REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE – LIFE OF A STORIED PRINCE FROM NEPAL

Bishnu Shumsher was born with the proverbial golden spoon in his mouth. The eldest son of Maharani Bal Kumari Devi, the second wife of Maharajah Chandra Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana of Nepal, Vishnu was the first son born after Chandra inherited [...]

Silent Tribute

As a kid it was always difficult for me to ascertain whether they were heroes or villains, some minor players in a Shakespearean tragedy or the main act itself. But one thing is for sure which is that I was always uncomfortable whenever [...]

LEGENDARY TOWN OF KIRTIPUR

The Soviets had a penchant for declaring their cities “Hero Cities” in tribute to their resilience in the face of the mighty German Wehrmacht bearing down on them with all its might. Stalingrad, Leningrad and Kiev come to mind as [...]

TAXIDERMY, A SUBLIME ART FORM

I have always marveled at the ability some people have to draw faces. At school we had our classmate Narendra Basnyat who could take a pencil or crayons or water colour and draw our faces whose likeness were striking. I have got a crayon [...]

REMEMBERING THE ROYAL HUNTS

There was a loud drone of an aircraft as it flew high above our campsite close to midnight. “Where is this plane coming from?” asked my father rhetorically. Of course, no one knew the answer in the Nepali night sky of 1971. It was [...]

A Few Examples of Modern German Expansionism

Demonstration in East Berlin on 4 November 1989 Historically, the Ottoman empire had heavy weapons. Turkey is called Asia Minor, Western Asia, and Anatolia. Turkey has enough land so that large weapons can be built and stored there. In [...]

Can Americans insist Ambassador Anatoly Antonov Answers His Telephone?

The Russian ambassador to the United States has been in the news this week. He has given an interview to Newsweek, and he published an article for ‘Foreign Policy’ called, “An Existential Threat to Europe’s Security Architecture?” [...]

CONTRASTING FATES OF THE TWO QUEEN MOTHERS OF NEPAL

Two half-sisters were married to the Wali’Ahad – a Persian formulation for ‘heir to the throne’ – Crown Prince Trailokya Bikram Shah of Nepal. These marriages took place in short intervals, the elder sister Tara [...]

German Outposts in Libya, Yesterday and Today

United Nations Map of Libya, with cities, roads, and the current twenty-two Districts or Shabiyah of Libya. The German army seems to test, build, and export weaponry. They used to test warplanes in Libya. The deserts in Libya are gigantic. [...]

The Washington, DC Indoor Mask Mandate

GW Student, Faculty & Staff Testing Center, The George Washington University in Washington, DC The mayors of Washington, DC and San Francisco have supposedly violated indoor mask mandates in recent months. In August, Muriel Bowser was [...]

THE BIOGRAPHER: LIFE OF GENERAL PADMA JUNG RANA

An important biography of Maharajah Jung Bahadur Rana was written by his son General Padma Jung Rana during his exile in India and it was published after his death in Allahabad in 1909 A.D. by Pioneer Press titled “Life of Sir [...]

BAGH KI KANCHI MAIYA, THE PRINCESS IN THE GARDEN PALACE

Out of all the 20 or so daughters of Maharajah Jung Bahadur Rana perhaps the daughter with the most colorful personality was Jung’s second daughter from his Bada Maharani, the main consort, Hiranya Garva Kumari. Popularly known as Bagh [...]

APPRECIATING A LEGEND, LIFE AND TIMES OF MAHABIR SHUMSHER

I will always remember the saying, “Old Soldiers never die, they simply fade away”, made immortal by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur during his farewell address to the U.S. Congress on April 19, 1951. A very popular war hero [...]

THE MEN WHO WOULD BE KING

History is replete with cases of some would-be kings losing their natural inheritance and of some other accidental kings being crowned. In Nepal we have two very good examples of a legitimate heir to the Shah throne who was shunned aside thus [...]

Labor Unions in Lubeck, Germany

Lübeck-Blankensee Airport Virginia is formally the ‘Old Dominion’. It is the Commonwealth of Virginia. Many people in the area arrived from Prussia in the early nineteenth century. Prussia is in Germany’s eastern provinces [...]

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Disputed Territories in the Caucasus Region

Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave in Azerbaijan. There are reports about rocket weapons and missile defense systems in the Caucasus region. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are in the Caucasus region. Yerevan is the capital of Armenia, Baku is [...]

ICONIC PHOTOS OF OVER A CENTURY AGO

In an earlier blog titled “Rana Court Photographers” I introduced two of the prolific photographers of their age plying their trade in the Indian Subcontinent based in their renowned studios in India. During the years 1868-71 A.D. [...]

The Logistics of Trade Between Hanoi and London

There are updates coming from London about an abandoned vehicle with deceased Chinese nationals in it. The deceased were thought to have come from China but it’s possible that many of them were Vietnamese nationals. The authorities in [...]

MARSHAL AND MAHARAJAH, SHORT HISTORY OF NEPALESE TOURISM

Perhaps the first Finnish tourist in the Himalayan Kingdom was Marshal Mannerheim. Nepal was better known then as a kingdom in the clouds, almost inaccessible, and a paradise for big game hunters from Europe, guests of the British Empire visiting [...]