had taken place in the person’s life in the past and, strangely enough, the family usually replied in affirmative; that means he, in this way, would prove himself a real dhami, capable of being a proficient seer who would be equally correct in his predictions in future as well. The only remedy therefore would be to follow his prescription and please the stone which represented the Lu that was causing ailment to the sick person.
Sometimes the remedial measure might be the prescription of some puja(worship) in a house, which would be performed with various means, including the offer of incense and reciting holy texts by the qualified lamas. Together with all other paraphernalia, such as beating drums and sounding of cymbals while reciting such holy texts, I was very much surprised to find that the lamas were served champa[tsampa], the special porridge prepared from barley flour along with the tea with butter and salt. It was quite different from what our priests would perform in our society, and, as a young man of twenty, I was extremely surprised and said to myself, ‘If a priest can eat while performing the rites and turn the pages of the book without washing his hands and mouth it would be easier to undergo any such acts’. In this way, as a fresh graduate student who had just passed the MA examination of the university, I had not yet lost the habit of taking notes while listening to the lecture of the college teachers. I could record in my notebook all these performances in detail so that not a single act would probably be lost without being noticed and duly recorded in my notes. When I showed this to Professor Haimendorf, he was surprised at the unexpectedly detailed descriptions of the sequences of the performance of the lamas in this event of purifying the affected house of the person.
To add to my experience in Khumjung, I would like to mention to you some other incidences and people involved in them. There was a very well-known painter, Kalden Gurung. Obviously, as his surname indicated, his father was probably a Gurung (I did not verify it) and he was very easily assimilated in the Sherpa community. His talent of painting the religious subjects was very much regarded and appreciated by the big lamas of the Gumba at Khumjung, and he was known even to the higher lamas of the Thyangboche. Recently, I have heard he is no more, and his son has inherited the talent and he is also known equally as a renowned painter. He is also called Khapa, which simply means ‘painter’. I am afraid I don’t know his name. The Monastery of Khumjung itself is still today known as an important Gumba of the region, and most of the paintings were said to have been prepared by Khapa Kalden.
A notable figure of Khumjung of the time was a gentleman called Sum Dokpa. I was told that it was not his real name; he was called so because of his three-storied house which was a unique building at the time at Khumjung. Apparently, he was regarded as a very rich person in the village.
There were some other enterprising young men such as Zambuk, Mingma, Rinzin Ang Damey, Asharap and Anulu. Zambuk later was reportedly in Kathmandu and owned a hotel somewhere around Gausala. Mingma was an energetic young man with a dream of getting an opportunity for proving himself to be a competent expeditionist. Rinzin was hoping to go overseas to serve the whites. Ang Damey looked a more sophisticated young lad as compared to the other young men of his time. Asharap was a very influential lama whose daughter for some time worked for us as a cook. She was more forward than most of the girls of her time, and she had been to Darjeeling and was supposed to have better exposure to the outside world compared to her friends at Khumjung. Anulu was well known for his familiarity with different expeditions, especially Shipton, whom he served during his expedition to Mount Everest.
I think the peculiar practice of cross breeding yaks was altogether an exclusively innovative strategy of the Sherpas as successful traders. I take it as a notable thing about the Sherpas of Khumbu which might have been a general characteristic of other places as well, but I do not know any other place in detail. They usually crossed the male yak with a cow and produced jobkyo (male) and zum (female). Jobkyo had no reproductive power, but possessed a more enviable physique and strength as compared to a pure yak. They were tall, smoother in skin with less fluffy hair, and could plough the fields and carry the load much more efficiently than an ordinary yak. And whenever the Khumjung traders would go to Tibet through Nangpa La, they would carry the load without any difficulty. During the time when the Dalai Lama ruled over Tibet, cross-breeding was not allowed there for some reason or other, maybe for theological reason. But since the jobkyo was known to be hardier, stronger and more useful as a beast of burden, they liked to possess such animals. Hence, the Khumjung people had a ready market for their live animals, which were in high demand in Tibet. Peculiarly enough, however, zumcould reproduce when they were mated with bulls or yaks although the offspring would not live long. However, the Sherpas had a device of tricking the lactating mother zum by showing the stuffed carcass of the child and getting the milk from her. Peculiarly enough, we were told that a zum would produce as much as six times the quantity of milk as an ordinary nak (female yak) would do. Thus, both zum and jobkyos were regarded as precious commercial products by the Khumjung people.
We had very little time to spare at Khumjung, and it was supposed to be a preliminary general anthropological survey, but Professor Haimendorf believed in a thorough examination of an ethnic group from top to bottom and from inside and outside to produce an authentic piece of work. He had been reminding himself time and again, and he wanted to gain maximum information in the minimum time that was available to us. So, at the very outset he wanted to have a synopsis of what the Sherpas did in a year in terms of their social and economic activities.
Although the period of cultivation of course is short, between May and September, the only time when this area is not under snow, the economy is mainly based on agriculture. So, one part of the economy is agriculture. The other equally important component is animal husbandry, and mainly the breeding of yaks. The third is trade because in these very high areas, without some kind of additional income, the population really would not survive. So, they have to carry on trade as well, apart from breeding yak and growing buckwheat and potatoes. In the south they have an almost sedentary population of Rais who have a shortage of kerosene, oil and salt. So, they have developed themselves to be competent intermediaries between the grain-growing areas of Nepal and wool and salt rich areas of Tibet. And they were placed favourably near the higher passes like Nangpa La so that they could transport the grain from the lower areas into Tibet and they could bring from Tibet such commodities as salt and wool to Nepal. So, they played the triple role of agriculturists, cattle breeders and traders at the same time. Their range of migration is very high. During winter they went to lower parts of the country, or sometimes even as far down as India, and during summer they went to Tibet. After the recent ascent of Mount Everest, they may be getting some more diversification of employment.
Thus, we could get a glimpse of their activities as shown below:

Table 1: Annual cycle of socio-economic activities of Sherpas

Month

Socio-economic activities

Nepali English Sherpa
Baishakh April- – May Dawa Sumba Potato-sowing week 1 – buckwheat-sowing week 4 – cattle* start to high pastures – house construction – basket making
Jeth May – June Dasira Some go for trade tour – some to high pasture – weeding – house construction and basket making – wood collection – yak shearing
Asar June – July Dangawa Dumje – weeding, wood collection, all cattle to high pasture; house construction
Shravan July – Aug Dawathukba Cutting grass and keeping at sheds in pasture – many people to high pasture – mating season for yaks and cows
Bhadra August – Sept Dawa Dumba Potato and buckwheat harvesting at Tesinga – Khumjung almost empty
Ashwin Sept – October Gepa Harvest of potato, buckwheat and turnip – cattle to Khumjung at the end of the month and kept in shed – sheep shearing
Kartik October – Nov Guwa All cattle in village – some to Tibet for exporting hides, food grain, ghee (butter), calves and import salt – some collect wood
Mangsir Nov – Dec Chuwa Snowfall starts – to Nepal Valley, India for trade – cattle in village – stall feeding – hay
Poush Dec – Jan Chuchiwa Plenty of snow in village – all confined indoors – no activities
Magh Jan – Feb Chuniwa Losar
Phagun Feb – Mar Thangbu Go to lower villages for barter with food grain, mainly maize, millet – spinning and weaving
Chaitra March – April Niwa To lower countries to the south for trading – spinning and weaving

* Cattle – This term in this account includes yak, nak, jum and jobkyos as well.

In the meantime, we were very much impressed by a very admirable way of protecting the forest and thereby the physical environment of the villages of Khumbu. They had managed to establish a social organisation called sing-o-ngawa, which literally meant the headman for woods. He was responsible for the regulation of the supply of wood necessary for carrying out the various activities in the villages, such as meeting the daily demand for firewood for the households, as well as occasional need of the villagers for constructing their houses for personal use, and for repairing gumbas or some other similar structures for communal interest. It was an example of what may be called ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ at such a remote place which, owing to its cold climate with longer growing period, needs a very careful management of forest on one hand, and at the same time judicious system of supplying firewood for cooking food and keeping their rooms warm on the other.
A very admirably hospitable character as they have, they do not allow any visitor to leave them without being entertained with some food. As soon as we would enter their house, they would immediately put a pot filled with potatoes and water on the ever-ready fire. After getting the required information, if we would get up to leave with due apology, they would hold our clothes and stop us from leaving, and if we would insist by saying to them that we had no time since we would have to visit others too, they would bring down the steaming pot and serve the hot potatoes to us, insisting that we eat them and they would not allow us to leave without eating. We could hardly afford to be discourteous to the host, so we would have to eat them even if the steaming potatoes would burn our tongue, while at the same time most of them would be virtually raw. Thanks either to my youthful stamina or to the cold climate of the high-altitude environment, I could digest the enormous amount of big white potatoes that I managed to consume almost every day without any notable gastric complaints.
It was very unfortunate that we could not witness any important festival such as Losar or Dumje. But I do remember watching and partaking in a minor festival in which we went around from door to door singing and begging for alms. I am sorry I cannot remember its name, but I do remember a refrain that we repeated again and again while singing; it was Yaa…weeh, which perhaps meant ‘I beg’. The little money thus collected would then be spent for some useful purpose, and if there would be any food materials, we would eat them collectively with relish.
However, I had an opportunity to watch a festival that was called lhachhodu. It was then mid-October and we were later told that it was celebrated about four times in a year. On that day, as soon as I came out of my tent in the morning, the general atmosphere of the village was quite different and surprisingly pleasant; the bleak ground was much whiter than ever before; there were herds and herds of animals in the front yard of almost every house; they seemed to be wearing long coats of white colour since their bodies were almost completely covered with frost.
Before my startled eyes had completed to survey the scenery so spread wide in front, my ears were attracted by a weirdly mixed sound produced by shrill clapping of cymbals and incessant beating of drums intermingled with the heavy throaty voice produced by a chorus recitation of holy hymns. Very soon our nose got the pleasantly mild smell of incense that was unmistakably coming from the burning of young juniper leaves. At some houses the girbu girls were offering incense to lu, the serpent deity, while some men were climbing the shingle roof of their dwellings to fix the tharsing flag to get blessings from all deities. All the villagers, rich or poor, had put on their best dress – all ready for the socio-religious festival of the day. Inside the house there were torma placed systematically on a side table for worshipping. I drew a sketch of the various decorations there so that we could ask the lamas about them later. Torma, by the way, is the idol prepared from cooked rice in different shapes and sizes to represent the deities and supernatural objects worshipped on such occasions.
This lhachhodu indicated that the cattle have been allowed to enter and stay in the village for a certain amount of the time. This reminded us of the difficult life that the Sherpas have to lead in Khumbu. They cannot keep their livestock in the village for the entire year mainly because they cannot afford stall-feeding for want of space. So, it has become compulsory that they take their cattle away to save the standing crops in the villages, on one hand, and utilise the nutritious fodder to be found at higher altitudes in the alpine pastures on the other. No doubt it is a strenuous task, but the practice of moving the livestock from one temporary shed to other in rotation is an excellent innovative task ingenuously discovered, meticulously planned and properly implemented by the local people under stress which has in return brought about an exemplary grazing practice, reduction of adverse effects on vulnerable grazing spots, and maximization of efficiency of livestock rearing and production practice so essential for the Sherpas to survive in their difficult and harsh environment.
Our stay at Khumjung was coming to an end soon, and we had not yet been out of the village to feel the life of the Sherpas elsewhere in Khumbu. So, we decided to visit some places to the north-west corner of the region. At first, we went to Tesingha [Tashinga] where we were invited by Ang Pemba to stay at his goth(cowshed). It did not look like a shed, but it was a fairly well-built house where we were entertained with good food. Towards the evening, we were surprised by an unexpected visit of the host’s daughter who suddenly appeared there with a newly born baby. She had come all the way down from the higher shed in the alpine pasture.

