Nepal, June 18 -- For a Madheshi boy from the political periphery, social margins, economic backwaters and the cultural other of the dominant Bahun-Chhetri-Newar (BCN) mainstream, the capital city looked alien in the early 1970s. Lodged temporarily in a crumbling Rana mansion with a rusted iron gate, rotting wooden doors and a disintegrating boundary wall, he must have felt lost for the first few weeks in the unfamiliar surroundings.

The cushioning spring of an ancient bedstead in a huge room on the ground floor of the manor was still functional, but an in-house mouse appeared to have sharpened its teeth on the edges of the latex mattress. The lavatory in an outhouse often spilled over into a shallow ditch along the perimeter wall. Water...