English Literature
The Heritage of Words
If you notice any errors in the ppt,
please let us know.
Your constructive suggestions will
be highly acknowledged.
Tanka Raj Dahal
Department of English
Kathmandu Model College, Bagbazar, Kathmandu
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
-M. Lilla and Bishop Barry
Genre: Essay
Writer: M. Lilla and Bishop
Barry
By: Tanka Raj Dahal
Issues: Social, Economic and
Cultural aspects of
Karnali people
Message:
- Karnali region is
remote and the
people living there
are living very
difficult life.
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
Written by American
geographers
An extract of a research article
“Karnali, Roadless World of
Western Nepal”
The article is the outcome of 15
months’ exploration by the
geographers
Present a picture of people and
their life in Karnali zone
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
Karnali region
By: Tanka Raj Dahal
Difficult topography
Remote area No access of facilities
Not linked with road (but now it is )
Away from technology
Rocky soil
Low productivity of the soil
No enough agricultural products
Harsh life
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
By: Tanka Raj Dahal
Karnali People
• Ignorant, Innocent, Superstitious and Illiterate
• Finding alternatives of survival as farming is not
enough for survival
• Despite having adverse landscape and
inadequate productivity, they mesh with nature
and struggle for survival
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
By: Tanka Raj Dahal
Karnali People
• Economically dependent on Terai (Nepalgunj)
• No time to think about tomorrow, just think how
to survive today
• don’t know the fatal consequences of the
degradation of nature
• (not aware of ecological and environmental
degradation)
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
This essay presents a picture of how Karnali zone is
linked economically to the lowland of Terai
Presents social, economic and educational aspects of
Karnali region.
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
The writers in this essay describe
the life account of Karnali zone
people, their daily life, their
By: Tanka Raj Dahal
tradition and culture, their lack of
awareness about environmental
preservation and Karnali zone’s
economic dependency with the
plain region of south Nepal.
To present these aspects, they have
brought four events in the text:
meeting with a
handsome chhetri
woman
people of
Karnali buying people
and selling processing silajit
things in on the way
Nepalgunj.
people cutting
down sal trees
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
Meeting Chhetri woman
The chhetri woman
By: Tanka Raj Dahal
asks the geographers
about the whereabouts
of her long lost (for
about 15 years)
husband which
indicates her ignorance
and illiteracy
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
The people processing silajit
• This event indicates
how superstitious
the people of Karnali
region are.
• Instead of
processing it at Sinja
they are processing
it on the way to
avoid a bad star.
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
People cutting down sal trees
• The skeletal looking SAL trees
indicate about the exploitation of
nature.
• It shows that they are
indifferently cutting down the
trees and they are not worried
about their own future.
• They are only solving the present
problem.
• They don’t know the fatal
consequences of the degradation
of nature.
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
Buying and selling things in Nepalgunj.
Economically dependent on Terai
They sell medicinal herbs, hashish,
hand-knit sweaters and blankets
and purchase the goods of daily
needs there
Tara and Danu buy sweets,
doughy pretzels piled on leafs.
Most of the people bought
conventional. items like- cotton
clothes, iron wares, spices and
jewelry
Karma bought distillery equipment
to make liquor.
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
Most of the people are farmers. But their
farm product is not sufficient to them
because it can’t support them. So they have
to sell and buy things for their day to day
livelihood.
People of Karnali, moreover, combine their
farming with trading. They have been
struggling for their livelihood.
People of Karnali are conservative and they
follow the good star when they leave their
homes.
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
The life in Karnali zone is very difficult.
Because of the lack of cultivated land, the
people have to do other extra economic
activities in addition to agriculture.
Whatever produced in their home village
is not sufficient to sustain their life for the
whole year.
So they have to travel through narrow and
dangerous paths regularly to support their
earning.
Hurried Trip Avoid a Bad Star
Questions for Practice :
What does the skeletal looking sal trees indicate about the
exploitation of nature ?
What does the reply “What can we do? The animals must
eat today” Signify ?
By: Tanka Raj Dahal
Give s short account of the life of the people of Karnali
What did the two writers learn about the life and culture of
the people of the Karnali region during their journey on
foot?
How is Karnali linked economically with the low land
regions to the south?
By: Tanka Raj Dahal
