PRABINFO

ATUL POKHAREL “If I can do it, it’ll help us cure cancer,” he said as he stood in the lobby of a building at Harvard University. “So, you’re trying to understand how DNA repairs itself?” I attempted to sum up what I had understood so far. “Yes, more specifically, I’m trying to design a molecular probe to…” He continued to explain his research, taking me deeper into a newly explored world of DNA, proteins, and enzymes called Chemical Biology. As he spoke, his face lit up and his hands assumed one fluid posture after another. While his eyes looked at me, I doubt it was my face that he saw. By the time he was done, the garland of scientific terms that he had strung together into Nepali sentences had touched something deep. This is a young man, I told myself, who is creating the future of Nepali research. I must speak to him again. That was the first of many conversations with Dr. Uddhav Shigdel, a scientist at Harvard University. At 30, his accomplishments are already beyond ...

On the morning of August 15, 2003, I awoke to the alarming sound of gun shots. A moment of sinister silence followed; my skin tightened, and in the dark corners of my mind I could already envision what had just taken place. With tears impairing my sight and fright impeding my thoughts, I speedily stumbled and staggered my way down the stairs, out of the house and onto the road. The scene I saw there that morning changed my life. On the indifferent dirt road, in a pool of blood lay the body of my uncle, dead. Three young Maoist rebels had just taken the life of this army colonel outside his own house. Lying flat on the street, he had died in the same uniform that his father and grandfather before him had once worn for their country. Weak and still breathless, I stood there watching as the rest of the family, army-men, and pedestrians dragged his motionless corpse into the army jeep, hoping against hope that he would come back to life. The three bullets in his chest not only killed my...