Nepal Raute | Documentary Idea

by Manoj Shahi
(Nepal)

My name is Manoj Shahi, I'm a Nepalese resident currently in India who has led and facilitated journalists and broadcasters through Nepal's political transition and other topics. I am currently looking to facilitate a documentary team on the lives of the reclusive Nomadic people called Raute found in the mid-west part of Nepal.

These people are like nowhere else in the world and rarely allow foreigners access to their lives. Living entirely in the jungle, they won't grow food but instead catch and eat out of the area they currently live. Diets include jungle pig, monkeys, honey bees and bats. A documentary team would be able to see the hunt and consumption of such delicacies!

With no outside connections, the 15-35 people in each community move approximately every two months in search of food. The Nomadic people don't build houses but make huts. Not all is well, as the jungles they live in are partly destroyed in their quest for food and shelter, and also by outsiders. Lack of any medical treatment is also placing strain on the numbers of these people.

Most interesting of all are the political and social workings. One leader is recommended, not appointed, to lead the group, and has final say in all matters. Marriage is chosen by song, where a man and male friends compete with a group of similar numbered females in a folk duet festival. The male will sing a question and the female group must reply. Should they fail to outperform the males, the male leader can choose his bride.

Even such small groups afford enormous discrimination among each other. Many brothers can marry one lady, and when a husband dies they believe the wife to be the cause. Afterwards they view the widow as completely useless, and her life turns into a pale existence of its former self as an outcast who has no option but to try and survive within the only domain she has known.

If your organisation has a small documentary team who would be willing and able to cover this fascinating group, please get in contact.

Here's my ID proof of Nepal and some picture of Rautes.

Yours sincerely,

Manoj Shahi

mshahi49@yahoomail.com
Tel: +91 7389077585 or 8109822238

Past experience and references:

Daily Telegraph, London – 2003-2007 (Nepal)
BBC World Service – 2006-7 (Nepal)
Agency Press of France (Nepal)
News Day New York (U.S) – 2007-2008 (Nepal)
Freelance Australian Photojournalist – 2005 (Nepal)
Canadian Researcher – 2003+ (Nepal)
United Nations – 2007-2009 (Nepal)
Medicine Sans Frontiers of France – 2005-2006 (Nepal)
Medicine Sans Frontiers of Holland – 2009 (Nepal)

Here is a video from YouTube about the Raute.