Kathmandu, September 24, 2005

Tea processing and tea parties are often elaborate affairs. Equally rich, of course, is the English language when it comes to describing, telling, relating, correlating and enumerating the quality of tea. The latest book concerning new techniques in tea manufacturing in India by Karan Kumar Rawal lists many of them. “Black” tea, for example, does not necessarily point at a cuppa without the conventional whitener. If it is a tea taster who’s talking, he could be referring to fermented tea just as he could be talking about “pleasant characteristics” by voicing the term “biscuity.” While “bouquet” suggests a bunch of flowers for laymen it denotes a “superlative flavour” when used by a tea taster. Similarly, “brassy” denotes a metallic taste while “body” is suggestive of “possessing fullness and strength.” “Empty” suggests “lacking fullness and substance.” Then, there is “aroma” which refers to the “fragrant smell of tea grown at high altitudes” even as “wild” indicates “end season teas with reddish rings around them.” “Gone off” , of course, points at teas which may have gone past their prime. “Green”/”greenish” suggests “early first flush.” Terms like “coloury”, “contamination” and “croppy”, too, have their own distinct connotations for tea tasters. “Coloury” suggests “depth of colour”, “contamination” indicates at a “foreign taste” while “croppy”is indicative of a “bright and creamy taste with character.”

Bar on screening films against repressive regime

Kathmandu,September 24

An eight-year-old film by an Indian director is among several Nepali movies that are bearing the brunt of a changed attitude after King Gyanendra’s takeover for their political overtones. The new government has apparently banned Tulsi Ghimire’s film Balidaan. Cinemas in Nepal have been asked not to show it, the film’s producer Shyam Sapkota told this correspondent.

It became a hit when it was released eight years ago but has fallen out of favour with the current government for its depiction of a mass movement for democracy 16 years ago. The plot revolves around a young student who after completing his studies goes to the villages to start a mass movement against the repressive administrative system.

Though the film does not spell out the political affiliation of the martyr hero, he is generally regarded as a communist reformer. One of the songs in the film — Gaon gaon bato utho, basti basti bato utho (Arise from the villages, arise from the slums) — has been adopted by the largest communist party in Nepal, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist with its mass meetings often ending with the rendition of the popular song.