Day sixteen – Phortse

Next morning we headed towards Thyanboche [Thyangboche], but turned left to Phortse where we met Sun Tenjing and Sonam who knew Dr Charles Evans and Eric Shipton, the famous mountaineers, very well. Phortse was a fairly well-populated village situated at an elevated site at the confluence of the Imja Khola from the east and Dudh Koshi headwaters from the north. We spent the night there checking our notes with those two informants mainly about the clans and their relationships. I was more fascinated by its physical geography than its social or cultural findings. The wide ledge on which the settlement was situated was unusually flat land, which was now neatly walled or fenced agricultural plots of different sizes. The flat ledge itself was probably the product of deep vertical down-cutting by the rejuvenated rivers acting upon their own beds.

Day seventeen – Thyanboche [Thyangboche]

Next morning found us climbing the steep trail to Thyanboche [Thyangboche] which is a small village but containing a very well-known monastery of Khumbu, located at nearly 13,000ft above sea level. The structure was known to have been built in 1923. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1934 but subsequently rebuilt. Thyanboche [Thyangboche] has a panoramic view of the Himalayan Mountains, including the well-known peaks of Tawoche, Everest [Chomolungma], Nuptse, Lhotse, Ama Dablang [Ama Dablam], Thamserku and Khatega [Khangtega]. Mani Rimdu is one of the most fascinating Buddhist festivals of Solukhumbu district. It is observed every year usually in November (exact date to be fixed by lunar calendar) in this monastery. Lamas and Sherpas gather at the monastery for five days ‘for the good of the world’. One can witness different kinds of acts, plays, masked dances, prayers and feasts. Demons are quelled and the virtuous are rewarded. The festival is known to be very colourful, but we could not see it. Mani Rimdu is regarded as a re-creation of legendary events: the establishment of Buddhism in Tibet by the great saint Guru Rimpoche (Padmasambhava). Through the dances, symbolic demons are conquered, dispelled or converted to dharma protectors, as positive forces clash with those of chaos. It is said that the dances convey Buddhist teachings on many levels – from the simplest to the most profound – for those who do not have the opportunity to study and meditate extensively.
Close by there was a small settlement called Dewoche where the celibate nuns would stay and pray. It had a very calm, quiet and serene atmosphere. The purity of the place was enhanced by the presence of freely roaming wild birds. There were a few monals(Himalayan pheasants), which added to the sanctity of the nunnery and the spontaneous acceptance of celibate life therein. Despite the various teachings of the virtuous way at the monasteries, if by any chance some monk would slip and fall prey to the worldly pleasure and lust and would like to go back to the mundane life of ordinary household, they could confess and ask for forgiveness and lead a life of their own choice. For such a fallen pair there was close by a village called Milinggo where they could go and stay.
We were on the main trail to the Everest Base Camp but that was not our destination. We had almost taken a vow that we were there to study human beings, and we should be always so alert that we should not be carried away by any non-human temptations, such as glory of natural beauty that would be found in plenty in our surroundings there and then. We were not mountaineers; we were anthropologists and human geographers.

Day eighteen – Pangboche

Next day we went to Pangboche, which is situated at an altitude of 13,074ft. We visited the famous monastery, which contained the yeti scalp. We were allowed to look at it. I do not know how far the Sherpas believed it, but I could not. It looked like a scalp of a bear or a large monkey. However, we did not express our doubt there.

Day nineteen – Dingboche and Khumjung

Next day we proceeded towards Dingboche. It was a very sparsely populated area, but the Amadablang [Ama Dablam] was so close and the view was simply magnificent. The Imja Khola looked so small, but it had a fairly wide flood plain which was cultivated as can be judged from the small fields, though at that time it looked so bleak and vacant. We had our breakfast there, and we returned to Khumjung.

Day twenty and additional days – Khumjung, Thame and Thamute

Then after staying at Khumjung for a few days more, we went on to a next visit. This time we went to Thame, Thamute and a little up north on the way to Nangpa La. At Thame at an altitude of 12,000ft there is the Dechen Gumba monastery which is built rather precariously on a very steep cliff overlooking the village. It was claimed that the monastery was already about 500 years old. We were told that Thame was an important part of the vast spiritual wealth of Tibetan Buddhism and of Nepal. Another interesting piece of information that we got there was that Tenjing Norgay, who had recently climbed the highest peak of the world, Mount Everest, along with Edmond Hillary, was born in some village near Thame, presumably Thamute.
Now it was about time that we should leave Khumjung to catch up with the other assignment of collecting preliminary information about the other groups of Nepalese people. Dorje Ngungtu, our cook, suggested that the people of Khunde-Khumjung have already developed such a very keen familiarity with all the members of our team that we should celebrate this occasion of our stay which they had felt unusually cordial by inviting all the villagers to a programme of singing and dancing by contributing a very small amount of money to meet the expenses for providing some amount of local alcoholic drink. We readily agreed to it. It was arranged and it was met with great appreciation. There was only one case of overdrinking. A young man happened to take a little more beyond his capacity, but before he created any uncomfortable scene, his sister, Ang Chhamji, and I helped him to leave the place; we virtually dragged him to his house. Otherwise, the celebration went very smoothly. The Haimendorfs, however, did not stay long and I had to stay on to play host to the pleasant party which lasted a little beyond midnight.
Next day it was the topic of the day for the Khumjung people, whoever we met, and they were not tired of talking about it, wherever we went. We were invited by our host, Da Tenjing, very logically since we were leaving the following morning and we had packed everything. That evening Ang Sarki, whom I called Aji Sarki (older sister), handed over to me a newly woven woollen monkey cap which she said was a present so that I would remember Khumjung even after I would reach home and meet my own close relatives. I was touched by her affectionate gesture, and I wanted to respond with a similar expression of appreciation. But I was totally helpless since I did not have anything that I could give her to reciprocate. And I did not have any money with me. I was myself surprised that I was completely without a penny, and it was so strange that I had never felt its absence for all those days that I had spent with the Haimendorfs. Then suddenly I remembered that once Aji Sarki was looking at a mirror that I had with me, and I took it out from my bag and presented it to her. After all I did not have to look into the looking glass when I was travelling since, following the bearded mountaineers, after sending my special cook back to Kathmandu from Rishingo I had stopped shaving my beard.
Next morning we left our second home, Khumjung, I must admit, with a very heavy heart. The villagers had formed a long line on both sides of the trail. Some of them had also flowers in their hands. Even some dirty faced girls had washed their faces and made themselves so beautiful, and usually shabbily dressed uncouth-looking boys had shown up with bright faces and fairly neat clothes. Their uncles and aunties, parents and grandparents had also come to bid us farewell. I said to all of them, ‘thuche, thuche’, and I promised them that we would come again. But I could not keep my promise. I am, however, so glad that Professor Haimendorf did go there and stayed with them for a longer period of time after a few years.
Thus ended our stay at the beautiful village of Khumjung trying to get some preliminary information on the Sherpas so that SOAS [School of Oriental and African Studies] would be facilitated to prepare its future academic programmes in a more fruitful manner.
On our return journey we did collect some pertinent information about Magars (Kharikhola-Jubing Area), Rais (Kanku), Sherpas (Phaphlu), Gurungs (Rumjatar), Newars (Okhaldhunga, Sanghutar), Tamangs (Tamchet) etc. Later we also collected further information about Newars (Nala), Brahmins and Chhetris (Tusal), and Hyelmo [Hyolmo/Yolmo] Sherpas (Tarkayghyang, Sermathang). It was sometime soon after Christmas 1953 that our task came to an end, for the time being.

Part 2. The Bureaucrat-Scholar

GKC/ALJ: Fascinating. Very soon after you returned from the Sherpa world you flew to England to complete a Bachelor of Letters (BLitt) in Human Geography. What was the thesis you submitted at Oxford? Why did you choose the specific topic ‘Human Geography of Nepal Valley’?

  • 47 According to Ratna Shamsher, Malla was well regarded among his peers for his expertise in (...)
  • 48 Upendra Man Malla travelled with Fürer-Haimendorf for three months. To reach his stated t (...)

UMM: You know already that my thesis was on the ‘Human Geography of Nepal Valley’. Human geography is a very interesting as well as an important subject for Nepal. Do you mean to say that I should have chosen some other topic? Or are you asking me this question perhaps because, as a student, I was more inclined towards physical geography. That is true, and I had chosen geology and cartography47 as my special subjects in my BA Honours degree (1951) as well as my MA (1953) at Patna University, and actually I was earlier thinking of undertaking research on themes pertaining to physical aspects. But later I felt that it will be too difficult, if not hardly possible, to do my fieldwork on those topics, particularly if I get my admission to a university so far away from my country. But I must admit that I was very much encouraged to switch over to human geography also because of what I gained from Professor Haimendorf, the well-known anthropologist from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London University, since I was with him for four months48 helping him to collect and analyse the information about the peoples of Nepal and we had covered mostly the part of Nepal lying between Kathmandu and the then district of Okhaldhunga (which covered the land from Sun Koshi up to Mount Everest). I was startled to see how different the lifestyles of the different ethnic groups were, although the type of physical environment they lived in and around was not very different, which indicated that physical factors alone do not determine the activities of human beings. The difference was mostly reflected in the agricultural activities, the main occupation of the people as the primary source of livelihood.

