Monday, June 6, 2022
New Nirala Release : A People’s History of Nepal By Meena Ojha
ISBN 978-8195191543 pp 360 First Edition 2022 Paper Demy Rs. 795 Indian Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/dp/8195191541?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon India: https://www.amazon.com/dp/8195191541?ref=myi_title_dp
A People’s History of Nepal is a ground-breaking treatise, bringing to light the epoch-making events that transformed the Himalayan nation from the darkness of Middle Ages to the modern-day republic. The author celebrates momentous contributions of the Nepalese people who played a heroic role in shaping the current face of the Nepalese polity. Dr Ojha begins with the background of the 1950 Democratic Movement and moves on to analyze several key events including King Tribhuwan’s participation, King Mahendra’s Royal Takeover in 1960, and its aftermath in detail. In the following chapters, the key upheavals during one-party Panchayat regime and the building of 1990 People’s Movement that ushered multiparty democracy in Nepal are presented empirically. Subsequently, the author delves into the raging decade involving the People’s Movement and the role of the political parties in the restoration of a multiparty system followed by the Direct Rule of King on October 4, 2002. The last chapters analyze the Maoist War 1996-2006 and the People’s Movement-2007 and the emergence of the Constituent Assembly in 2008. Employing primary and secondary sources like newspapers, leaflets and pamphlets, interviews with the actors and the participants in the democratic struggle, Dr. Ojha brings alive the turbulent years of the Nepalese people’s struggle to usher freedom, justice and democracy in numerous shades and colors. She expresses grief that even after seven decades of political struggle the major task of national development remains a distant dream even today.. This monumental book by a distinguished Nepalese woman scholar is a must to scholars, political analysts, policy makers as well lay readers interested in understanding undercurrents of the contemporary Nepalese history and politics.
A People’s History of Nepal is a ground-breaking treatise, bringing to light the epoch-making events that transformed the Himalayan nation from the darkness of Middle Ages to the modern-day republic. The author celebrates momentous contributions of the Nepalese people who played a heroic role in shaping the current face of the Nepalese polity.
“A comprehensive account of recent Nepali history covering a span of almost sixty years… Personality studies have pre-occupied the attention of Nepali historians. But Dr. Menna Ojha has made a careful departure from this accepted norm and emphasized people’s role in the three revolutions of 1950, 1990 and 2006… monumental work on the people of Nepal.”
–Prof. Prem Raman Uprety, Tribhuwan University
Dr. Meena Ojha is a distinguished Nepalese scholar and political analyst. She was educated at Tribhuwan University where she received a PhD for her research on contemporary politics in Nepal. She has received numerous awards and honors including Mahendra Vidya Bhushan. She works as Associate Professor at Tribhuwan University and is the author of Students Politics and Democracy in Nepal (Nirala, 2010).
She lived in Kathmandu.
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
SOS : Surviving Suicide Anthology Highlight : CARLOTTA ALLUM's "We Watched Her"
CARLOTTA ALLUM
We Watched Her
Hannah was always striking, angelic long hair,
Hannah stayed with us a lot, roaming the house
dressed only in an oversized Stone-Roses tee shirt
We watched her
Hannah could write beautifully, cursive, neat beyond her years
Hannah liked to dance, as a child on the stage in the West End,
the Royal Ballet School took note
We watched her
Hannah was super smart, reading Natural Sciences at Cambridge
Hannah was sent home in her first term
after setting fire to herself in front of her tutors on stage
We watched her
Hannah spent hours in the shower and washing her hands
Hannah was weighing everything she ate
She was painfully thin
We watched her
Hannah was working as a dominatrix
Hannah had lined the walls of her room with tin foil
as people were listening
We watched her
My psychiatrist asked me
if there was any mental illness in the family
I think of Hannah, her light burning bright
When Hannah was well, she embraced life, she danced
I admired her, watched her
Hannah was on a suicide ward outsmarting the nurses
Hannah kept back medication and smuggled in a plastic bag
Her mum knew, “She’s going to do it”
“PLEASE, WATCH HER”
They didn’t watch her
From the Press:
As
a result of her death, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
made changes to their patient observation policy. It would only have taken
around eight minutes for Miss Allum to take her own life.
“For
us, reliving our worst fears that Hannah might take her life and our endless
efforts to make those caring for her recognise those concerns, has been, at
times, impossible to bear. We will al-ways feel that Hannah was failed by the
trust. We understand that certain things are now different as a direct result
of Hannah’s death, but this is too little too late for our dear Hannah or for
us. We want Hannah to be remembered for her beauty, intelligence and wit.”
.
