Kabindra Subedi's Teaching Portfolio

 Teaching Portfolio

Kabindra Subedi's Teaching Portfolio

My Teaching Philosophy

Ten Lesson Plans with Video Links

1. Exploring Verb Tenses in English - Technology-Enhanced Learning

2. Engaging Conversations with Technology 

3. Understanding Verb Tenses

4. Improving Pronunciation through Vowel Sounds

5. Writing a Descriptive Paragraph

6. Exploring Cultural Diversity through Podcasts

7. Exploring Character Development through Reading and Writing Interactive Vocabulary Builders

8. Engaging Reading Comprehension

9. Exploring "The Power of Vulnerability" through Listening and Speaking

10. Collaborative Storytelling with Story Cubes

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My Identity: A Selfie Photo

Trans-locality in Abhi Subedi's Play Dreams of Peach Blossoms

Translocality in Abhi Subedi's Play Dreams of Peach Blossoms

-Kabindra Subedi

        Guide-1
        Nepal has a great tradition, you know
        Come and enjoy this visit!
        It is not expensive

        Cheaper than Basilica.

Abhi Subedi, Dreams of Peach Blossoms

Abhi Subedi's Dreams of Peach Blossoms is perhaps the most complex, and most admired, but least understood poetic play that has perplexed generations of readers. It is fifty minutes play and takes place in front of an old palace in Bhaktapur with full of wood carvings, stone images and cobbled yards with dry ponds, and bare trees accompanied by the music of Dhime in Newari. In this cultural background, there are some different stories of different characters that revel the truth of multi layers of Bhaktapur as an example of translocalitiy. To answer s few questions which people may raise when they approach their critical study on this common but complex presentation of art. What makes Bhaktapur a place of translocality in this play? Why does the writer make the plot so complex? How the images of 'action' and 'adventure' are related? So, this research aims to dig out the hidden theme of the poetic play Dreams of Peach Blossoms considering an example of translocality as defined by Mark Lichtey whose idea about the tourist site of the Kathmandu valley, Thamel, as a place of translocality that he published an article entitled "Kathmandu as Translocality: Multiple Places in a Nepali Space"(269). Including Lichtey, ideas of Arjun Appadurai, Neil Brenner, Shiva Rijal are the theoretical spectrum to study the issue raised in this article.

    Yet it’s hard to know exactly what locality might mean in a world in which other places are constantly part of our own worlds. For intellectuals, artists and other cultural workers, especially in Nepal's contexts, being local it regards how to be local or regional or national or otherwise culturally distinctive without always having to work through the cultural, civilization and historical genius of one’s own specific traditions or localities that has “global-local nexus” (Brenner 39). The connection between translocalities and “transnationalism” affect an economic process that involves the global reorganization of the process (Blanc, Basch, Schiller 683) of representation of artistic prompts. Proponents of transnationalism seek to facilitate the flow of people, ideas, and goods among regions. They believe that it has increasing relevance with the rapid growth of globalization. They contend that it does not make sense to link specific nation-state boundaries with for instance migratory workforces, globalized corporations, global money flow, global information flow, and global scientific cooperation.

    What is precious in Bhaktapur culture and what makes it as the place of true destination for foreign and national tourists is the crux of this research. It always claims that Bhaktapur is known as “tourist translocality/ies” that has the “global networks” (Appadurai 348-385). This place is known as a rich place "for its wooden architecture and pagoda temples"(Subedi 73). These pagoda temples are the main attraction for the people who visit Bhaktapur. Mark Lichtey reminds that "The ancient pagoda temples and places that make the square kathmandu's main tourist attraction"(269). Bhaktapur Square has such types of pagoda temples that not only attract to people but also bring the viewers into its history. It has different social values, cultural identities and historical narratives. According to Lichtey,"localities are typically thought of as social constructions; social relations generate the shared experiences and histories that transform space into place"(270). In this poetic play, a poet appears on the stage and says that time has frozen. Then he asks the audiences to listen to the sound of water in the dry lake, to listen to the rustle of wind on treeless backyards. It creates a space where there is a transformation of thought into a place. Then, Guard announces the story:

