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Mature Flâneur
My Gig as a Nepali TV Quiz-Show Host
My most-crazy moment of fame in Kathmandu
“Ladies and gentlemen, from the United States of America…Tim Ward!”
It was two a.m. The security guards on the inside of my Kathmandu hotel’s locked gate stood glaring at us with their arms crossed. They were not impressed by my celebrity-friend Sushil Nepal’s inebriated announcement that I, Tim Ward, had arrived. Eventually the night manager came out and with a sour look unlocked the door. My 15 minutes of fame were clearly over.
Just one day earlier, an auditorium of 500 people cheered when Sushil delivered that same introduction for me, while over one million Nepalese TV viewers sat glued to their TV sets for the Grand Finale of Nepal’s first ever National Quiz Show. Academic quiz shows had become a popular item on Kathmandu TV, but never before had a production company been ambitious enough to travel the whole length of the country’s rutted roads so that all high school students could compete for a national championship.
To mark the event, the producers decided to invite a famous international guest to be the co-host and quizmaster of the Grand Finale. But alas, they could not find anyone famous. So they invited me.
