Nepalese Jaat Bhat system!

Growing up in the Nepalese society I have always felt the importance of our surname. It defines us in a way; your surname will decide what tribe or caste you belong to. We Nepalese also seem to have this caste system where your surname will decide how high up or low you are considered socially, which isn’t in much use nowadays Thank God! The practice of untouchability and whole idea seems silly.

When you speak to a senior Nepali the surname question will always pop up during a conversation and sometimes the answer will raise a few eyebrows.

I am fully aware we Nepalese pride ourselves of our culture, values and tradition but judging and differentiating someone according to their caste- is that really a culture we want to influence and encourage to our future?

I find it very sad when I see someone frowning upon someone’s surname because they are believed to be low. The caste system still exists even living miles away from our country here in UK.I have found myself in situations where people are hesitant about integrating with other castes. What does that say about us as a human being if we are discriminating against our own kinds?

Even though it’s against the law to discriminate against anyone according to their caste it is still going on. People are not so much open about it but it still occurs.

Our society’s idealism of the caste system is bringing out the worst of us as a nation. I hope the younger Nepalese youths will not carry on this system and sooner or later it will be extinct.

One day I hope to see all of us Nepalese appreciating all the different culture and traditions we have and celebrating together as Nepali rather than bigging up and lowering each other. Miss Uk Nepal 2012 is setting up a great example by organising a traditional event bringing together all the ethnic groups on the 1^st of April.

What do you guys think? Do you look down on someone because of their caste? Are you looked down on because of your surname? How big of a deal is someone’s surname for you?

Share me your experiences.

Best Dressed at Oscars 2012 for me!

Sunday night was the most glamorous night for Hollywood. “The Artist was the big winner at the 2012 Oscars, with the silent, black-and-white film picking up Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor for star Jean Du-jar-din. Meryl Streep's portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady saw her win the third Academy Award of her career”.

The A-listers called in the fashion Big Guns. The red carpet was filled with beautiful dresses with reigning trend of white and occasional flash of reds. Oh my God! Jennifer Lopez dared to go bare - with her striped figure hugging nude dazzling dress. She just looked amazing for someone who’s just got out of a marriage. I guess that’s how you are supposed to look. Perfect!

I thought Pharrel Williams looked hot with his classic three piece tuxedo at the red carpets.

Everyone is wearing coloured jeans!

It’s time to ditch the dark winter tones and get colour blocking again. This season everyone seems to be going crazy for coloured jeans and I am loving it. 

Coloured jeans are great for creating a bright, trendy and fun look.

They can also be a single stand-out piece in a look and it requires minimal accessories.

This hot look will bring spring to your wardrobe and will add instant versatility with unlimited choices of colour to choose from. Brights Jeans can be worn from day-to-night on any occasion depending on how you dress up or dress down the look.

Ways to wear colour:

You can look hot in red pair

Go low key with a yellow shade

Blue coloured jeans will create classy meets causal look

Look bold with a green pair

Hosting Miss Uk Nepal 2011

The second year running Miss UK Nepal has ended with announcement of new title holders Miss Gau Maya Gurung is our new Miss UK Nepal followed by Pragya Shrestha who is the 1^st runner up than Neelam Gurung who was crowned the second runner up. Congratulations to the winners but everyone is a winner in their own way because I’m sure everyone has achieved something out of the competition and so did I.

THE TITLE HOLDERS 

This year I made my early journey to Aldershot to the finals of Miss UK Nepal 2011, but this year I hosted rather than took part. MISS UK NEPAL is a beauty pageant for young Nepalese girls to showcase their talent and beauty plus it helps to encourage beliefs and values of our rich culture and tradition.

I have always had a fascination for broadcasting. I love broadcasting live shows; I would say I am gregarious in the extreme and projecting my personality is my passion but one thing I never do and I know I should do is PREPARE before any event.

I went to the finals without knowing the programme schedule, without any rehearsals without knowing all the contestants oh plus not having met my co-host before, damn right unprofessional of me. Hosting a programme can be quite chaotic and stressful especially without any preparation beforehand and for the ones who came to the live finals you must be aware of all the technical hitches we had, they were countless.

Miss Uk Nepal has been the most challenging event, I have hosted so far. Normally I just introduce different acts to an audience which believe me is very easy anyone can do it, but this was a beauty pageant where I had to inform, entertain, plus cover all the sound system tantrums.

This experience has made me see hosting in a different way, has made me realise how important the words we use are. Throughout the show I kept making endless mistakes. CRINGE! Being spontaneous can be difficult sometimes plus when you are put on the spot in front of large audience it’s no time be rambling on about what they don’t want to hear and Oh yeah! Promising an act and presenting them a fill in all the time is A Big No! No! If I was an audience I would seriously be put off.

Overall it was a fantastic show; seeing the stunning contestants on stage and entertaining performances and I know the organisers have worked really hard for it and they everyone should be proud of what they have achieved. However I have to admit there were too many awkward gaps where the poor audience where left to wonder what’s happening.

