“Sayaun thunga phool ka haami, eutai maala Nepali”

The very first line of the Nepali national anthem literally translates to, “Woven from hundreds of flowers, we are one garland that’s Nepali”. Such a beautiful line it is that talks about the unity in diversity — the beauty of Nepal. We’re are a multicultural and multiethnic country with hundreds of castes and ethnic groups who speak dozens of languages. Even though we speak different languages, we look different, we have different cuisines and we have different lifestyles — we are one, or at least we’re supposed to be. But there would always be this group of “frog in the well” people who never want to believe that we’re all one, and we’re all Nepali. They think it’s only them, and the people around them, the people they know; who are ‘true’ Nepalis. In fact, these are the people who have never actually went outside of their city, town or village and that is why they don’t even know how diverse our country is.

An example of this was seen right after the 22nd Miss Nepal was announced on Friday during the beauty pageant’s grand finale in Kathmandu. For the very first time, a Marwari girl became a Miss Nepal. The 20-year-old Nikita Chandak is a professional model who has done a lot of modelling projects not only in Nepal but in India as well.

[ALSO READ: Nikita Chandak Crowned Miss Nepal 2017]

It was quite obvious for the people to google her and go through her social media accounts as soon as she became Miss Nepal as everybody is curious to know who their new Miss Nepal is. And then some people came across this website while searching for her on Google.

The website starnow.com has Nikita Chandak listed as “a model based in India”. A MODEL BASED IN INDIA, which simply means she has been working as a model in India. Does it, from any angle, read “AN INDIAN MODEL”? NO! But people, well, they like to talk. They started talking about it and claiming that she is not a Nepali. Just for the record, a lot of, in fact some of our topmost models like Anjali Lama, Aditi Budhathoki and Aastha Pokharel are currently “based” in India. They are quite successful models there but that does not mean that they are Indians, but simply, they are working there as models. Same with Nikita.

[ALSO READ: The Good, The Bad And Basically Everything That Happened At Miss Nepal 2017 Grand Finale]

Seriously, from when did working abroad became a new thing for us Nepalese??

Some of the people also found this picture on Nikita’s Facebook handle and made quite some fuss about it.

So, it’s a picture of Nikita with a frame that Facebook once made available to support India’s ‘Digital India’ campaign. While she was in India, she must have used the frame “just to show her support”. BIG DEAL? Absolutely not. Does that make her any less Nepali? Did she do something anti-national??
Remember the terror attack in Nice, France in 2016 that had around 70 people killed? Quite a lot of Nepalese had used the French flag frame on their profile pictures to show their support. Did that make them French?

If you watched the Miss Nepal finale event, you know Nikita deserved that crown. SHE EARNED IT and she will need your support because it’s just the beginning. She will be representing Nepal at Miss World in China this year. If you can’t support her, at least don’t demoralize her.

Chetna Bhaya!

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