Hurried Trip to Avoid a Bad Star
This essay is written by two American geographer lilla and Barry bishop. After staying in Jumla for 15 months they were going to Nepalgunj to study how the roadless Karnali zone is economically linked to low land terai or nepalgunj.The people of Karnali zone depend economically upon the lowland regions to the south, especially Nepalgunj. Most of the people are farmers. But their farm product is not sufficient to them because it can’t support them. So they have to sell and buy things for their day to day livelihood. According to the writers, the people of Karnali carry different local products such as herbs, sweaters, baskets, blankets and so on to Nepalgunj to sell them there. Some people take Silajit with them and sell it Nepalgunj. After selling their products, they return with cotton cloths, jewelry, pots, and spice and distillery equipment to Karnali. Some people go to the lowland regions to get government and private jobs. However, mostly people are uneducated and superstitious. People of Karnali, moreover, combine their farming with trading. They have been struggling for their livelihood.
People of Karnali are conservative and they follow the good star when they leave their homes. Similarly, they are not aware of ecological and environmental degradation. The skeletal looking SAL trees indicate about the exploitation of nature. It shows that they are indifferently cutting down the trees and they are not worried about the jungle and their own future. They are only solving the present problem. It seems that they are not conscious of their future. They don’t know the fatal consequences of the degradation of nature. Actually they are hopeless because they must solve their present problem.
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Q How is Karnali linked economically with the low land regions to the south?[057/061/o63-3]
= Geographically, Karnali lies to the northern part of our kingdom. As it is made up of very sloppy hills, there are many problems. People do not have transportation and other facilities for their better survival. There is no sufficient cultivable land. So, they have to depend on the lowland regions to the south.
People of karnali cannot sell their products in their localities. To sell their items like medicinal herbs, silajit, hashish, hand-knit sweaters and blankets, they have to go to Nepalgunj. Similarly, they cannot buy goods in their places. For this purpose also, they have to depend upon lowland regions. People of Karnali have to depend upon lowland region for their jobs also. Being undeveloped part, it does not have factories. To earn livelihood, young people have no better options than leaving their places and working in the lowland region.
Q What did the two writers learn about the life and culture of the people of the Karnali region during their journey on foot? [059-3]
= ‘Hurried Trip to Avoid a Bad Star” is written by American geographers M. Lilla and C. Bishop Barry. Their essay presents social, economic and educational aspects of Karnali region. To present these aspects, they have brought four events in the text- their meeting with a chhetri woman and the people processing silajit, and their encounter cutting down trees and the people of Karnali buying and selling things. The two writers learnt that the people of Karnali are innocent, simple, laborious and uneducated. Their world is narrow and limited. The Chhetri woman asks the travelers to find her husband and send him to the village. They live in geographically difficult part completely depending on their own or animal strength. They are ignorant about soil erosion and deforestation. Not only that, alcohol consumption in Karnali region is high because one of the porters buys distillery equipments in the bazaar of Nepalgunj. He hopes that he would sell liqueur and earn enough money to buy goods in Karnali.
Q. Give a short account of the life of the people of Karnali.
Life of the People of Karnali
Karnali zone is the remotest part of Nepal. Some districts of the zone are still roadless or they are not linked by the motorway. Even the Surkhet-Jumla highway is not permanent for all seasons. The airway is too expensive but there are not airports in every district. So the people of Karnali are compelled to carry things on their back and they are compelled to use sheep, mules and yaks as the means of transportation. They carry to sell their herbal medicine to Nepalgunj and other part of Nepal. They bring to sell hashes, hand-knit sweaters, blankets, silajit, ysrshajumba etc to Nepalgunj. They carry back the things of their daily needs like cotton clothes, metal pot, match box, spices, shoes. Their life is full of struggles and difficulties.
The people of Karnali are very innocent. They are less educated and they still believe on good and bad star time. They believe on their tradition and they don’t have the facilities of health and education. The land is not fertile there. So they depend on terai for food. They keep their sheep and goats with them as their business. Some people come to terai and some of them go to Kalapahad for work. They are not aware about the environmental destruction. But they are very helpful and kind people. The have harder life there to stay.
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Credential: Dr. Ramesh Adhikari
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