Hurried Trip to Avoid a Bad Star : The Heritage of Words _12

 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.

 

Two Long term Problems: Too Many People, Too Few Trees

-Moti Nissani

Moti Nissani says that the two long term problems are the problems of and deforestation. At the present time these problems have become the great challenge to the whole humanity. Now, the population of the world is increasing rapidly due to the nutrition, modern medicine, lower death rate, modernization and sanitation. Every year, in fact, the world's population grows by more than 80 million people. In every one hour 10,000 people are added to our total population. More people will need more food. To produce more food, we have to cut down the trees. Both town and villages will be over crowed and the quality of life will fall down. The land, water and air will be polluted. The environment will be polluted. At the present time, due to the over population humans have been facing different kinds of diseases like cancer, asthma, hearing loss problem, contract epidemics and so many others. On the other hand, due to deforestation the world is loosing creatures such as salamanders, species of frogs, penguins, dodo etc. Similarly, the deforestation will bring the frightening problems as desertification, depletion of nonrenewable resources (eg: petrol, natural gas, helium), acid rain, loss of wild species and plant, ozone layer depletion and green house effects.

Moti Nissani brings the issue of 1500 world's scientists' World's Scientists Warning to Humanity and the joint statement of U.S. National Academy and Royal Society of London regarding the condition of the present world. They are worried about the present condition of the world. According to the essay, Moti Nissani says that growth rate of population of Nepal is 2.5% because the average Nepali women gives birth to 5 children. In 1951 the population of Nepal was 9 million but less than a half century later the population rose to 21 millions. If this rate is not checked, the total population of Nepal will be doubled in just 28 years. With the overpopulation, Nepal has to face all kinds of problems. Therefore, the future of Nepal seems to be very dark if the population is not controlled in time.

However, there are many remedies to solve these long term problems. We can save our forests by controlling the population and our appetite. Each person should be conscious about the environmental and ecological change. The people should be given education on deforestation and overpopulation. The government should invests lot of money for effective family planning to control the over population. There should be media campaigns to create awareness about the effects of overpopulation and deforestation. The conserver should be awarded. There should be greater efficiency in the use of wood - products and recycling. Reforestation and massive tree plantation can be done in the bare lands. People should smokeless Chulo that needs less fire woods. Moreover, Nissani states that we have to be conscious ourselves. He says that we know how and why to control overpopulation and deforestation but still we are lacking this knowledge to convert in to the reality.

Q. Is there anything you can do to help save Nepal’s remaining forest?

            Yes, we can do many things to save remaining forest of Nepal. At first people should be aware about the problems of deforestation and overpopulations. We should educate them about the importance of forest. Government should bring such program for the people. We should prevent over timber factories and control over paper factories. We can use hydro-electricity as fuel instead of firewood. We can start reforestation on the bare hills and where the trees have been cut down. People should smokeless Chulo that needs less fire woods. Moreover, Nissani states that we have to be conscious ourselves. He says that we know how and why to control overpopulation and deforestation but still we are lacking this knowledge to convert in to the reality.