GKC/ALJ: After your assistantship with Professor Haimendorf, and before leaving for Oxford, you became involved in government service, serving from 1954 to 1957 in the Ministry of Commerce as Deputy of the Acting Secretary. Can you tell us how you became enrolled in this position? Also, what were your main roles and responsibilities?

  • 49 In this position, Malla was responsible for developing policies regarding comme (...)
  • 50 Bhim Bahadur Pande (1916–1992) was a leading development planner and statesman (...)
  • 51 Note that Malla preferred the spelling ‘Shumsher’ when referring to this hereditary Rana (...)

UMM: As a matter of fact, I joined the Nepal government service as a staff member of the Ministry of Planning and Development in February 1954. Later, in July 1954, I was posted to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce as a deputy secretary. After a few months, in November or December in the same year, I was asked to work at the Commerce Ministry as its acting secretary in the absence of any secretary of the ministry.49 At the Ministry of Planning and Development, although I was given the duty of coordinating foreign aid issues (mainly, the USA and India), I used to help the secretary Bhim Bahadur Pande,50 on various other issues as well. By the way, Himalaya Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana,51 who was at that time finance secretary, used to call me ‘lad of all jobs’. At that time the US agency was called United States Operation Mission (USOM).
At the Ministry of Industry and Commerce I used to look after the commerce portion (Civil Supplies and Central Purchase). At that time there was no central bank of Nepal and we had to face difficulty in providing foreign currency for trade overseas. We could not issue the import license to our traders; all that we could do was to scrutinise the applications submitted by the importers to the Department of Civil Supplies at the Ministry of Commerce and send them to the government of India through our Nepalese Embassy in New Delhi with our recommendation. So I had drafted a policy of issuing the license to Nepalese importers by providing them foreign currency partly from what we had earned and deposited at the Reserve Bank of India and partly from what, after due consultation with the government of India, we would arrive at a mutual agreement. Every six months, at the time when the government of India would declare their Import Trade Policy, they should mention the amount of foreign currency that we would have jointly agreed upon earlier to set aside for our importers. It was still under discussion at the cabinet when I left for the UK.
The Department of Central Purchase, another department under the Ministry, was responsible for procuring all the materials as demanded by different ministries and their departments under the government of Nepal.

GKC/ALJ: In addition to your experience in government, you have a long career in teaching, starting from 1957 to 1979 as a geography professor at Tri Chandra College. Can you tell us about your experience as a professor — what was the educational environment, teacher-student relationships, and student politics at that time?

  • 52 At this time, Patna University regulated all aspects of educational life in Nepal, includ (...)

UMM: Yes, after I came back from the UK, I reported my arrival to the government, but I was not posted anywhere for some time. I used to be asked to help at different ministries, as if to fill the gaps for the time being. According to the then practice, for the time I would not be posted anywhere or deputed for any duty I would not get my special pay. I must explain this here. Those days there were only three posts in the gazetted officer’s group namely, secretary, deputy secretary, and assistant secretary: the secretary’s salary was Rs400/- (pay 200/- + special pay 200/-), the deputy secretary’s Rs350/- (pay 200/- + special pay 150/-), and the assistant secretary’s Rs275/- (pay 200/- + special pay 75/-).
Thus, I would not get my special pay if I am not posted anywhere. Then, just as a routine formality, I requested the then Prime Minister Dr K I Singh post me to some suitable place. But I must say he was very prompt in his response; apparently, he sent his directive to the concerned offices immediately, since I received a letter from the Ministry of Education that I should go there and collect my letter of appointment at Tri Chandra College. I did not accept the offer right away since the salary mentioned in the letter was much lower than what I was getting at that time – it was only Rs200/- (salary Rs180 + dearness allowance, Rs20), whereas I was getting Rs350/- as deputy secretary and Rs400/- when working as acting secretary.
So, since from the very beginning my interest was in serving the country as a teacher rather than an administrator, I advised them to send me to the college on deputation for the time being so that my salary would not be less than what I was getting then. They did as advised and I started teaching not as a lecturer but as deputy secretary. In the meantime, I requested the Ministry of Finance settle my salary according to the rules and regulations. They did and, taking into consideration my academic performance, along with that of Dhruva Man Amatya, our post and salary were fixed as professor at Rs396/- (without any other allowance).
Well, I did get a job of my interest in this way; teaching was what I wanted for my career, so naturally I was happy all through and I am sure my students were very happy too, I guess. The educational environment was quite good. The students in our department were very serious in their studies and I did not find them actively engaged in any student movements even when others were sometimes trying to instigate them. The only snag was the course of study we had to follow. Our college was then affiliated to Patna University52 and we had to follow the course of study that was prescribed there. Our students did not study any geography of Nepal but when I taught physical geography, I used to provide examples from Nepal as much as possible and take the students to different places in Nepal for field excursions with an intention to supplement their studies in the classroom. So many field visits were not prescribed in the course but I took the students to places close by to let them have exposure to the real world.
There used to be one compulsory field excursion for which there was a provision for some funding from the government to meet the expenses that would be incurred during this fieldwork, which, however, would not be adequate, but we did not want to put the burden of expense on the students. So, we used to take them to various places on foot only as far as we could afford (see figure 4). We carried our load ourselves and we teachers did not claim our daily allowance (DA) and travel allowance (TA) but spent the money very carefully. We used to take the intermediate students for less than a week and the bachelor students for less than a fortnight. It was only once when we had one very well-to-do student in B A that we managed to take them to Muktinath since we could ask him to provide his vehicle to Pokhara without hurting our fund and on that occasion our excursion virtually started from, and ended in, Pokhara. It lasted for 17 days.

Fig 5: Upendra Man Malla relaxing with students during a geographical excursion sometime in the late 1960s.

Fig 5: Upendra Man Malla relaxing with students during a           geographical excursion sometime in the late 1960s.

Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.

  • 53 Dorothy Mierow (1920–2000) arrived in Nepal in 1962 with the first group of Peace (...)
  • 54 This vague sentence was all Malla was interested in saying on the subject of student poli (...)

The Department of Geography of Tri Chandra College at that time was regarded as the Central Department of Geography for all the geography teachers and students of other colleges, especially for those of Prithvi Narayan College in Pokhara and Bhaktapur College in Bhaktapur. It was perhaps on May 1962 when I had taken the students of geography of Tri Chandra College to Pokhara. At that time, I had sent Ms Dorothy Mierow, a very generous lady from Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, who had come to serve Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer, to teach geography at that college.53 She was a very proficient teacher particularly in natural vegetation, wildlife distribution, and could contribute a lot in the field of the environment and tourism. When I was there, I gained quite a lot of information about geographical peculiarities of the Pokhara valley and, despite the problem of transportation, my students enjoyed their fruitful visit with great enthusiasm. The students of Prithvi Narayan College also joined our group and went along with us on all trips to Baidam including the area which is well known as Phewa Lakeside today, Sarang Kot, Hyangja, Chamero Odhar (Bats’ cave), Begnas and Rupa Tals, and the river from where they brought drinking water for Pokhara. Taking advantage of my presence there, Dorothy hastened to take the opportunity to get her teaching of the practical portion of the course examined by me. There were some shortcomings and I told them how to deal with them and even invited them to visit us at Tri Chandra College, whenever possible.
Dorothy virtually fell in love with Pokhara and she spent much of her active life there in service of the college and its students. As a matter of fact, she must get credit for changing the life course of some of the students. One of them is Chandra Prasad Gurung who could continue his higher studies under her guardianship in Nepal (Pokhara and Kathmandu) and the USA (Colorado Springs and Honolulu). By the way, Dorothy donated a greater part of the money she inherited from her parents in building very useful things in the College, of which the famous Natural History Museum is very important for its educative value. I hear it is now well looked after by Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP).
In 1967, geology also was introduced at Tri Chandra College and I was asked to accept the added responsibility of looking after its management as Head of the Department of Geography and Geology so that it would be well established with well qualified and competent manpower and appropriate equipment, as well as the necessary text books and reference materials. Later, the task was handed over to Bishwa Man Pradhan, who was well known in the government Department of Geology as an expert in palaeontology since his field of research in the USA was the fossils of the Cretaceous period in and around the state of Arizona. It was then that the Department of Geology got its separate existence.
Well, student politics was there and I should say more so perhaps because the politicians had no other outlet for any critical political discussion. But when I was at Tri Chandra College, I did not feel much of it to any active extent. There was, however, one [event] which was triggered by some behaviour of a DIG [deputy inspector general of police] in one of the cultural programmes of the students of the college at the Rastriya Nach Ghar.54

GKC/ALJ: During your tenure as a geography professor, you also served as an advisor to the Nepal Government on topics such as the delineation of Nepal into 75 development districts and 14 zones. Can you explain to us your experience working simultaneously as an educator and advisor to HMG? Importantly, how do you think your teaching in geography influenced your work with HMG, or, alternatively, how do you think your work with HMG influenced your teaching?

  • 55 The report produced by the Committee in 1961 gives the committee the title ‘Bikas Jilla e (...)
  • 56 The ZDDDC included Chair Vishwabandhu Thapa and member Jagatbahadur Budathiki, (...)

UMM: Yes, you are right. But I would not like to call myself an advisor. I received a letter from the then Ministry of National Guidance in July 1961 stating that a Zone and Development District Division Committee55 had been set up with seven members,56 including myself as member-cum-secretary. I accepted it as an honour and started our work immediately (see figure 6). It was not difficult to work simultaneously at the college and the committee, since the subject matter was well within my sphere of interest and I took it as an opportunity of helping the government in their attempt to bring about a change in the development planning. As a matter of fact, I could see in this endeavour a tacit attempt to start regional planning in the government for balanced socio-economic development of the country. My teaching helped me to lend theoretical weight to the concept of regionalism on the one hand and to add to what I knew about my country, wider knowledge through discussion with other members of the committee and with knowledgeable persons from different walks of life in different districts. It was why I could venture to put forward a proposal of only 7 zones instead of 14, and only 45 districts instead of 75. I still do not know how and why, and from where the idea of 14 zones and 75 districts came. But my colleagues did not want to discuss the numbers since they were regarded almost as predestined and His Majesty the King had already declared that he was soon going to divide the country into 14 zones and 75 development districts for planning and development purposes, and it would be futile to suggest anything against the proclamation. I could not understand it. I was confident that if I was given the opportunity to talk to the King, I would have been able to convince His Majesty to change the number prescribed to the committee. If they would have listened to me each of the seven zones would have the three main ecological belts in it and probably Harka Gurung would not have to waste his time developing the four Development Regions (which became five later). By the way, we used [to] invite Dr Toni Hagen as advisor.

