Cricket has long been a sport with potential but with defeats in key matches earned Nepal a nickname of chokers. The dream of playing World Cup almost forgotten, Nepal hosted World Cricket League Division 5 – a step of the World Cup qualification and won it.

Nepal almost choked again after four comprehensive wins. It did lost to USA in the last league match and hadn’t there was crowd trouble, Nepal was more likely to be out of final.

* * *

Unruly crowd behavior! Well, many called it Kathmandu Riot. We were on the receiving side and members of the country which looked like benefitting from the situation. Whatever I told others – those not present in TU Ground – about the event, accurately, believed that I was trying to cut down badness of the events.

An American journalist who was live covering the game wrote – he felt there was police firing teargas – and everyone believed it [despite the journalist himself writing, later, that it was not true]. And, people seemed to believe 12,000 spectators invaded the ground while nobody entered the ground.

There were many who wrote as if the situation was fully intentional and calculated by spectators [the truth is even ICC was not clear on who reached the final more than half-an-hour after the completion of the match].

* * *

I am not defending what happened at TU.

I felt sorry for Singapore too who looked like suffered most from it.

But I do not agree that Nepal’s cricket should be punished. The situation was under control within 15 minutes, not even a single person was injured, even minor. If there are thousands of people at the ground, there can be minor scuffles – always.

And, ICC is reportedly in a quandary:

As for the ICC, it is in a difficult position. If it fails to act then there is a danger it sets a precedent for crowds to disrupt matches if doing so will benefit their side. Against that, it will not want to stamp down to heavily on a country where cricket has really taken hold.

* * *

And, ICC – the organizer of the event – became irrational a couple of time. First, they wanted media to sign a media accreditation contract that was suited when the event was sold to TV, radio and internet for live coverage. After informal/indirect request yielded nothing, we have to go formally via Nepal Sports Journalists Forum and threaten to boycott their press conference. Then they were ok and look, what coverage the event got, without anyone complaining.

The cricket rule-book say local conditions may apply; and looked like ICC had not understood the application outside the boundary.

Another time: ICC media manager disrupted an interview with Nepal’s coach Roy Dias more than half-an-hour after the conclusion of final and end of prize distribution ceremony telling us that we could only talk to him when they say ‘ok, here you go.’

Totally illogical!

* * *

So far, Nepal had only failed to win two of the tournaments that it has hosted – the 1998 ACC Trophy and 2007 ACC U-15 Trophy when all teams – except two – were disqualified for fielding overage players.

Is there a translation for Ghar ko bagh…?

Right now, the ACC U-16 Elite Cup is going on and hopefully Nepal continue to be tiger at home.

And, hopefully, one day, Nepal will be playing in the World Cup!

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Nepal was placed fifth with eight gold medals, nine silver medals and 19 bronze medals. This was not a brilliant performance by Nepal, but nevertheless, it was a more than brilliant performance from the athletes – everybody of them, the winners of the medals and others.

I am saying this because throughout my career as sports journalist I have always felt that the athletes are into the game for just one thing: the passion. Whatever they perform is more of their individual commitment and dedication as the country, I understand why, has not done many things to help groom their talents.

And, we know well the officials. This SAG, the officials did not perform well to ensure that the Bangladeshi organizers got the right national anthem to play [they played wrong anthem repeatedly]; some of the officials played war-of-words in the arena [in kabbadi] and many of them probably learnt how the game, they were official for, is played!

Nepal’s sport is as usual – sadly not much improvement in the past decade!

But most of the athletes are different! They play for their passion and pride of the nation despite knowing that they are offered peanuts. The country is not able to provide them more facilities or life-living options; but we have also failed to provide them what we could have easily done – the morale boosting moral support.

This SAG, there were a few beyond average performances that showed the talent and passion of the players.

Debu Thapa, the judo player, had the heart to compete and win a bronze despite being in a hospital after a lift accident at hotel.

Rajendra Bhandari, the Nepal Army runner who was banned for two years after testing positive for performance boosting medicine use in 2007, returned with a bang – in different category: the marathon [earlier he was running 3000m and 5000m] and won the gold.

Deepak Bista, the taekwondo icon who is already in the history book qualifying for the Olympics and winning three SAG gold medals, had passion and zeal enough to win fourth gold with a weakened knee.

Aren’t they lionhearted athletes? Of course, they are. [And, when they were winning I was remembering how disappointed Deepak was when the government terminated his temporary appointment at National Sports Council a couple of years ago / and how harshly the officials and how emotionally Rajendra reacted to his drug test results!]

Salute to them and all other athletes of the country!

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Being rich in art and artifacts, the mediaeval palace and its surroundings offer me something new every time I spent time there. Sometime, I discover an art I have never noticed, other times, I walk through a new alley and most of the time the square offers me a different kind of tranquility despite never being deserted.

I love sitting on a corner watching people’s activities: tourists taking photographs, children playing around, elders sitting together chatting and smiling and people moving. I feel almost like watching a favorite program on a muted television.