As for me I am learning by relishing every hosting opportunity that I have received and I know I got to improve; the stage is not a place for mistakes rather I need to learn to make events even more exciting for my audience.

University ? ? ?

Going to University to achieve higher education is very vital for most of us Nepalese youths. I am hoping to start Uni from next year and I am sure many of you out there are too, than again like many of you out there I have fears about it.

As we are all aware we will be paying up to a big whopping four numbers £9000 a year for tuition fees alone. Not Fair!  I estimated I probably will end up with £63,000 in debt which will include living expenses and fees by the time I graduate with no guarantee of a job. But this is not my main concern as we will be covered by student loan but what I worry about is moving away, setting in a new place, responsibility and surviving independently.

I guess growing up, we are so used to being fussed around by our parents constantly; interfering in every aspect of our lives but all that will be GONE once we are at Uni.

On top of that hearing all these terrible problems of current Uni students doesn’t help either. I have heard many, mostly money related: No money to top up gas, No food, feeling home sick, relationship problems and so on.

On the other hand I am extremely excited about going to Uni. Cannot wait to start. University should be a fun experience to find ourselves and be independent especially for most of us Nepalese youths who are mostly restricted from going out often while at home. So being away from the living CCTV community and parents means FREEDOM at the max but my mother being mum will probably be calling me every hour of the day.

Being away will mean we can do what we want, when we want and where we want. However the excitement doesn’t last forever so I guess after a few months all the reality will start to kick in with problems, the bills, late nights, feeling lonely, cooking, cleaning all those things we take for granted while at home. We will have to manage EVERYTHING OURSELVES.

For some of us the new found freedom could take over the main aim; rather than being focused on the degree. What if we get too much into the fun side?  What if we don’t get on with the housemates? What if we don’t like the course we picked?

Also the friends we might meet could become a problem as it is very easy to get swayed or pressured into bad habits like going out too much, drinking, and smoking.

Also With unemployment on the rise I question myself is degree really the stepping stone to a career.

Sarala's Review of I-phone 4s

Firstly I had stopped writing for long so I thought I would pick myself back up with a review for my new phone.


As we were eagerly waiting for I-phone 5, instead Apple has announced I-phone 4S, an updated version of I-phone 4. So this what i think of the new phone.

To begin with the handset doesn’t have any difference – not a single change so a down point if you want to show off your new gadget because no one will even notice that you have the new version. I was expecting at least a size deduction a tummy tuck considering it's an Apple product however the new phone is 3g lighter compared to its predecessor.

So it’s the software and the hardware that has changed.I-phone4s has had a upgrade from the A4 processor to an A5 daul core chip which means it can deliver up to twice the power and seven times faster graphics.

Another big change is upgrade of the camera for a camera hugging person like me its fantastic news as the new phones been bumped up with 8mp. It also has a bigger aperture of f/2.4, the illumination sensor has been ‘improved' and there's additional face detection. When it comes to video the camera will be able to shoot in HD 1080p as opposed to HD 720p, and it will have added video stabilisation that the I-phone 4 cameras doesn't have.I guess apple is finally meeting up to current specification of other smart phones when it comes to camera.

Apple has also made an improvement to the I-phone’s storage too. It offers up to 64GB of internal storage, which is twice as much as the biggest I phone 4 because I-phone’s has never had a memory card slot for expansion so this will help users who require more space, especially now that video is in HD 1080p.

The ultimate change is Siri which is a new voice control system which i call my NOKOR hehe dream complete of having a personal asisstant as it is meant to do everything you ask it to do but Siri can be quite annoying at time when it doesn't understand your accent so it is useless at times.

Overall the I-phone 4S is not a massive upgrade from the I-phone 4. It just has a better processor, an improved camera and more storage. I am hugely disappointed that the handset has had nothing done to it to make it different from the I-phone 4 in terms of looks sometimes i think to myself what is the point of owning the new hadset. IOS 5 is an upgrade, of course, but how annoyins as this will be available for I-phone 4 users as well.

If you're an I-phone 4 user then i recommend you wait  for the I-phone 5 unless you're desperate for the better camera or larger storage capacity. 

Love Sarala :)

HANGOVER 2

This half term, I seriously haven’t done anything - well last weekend went to Ghurkha Cup and that’s it! been stuck indoors even though the start of June has bought some lovely Sunshine.

So to enjoy some nice weather while we had it went to watch the much talked about movie on Facebook recently the second part of HANGOVER – Hangover 2.

In my pure opinion a Rehash of the first one - How can the same thing happen to the same guys twice? The plots kind of the same really but it still managed to make me laugh but I think the element of surprise was missing of the second one.I loved the pet monkey so cute I want one. Oh once again I must say right soundtracks were amazinnng plus at the right time so it complimented the film well.

Anyway if you loved the first one than Hangover 2 is definitely worth watching.