Fig 6: Upendra Man Malla is standing to show the map of development districts and zones to King Mahendra, who is seated at the desk. The map delineating Nepal into 75 development districts and 14 zones had been prepared by Upendra Man Malla and members of the Development District and Zone Division Committee.

Fig 6: Upendra Man Malla is standing to show the map of           development districts and zones to King Mahendra, who is seated at           the desk. The map delineating Nepal into 75 development districts           and 14 zones had been prepared by Upendra Man Malla and members of           the Development District and Zone Division Committee.

Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.

GKC/ALJ: From 1979 to 1989 you served in the National Planning Commission (NPC). Can you tell us how you entered into service at the NPC? How did your positions and main roles and responsibilities change over the decade that you worked in the NPC? What is your opinion on the significance of the National Planning Commission to Nepal, especially in regard to local development?

  • 57 Under heading 6 of the Sixth Plan, ‘To increase the absorptive capacity of the economy, s (...)

UMM: What do you mean by ‘how’? Well, I was appointed by His Majesty when there arose the need to fill the gap which was created after a member looking after regional planning was promoted vice-chairman. Yes, I think I was responsible for changing the distribution of work among the members from what may be called functional to sectoral. We were three members: one of us was responsible for programmes, the second would look after monitoring and evaluation, while the third would take care of the general economy. I found it rather odd to realise that a person who was not directly involved in preparing a plan had to take the responsibility of monitoring the implementation and evaluation of the total operation of those planned activities. So later, one member was given the responsibility for the green sector (agriculture, forest etc), another looked after the social sector (education, health, drinking water etc), and the third would take care of infrastructures (energy, transport and communication etc). That was a better arrangement.
The Sixth Plan period, as you know, coincided with the national referendum which was called by King Birendra in May 1979 in response to the unabated political demonstration and general unrest to determine the future form of government – either a continuation of the partyless panchayat system, with prospects for further reform, or a multiparty system, a parliamentary system of government run on a party basis. It was held on 2 May 1980, and about 70 percent of eligible voters participated. The panchayat system with reform was chosen with a majority of 54.7 percent of the votes. His Majesty felt that he got a clear mandate from the people to go ahead politically with his improved form of partyless panchayat system and he was now eager to see that he would get similar support from the people for a democratic system of development by the people, with the people, for the people. And he was very eager to see that the newly adopted concept of people’s participation in planning and development should be properly introduced.
It had already been mentioned in the concept paper for the Sixth Plan that the district-level plan during the period will be formulated and implemented with people’s participation through the District Development Committee with the help of local bodies and local people by mobilising local resources along with the support received from the government.57 It was envisaged that, for every rupee of the government grant, people will be mobilising four rupees on average. When I joined the commission, the districts were already informed about the new concept and questionnaires were duly sent to them mainly to get information about their needs and willingness to mobilise the resources, as well as to get their pledge for contribution. Since time was short, I went through the few forms already filled in and received at the office. Not unexpectedly, the pledges varied a lot in terms of the ratio of the pledged contribution as compared to the government support. On the basis of my analysis, I suggested two changes – one was to let local-level bodies take the responsibilities for smaller district-level projects on an experimental basis for the sixth-plan period, and the second was to reduce the ratio between the local contribution and the grant to be provided by the government. In other words, only the projects having less gestation period, say one year, will be put aside as local-level projects and the ratio will be expected to be 2:1 instead of 4:1. In the meantime it will be very necessary that the local bodies will be enabled to perform the expected task properly through training and workshops so that in the years to come in the subsequent plan periods they could safely hand over the responsibilities. It was agreed.

Fig 7: Upendra Man Malla exchanging greetings with King Birendra. The photograph was taken while Upendra Man Malla was a member of the National Planning Commission.

Fig 7: Upendra Man Malla exchanging greetings with King           Birendra. The photograph was taken while Upendra Man Malla was a           member of the National Planning Commission.

Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.

GKC/ALJ: A major responsibility of the NPC is to assist in formulating National Development Plans. During your time at the NPC, HMG proposed the 6th and 7th Plans. Can you tell us about your engagement in formulating the 6th and 7th Plans? Is there any specific thing that you would like to share about the process of making these plans about which the public may not be aware?

  • 58 Narayan Khadka (1988: 558) describes the mechanism by which development and planning were (...)

UMM: I like your choice of word ‘assist’. The National Planning Commission is an advisory body. But very few people realise it because it is regarded as a ‘think tank’, a very important body manned by very well-known people of society, who are known to have excellent record in academic field as well as in the practical application of their knowledge in the speedy development of the nation and its people. I do not think I have much to say about it or throw any further light about it. It was for this reason that worthy people were chosen on the basis of their knowledge and contribution in appropriate fields.58

GKC/ALJ: Reflecting on your experiences in HMG Nepal, what plans or policies did you contribute to that make you most proud today?

  • 59 Himalaya Shumsher JB Rana (1928–2023) was the first governor of Nepal Rastra Ba (...)

UMM: I know what you mean by HMG in your question, but do you know that when I was in the administrative service in ministries, they called it ‘Nepal Government’ or ‘Nepal Sarkar’ not ‘HMG’ or ‘Shree Panch ko Sarkar’? There are no such plans or policies that I can claim to be proud of because, in a democratic nation, the credit cannot go to any single person for any plan or policy. But I must say that when I was in the Ministry of Planning and Development, I was instrumental in making it compulsory for the brick manufacturers to use locally available coal – though not of a very good quality – instead of firewood. When I was in Ministry of Industry and Commerce, I prepared several policies and drafted various legal documents concerning labour, need for the establishment of a central bank, petroleum distribution policy, central procurement policy for the government offices, and import and export policy. But none of my drafts could get its final form because the then Cabinets, oftener than not, were rather reluctant to take any prompt decision on issues related, somehow or other, to India – but as you know any policy on trade and commerce would naturally involve India to some extent. Take for example the Import Trade Policy – I have already talked about some of it in response to your earlier query. We did not have a definite policy about it. But it was very strange that we did not issue the import licence to our importers, although we imported materials from various countries overseas, simply because we did not have a central bank for managing our earnings in foreign currency. I talked about this difficulty to the Minister, the Prime Minister, and later to the Royal Advisor (during the direct rule of His Majesty). They realised its importance and priority for the development of industry and commerce, but nothing materialised until a royal advisor, as directed by King Mahendra, came forward and chose Himalaya Shumsher J B Rana,59 who had already served the government as finance secretary. He was immediately appointed officer-on-opecial-duty and, with the effort of the young man and his colleagues, Nepal Rastra Bank was established in 1956. It was perhaps in April and I was then at Oxford when it was inaugurated by the King.

GKC/ALJ: Over the course of your career, you had the occasion to work in collaboration with Harka Gurung, another well-known Nepali geographer. What was your relationship with him like? How would you evaluate his scholarship? Do you have any unforgettable memories about Dr Gurung that you would like to share?

  • 60 The Nepal Geographical Society (NGS) was set up in 1962. Ram Krishna Shrestha s (...)
  • 61 Upon Dr Gurung’s death, various colleagues, friends and family penned articles about (...)

UMM: Harka Gurung was my intimate friend, colleague and advisor. I remember him for his various contributions that he made individually to his friends and mainly for the nation. He respected me as if I were his teacher, although I never taught him in any classroom. Of course, if he had continued studying in Nepal after passing IA [Intermediate of Arts degree] from Tri Chandra College, or if I would have joined the college earlier, say in 1954 when I had applied for a teaching post at the college, he would have been my student. His classmates were my students in 1957. But he joined Patna College in 1957 and did a BA (Hons) in geography. Later we worked very closely in the Nepal Geographical Society and in the first election in 1966 both of us were entrusted with very important responsibilities – I was the president of the society and he was given the office of general secretary.60 I think it was in the same year that he joined the Department of Geography at the university and very soon in 1968 he was appointed member of the National Planning Commission. He used to tell me that until 1968 he had followed in my footsteps and after that he suddenly did a high jump and went ahead. And in 1979 it was my turn to follow in his footstep when I joined the NPC.
In the year 1968, in December, the Nepal Geographical Society had organised an International Field Study Meeting in Kathmandu. There were 43 geographers from 13 different countries. It lasted for a week and the participants enjoyed their stay and active participation in fruitful geographical excursions and lively discussion in the evenings, which were led by Nepalese geographers on specific topics. We had specially chartered two aeroplanes to take them for mountain flight and for visiting Pokhara. But we could not take them to Pokhara as there was a minor accident at the airport.
His performance in the National Planning Commission is better known to you. He was taken in the NPC as a result of the realisation of the importance of geographical insight in planning. King Birendra, with his wide exposure to planning and development, was quite convinced that Nepal needed a practical plan which would reflect the aspirations of the people living and working in different environments. He had also seen that regional planning was the solution to the problem. As a matter of fact, it was mentioned even in the Third Plan, but there was no concerted effort to formulate an implementable plan, which could be practically followed in reality.
Well unforgettable moments! There are many. Since you insist, let me tell you one or two of them. Once, in 1968, we were attending an international seminar on ecology of tropical highlands organised probably by UNESCO in the newly constructed Central Library building of Tribhuvan University in Kirtipur. We were invited there as observers so we were not directly involved in discussions there. The participants were chosen experts in ecology from various parts of the world. In the middle of a discussion, Harka got up and intervened by saying, ‘ecology is no science’. It naturally created a big chaotic scene. He was trying to defend himself by saying that it did not have any independent basis such as physics, chemistry and botany. But none of the participants supported him – they were not in the mood to listen to him. It was an inappropriate forum to discuss the issue, but we were surprised at his undaunted spirit and courage.
Next one was his astounding disclosure of an event that took place, probably in 1957, when he had gone there to get himself admitted to a BA (Hons) at Patna College. The clerk who was supposed to scrutinise the papers necessary for admission was telling him that the papers that he had submitted were not adequate. In fact, the problem arose when he found that the marksheet was not the original, it was just a copy attested to by some gazetted officer. In a hurry, Harka had failed to bring his original marksheet and it was physically impossible to go home and fetch it. He had no way out. Just when ramblings were going on, another seemingly knowledgeable elderly person appeared and asked the cause of the brawl. The clerk promptly but most obediently explained the problem, probably expecting an appreciation from his immediate boss. The senior fellow looked at the attested marksheet and then peered at Harka from head to toe and asked if he was coming from Nepal. He politely answered, ‘Yes’. Then he immediately turned towards his subordinate and said, ‘admit him’. Then he explained to him, ‘Look, he is from Nepal and his marksheet shows that he is a good student. The only problem is that it is not an original marksheet. But the marksheet is duly attested to by a responsible officer. You know, the people of Nepal are very honest and the students are very studious and brilliant. Don’t you know a few years back we had a student here and he also studied geography? In his BA he got first-class honours in geography and a distinction in other subjects and again in his MA he topped the list of the successful students of the University’. I do not know why Harka took such a long time to disclose it. The above incident had taken place in 1957, and he told us only in 2004 when he was inaugurating a regional conference of geographers organised by the Nepal Geographical Society at Pokhara; we had invited him there as the chief guest since his PhD dissertation was on Pokhara.
In one of the issues of a geographical journal The Geographer’s Point, published in 1992 by the Centre for Nepalese Geography, he is addressed as the ‘Genius Geographer’. It is of course true that his contribution to development is innumerable, but all of them have some geographical bases and he is never away from the solid earth, even when he would be talking about it.61

GKC/ALJ: In addition to Dr Gurung, would you be able to tell us about other colleagues you worked closely with over your years in the Nepal Government? For example, do you have role models or mentors whom you remember fondly, or colleagues who were close allies or helpful advisors during your career? Can you explain to us the importance of friendship during your time in government?