Carlotta Allum is Director at Stretch Charity that continues to
support vulnerable groups to access the arts and education, centered mostly on
storytelling and the power to transform through positive and creative life
stories.
NOW ALSO AVAILABLE ON AMAZON UK, USA, CANADA AND INDIA
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/8195191517?ref=myi_title_dp
USA : https://www.amazon.com/dp/8195191517?ref=myi_title_dp
CANADA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/8195191517?ref=myi_title_dp
INDIA : https://www.amazon.in/dp/8195191517?ref=myi_title_dp
Sunday, March 13, 2022
Title Poem from Mike Graves' new book, "Preparing the Apology"
Preparing the Apology
Mike Graves
She looked like you.
Slim, in a short shift.
Her breasts were like two heaving moons.
Her cheekbones Slavic,
And her wide eyes warm
Her manner natural.
Her lips full, without lipstick.
Her legs bare
To the middle of her thighs,
Promised ecstatic pleasure.
She looked like you.
Her hair was tied in a simple knot,
Decked with a white blossom.
Her poems were terrible.
I didn’t care...
We lay entangled in her boyfriend’s bed,
Juices leaking out of us.
She looked like you...
Michael Graves is the author of four chapbooks, two of which are digital, and three full-length collections. The chapbooks are Outside St. Jude’s (R. E. M.,1990), Blatnoy (madhattersreview3.com, 2005), Illegal Border Crosser (Cervena Barva, 2008), and Fifteen Villanelles (Robert Perron.com 2020). The full-length books are Adam and Cain and In Fragility (Black Buzzard, 2006, 2011) and A Prayer for the Less Violent Offenders: Selected Short Poems of Mike Graves (Nirala, 2017). He has published fifteen poems in The James Joyce Quarterly and has read from his “Joycean Poems” to a gathering of the James Joyce Society at the Gotham Book Mark, April 12, 2002. His poem “Apollo to Daphne” appears in Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths (Oxford, 2001) The Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation awarded him a grant in 2006. He organized the conference, Baptism by Fire: The Work of James Wright at Poets House, NY (March 27, 2004). And he has been coordinating and hosting the Phoenix Reading Series for about twenty years.
Now Available on Amazon USA, Canada, UK and India
Monday, March 7, 2022
FROM SOS : Surviving Suicide : British Poet Christopher Southgate's "Sestina"
CHRISTOPHER SOUTHGATE
Sestina
for Karen and Ros
and Sue, Richard and Peter and Simon,
and many others
I came here when I was nineteen, to get well
from a kind of flash-flood of down, from a tyrant rule
of spiders over the thin moon of me. Safe from harm
here, they said. The film’ll run slowly. Under control.
No-one will have to know. No-one will notice.
They didn’t say I’d come out with a label.
Mind you, it was a kind of comfort, the label,
at first. People could see I’d fallen down a well
that was real. It made them take notice.
Then we lost our insurance. It’s a rule,
the girl on the phone said. So I lost control
and broke the phone. My friend left. Only then the self-harm
and the Seclusion Room. What’s the harm,
I said, if I cut myself? Is that the wrong label?
They tried things out till I was under control:
Thirty milligrams the spiders. Seventy milligrams, well,
Numbness, like living yesterday over. Fifty mgs rule
O.K. Not disruptive enough to notice.
I watch the trees a lot. I stand by the notice
That says all visitors must sign in and out. Harm-
less words. I tell another patient it’s a good rule.
He tells me I’m a police spy. I like that label.
Whoever made my loneliness made it well.
But who was it? And is he still in control?
Sometimes I stand and think - this is a sick plan to control
a special person who’s been fighting stuff a long time. ‘Notice
the difference, when you treat me right!’ I shout. Does no harm.
It is better here, than years ago. Same label -
but they ask about the colour of the bricks in your well.
Sometimes they help you choose to go ahead and keep a rule.
Maybe it has to be that certain drugs rule
your life, that without them there’s just no control
over the downs. But staff do talk to you, go past the label,
if you get the right one, with some time to notice
you. To see you’re choosing between living and no more harm
ever again. I read once that all shall be well -
tell me then: if I knew every rule, and could get people to notice
me, and was under control with the drugs, and was no harm
to anyone, and lost my label, would I be called well?
Commissioned by the
local NHS Trust to express the concerns of long-term sufferers of mental
illness, and read in the Service held in Exeter Cathedral to mark 50 years of
the NHS in Devon.
