Mar 20 2024 38 mins 3
Hi everyone. I'm Marty Logan. Thank you for listening to Nepal Now: On the Move.
Let me know what you think of this episode, and if you have ideas for future guests. My email is [email protected]. I’ve done about 10 interviews to date for the show and I can see that it’s going to be much more difficult to find female guests than male ones, so please do send me tips about women who I might speak to. As a bit of a teaser, the people you’re going to hear from in future episodes have, for example:
- Gone to study in Canada
- Migrated to work in Kuwait but had to return early and is now taking legal action against the people who sent them there
- Voluntarily left a rising career in Oman to return to Nepal to share the country’s cultural values with their child
- Worked for some months in the US, then some months in Nepal, and continues to go back and forth regularly.
The Covid-19 lockdown in New Delhi forced Aanchal Dutt to develop baking skills in order to satisfy her sweet tooth. Anxieties about her parents living hundreds of kilometres away in her hometown Surkhet, pushed her to give up life in the mega-city she had known from childhood to open a bakery in the small town once the restrictions had passed.
Aanchal is one of a very small minority of Nepalis who are immigrating to the country instead of emigrating. But her/their story is important to hear if Nepal is to slow the now torrential flow of people leaving the country for what they hear are better opportunities abroad.
Since I’ve been working on this revamped show, I’m quite sure that Aanchal is the only young Nepali I’ve met who hasn’t wanted to migrate and has actually returned here. The Cake House is now thriving, as a family affair, which I’m happy to say I witnessed when I was in Surkhet. (Btw, if you need a recommendation, the favourite sweet is cheesecake). Aanchal has also fallen in love with an alternative school that practises an holistic approach to learning, and is teaching English there. She says she understands why young people are leaving the country, but passionately urges them to return to help build a better Nepal.
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Music by audionautix.com.
Thank you to the Association of Community Radio Broadcasters of Nepal and Himal Media for use of their studios.