UMM: Well, if I try to answer this query of yours, you will have to let me speak for hours or even days. I have many people who have inspired me, helped me, encouraged me, assisted me, advised me and consoled me in different ways. In this regard I cannot forget my tutor, Bhesh Raj Sharma who encouraged me and advised me to get myself engaged in writing on whatever came to my mind. Next is my geography teacher at school, Durbar High School, Amarendra Nath Basu, who could not even speak very well in Nepali, but used to teach geography and impress me immensely with his heavy voice. It appeared that when he spoke with his seemingly awesome dark face his voice would enter my ears so clearly that it seemed as if it would hit my memory so hard that I did not require any further pressure to remember what he had said a while ago. At college, the mathematics professor Ashutosh Ganguly impressed me immensely and I would not hesitate to admit that it was perhaps his way of teaching that made me so confident in mathematics, a subject which I dreaded most at school. Another teacher at college was Roby Roy who had a special knack in teaching that I immediately followed him and totally believed in the importance of the chapter on river geography as the fundamental topic in the study of physical geography.
I cannot forget my colleagues in the Ministry of Planning and Development – Daman Raj Tuladhar and Birendra Bahadur Rayamajhi – who virtually taught me the principles of writing official memoranda and how to get the directives from the superiors, and particularly how to prepare such memos quickly without trying in rough. The secretary of the Ministry of Planning and Development, Sardar Bhim Bahadur Pande, impressed me quite a lot with his inborn capacity of understanding the ability of his subordinates and of encouraging the promising youths to do better and rise higher. I learnt quite a lot from his behaviour with the Minister, on the one hand, and other colleagues on the other. He was a voracious reader and even at that time he availed himself of the opportunities to travel over many parts of the world. In the Ministry of Industry and Commerce I was very much impressed by Nir Raj Rajbhandari, who was my boss only for a few months since he was transferred to the Ministry of Finance.
At Oxford, I learnt quite a lot from my landlady (79 years old) and her children – Thomas (55) and Mary (50). Aunty Mary used to help me in language and composition. Later this family got so close to me that almost all of my family members have visited them. I started calling Mrs. Harrison my Granny; Thomas (Tom) was my uncle; Mary my aunty. At the School of Geography in Oxford I cannot forget my supervisor, Martyn Webb, who guided me so efficiently through my research work there. At Tri Chandra College my students were also my critics, and I tried to explain what they wanted to know. At such sessions I could learn about the life and land of their villages.
Jagat Bahadur Singh Burathokey, the head of the department, was my teacher, though for a very short time, when I studied IA back in 1948, and I was a very favourite student of his. Later when I became his colleague, he was very kind to me and people were surprised to see us on very good terms since he was supposed to be a very ‘unreasonable person with harsh and angry nature’. They found that I was quite opposite to him in nature. I also found that people were right so far as his behaviour towards other colleagues and students was concerned. Yes, I was myself very surprised at his amiable behaviour towards me. I guessed it was because I never had any difference of opinion with him and I never came in confrontation with him. I was a silent worker and I did not meddle with his work and habits. It was much later that I learnt about his opinion about me when in one of the dinner parties he said, ‘This Malla, you know, I was very much impressed with his in-depth knowledge of the subject when he was my student several years ago. I do remember examining his answer book in the test examination. The question was on origin lakes and his answers were so well written, brief and yet very much to the point, that I used to tick mark each point with a red pencil and say to myself – “this boy knows better than me” – and I awarded exceptionally very high marks to him in that paper. Well, tell me Malla, how much was it?’ Quickly I had said, ‘It was 72 out of 85, I think’. Then he said, ‘Well didn’t I tell you? I have never awarded so much to anyone. I have to think several times before I would put down more than 60 out of 100’. Maybe he had a very good opinion about my knowledge and capabilities even after so many years. Professor Burathokey was very good at physical geography and he was the author of so many profiles of the Himalayas as seen from various places such as Daman, Dhulikhel, Nagarkot, Kakani and Sarangkot (Pokhara). He was also a member of the Zone and Development District Division Committee (ZDDDC) and also its subcommittee formed by the main committee to expedite the assigned task as quickly as possible. We were very much aggrieved when he passed away some time in 1974. His family has deposited a certain amount of money in a bank to enable the Nepal Geographical Society to award a student who would fetch the highest mark in MA (geography). We are very grateful to the family.
Mangal Raj Joshi was another colleague whom I cannot forget for his gentle nature and service to the nation in the field of higher education in general and geography in particular. He was older than me by 12 years at least, and we passed the SLC examination together in 1947. But by that time, he had already obtained a postgraduate degree in jyotishshastra (astronomy/astrology). He was the only son of his father Krishna Raj Daivajna, the well-known astrologer of Lalitpur. Since Krishna Raj did not want that his son should learn an English-type of education, Mangal secretly managed to study and pass the SLC and the subsequent examinations. Later, he even obtained a PhD in urban geography. He led a very busy life since he was the founder-principal of Patan College, which was later called Patan Multiple Campus after it came under the direct management of Tribhuvan University. He was a part-time lecturer in the Central Department of Geography in the University and a whole-time astrologer at home, whose fame spread not only in all parts of Nepal but also in other countries overseas. He incessantly worked from dawn to dusk for all the days of the year. He used to be a very good cricket player at Shree Mahal of Madan Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana at a time when the sport was not even known to most of the people in Nepal. He is no more with us now. He was also a very active member of the subcommittee under ZDDDC.
Nara Man Shrestha was another memorable figure very popular among his students and colleagues as a very strict perfectionist. He was also an active member of the subcommittee under ZDDDC. He is also no more.

Fig 8: Upendra Man Malla with his geographer colleague Nara Man Shrestha sometime during the 1960s.

Fig 8: Upendra Man Malla with his geographer colleague Nara           Man Shrestha sometime during the 1960s.

Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.

Coming to the ZDDDC, I was very much impressed by the Chairman Vishwabandu Thapa, Minister of the National Guidance, a new ministry set up after the introduction of the partyless panchayat system in Nepal. He had an excellent quality of leadership, capable of coordinating the activities of various members in the committee. He was also a perfect taskmaster who could get things done and completed in allocated time by mobilising the available human and financial resources to the maximum extent. Then Kshetra Bikram Rana, the most widely travelled person on the committee and the most knowledgeable person among the informants for the deliberations on the committee and the subcommittee. He was extremely helpful indeed. But I was surprised to find that he was utterly amazed at my ability to interpret the large-scale topographical maps and elicit necessary information from there. He was a retired general, Royal Nepal Army, and thought that it was only the military people who possessed the knowledge and skill of reading a map. That was why he was very much critical against my action of putting a dot at Surkhet lowland to indicate the location of the headquarters for Bheri Zone. His blunt remark was, ‘Professor Malla, have you gone mad? You have put a dot at a place which is completely devoid of people. You know, nobody lives there’. I was quick to retort, ‘Well General Saheb, how could you say that the place is completely vacant when you should know that there are some people at Deutapani’. He laughed with his typically peculiar throaty voice, ‘Oh! You mean the Tharus?’ And I also smiled in reply and said, ‘Aren’t they human beings?’ Everybody burst into laughter and I continued, ‘Look, gentlemen, people at Surkhet are afraid of malaria and at present they live higher in the hills north of the lowland around Bayalkanda, Gothikanda, and other places where mosquitoes would not invade. But they do own lands at the lowland and they come down at daytime and go back before sunset. And now that the malaria eradication activities have already started, we do hope that the lowland will soon be suitable for human habitation. Then they will come down and stay here permanently. Surkhet is a mini-Kathmandu; a day will come when it will develop into a very important place; it has a tremendous development potential’. One of the colleagues on the committee asked, ‘Have you visited Surkhet?’ I said, ‘No, but I know’. But I must tell you that I must honestly accept that General Saheb knew so much about the different places of Nepal so well that he was an indispensable gentleman in the committee; he not only knew the various locations so well but also had very practical suggestions that could be profitably accepted for proper implementation. Well, soon after this discussion I called a student of mine from Surkhet and told him that he should mobilise the youths of the area to start choosing a right location in the Valley for planning a manageable centre to act as the headquarters of Bheri Zone. He was glad to get the task and I was myself very happy to see a nice and commendable preliminary form of planned settlement there in 1972 when I visited Surkhet Valley.
Talking about the importance of friendship – it is beyond description. But one should have a friend in the real sense of the term. True friends help each other most selflessly. They crave to rise a little higher and be a little better than what they were earlier with their mutual help. Friends help one another prepare themselves for serving honourable missions. By helping one another to remain morally clean and righteous, our friendship will have a far-reaching effect on the lives of all concerned.

Final thoughts from the authors

30It is fitting that Malla closes his interview-essay with a commentary about the importance of friendship. Throughout his writing, Upendra remembered the many people who influenced his studies and career, reflecting on his relationships with notable figures of mid-20th-century Nepal such as Vishwabandu Thapa, Bhim Bahadur Pande, Dr Harka Gurung, Dr Toni Hagen and Christoph von-Fürer Haimendorf, among many others. These reminiscences shed light on the development of research cultures in Nepal, in particular the close relationship between ethnographic and geographical knowledge production during the 1950s and 1960s. In elaborating on Malla’s connections with others, his interview-essay also humanises the state of Nepal, revealing its institutions as dynamic and personality driven rather than as impersonal, rigid mechanisms of governance.

