Statue of William Shakespeare The entire volumes of the works of William Shakespeare, richly bound in hard cover, were gracing my father's office at home with its presence from the time I can remember. The books just stayed in the bookshelf as a testament to my father's ability to read, write and speak in English lest visitors have any doubt. Indeed my father was very proficient in the English language and he dotted his "i"s and crossed his "t"s with aplomb, no mean feat for a Nepali born in 1916. I stayed away from those books as they looked formidable enough with nary a picture illustration but pages after pages of printed words. Nobody else as far as I can remember took those books out of the shelves. We know about expensive volumes of such classical books decorating many a Rana drawing room but the personal collection of Field Marshall Kaiser Shumsher J. B. Rana was legendary. He probably was one of the few Rana aristocrats of his time known to...

The mountains moved last Saturday. During my childhood my Nimbu Didi used to say mother earth shrugs once in a while when the sin of us humans gets too hard to bear. She knew a thing or two about mountains moving having experienced the "Nabbe Saal ko Bhuinchalo', the quake that devastated Kathmandu and the neighbouring areas in 1934 A.D. Mountains moved upwards by perhaps as much as a meter experts say, making Mt. Everest even taller. The world took notice in an unprecedented outpouring of grief and sympathy. The world assisted the needy by supplying essentials in giant aircrafts our only international airport had never seen before. The world has pledged to restore our monuments to their former glory. Nepalese youth in the thousands have mobilised themselves to aid the unfortunate, save the dying, rescue those trapped in the rubble that was once a village, a town, a city. Brave men have ventured to areas where lady fortune fears to tread. Nepal's residing gods might...