Here are a couple of my personal experiences (speaking Nepali to a Nepali):

Incident 1 in Nepal - in Investment Bank in DurbarMarg in Dec07:

Incident 1 -me: Namaskar bahini. Euta kalam ekchhin maageko. Saano dharso kornu paryo re yesko (showing the check) naam ko terso garera.....

The girl gives me uncomfortable look. Passes a pen, without looking at me or the pen. 

Incident 2  not in Nepal - a Nepali guy in a sales company calls me, starts chatting with me in Nepali before I get to speak a complete word except the Hello.

he - Dai, ma SuperTelecom bata ki, mero naam ravi, ani aaja haamro euta promotion chha ki, tyasaile tapailai phone gareko...

me - eh... ani kun contract / phone ni?

he - dai, euta kura sodhu hai.. Tapai pani Nepali ho?

me - speechless.

he - goes on to ask about where I am from , what I do, how long I have been here... blah, blah blah. (the bolded questions are more common IME)

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My questions:

In incident 1, did I break the comfort level of the Investment Bank girl? Inversely, has Enlish language taken over as the 'language of preference' or has it become a class indicator?

Incident 2, why are Nepalis (pardon my generalization) hell bent on asking 'aray, tapai pani Nepali?' whenever someone replies back to them in tharra Nepali to a question they asked in Nepali? (This question will lead me to start another tread....). Also, why do the Nepali people (pardon my generalization, again), need to know more than they need to know about another Nepali.

Thoughts, opinions, experiences, counters welcome.

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