Nepal Now: On the Move
We're talking with the people migrating from, to, and within this Himalayan country located between China and India. You'll hear from a wide range of Nepali men and women who have chosen to leave the country for better work or education opportunities. Their stories will help you understand what drives people — in Nepal and worldwide — to mortgage their property or borrow huge sums of money to go abroad, often leaving their loved ones behind.
Despite many predictions, migration from Nepal has not slowed in recent years, except briefly during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. About 1 million Nepalis leave every year to work at jobs outside the country. Tens of thousands go abroad to study. Far fewer return to Nepal to settle. The money ('remittances') that workers send home to their families accounts for 25% of the country's GDP, but migration impacts Nepal in many other ways. We'll be learning from migrants, experts and others about the many cultural, social, economic and political impacts of migration.
Your host is Marty Logan, a Canadian journalist who has lived in Nepal's capital Kathmandu off and on since 2005. Marty started the show in 2020 as Nepal Now.
Nepal Now: On the Move
Filmmaker Deepak Rauniyar
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Deepak Rauniyar still feels queasy when he remembers the racism he faced growing up in Udaypur district in eastern Nepal. As one of few dark-skinned kids in the community, whose mother tongue was not Nepali, he was taunted by children and singled out for beatings by his headmaster. But as a college student looking for part-time work he soon discovered that journalism gave him the power to uncover the discrimination that pervaded life in the southern Madhesh region. He later honed those skills travelling the country writing radio dramas for BBC Media Action.
In 2010 Deepak and his wife, actress and filmmaker Asha Magarati, decided it was time to start telling stories from their own point of view, with film as their medium.
Today, Deepak and Aasha live in New York City and are finalizing the script of their next project, tentatively called The Sky is Mine. It tells the story of a fair-skinned female police officer assigned to the Madhesh in the midst of communal tensions that would soon ignite. Like all their movies, this one is inspired by personal experience, explains Deepak, adding that telling the couple’s most personal story yet can be a frightening prospect.
Resources
Deepak Rauniyar's website, with links to his films
Nepal Now social links
Music: amaretto needs ice ... by urmymuse (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/urmymuse/57996 Ft: Apoxode
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Music by audionautix.com.
Thank you to Himal Media in Patan Dhoka for the use of their studio.