31Yet, Malla’s responses to our questions also clarify the narrow pathway available for individuals interested in entering the inner corridors of state power and planning in Nepal. From Malla’s perspective, we see how Western-style education emerged as a bridge to higher-level government service between the final years of the Rana administration and the emergence of democratic government in the 1950s. English language skills, exposure to Western knowledge and habits of mind, and lengthy residencies in countries like the United Kingdom and the United States served young men and women well as the prerogatives of governance in Nepal shifted towards Western development models over the 1950s. Foreign education obtained by individuals such as Malla was doubly useful for the palace during the panchayat period (1962–1990) when the new version of the state imagined by King Mahendra and his committee needed both an ideology and visionaries capable of executing it amid competing foreign interests and foreign technical advisors.

32But even as Malla took up various positions in government, he continued to follow his scholarly passions by teaching human geography and serving in the Nepal Geographical Society. His service on the Development District and Zone Division Committee and the National Planning Commission provided him with opportunities to apply his geographical knowledge directly to problems of state administration and national development. While not the only bureaucrat-scholar of his day, Malla’s significance endures within the boundaries of Nepal’s development districts and the teaching of geography at Tri Chandra College and Tribhuvan University.

33We developed a deep fondness and respect for Malla over our many meetings at his home and in our correspondence with him. His life story reminded us that the structures of power, even those seemingly as impersonal as the Nepali state, are shaped by individuals and their agency. Although Malla had a strong will and ambition, it is important to remember that he also had ample opportunities to act on his desires due to his father’s relationship with members of the Rana family, which afforded him his seat at Durbar High School and further connections with power. However, to his credit, Malla did not rest on his privilege. Instead, he actively worked to expand his mind and his life experiences, whether by accepting a short-notice invitation to join Fürer-Haimendorf on a journey to Khumbu or serving in his first government position at the Ministry of Planning and Development in 1954. We thus present Malla’s interview as an account of the intertwined transformation of one man and one country.

Fig 9: Upendra Man Malla with his nephew and a small dog in his arms outside his house at Kupondole. The photograph was taken during the 1970s.

Fig 9: Upendra Man Malla with his nephew and a small dog in           his arms outside his house at Kupondole. The photograph was taken           during the 1970s.

Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.

Acknowledgements
The authors are extraordinarily grateful to Suresh Malla, son of Upendra Man Malla. He graciously provided access to materials from his father’s collection and also gave permission to use the wonderful photographs that accompany this publication. We also wish to thank Hemanta Shumshere for his help clarifying the variations in the name “Shumsher” that we discuss in the paper. Special thanks are also due to Tristan Bruslé for his support in publishing this work and to the editors at EBHR for their diligent review and editing assistance. Above all, we thank Upendra Man Malla for sharing details of his life with us and entrusting us to share them with others.

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Notes

1 Durbar High School was established in 1883 and was affiliated to Calcutta University, India. It functioned for the benefit of people controlling the state and their closed circles by teaching them fluency in the English language so they could serve as a channel for communication with British rulers in India (see Manandhar 1983). Even though the established curricula and syllabi left a lasting legacy, the renown the school once held faded after 1990 with the surge in the number of private schools in the Kathmandu Valley.

2 The Nepali national daily Gorkhapatra reported on 25 June 1948 that degrees awarded to Nepalis in the year 1948 included 48 undergraduate degrees, 14 degrees in Sanskrit and 7 MA or BA degrees (quoted in Chauhan 1971: 38, footnote 18).

3 Civil administration regulations for the country were managed through the Muluki Adda, which began as the ‘legal office’ (muluki ‘legal’ and adda ‘office’) during the time of Jang Bahadur Rana. The addas or offices within the Muluki Adda later developed into significant departments of central civil administration during the tenure of Chandra Shamsher J B Rana, and were organised into different sections (such as the general and home departments) and were better staffed (see Agrawal 1976).

4 After Bir Shamsher had taken office as Prime Minister in 1885, he initiated reforms within central-, district- and local-level administration both for revenue collection and the dispensation of law and justice. The bada hakim was the chief administrative officer for a district. These positions, mostly filled by military personnel, were responsible for maintaining law and order and for collecting revenue in a district. The New Civil Service Act of 1950 perpetuated the bada hakim system by revising their roles and responsibilities (see Agrawal 1976).

5 The public reaction to King Mahendra’s dismantling of the elected government allegedly ranged from indifference to joy, for ‘Surprisingly, there was little opposition from the public to the King’s action. In fact, the streets of Kathmandu rose in jubilation. Key members of the Nepali Congress Party joined the King to run the country’ (Mishra and Ottaway Jr, 2018: 10). Those who expressed overt jubilation were no doubt either supportive of the king’s move in general or delighted at the fall of a political foe, even one within their own party, since there was much factionalism within the 35 political groups that had emerged after the fall of the Rana government, in particular within the Nepali Congress, which faced intractable conflict between party leaders (and half-brothers) M P Koirala and B P Koirala (Levi 1954: 103).

6 When forming the panchayat system of government in Nepal, four high officials of the government secretariat were tasked with surveying contemporary democratic experiments transpiring in other ‘non-aligned’ countries, including Yugoslavia and Egypt’s ‘class organisation system’, ‘national guidance’ in Egypt and Indonesia, ‘basic democracy’ in Pakistan, and the ‘panchayat’ system in place in some Indian states (Rose 1963: 17). Concepts taken from these different examples found their way into Nepal’s panchayat system, which featured the four tiers of Pakistan’s ‘basic democracy’ alongside class organisations and a National Guidance Ministry. The Home Panchayat Report of 2024 VS (1967 CE) defined the panchayat as an organic democracy, which is unique, distinct and alternative to liberal democracy and communism. The report stated, ‘Thus the stream of development will also weave into it the separate threads of this diverse and disparate country and become the stream of national integration. Normally, in underdeveloped countries the problem is how to harness the energies of nationalism to economic development. It is the object of the Panchayat system to braid together economic development and national integration’ (Home Panchayat Report 2024 VS: 90).

7 King Mahendra’s speech alluded to the significance of village councils or panchayats as the basis for a Nepali version of democracy ‘rooted in our soil and suited to our condition’ (Baral 1972: 12).

8 In Goodall’s study from the early 1960s, it is recorded that Nepal ‘receives aid from the United States, India, the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union, Israel, West Germany, and the United Nations, among others’ (1966: 615). Given the variety of national interests represented by such countries, it was not surprising that conflicts that would require mediation arose between them. Goodall says that, at one point, disagreements between India and the United States on community development led to a decision to divide Nepal into two, with India assuming community-development programming in one part of the country and the United States doing so in the other half (1966: 616)! In such an environment, palace secretaries and members of bureaucratic departments who were fluent in several languages and had experience of foreign countries would be well placed to mediate between foreign agencies and technicians.

9 As an international organisation, the United Nations appeared to be a more acceptable partner for technical-administrative assistance than the partisan-nationalist interests of individual foreign agencies. By 1959, the United Nations Technical Assistance Division, which had arrived in Nepal in 1956 at the behest of Prime Minister Acharya, had secured a stable relationship with the palace and supported the Department of Public Administration. At the behest of the United Nation’s Operational Executive and Administrative Personnel (OPEX) programme, a Committee on Administration was appointed in 1962 to review the structure and operation of Nepal’s bureaucracy with regards to development and decentralising governance. The initial relationship between the United Nations Technical Assistance Division, OPEX and Nepal is reviewed by Goodall (1966).

10 The rule of experts is best examined in Timothy Mitchell’s (2002) study of political economy in postcolonial Egypt. Given the extensive influence of Egypt’s model of democracy on Nepal’s panchayat system, and their shared principle of non-alignment throughout the Cold War Period (which overlaps the panchayat years in Nepal), there are interesting parallels to be drawn between the two countries regarding their development trajectories, form of administration and governance.

11 Dr Harka Bahadur Gurung (1939–2006) was born in Lamjung and educated at Tri Chandra College and Patna University before receiving a scholarship to study geography at the University of Edinburgh, where he did a PhD in 1965. Gurung served as member and vice-chairman of the Nepal Planning Commission (1968–73; 1973–75) and held various government appointments throughout the panchayat period. He also taught geography at Tribhuvan University (1966–68) as well as at SOAS in the UK and at the East West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Gurung was a scholar renowned for regional planning, development planning, tourism, demography and ethnicity. For an overview of Gurung’s life and scholarship, see the obituary prepared by Dilli Ram Dahal (2007) and the collection of articles published in honour of Gurung in The Himalayan Review volume 38 (2007) available online at https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/HR/issue/view/148 (accessed 29 July 2025).

12 For example, Hemanta Raj Mishra, who started his career in conservation during the panchayat period and served both the panchayat government and international conservation organisations, published a book with Jim Ottaway Jr entitled On His Majesty’s Service (2018).

13 In 1970 VS (1913) Chandra Shamsher set up an office named, ‘Gorkha Bhasa Prakasini Samiti’ (Gorkha Language Publishing Council). The Nepali community living in India launched a campaign in favour of using the term ‘Nepali Bhasa’ (Nepali language) rather than ‘Gorkha Bhasa’ (Gorkha language). When Calcutta University and the Bengal Government agreed to the demand and prioritised the term ‘Nepali Bhasa’, a request was formally sent to the Nepal Government to change the name. At this point, the government changed the name of the office to ‘Nepali Bhasa Prakasini Samiti’ (Nepali Language Publishing Committee) and renamed the sub-office the ‘Nepali Bhasa Anubad Parisad’ (Nepali Language Translation Council). (For more information, see Sharma, 2056 VS).

In 1990 VS (1933), Khadga Man Malla’s guru, Sardar Rudra Raj Pande, and Balkrishna Sama requested him to take the lead of the Nepali Bhasa Prakasini Samiti. In this way, at the age of 21, Khadga Man Malla joined as a hakim, and served there for 11 years (see Khadga Man Malla Smriti Grantha 2056 VS). The Nepali Bhasa Prakasini Samiti scrutinised all publications published in the Nepali language. Consequently, without the approval of this institution, nothing was published, and all content underwent a censorship procedure. The Publishing Council provided proofreading and translations of texts in Nepali (see Khadga Man Malla’s interview-based feature article with Gokarna Aryal published in Gorkhapatra [2053 VS, Jestha 29]; Bandhu (2056 VS); Sharma (2056 VS). Under the leadership of Khadga Man Malla (and team members Pushkar Shamsher J B Rana, Dev Bikram Pandey and Purna Man Shrestha), the Council translated the Oxford English Dictionary into Nepali in 1993 VS (1936) (Bandhu, 2056 VS). Meanwhile, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)-based linguist T W Clark relied on the Nepali grammar and dictionary books published by Nepal Bhasa Prakasini Samiti for his foundational Nepali language textbook, Introduction to Nepali: A first-year language course (1989 [1963]). Pushkar Shamsher J B Rana, whom T W Clark considered his ‘colleague, friend and guru’, assisted him in Nepal and London and ‘wrote according to my exacting requirements the graded continuous passages and conversations which are embodied in sections II and III’ (1989 [1963]: xvi–xvii). After Rana’s death in 1960, Dor Bahadur Bista took over Rana’s work for Clark. The latter acknowledged the help of Pushkar Shamsher J B Rana, Dor Bahadur Bista, Khadga Man Malla and other Nepali colleagues with the book’s production (Clark 1989 [1963]: vii–xvii).

