Himal takes leave of the debate on Dor Bahadur Bista's book Fatalism and Development (Orient Longman, New Delhi 1991) with two
items. One is an excerpt from a talk presented by Bista on 6 September at the National Congress on Sociology and Anthropology of Nepal.
The other is an extended definition of 'fatalism' as provided by Robert Nisbet, Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at Columbia
University, New York, in his book: Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary (Harvard University Press 1982). We suggest that any reader
contemplating further correspondence on fatalism and development consider writing a book instead.
Hawking the Anomalous
It is true that I have frequently shied away from the identity of an anthropologist. That is because I am not sure whether I fit in with the straitjacket definition of an orthodox anthropologist. I am, by nature, an unorthodox creature. 1 cannot help it. This is the only way 1 can be honest with my academic friends, colleagues and myself. But it does not bother me because it is not my problem…
I have been frequently criticised by some of my colleagues for not appearing with the appropriate behaviour and style of an anthropologist— whatever that may be or whatever they may have had in their own minds. My actions, particularly the publication of my latest book Fatalism and Development, has touched upon the sensitive nerves of many a traditional Nepali elite and has done a little bit of an unsettling job.
Talking about hawking the anomalous and peddling the strange, I envy some of my Western colleagues and my Western gurus that they can and have been hawking and peddling the exotic from faraway and strange lands to audiences who can lake it at a theoretical level. It becomes an entertainment item rather than an unsettling, sensitive, nerve-touching pinch, the way some of our Nepali upper- class academicians have taken it.