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Showing posts from June, 2009

AYO GORKHALI !

Ayo Gorkhali! By Amar B Shrestha (featured in ECS Magazine, June 2009) Tul Bahadur Pun VC Rifleman Tul Bahadur Pun was just 21 years old when he won the Victoria Cross (VC) for extraordinary courage under fire. He was serving with the 3rd Battalion during the Chindit campaign in Burma on June 23, 1944. An excerpt from his citation reads thus:“… the whole of his section was wiped out with the exception of himself, the section commander and one other man … The section commander immediately led the remaining two men in a charge on the Red House but was at once badly wounded. Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun and his remaining companion continued the charge but the latter too was immediately badly wounded. Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun then seized the Bren gun and, firing from the hip as he went, continued the charge on the heavily bunkered position alone, in the face of the most shattering concentration of automatic fire, directed straight at him… he presented a perfect target to the Japanese.

MINDING OUR LANGUAGE

Nepalipan (Nepali Times) - 14 - 20 August 2009 Jung Bahadur's "tip" How foreign words have entered the Nepali lexicon SUBODH RANA When Jung Bahadur Rana applauded gustily to an opera singer's melodious aria in Covent Garden in 1850, Queen Victoria, bemused, was said to have leaned over to ask whether the Maharajah of Nepaul understood the music. "I do not understand the nightingale either," Jung is said to have retorted, "yet I find its song beautiful." After the encore Jung Bahadur threw gold coins to the singing star, and at the startled looks all around, exclaimed in Nepali: "Tip!" He meant 'pick it up' in Nepali. But, as legend has it, that is where the English word 'tip' had its origin, meaning the small change we leave behind as a token of our appreciation for service rendered. This apocryphal story is probably absolutely untrue, but wish it was. Words in one language are in the process of dynamic trans