Christopher Southgate trained originally as a biochemist,
and has since been a house-husband, a bookseller, a lay chaplain in university
and mental health settings, and a teacher of theology. He has published four
collections on poetry with Shoestring Press, the most recent being Chasing the Raven (2016). In 1997 he
wrote an exploration of the life of T.S. Eliot through an extended biographical
poem with companion essays, published as A
Love and its Sounding (Salzburg). In 2017 Canterbury Press brought out an
edition of Southgate’s spiritual poems entitled, Rain falling by the River. His theological work includes The Groaning of Creation, which has
proved to be a seminal study of the problem of suffering in evolution. Chris
lives on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon, and he continues to be deeply influenced
by this landscape, as well as by the journey of his Christian faith.
Edited by Dean Stalham
ISBN: 978-81-951915-1-2 Pages 159 Demy
NOW
ALSO AVAILABLE ON AMAZON UK, USA, CANADA AND INDIA
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/8195191517?ref=myi_title_dp
USA : https://www.amazon.com/dp/8195191517?ref=myi_title_dp
CANADA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/8195191517?ref=myi_title_dp
INDIA : https://www.amazon.in/dp/8195191517?ref=myi_title_dp
Saturday, February 19, 2022
New Nirala Release : Distinguished Nepalese historian Shreeram Prasad Upadhyaya’s A Short History of Nepal : From Ancient to Modern Times
A Short History of Nepal :From Ancient to Modern Times
by Shreeram Prasad Upadhyaya
ISBN-13 : 978-8182500037 Rs. 595 Pages 259 Demy
Amazon India : https://www.amazon.in/dp/8182500036?ref=myi_title_dp
Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/dp/8182500036?ref=myi_title_dp
A
Short History of Nepal by renowned Nepalese historian Shreeram Prasad
Upadhyaya is a comprehensive and updated account of Nepalese history
ranging from Ancient to Modern times. Nepal’s history is unique and
different from the rest of the world. The Gopal dynasty in Nepalese history
represents agricultural age of human civilization. Originally, it’s
believed Nepal valley (Kathmandu) was a lake. Manjushri from the north
and God Krishna along with other gopals from south made this valley suitable
place for human settlement.
Dr. Upadhyaya in a nutshell covers the
history of the Gopals, the Kirats and the Lichhavis in ancient period, the
Mallas in Medieval period, the Shahs and the Ranas of Modern period along with
rulers of the Republic in the contemporary Nepal. In his opinion, the Vedic
history has great influence on the Nepalese way of life. The tradition and
culture of the people of Nepal had great impact on the formation of civil court
and their practices. The Gopal period of Nepal was important in the
agricultural development whereas the Kirat period played momentous role in the
expansion of trade and industry. The Lichhavi period was popular for moral
values and the Medieval period for art and architecture. The modern period of
Nepal saw many changes. Prithivinarayan Shah made great contribution by
unifying Nepal and the Rana period was significant in the preservation of
national sovereignty and integrity, in spite of its despotic nature. The
democratic changes after the fall of atrocious Ranas brought Nepal in touch
with the outside world. The continuous struggle and strife of the people of
Nepal brought forth the current Republic form of Government. The people of
Nepal are keenly watching the activities of Federal, Provincial and local
Government with a hope to peace and prosperity ultimately ushers into the
world’s youngest republic.
Short History of Nepal is a wonderful
book meticulously sketching the major events in an efficient manner, doing the
amazing task of introducing the great Himalayan nation to a beginners as well
as an expert alike.
Dr. Upadhyaya in a nutshell covers the
history of the Gopals, the Kirats and the Lichhavis in ancient period, the
Mallas in Medieval period, the Shahs and the Ranas of Modern period along with
rulers of the Republic in the contemporary Nepal. In his opinion, the Vedic
history has great influence on the Nepalese way of life. The tradition and
culture of the people of Nepal had great impact on the formation of civil court
and their practices. The Gopal period of Nepal was important in the
agricultural development whereas the Kirat period played momentous role in the
expansion of trade and industry. The Lichhavi period was popular for moral
values and the Medieval period for art and architecture. The modern period of
Nepal saw many changes. Prithivinarayan Shah made great contribution by
unifying Nepal and the Rana period was significant in the preservation of
national sovereignty and integrity, in spite of its despotic nature. The
democratic changes after the fall of atrocious Ranas brought Nepal in touch
with the outside world. The continuous struggle and strife of the people of
Nepal brought forth the current Republic form of Government. The people of
Nepal are keenly watching the activities of Federal, Provincial and local
Government with a hope to peace and prosperity ultimately ushers into the
world’s youngest republic.
A Short
History of Nepal is a wonderful book meticulously sketching the major
events in an efficient manner, doing the amazing task of introducing the great
Himalayan nation to a beginners as well as an expert alike.
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