The more you try to understand poverty in the Himalaya, the more confusing it gets. How does one gauge poorness? Is it material deprivation or is it a state of mind? In Nepal, it may be both.
Since "development" began in the Himalayan states in the early 1950s, the avowed goal of technocrats, politicians, consultants and foreign "donors" has been to improve living conditions in the Himalayan hinterland. Directly or indirectly, every programme and project has sought to pull the poor out of the abyss of economic deprivation. But many poor areas of the Himalaya have remained untouched, unacknowledged. The southern parts of Lalitpur District of Nepal, for example.
The aid-givers and aid-takers who have flown in and out of Kathmandu over the last four decades have all glanced down at the hills of Makwanpur and Lalitpur, just south of Kathmandu Valley's rim. Most never realise that these rugged uplands, inhabited by the Chepangs and Tamangs, constitute one of the poorest regions of Nepal. But within a few minutes, the aircraft is dipping into the metropolitan airspace of the capital city, where the life is good and land values sky-high. The memory of landslides on barren hillsides quickly recedes.
THE MAN ON THE HILL