            I tell you, one day
            Like this day or the day when 
            Anything that happens under the sky
            In Bhaktapur town

            Is a story. (76)

    What happened under the sky becomes the story of the people who live in under such roof. Many people are living with different identities, roles and responsibilities. On the stage there are movements of different characters along with different gestures, rhythms and gaits, and the girls and their lovers, the artists. People repeat the process of coming and going. The act represents the multi layers of the Bhaktapur city and its cultural heritage. In the play, the boy is captured by the attackers and taken away, perhaps amputated and the girl caries and laments. Maiju, who is about to get married and sent off, appears to be resisting her marriage accompanied with other girls. Here, Maiju symbolizes the multilayers of identity, cultural heritage, social mores, and, multi layers of the changes take place in the communities. So, two identities exist in trans-locality: on the one hand, there is suffocation among the locals and on the other hand, the same place is the source of getting relief for foreigners and other visitors.

    Lichtey further asserts his ideas that "trans-localities are often highly dramatic, performative spaces in which both tourists and Nepalis' experiment with identities and practices would be inappropriate in other locations where the meaning of the place is more rigidity controlled (273)." In the play, the characters- Maiju, Poet, Girl Boy Artists' lovers, Guide-1, Guide-2, First Young Woman, Second, Third Fourth, King represent the multi layers of identities of locals and Bhaktapur itself. All characters perform their different cultural, social, and artistic practices through the play which refers the practices of tourists and Nepali people interlinked to each another with the concern of trans-localities. Shiva Rijal, director of this poetic play, says that "playwright Subedi dramatizes the gap between the heritage and height of cultures of the past and that of the present times when poets, commoners, tourists, and, hawkers all show interest in such issues the past" (63). There is a networking between present and past that refers the concept of global village where the commoners, tourists and others can sustain in the very different manner. Newari culture dominates Bhaktapur which is far from others but they can assimilate themselves because it is the place of translocality. Rijal further states that "Subedi make sure of the semiotics of the cultural forms of expressions such as festivities and jatras to evoke the culturally rich heritage and life styles of the Newars"(64). This play juxtaposes indigenous elements with foreign influences and mixes historical values with contemporary exploitation. In the play, Guide-1

                This palace was made by king
                Good king, you know

                He has twenty wives

                But no, they say so 

                But he built good palace. (82)

    A true story of the king and his people as the artistic expression that fuses history and poetry to revive cultural memories and reawaken a dormant artistic spirit in the play. The reference of the king refers the history of the Bhaktapur. The king has twenty wives that becomes the culture during his time. No one argues on such wrong practices in the society because culture dominates people. However, nowadays different cultures are emerging in Bhaktapur which is the example of translocality where different cultures exist together. Sangita Rayamajhi, one of the critics, develops her views on this play that "Dreams of Peach Blossoms laments the disintegration of the cultural heritage, the heritage like Dreams of Peach Blossoms, colorful and vibrant yet remain only a dream"(138). Tourist guides visit Bhaktapur for selling their dreams. In the play, in a wedding scene, there was a big feast and Maijus, were in well dress, would cry because they did not want to leave their home where they grew and did not want to go to strange house with strange people. Maiju says "What language that I don't know/Do you want me to speak in a country Where there'll be no one who knows me?" (89). She does not agree with new culture, and she refuses to go another place by leaving her place. So, in translocality, locals are caged themselves because they neither want to accept new culture nor be able to sustain alone.  It ascribes the multi layers and multi-function of cultures that can be treated as the place of translocalities. In this poetic playGuide-1 expresses that "We will for you in thamel/In the cosmos of antiques/Not very old, you know" (97). In the view of Lichtey,

