nepali speakers count...

Kudos to the NepaLinux Team for grabbing "APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize" Award.

In Himalayan Nepal: Where language can propel FOSS

I was interrupted to see the number of nepali speakers - native and worldwide.

[...]The initiative began as an attempt to find makeshift solutions for electronically cataloguing books in the Nepali language (which has seventeen million native speakers, and an estimated 40 million worldwide).[...]

Wow where did this journalist Frederick Noronha find this number? I remember being told to be questionable whenever we see any numbers. On my quest to this uneasy and strange number, this wikipedia page on Nepali Language does infact have the same number

Total speakers: native - 17 million
total-appr. 40 million

What does this total mean - does that mean all the nepali speakers including natives or excluding?

Isn't it exciting to have such a larger user base. Indeed.
17 million at Wikipedia seems to be referenced from this site Omniglot.com, which has no references as such.

[...]Nepali is an Indo-Aryan language with around 17 million speakers in Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and India.[...]

Noticed "around"!!

Sometimes this does question the credibility of Wikipedia. Infact it does; even Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia, said "For god sake, you are in college, don't cite Wikipedia." in response to the complaints from the students, who emailed Jimmy, saying "Please help me. I got an F on my paper because I cited Wikipedia".

Ok still on my tiny quest and hanging within Wikipedia, I saw another page

[...]According to the 2001 national census, .... The major languages of Nepal (percent spoken as mother tongue) are Nepali (49%),[...]

Still from Wikipedia
Population: July 2005 27,133,000

Which means that native nepali speakers would be 13 million. Note the year difference. Granted for now.

We are still in deficit of 4 million native Nepali speakers. Maybe this number have been covered by now, as of today. And now I can't go on with my quest for another 40 million. Let it be for now.

happy me...

Sometimes Worldlink makes me happy - 24 hours internet during Dashain since the eighth day.

Dashain or Dasa (misfortune)

"Dashain ho ki, yo mero dasa, kati aayeko" meaning "Is this Dashain or is it misfortune (dasa), why does it come so many times?".

I wonder what percentage of Nepalese actually celebrate Dashain with new clothes, good food. For a country like ours with such high poverty rate, it's very unlikely that people actually take Dashain as a celebration but rather as a misfortune. Why won't they? Even if you take a walk around the city, you would see people laughing, carrying big smiles with heavy loads for dashain; and on the other side, you would see another group of people confused with what to buy, whether to buy or not, busy calculating in their head. You can actually read their faces, especially children. There are stories of people getting bankrupt during dashain - mostly in villages; this is the only time, children get to wear new clothes. I just wish every nepali may celebrate Dashain equally.

facebook... addiction... solution

I can't believe that the first thing I did in this morning hour is to peek into facebook. I understand it's absolutely of no use at all and yet... what do you think is the solution to this addiction?

Delete your account? Man... I can't do that.
Ask your ISP to block facebook. Others won't tolerate that.
Block facebook in your browser. Possible... but I can also unblock it.
Unsubscribe internet account. Maybe... but I don't want to do that.

I think I should design an app that would crash my browser everytime I try facebook. That would make me hate facebook so much that I would probably lessen it.

runner's high.... after a loong time

After almost 4 months break, I made my run back to-fro Budhanilkantha. Yup I enjoyed runner's high again; to my dismay i hurt my legs. Asim, Prasun, Prawesh, and Suprit... don't think I am crazy. You do remember Pokhara?

I was not surprised to see the fuel queue as early as 6 in the misty, cold morning. I ran observing the standing faces, on the seventh day of Dashain. Some must be getting fuels to get home, away from Kathmandu. Around the midway, the misty environment turned to clear, blue sky, however there was a clear demarcation between the two - conveying the message that darkness will definitely be followed by prosperous light. I wait for that day in Nepal.

I still remember there used to very less runners just 3/4 months back Today I saw hordes of runners - must be looking for the fresh morning air, though the road is not free of micro-buses and other vehicles. However their number does not seem to affect the air, though it won't take time to corrode. I am being realistic if some of you happen to take it as pessimist view.

The final day at Social Science Baha

Finally 13 rigorous weeks at Social Science Baha came to an end, though research is still on the way - but not more morning class at 6:30AM. However this marks the beginning of our thinking in contemporary issues - we have been introduced to lots and lots of topics in this short period. Economy and Society, Media, Society and Culture, Development and Society, History and Society, Research Methodologies, Politics and Society to name a few. Besides the content, the moderators were equally of highest quality. And of course the wonderful and intellectual colleagues.

Helambu Trip

Fours days/three nights trek around the Helambu region is the longest and the most delightful one I have done so far. We stayed at three different villages - Upper Timbu on the first night, TarkeGyang on the second and Dhuba Chour on the third. The first two nights were chilling - it was raining throughout but I couldn't differentiate it from the flowing river (Melamchi river I suppose). One could hear the soothing sound of the river throughout the night at Upper Timbu.


On the way to Upper Timbu
Upper Timbu as seen on the way up. There were only two lodges. Fortunately we didn't have problems with stay throughout the hike.


Upper Timbu Village
The second day hike from Upper Timbu to Tarke Gyang via Kakani was almost 6-7 hours plus. Man... I have never seen so many leeches clinging to my pants as on this day - the tiny one even managed to get to my leg. You can imagine how much psyched out we were... almost more than half the time, we would be looking at our legs to find at least one leech and even pull up our pants to see if some bloody leech is enjoying our blood. You should see the abundance of water in this region - you can't hide away from water - it's just everywhere you gaze - not just raining :)

It was raining throughout second day at Tarke Gyang. But the third day we were
blessed with beautiful mountains right from our room's window.

The view from Tarke Gyang


The mountains - I don't remember the name:(


We stayed at this point for almost an hour - really mesmerizing
The third day stay was not inviting at Dhuba Chour - the comparatively hot night, with bedbugs and scratching a lot. But again the other final day was bright, sunny and warm, and ofcourse the beautiful mountains.


The mountains as seen from Dhuba Chour


Stone throwing game at Melamchi River
PS:nobody was hurt during the photo shoot :)