Bina Shrestha   is a Nepali-born writer, educator, and community organizer based in Surrey, British Columbia. She was born in Kathmandu in 1957. Raised by her parents, Gopal Bahadur Shrestha and Harimaya Shrestha, she grew up in an educational environment shaped in part by her father’s work at Padmodaya Secondary School. She attended Padmodaya herself and, after completing high school, studied history at Koteshwor Campus, Tribhuvan University. She later earned a BEd and an MA and in history and taught at the same campus for some time. At the age of eighteen, she married Mankaji Shrestha. When she immigrated to Canada in 1998, she was pursuing a PhD at Tribhuvan University on the topic of guthi, a traditional socio-religious trust institution in Nepal, though she did not complete the degree.

Shrestha first lived in Toronto before relocating to British Columbia in 2005. During her early years in Canada, she worked in restaurants and completed a one-year course in hospitality management. Her long-standing interest in teaching led her to transition to early childhood education, and she became a daycare teacher in Greater Vancouver. Alongside her professional work, she became active in the Nepali community life in Canada. From 2002 to 2004, she served as vice-president of the Nepalese Canadian Cultural Society, where she assisted immigrants, organized cultural events, and promoted Nepali culture in Canada.

Her community involvement continued in later years through several cultural and literary organizations. In 2016, she helped establish the Nepal Canada Friendship and Cultural Society and served as its vice-president. Through this work, she contributed to public programming that introduced Nepali dance, traditions, and material culture to broader audiences in Canada. She also helped organize cultural events featuring forms such as dohori geet, a Nepali call-and-response folk song tradition, and displays of traditional Nepali objects such as the theki, a Nepali wooden vessel used for churning yogurt. These activities helped present Nepali expressive culture to wider multicultural audiences in British Columbia.

She also served as treasurer of the Nepali Literary Society, supporting poetry, song, and cultural preservation activities. Her participation in community events included celebrations such as Mha Puja  ,  a Newar ritual observance associated with self-purification and cultural renewal, as well as programs highlighting food, music, and dance traditions. Since 2014, she has organized the Multicultural Kids Talent Show in Surrey, creating a platform for children from diverse backgrounds to present their talents and represent Nepali diaspora communities such as Newar, Sherpa, and Gurung.

Shrestha began writing soon after her marriage. Encouraged by her husband, Mankaji Shrestha, an engineer who also wrote books and articles, she started composing essays and articles of her own. She published history-related writing in The Rising Nepal, the government-owned English-language daily, and her work also appeared in major Nepali newspapers such as Kantipur Daily and The Himalayan Times. In addition, she wrote weekly pieces for Saptahik on household management and cooking. Her writing moved across history, domestic knowledge, social commentary, and literary expression, connecting formal publication with readers’ everyday concerns.

Shrestha wrote across a wide range of subjects, including history, parenting, food, social life, and literary themes. One of her major articles in Kantipur Daily was about Nuwakot Palace. In that piece, she discussed how Prithvi Narayan Shah, the king of Gorkha, conquered Nuwakot in 1744 and built his palace there, shifting the capital. She described the seven-storey palace, noting that each floor had a different function and that the structure resembled the Newar architectural style of the Kathmandu Valley. Shrestha also wrote articles on parenting, discussing topics such as child-rearing and behaviour modification techniques.

In her articles in The Rising Nepal, Shrestha shared recipes from Nepal, especially from the Kathmandu Valley, including potato pickle with peas and tamarind, chicken choyela , mutton curry, dal, brinjal pickle, and bitter gourd pickle. These writings offered practical guidance on Nepali cuisine while also preserving everyday culinary knowledge in print. She also wrote about traditional Newar foods such as yomari, a steamed dumpling made from rice-flour dough and filled with sweetened sesame seeds, molasses, or coconut. Yomari is closely associated with Yomari Punhi , a Newar harvest festival during which the dish is specially prepared and shared, linking food writing to seasonal ritual and community tradition.

