Nepal, Nov. 23 -- Baber Mahal Revisited is a forbidding place, so upmarket that you'd have to pat your pockets to make sure you have enough cash. The white stucco building complex, which was once the stables of Baber Shumsher Rana's palace, is replete with low doorways and maze-like passages. At one cloistered end is Chez Caroline and this is where I am meeting Sangeeta Thapa, curator of the Siddhartha Art Gallery, which is just past the restaurant.

Thapa might be soft-spoken but she speaks with authority. After all, she's been running the Siddhartha Art Gallery for 32 years now. As the custodian of the arts, she's worked with almost every big name in contemporary art-from stately old masters like Shashi Bikram Shah and Birendra Pratap S...