For people like Jit Bahadur Ghale, it’s not easy to forget the quake which killed 72 people in the village and reduced over 1,400 homes to rubble in a few years. Even though the past haunts him, he seems to have learned to live with it.

The village, in the past four years, has risen from the rubble, but in doing so has lost its uniqueness. Barpark was a place known for its thatched roofs and mud houses, but those structures are now a thing of the past. The mud houses have been replaced by concrete ones and the stone roofs by galvanised sheets.

Ghale, who grew up around those traditional houses, doesn’t like the new look of his village either. “I think the place is neither a village nor a city. It’s a place lost in transition. I don’t think tourists will be coming to our village anymore,” he shares.

It’s not just the place that has changed. Ghale shares that the eating habits of the village has changed as well.

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