Shrestha published short fiction in Nepali magazines such as Madhuparka  . Much of this work drew inspiration from real-life experiences and explored human relationships and emotional conflict. In works such as “Jiddi Shriman” (“Obstinate Husband”) and “Lila ko Moha” (“Lila’s Infatuation”), she writes about themes of love, betrayal, and resilience. “Lila ko Moha” portrays a woman’s heartache after being deceived by the man she loves, who marries someone else. Her other stories, “Doshi Ko” (“Who’s at Fault?”), “Yasto Pani Hudorahechha” (“This Can Even Happen”), and “Vivek” (“Wisdom”), reflect her interest in social behaviour, moral reflection, and the complexities of everyday life. Her essays   also address environmental and urban concerns. In “Atmasaat Garaun” (“Let’s Internalize”), she evokes a world shaped by smog, smoke, and dust, while “Ma Kathmandu Hun” (“I’m Kathmandu”) presents Kathmandu as a burdened and struggling city marked by water scarcity, expensive housing, and the pressures of urbanization. These works show her concern with both intimate emotional life and wider social change.

Shrestha has also contributed to children’s literature. In 2020, she collaborated with Anita Giri on Short Stories for Children, a volume containing one story by each author. The collection was praised for its simple language and moral focus. Shrestha’s contribution, “Mother Swan with Her Two Children,” emphasizes cooperation and mutual assistance as the young swans seek help in caring for their sick mother. In 2022, she published another children’s collection, also titled Short Stories for Children,  which includes “My First Pet Nu” and “My First Best Friend Puppy.” These works extend her writing into a pedagogical mode, using accessible storytelling to communicate values such as care, friendship, and responsibility to younger readers.

In the context of Surrey and of Nepali Canadian community life more broadly, Bina Shrestha’s significance lies not only in her published writing but also in her cultural leadership. Her work has helped preserve and circulate Nepali and Newar histories, foodways, values, and expressive traditions within the diaspora while also introducing them to wider multicultural audiences in British Columbia. Through community organizations, literary activity, children’s programming, and educational work, she has contributed to the public presence of Nepali culture in Canada and to the intergenerational continuity of cultural memory in Surrey.

References

Adhikari, Rajan. “Balbalika lai Sandesh ra Shiksha Dine Katha Sangalo.” Nepal Touch, 15 Nov. 2021, https://nepaltouch.com/news/6341/11/2021.

Shrestha, Bina. “Atmasaat Garaun.” Janastta Weekly, 9 May 1996.

Shrestha, Bina. “Brinjal Pickle.” The Rising Nepal, 12 Dec. 1997.

Shrestha, Bina. “Chicken Choyala.” The Rising Nepal, 26 Nov. 1997.

Shrestha, Bina. “Dal as in Dal-Bhat.” The Rising Nepal, 12 Aug. 1997.

Shrestha, Bina. “Doshi Ko.” Madhuparka, Magh 2052 B.S./January-February 1996 C.E.

Shrestha, Bina. “Kitchen Concern.” The Rising Nepal, 14 Nov. 1997.

Shrestha, Bina. “Lilaako Moha.” Madhuparka, Magh 2055 B.S./ January-February 1999 C.E.

Shrestha, Bina. “Ma Kathmandu Hun.” Saptahik, 13 Apr. 1996.

Shrestha, Bina. “Mutton Curry.” The Rising Nepal, Nov. 1997.

Shrestha, Bina. “Potato Pickle with Peas and Lapsi.” The Rising Nepal, 1997.

Shrestha, Bina. “Swatrantra ko Chahana.” Saptahik, Chait 2052 B.S./March-April 1996 C.E.

Shrestha, Bina. “Vivek.” Madhuparka, Kartik 2053 B.S./ October-November 1996 C.E.

Shrestha, Bina. “Yasto Pani Hudorahechha.” Madhuparka, Sept.–Oct. 1997.

Shrestha, Bina. Short Stories for Children. 2022.

Shrestha, Bina, and Anita Giri. Short Stories for Children. Oriental Publishing House, 2020.