In translocalities like Thamel, Bhaktapur and other tourists destination, it is precisely the fantasies/ images of action and adventure that construct places in complex layers over same spaces. In these localities an array of mediated memories, rather than shared social relations, ascribes a host of meaningful places on to a shared space. (302)

To be treated as the place of translocality, there must be the connections between action and adventure. In a space, multi-cultural performances take place and dominate the feelings of locals and appreciate the emotions of foreigners. But there can be the cultural assimilation between outers and locals. This “human mobility creates affect-laden spaces that includes all kinds of people and foster cultural identity” among such places (Ludden 1069).  So, in this play Bhaktapur is treated as the dream of several characters under the same roof. Rijal argues:

The place Bhaktapur that the Guard sees, the poet sees, the tourists visit, the Guides who sell it, the artist lovers who are going to live in it painfully, the princess who are going to leave it, the king who has to rule over it and other commoners who celebrate moments in it are themselves multiple spaces and times accordingly. (66)

Time moves back and forth, and a group of tourist guides, the poet as the form of king, the poet himself, and other characters along Guard, the custodians of the modern vibrant cultural industry in Nepal and elsewhere, who sell or save the indigenous heritage icons and images, bring the entire plot of the play. The space of Bhaktapur Square is the dream land for the many tourists where there are many songs and stories of agonies and sorrows sung and spoken. It reveals the multi layers of translocality. Abhi Subedi asserts his views on his own play that” In this poetic play, time moves on several planes. It is not linear. It is a complex process. It is a meta-history. People live the myth of history but dismantle its so-called glorious moments out of this emerge various dramatic moments" (48). This play demonstrates the various complexities through different characters that make the play historical and inclusive. In wrap up, this research paper claims that despite the native domination of Bhaktapurean culture, the space is being changed that creates a real picture of Bhaktapur as a translocal place.  

Works Cited

Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large. London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Blank, Cristina S., Linda B. and Nina G.S. “Transnationalism, Nation-States, and Culture”. Current Anthropology Vol.36, No.4 (Aug-Oct 1995): 683-686.

Brenner, Neil. “Beyound State-centrism? Space, Territoriality, and Geographical Scale in globlalization Studies”. Theory and Society vol.28 no.1 (Feb 1999): 39-78.

Lichtey, Mark. "Kathmandu as Translocality: Multiple Places in a Nepali Space". In Geography of Identity. Anna Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. PP 98-130.

Ludden, David. “Presidential Address: Maps in the Mind and the Mobility of Asia”. The Journal of Asian Studies 62, No. 4 (Nov 2003): 1057-1078.

Rijal, Shiva."History and Dreams of Dreams of Peach Blossoms."Dreams of Peach Blossoms. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 2012.PP 61-71.

Rayamajhi, Sangita."The Forbidden Dreams of Peach Blossoms." Dreams of Peach Blossoms. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 2012.PP138-41.

Subedi, Abhi. Dreams of Peach Blossoms. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 2012.

Welcome to this Web Page

Allow me to introduce Kabindra Subedi, a name synonymous with curiosity and boundless exploration. Kabindra is a dedicated individual with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge that drives them to new heights of understanding and insight.

Guided by the philosophy that every challenge is an opportunity and every experience a potential lesson, Kabindra approaches life with an open heart and an open mind. This philosophy has not only propelled them through their personal journey of growth but has also inspired those around them to embrace life's complexities with courage and enthusiasm.

Beyond the realm of intellectual pursuits, Kabindra finds solace and inspiration in the embrace of nature. A true admirer of the natural world, they recognize the intricate interconnectedness of all life forms and draw creative energy from the beauty that surrounds them.

Kabindra's interactions with others are marked by their genuine empathy and a willingness to share the wealth of knowledge they've accumulated. Their belief in the strength of collaborative learning and the power of diverse perspectives has made them a true beacon of enlightenment within their community.

In the tapestry of life, Kabindra Subedi weaves threads of curiosity, empathy, and inspiration, leaving an indelible mark on the minds and hearts of those fortunate enough to cross their path.