Bhaktapur Durbar Square is different than Kathmandu or Patan Durbar Square, for it seems lazily peaceful; for it offers glimpses into lives of people still to be touched much by modernity. It looks more a community backyard than a touristic attraction.

Last Saturday I was there for a peaceful evening just strolling around with my beloved wife and taking a few photographs and the most interesting piece I discovered, that I had never noticed before, was a statue just beside the famous 55-windowed-palace.

It’s a woman walking with a dog and dragging a child [distinctly a boy]. Here it is:

More about Bhaktapur: Nepal Tourism Board, Wikipedia & Virtual Tour to Bhaktapur Durbar Square.

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Today, Jamim Shah, a media entrepreneur, was shot dead in his car at Lazimpat, Kathmandu. Shah, the owner of Channel Nepal – the first satellite television channel of the country and also of a cable television network, once was publisher of two national dailies.

Every murder is cold blooded; but after hearing the news of Shah’s murder, I felt worse than a murder. Not only because he was a media entrepreneur but because it was an addition to a series where guns are used in a way unprecedented in our history.

A few days ago, fellow blogger KP Dhungana wrote an entry (Nepali link): Tomorrow’s headlines could be like these. He listed five hypothetical headlines:

• Husband shot at wife for [tasteless] curry
• Neighbors shot at each others on issue of waste, seven injured, three serious
• Pistol found in tiffin box of 12-year-old
• Guns used after motorcycles collide
• Bus assistance shot at demanding passenger

It was more of a satire. But also was an indication to the future. The gunture is not new in developed countries – more so in USA. But we were not much used to such news. We called ourselves peaceful and the gunture was rare.

Thanks to the Maoists’ People’s War and the rise of armed groups in Terai along with the lack of impunity, the gunture is on the rise in Nepali society.

The murder of Shah may not be a perfect example of gunture but the murder of eight-year-old schoolboy Santosh Karki in Gothatar was. Innocent Karki became victim of gunture when gun was used in a minor conflict.

Nobody can deny the fact that the armed conflicts and impunity are chief motivating factors behind gunture that one day in future could endanger more innocent lives. Events like blind firing in crowded places could happen in future because not much concerns are shown in the psychological management of those who have fought or/and killed or/and seen killings of people during the Maoists’ armed revolt.

Impunity also should end; political parties should be concerned if their stand for political benefits is paving way for crimes in future.

Gunture is not going to be good for any of us!

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It’s kind of absurd in Nepali context to think that newspapers is facing big challenge from online web sites – especially at the time when the newspapers are actually growing. But unlike many other technologies, web technology impacts very quickly and it’s not completely worthless to predict that in a decade or so, newspaper would become a rarity!

Wait… the newspaper here means the newspapers printed on the pulp paper and thrown to our door early morning or bought from stalls.
The hardware that is making news these days is e-reader. Beginning from Amazon’s Kindle to Barnes & Noble’s Nook to Sony’s readers to announced-but-not-available Skiff to just announced Apple’s iPad, e-readers are hot products.

With hot products come predictions. For many technology writers, e-readers are future of newspapers. Here is a new one in the line: Can the Apple iPad save newspapers? By Mercedes Bunz in the Guardian’s The Digital Content Blog. The concluding line of the writing is: If Steve Jobs would save journalism, it might be possible that publishers would get him the Holy Grail. And, there are many such blogs, and articles in the same line.

What I am wondering at is that will newspapers be still called newspapers if they are not available on paper and only available in e-readers. And, most important question is: is online killing journalism? Or does death of newspapers mean death of newspapers?

For me, newspaper will not be newspapers if they are not on papers. They will simply be online news site – regardless of what design they have or in which devices they are available. The media industry (for now, the newspaper industry) can neither remain constraint with once-a-day update in the growing threat from pure online news portals nor they can avoid multimedia even if their products are only available in e-readers.

If that happens, the line between online news portals and used-to-be-printed-on-paper online news will be blurred and omitted.

E-readers can off course save the media industry who can simply close-down printing presses (and replace by a team of web designers and programmers) in the fight of survival with the online news portals.

And, I believe newspapers are not the yardstick of journalism. Journalism is collecting, writing and presenting of news and in doing so following some universally accepted principles such as accuracy, objectivity and fairness.
 
As a blogger – I always believed that there is nothing called absolute objectivity (for that matter nothing absolutely right or absolutely wrong). It depends on the perspective of the individuals. And, I also believe that feelings of the human being in any news are more important than facts.

Journalism should evolve; the principles we hold today for it were not the exact principles held a few decades ago and they will not remain exact in next few decades. So, even if there is no newspapers, journalism will remain with more strong principles and matured practices.

Newspapers may be something not as popular as it today, but media industry will remain [I don't say survive because falling down of companies and rising of new companies is a constant process]. But the dominant medium will be web!

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