14 ‘Board topper’ was a momentous achievement for Nepali students at the time. Being a board topper meant that the student’s SLC score was among the highest of all those who had sat the exam in Nepal.

15 Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (1909–1995) was a noted anthropologist of Northeast India and Nepal. When he met Malla in 1953, he had recently been promoted to the Chair of Asian Anthropology at SOAS, London. Having been teaching at SOAS since his appointment there in 1949, Fürer-Haimendorf was keen to resume his fieldwork. In his own words, he describes his attraction to Nepal in terms of a site for fieldwork: ‘So I was able, very soon after I had established this Department [Department of Anthropology, SOAS], not only to encourage my students and members of the staff etc, to spend a good deal of time in fieldwork, but also myself to go. And once, that was in 1953, when I had actually gone back to Andhra Pradesh to see what had happened to the Gonds, that was just the time that Nepal was opened for outsiders. Nepal which had always sort of interested me because I had worked a bit in the Eastern Himalayas among the Apa Tanis, Daflas etc, but Nepal seemed a wonderful field for anthropology but it had been closed at the time of the Rana rule. And only when the Rana rule came to an end was it possible for westerners and western anthropologists to work there’ (McFarlane 1983: 18). Readers are encouraged to read Dor Bahadur Bista’s interview with James Fisher, in which Nepal’s first anthropologist openly addresses his complicated relationship with Fürer-Haimendorf (Fisher 1996). Those interested in Fürer-Haimendorf’s later fieldwork in Nepal (1957 onwards) may refer to the notebooks and photographs stored in the Fürer-Haimendorf Collection housed at the SOAS Digital Collections (https://digital.soas.ac.uk/FURER; accessed on 20 July 2025).

16 Newar ethnicity is based on a hierarchical caste system. Fürer-Haimendorf specifies that U M Malla’s caste is Shrestha because, as Fürer-Haimendorf points out, ‘Sheshyo is the colloquial Newari term, but in writing even Newars use the term Shresta [Shrestha] as designation for the caste and in Nepali the term Shresta [Shrestha] is used both colloquially and in writing’ (1956: 20). More importantly, there are further distinctions within the Shrestha, with those who consider themselves to be Shrestha differentiating between the Chha-Thare, the Panch-Thare and the Char-Thare (which means, respectively, six, five and four grades). The Chha-Thare are considered to be the highest caste among the Newars. Note, however, that the Chha-Thare do not usually refer to themselves as Shrestha. Instead, they use their family names which include Pradhan, Malla, Pradhananga, Munshi, Joshi, Rajbhandari and so on (Bista, 1967). An acquaintance of the author Gaurab K C explained, ‘All Newars can be Shrestha, but not all Shrestha can be Malla or Raj Bhandari or so on’ (telephone conversation with Rajesh Raj Bhandari from Kathmandu on 15 July 2025). Based on this information, U M Malla can be deemed to be a Shrestha but, more specifically, he was a Chha-Thare Shrestha, a lineage (ie his surname Malla) that included the former Malla kings of the Kathmandu Valley whose rule lasted from the 13th to the 18th century. For further discussion about the Newar caste system, see Bista (1967).

17 To quote Fürer-Haimendorf, ‘I owe this information to Mr Upendra Man Malla, who kindly translated for me some of Babu Ram Achariya’s articles published in Nepalese periodicals’ (Fürer-Haimendorf 1956: 21 footnote).

18 Dor Bahadur Bista (1928–missing since 1996) is known as Nepal’s first anthropologist. He conducted fieldwork with Fürer-Haimendorf from 1957–58. In 1960, Bista travelled to London where he assisted Fürer-Haimendorf in preparing his Nepal fieldwork material for publication (Fisher 1996: 350). During that time, he also provided assistance to the SOAS linguist T W Clark as he prepared his Nepali language textbook (1989 [1963]). After Bista had completed a one-year diploma course in ‘Indian Ethnography’ at SOAS in 1961, tensions escalated between him and Fürer-Haimendorf (Fisher 1996: 350–352). Bista decided not to pursue his MA in Anthropology at SOAS and returned to Nepal. From 1963, he began a long and fascinating career in academia and government office. Among his many notable positions, he served on various occasions as consul general to Lhasa, executive director of the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies at Tribhuvan University, and chair of the Central Department of Anthropology and Sociology. From 1990 onwards, he devoted his time to the Karnali Institute in Jumla, an applied academic institution that he founded in 1990. His disappearance during a trip to Kathmandu from Jumla on 11 January 1996 has remained unsolved. For a complete discussion of Bista’s life, refer to his interview with James Fisher (1996), the bibliography compiled by Gaurab K C and Pratyoush Onta (2013), and the 2023 documentary film ‘Ma Alap Huna Chahanchhu (Into the Mist)’ directed by Sachin Ghimire and Gaurab K C.

19 Malla’s description of his fieldwork with Fürer-Haimendorf covers his experiences with the Sherpa, among other ethnic groups such as the Tamang and Thangmi. In preparing his account, Malla chose to not draw on ethnographic publications that have been produced in the years since he returned from Solukhumbu, referring only to his fieldnotes from 1953.There are numerous ethnographies that present the lives and concerns of people from the areas Malla visited with Fürer-Haimendorf. We refer the reader to Pasang Yangee Sherpa’s chapter, ‘Ethnographies of the Sherpas in the High Himalaya: themes, trajectories, and beyond’ (2022) for an account of the historical trajectories of ethnographic research among the Sherpa from the 20th century to the present.

20 Vishwabandhu Thapa [Bishwa Bandhu Thapa] (1927–) was a ‘panchayat theoretician’ alongside Tulsi Giri (Chatterji 1980:19). He held the Home Panchayat and National Guidance portfolios (ibid). Prior to joining King Mahendra’s government, Thapa was a leader of the Nepali Congress Party and active in overturning the Rana government. For more on Thapa’s life and career, refer to the biography Bishwa Bandhu Thapa: Krantidekhi Krantisamma (Sijapati, 2071 VS).

21 Toni Hagen (1917–2003), a geologist, is credited with being the first European to trek 14,000km across Nepal during his geological surveys of the country for the United Nations in the 1950s. He dedicated much of his life’s work to development aid in Nepal. See Hagen (1961) for an account of his early years in Nepal.

22 Malla’s colleague, Prachanda Man Pradhan, who also had experience of working in the panchayat administration, described the district and zones as being delineated to ‘represent ecological zones, integrated agriculture development potentiality and interdependence of ethnic groups of different geographical locations’ (Pradhan 2078 VS: 170–174).

23 At the time Gaurab K C was documenting the lives of panchayat intellectuals and Amy Leigh Johnson was pursuing her doctoral research on the federal state-restructuring and constitution-writing process in Nepal. We partnered for a number of interviews, as our interests overlapped. Malla was such a joy to talk to and his stories were so fascinating to listen to that we interviewed him on three occasions in 2016.

24 We have done our upmost to provide standard common-use spellings throughout the interview-essay, particularly for place names. In part 1, we have attempted to give place names, as appropriate, in local languages. These are indicated in brackets. However, we are aware that some errors still may remain, for which we apologise.

25 There exists a large volume of academic and popular literature that addresses the political transformations of the 1950s and the panchayat period in the 1960s–1990. For contemporaneous writings that provide insight into and context for the events described in Malla’s interview-essay, we refer the reader to Baral (1980), Caplan (1975), Chatterji (1980), Chauhan (1971), Devkota (2016 VS; 2036 VS), Fisher (1997), Gautam (2046 VS; 2062 VS), Joshi and Rose (1966), K C (1976; 1977), Krishnamurti (1963), Mihaly (1965), Rana and Malla (1973), Rose and Fisher (1970), Shah (1978, 1982) and Stiller (1993).

26 Daman Shamsher J B Rana was the Nepali ambassador in New Delhi at this time.

27 Elizabeth ‘Betty’ von Fürer-Haimendorf (née Barnardo) (1911–1987). The daughter of an Indian medical service surgeon, Betty was born in India and married Fürer-Haimendorf in 1938. Betty was an ethnologist of South Asia in her own right. During her lifetime, she was well-known for her compilation of the three-volume set An Anthropological Bibliography of South Asia (1958; 1964; and co-authored with Dr Helen A Kanitkar, 1976). Betty accompanied Fürer-Haimendorf during fieldwork in India and Nepal and she was the co-author of two monographs with her husband, The Reddis of the Bison Hills: A study in acculturation (1945) and The Gonds of Andhra Pradesh: Tradition and change in an Indian tribe (1979). She was also a dedicated diarist. Fürer-Haimendorf’s 1990 autobiography drew heavily on her daily writings of their fieldwork experiences. It is possible that the scene between Fürer-Haimendorf and Malla recounted in the introduction to this interview-essay came from her diary. For more details about Betty’s life and relationship with Fürer-Haimendorf, refer to the obituaries of Betty and Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf prepared by Mayer (1987) and Turin (1997), respectively, and the preface to The Sherpas of Nepal: Buddhist Highlanders (1964: xiii–xvi).

28 Evans was a noted British surgeon and mountaineer. He is remembered as the first person to ascend Everest’s south face in 1953 (Ward 1996).

29 Malla opted to present his fieldwork experience with the Fürer-Haimendorfs and Dr Evans in chronological order following the number of days they spent travelling together. The days under which the entries are listed were recorded by Malla. The names of significant villages visited on those days were added to the subheadings by the authors to improve the organisation of the text. Note that when Malla reached Khumjung, there is one entry under ‘Day 15’ that corresponds to approximately two months spent in the village and surrounding areas. Thus, the days can be more accurately understood as ‘travel days’, with new days created for different legs of the journey.

30 The four historic passes into the Kathmandu Valley are Sanga Bhanjyang (in the east), Baad Bhanjyang (in the west), Kaule Bhanjyang (in the north) and Lele Bhanjyang (in the south).

31 Malla’s spelling ‘Shiagntang’ is not the standard spelling. The Tamang Buddhist Federation Nepal lists the following Tamang clan names that are close to Malla’s spelling: Singtan, Syamjan, Syangden, Syangjuwa, Syangtan/Syangdan, Syanten, Syongdan, and Syongtan. (https://www.tamangbuddhist.org.np/tamang-casts-thar/; last accessed on 20 July 2025).

