Barbara Adams first arrived in Kathmandu in 1961. As her flight neared the Valley, a quick thrill unfolded.

“… The plane began to bump and tremble as it flew through a pass so high that I thought our wings were going to touch and began its downward descent.”

The thrill was soothed by the view from her flight’s window. In her memoir, she describes:

 “One saw a textured painting of terraces interspersed with green wheat and yellow mustard … clusters of small ochre-coloured houses, and golden pagoda roofs which sparkled as the sun bounced off them … isolated big white palaces, usually surrounded by what looked like a wall or moat, and straight ahead of us as we landed, the beloved stupa of Boudhanath, once a landmark, now almost obliterated by surrounding buildings … How does one describe Kathmandu as it was when I first saw it? One has to really be a poet.”

What added to her fascination was the encounter with locals after they entered the airport building, a small, temporary structure built with wood and brick. She recalls being surrounded by giggling women, many Mongol-featured and wearing colourful dresses. There were exchanges of curiosity on both sides. Some women darted at her to touch her blonde hair, equally fascinated.

“One almost hesitates to describe it because once a sacred place is reduced to words, it inevitably loses some of its lustre and holiness, and Kathmandu was a sacred place if ever one existed in the world.”

Arriving as a journalist representing an Italian Newspaper, she was assigned to cover the tiger shoot planned for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. Due to limited and overbooked seats in Royal Nepal Airline DC3, she could not travel to Chitwan and never wrote that article. Nevertheless, as a guest in the Royal Hotel, she was still informed of all the significant events happening around her. During that time, the hottest discussion among Kathmanduites was the royal hunt; and the fireplace of the Yak and Yeti Bar in the Royal Hotel was where most gossip caught flames. She had the delight of warming herself with all the exciting news while relishing the ever-vibrant ambience of the hotel bar.

It wasn’t just rolls of gossip that Yak and Yeti Bar had in store for her. Barbara’s visit, which began as an official one, would soon take a personal turn igniting many reasons for her to stay back. At the bar, she is approached by Prince Basundhara, who claims to have mistaken her for someone else and later invites her to view his photographs of a mountain expedition. This unintended or ‘who knows if, orchestrated?’ encounter was just the beginning of the spark to their companionship. She would later move into the palace with him as his royal consort, wearing the tag of “Kanchhi Maharani.”

Born in New York, Barbara Adams grew up in Washington DC, where her father worked as an economist. As a child, she was shy but stubborn and rebellious in nature. Barbara chose to stay home instead of attending public school and spend her days either reading voraciously or riding and grooming horses. Later, she studied French and Russian at the Georgetown School of Linguistics and obtained a BA in International relations from George Washington University. In the early 1950s, her mid-term trip to Haiti changed her view of life. Shortly after graduation, she left the United States to pursue a bohemian life in Europe. She first arrived in Rome, where she worked for newspapers, both in English and Italian. She married an Italian there but it was brief and ended in divorce. Her next stop was India, a country she had always wanted to visit. She had read about India in Rudyard Kipling’s stories. She settled in Calcutta for a while and wrote feature articles to make a living. After almost a decade-long journey through Europe, the Middle East and India, Barbara finally made her way to Nepal in 1961, a country she would call her adopted home in the years to come.

Moving into the palace as a Kanchhi Maharani, as fanciful and romantic as it might sound, was not exactly a fairy-tale life one would imagine. While she would accompany Prince Basundhara to all the official functions, she was not as welcomed to the palace soirées. Some royal members even viewed her with suspicion. Basundhara, however, let her into his life gently and thoroughly. From bringing her to diplomatic parties, tiger hunts and pig-sticking, to surprising her with an Arabian mare (originally a gift from the then President of Pakistan, Ayub Khan, to King Mahendra, who had passed it on to Basundhara) or a sporty white Sunbeam Alpine two-seater, or jewelleries, he always had some romantic gesture to share. Basundhara had once even travelled to the States to meet her father.

Partnering with General Sharada Sumshere J.B. Rana, they opened “Third Eye Tours,” the first travel agency in Nepal. Barbara travelled much of the world, promoting tourism to still-unknown Nepal. She also worked to promote Nepali crafts and design. In the process, she began collecting Bhutanese textiles, on which she became an expert and even wrote a book. While they braced each other in adventures and downhills of life, they eventually separated after a decade-long companionship.

After the death of Basundhara in 1977, it became more difficult for her to catch up with the life she was hoping for. Even the process of applying for Nepali citizenship was proving to be a never-ending tunnel for her. Entangled in palace intrigue, she lost hold of the travel agency to the royal family. She was compelled to sell the jewels he had gifted her to meet her ends. In 1989, what she had feared crept in at last – His Majesty’s Government deported her.

As strong-headed as she was, she found her way back to Nepal after six months on a tourist visa her diplomat friend had issued. She shifted her focus to exporting crafts and collecting artworks and textiles. With the advent of democracy, she returned to journalism in 1990. She started her column, Barbara’s Beat, in the Independent in 1991. With time, she moved to Kathmandu Post, the Everest Herald, and the People’s Review. She also had her columns published in Nepali in Jana Awaz and Jana Aastha. The very corruption in the Panchayat System, which once led the political parties and citizens to the road in demand of multi-party democracy, was spreading its roots across the government offices shortly after its dawn.

“The euphoria on the streets of Kathmandu with the announcement of multi-party democracy was inspiring but was not to last long. Soon after so-called ‘democracy’ began to fall apart, and corruption to become a way of life, the hopes of the idealistic and educated youth began to turn to despair. I stopped writing about environment and started writing about politics, spurred on by my youthful friends.”

She was also among the first to criticise His Majesty’s Government through her articles. Actively involved in politics, her power was deeply rooted and beyond the general mind’s grasp. The political parties were long angered by her columns that hinted at her sympathies towards Maoist insurgents who had declared a “People’s War” in 1996. For the same reason, she was deported briefly again in 2000. If it weren’t for the direct intervention of King Birendra, she wouldn’t have returned so early.

In 2009, after the monarchy was abolished, the civil war came to an end, and Maoists made their way into mainstream politics. After decades of struggle, Barbara was finally granted naturalised citizenship of Nepal. The years-long turmoil in Nepal had transformed her in many ways, and she had lived different roles as required by time and circumstance – whether a journalist or an environmental, economic, political, and human rights activist. Besides, her contributions to initiating professional tourism in Nepal and promoting it remain as fresh.

With a group of like-minded friends, she established the Barbara Foundation in 2010. They envisioned ‘transforming lives of communities in Nepal’s remote and disadvantaged villages by empowering and educating the villagers and introducing them to income generating activities.’ Even through her 80s, she travelled to remote places in Nepal to improve housing and education.

In April 2016, she took her last breath in her adopted home country. During an interview with Los Angeles Times in 1990, she had shared:

“This is my home. I had always planned to die here, and well, my plans remain unchanged.”

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1. “Traditional Bhutanese Textiles.” Adams, Barbara S. White Orchid Press, 1984.
2. “Barbara’s Nepal.” Adams, Barbara S. Adroit Publishers, 2004.
3. “Nepal, Crisis Unlimited: Reflections from the Crucial Years.” Adams, Barbara S. Adroit Publishers, 2006.

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