32 Malla did not offer an explanation for what he meant by the ‘3 Rs’ but a reasonable guess is ‘reading, writing and arithmetic’.

33 Bodhichitta beads come from the seeds of the tree Ziziphus budhensis.

34 The prices referenced are Malla’s estimates from the time of the interview in 2016.

35 Prior to 1963, Nepal was organised into 35 administrative districts, including ‘East No1’.

36 Malla’s use of hikis is unclear. If it is in the Newari language, it may be hiti, which means ‘water tap’.

37 The Tamang village Rishingo or Risingo is known as Lisankhu in the Nepali language. Rishingo is located on a major trade route linking Kathmandu to eastern Nepal and has an important Buddhist temple (Jest 1985: 10–12).

38 In his autobiography, Fürer-Haimendorf records Bishnu Lal’s departure and interprets the cook’s return to Kathmandu as a blessing in disguise for the young Malla. He writes, ‘Risingo was memorable also as the place we bade goodbye to our Newar cook. He had been as unhappy on this strenuous trip as he had been inefficient, and was only too glad to return to Kathmandu with two Tamang porters made superfluous by the arrival of the Sherpas. Malla was by that time reconciled to eating food cooked by the Sherpas, even though he did not know as yet how useful this departure from orthodox Newar diet would be as a preparation for the adjustment to foreign food during the two years he was to spend subsequently in Oxford’ (1990: 144).

39 Malla is referring to the anthropologist Sara Shneiderman whose ethnographic research with the Thangmi is the subject of numerous publications, such as the monograph Rituals of ethnicity: Thangmi identities between Nepal and India (2015).

40 Malla could be referring to the Pahari community in this instance.

41 Malla is highlighting what seemed to him to be an uncommon occurrence since Sanyasi and Giri are considered to be ascetic rather than priestly castes.

42 A doko is a large conical bamboo basket carried on the back and secured by a strap around the forehead (naamlo). It is commonly used by people in the hills to carry goods and fodder. By referring to doko as a unit of measurement, Malla is emphasising the large quantities of pig iron reportedly produced by the people of Those.

43 Wrapping one’s head in a turban or cloth was a local palliative for a headache.

44 Fürer-Haimendorf writes, ‘I stayed two months in the village of Khumjung and made a rapid survey of the other main settlements of Khumbu’ (1960: xiii). Malla chose to recount his time in Khumjung in one entry, rather than differentiate the days he spent there. Thus, his account takes up on ‘Day 16’, by which he means the 16th day of journeying when the team left their base at Khumjung and travelled to other villages in the Khumbu region before returning to Kathmandu.

45 A seer and a mana are units of measurement, the former approximately 0.8kg and the latter 0.454kg (https://nepalwiki.com/nepali-native-units-of-measurement/ last accessed 18 July 2025).

46 Malla is likely referring to one of two debates that were discussed in those days, both about who had summited Everest first. Was it Tenzing [Tenjing] Norgay or Edmund Hilary? Or was it Edmund Hilary or Charles Robert Evans?

47 According to Ratna Shamsher, Malla was well regarded among his peers for his expertise in cartography. He reportedly created maps for many people throughout his lifetime.

48 Upendra Man Malla travelled with Fürer-Haimendorf for three months. To reach his stated total of four months, it is likely that Malla counted the month he spent preparing for the field trip in addition to his journey.

49 In this position, Malla was responsible for developing policies regarding commerce and trade in Nepal. He took part in the preparation of labour rules, regulations and the framing of labour welfare schemes.

50 Bhim Bahadur Pande (1916–1992) was a leading development planner and statesman in Nepal from the 1950s to the 1970s. In 1946, Pande visited the site of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States to study how to implement regional development for Nepal (Liebrand 2017, 168). He was appointed secretary of planning and development in the 1950s and over his career Pande oversaw industrialisation and development in the Tarai region. His experiences in development planning are recounted in his four-volume book Tyas Bakhatko Nepal (Nepal at the Time). Pande also served in the Nepal delegation for the Nepal–India Treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1950 and was the Nepal ambassador to India between 1969 and 1972.

51 Note that Malla preferred the spelling ‘Shumsher’ when referring to this hereditary Rana title. There are alternative spellings in use, including Shamsher (which the authors have used in the introduction) and Shumshere (eg historian Hemanta Shumshere Rana). The spellings are a personal choice, but are related to inter-family dynamics as they mark connections to different relatives in the context of historic succession disputes. For this reason, some individuals did not use the title, most notably the writer, poet, dramatist and artist Balkrishna Sama (1903–1981).

52 At this time, Patna University regulated all aspects of educational life in Nepal, including the complete curriculum. Patna University affiliation, first established in 1918, ended with the opening of Tribhuvan University in 1959 (https://trichandracampus.edu.np/about-us/history/).

53 Dorothy Mierow (1920–2000) arrived in Nepal in 1962 with the first group of Peace Corp volunteers. She had graduated from Carleton College in 1942 with Master’s degrees in Biology and Geography. In his obituary for Dorothy Mierow, James Fisher noted that most of her inheritance had been given to build and maintain the Annapurna Regional Natural History Museum at Prithvi Narayan College in Pokhara and that she was recognised by the Nepal government in 1998 for her achievements (Fisher 2000).

54 This vague sentence was all Malla was interested in saying on the subject of student politics.

55 The report produced by the Committee in 1961 gives the committee the title ‘Bikas Jilla ebam Anchal Vibhajan Samiti’ or the ‘Development District and Zone Division Committee’. Malla consistently uses the acronym ZDDDC to refer to the committee and we have respected his preference.

56 The ZDDDC included Chair Vishwabandhu Thapa and member Jagatbahadur Budathiki, Upendra Man Malla, Bhesh Bahadur Thapap, Chettra Bikram Rana, Kulshekar Sharma, Krishna Bam Malla and Toni Hagen (advisor).

57 Under heading 6 of the Sixth Plan, ‘To increase the absorptive capacity of the economy, section (c) to strength[en] development administration: “In the course of the Sixth Plan necessary steps will be taken to activise development administration and decentralize the decision-making process in conformity with development activities. Special attention will be centered on strengthening the planning cells located in the ministries. Similarly, tax administration will also be strengthened as it has a direct bearing on the mobilization of resources to meet the increasing development needs of the country’”. Sixth Plan (1980–85) https://npc.gov.np/content/4537/4537-sixth-plan/ (last accessed 29 September 2025).

58 Narayan Khadka (1988: 558) describes the mechanism by which development and planning were executed in the Panchayat: ‘It was only in 1974 that King Birendra provided some kind of a political link between the NPC and the Council of Ministers. He established a National Development Council (NDC) to represent the interests of various groups in formulating plans, and this extraconstitutional council's powers have grown since 1985 through a new regulation under which the Planning Commission is relegated to the position of a secretariat of the Development Council.’…[The NPC submits draft plans to the Council of Ministers and the prime minister refers such plans to the king who] ‘may then obtain the opinion of the National Development Council’ (Khadka, 1988: 558).

59 Himalaya Shumsher JB Rana (1928–2023) was the first governor of Nepal Rastra Bank.

60 The Nepal Geographical Society (NGS) was set up in 1962. Ram Krishna Shrestha served as president alongside a seven-member executive committee. Elections were first held in 1966, at which point Malla was elected president and Dr Harka Gurung was elected secretary. Dr Gurung would also later serve as NGS president.

61 Upon Dr Gurung’s death, various colleagues, friends and family penned articles about Dr Gurung’s scholarship and influence for the 2007 issue of The Himalayan Review. Malla (2007) contributed the article ’Dr Harka Gurung: an illustrious geographer and development practitioner,” which discussed Dr Gurung’s applied geography in detail, as well as his personality and character.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Fig 1: Khadga Man Malla is standing third from the right with his arms folded. Khadga Man Malla’s father, Divya Man Malla, is seated on the chair in the middle.
Crédits Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/docannexe/image/3357/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 2,3M
Titre Fig 2: This group photo was included in the report of the Development District and Zone Division Committee. It shows all committee members and the chair, Vishwabandhu Thapa. Upendra Man Malla is seated in the second chair on the left. Seated in the centre of the group, smoking his pipe, is Toni Hagen.
Crédits Photo Courtesy of Suresh Malla.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/docannexe/image/3357/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 367k
Titre Fig 3: A photograph of Upendra Man Malla taken in the 1950s before leaving for Oxford.
Crédits Photo Courtesy of Suresh Malla.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/docannexe/image/3357/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,9M
Titre Fig 4: Upendra Man Malla on the way to Solukhumbu during his fieldwork with Fürer-Haimendorf in 1953. He appears to be writing in his field notebook.
Crédits Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/docannexe/image/3357/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 853k
Titre Fig 5: Upendra Man Malla relaxing with students during a geographical excursion sometime in the late 1960s.
Crédits Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/docannexe/image/3357/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 641k
Titre Fig 6: Upendra Man Malla is standing to show the map of development districts and zones to King Mahendra, who is seated at the desk. The map delineating Nepal into 75 development districts and 14 zones had been prepared by Upendra Man Malla and members of the Development District and Zone Division Committee.
Crédits Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/docannexe/image/3357/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 934k
Titre Fig 7: Upendra Man Malla exchanging greetings with King Birendra. The photograph was taken while Upendra Man Malla was a member of the National Planning Commission.
Crédits Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/docannexe/image/3357/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,4M
Titre Fig 8: Upendra Man Malla with his geographer colleague Nara Man Shrestha sometime during the 1960s.
Crédits Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/docannexe/image/3357/img-8.JPG
Fichier image/jpeg, 808k
Titre Fig 9: Upendra Man Malla with his nephew and a small dog in his arms outside his house at Kupondole. The photograph was taken during the 1970s.
Crédits Photo courtesy of Suresh Malla.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/docannexe/image/3357/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 595k
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Référence électronique

Gaurab KC et Amy Leigh Johnson, « The life of a bureaucrat-scholar: an interview-essay with Upendra Man Malla (1932–2019) »European Bulletin of Himalayan Research [En ligne], 64 | 2025, mis en ligne le 15 octobre 2025, consulté le 14 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ebhr/3357 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15aut

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Auteurs

Gaurab KC

Gaurab KC is a history enthusiast who is interested in Nepal's 19th- and 20th-century history. He has published a few works and is also co-editor of Practices of Sociology in Nepal (2021).

Amy Leigh Johnson

Amy Leigh Johnson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, the United States.

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Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont susceptibles d’être soumis à des autorisations d’usage spécifiques.

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