His voice is still an impressive growl. In his time, the venerable colonel has commanded whole armies, served with the UN in Lebanon and seen action with the armed forces of Great Britain and Nepal in Syria, India, Persia and many other countries. Yet one glance from the keen and watchful eyes betrays a mastery of another discipline: the art of diplomacy. During his many years as military attaché to Nepal’s embassies in London and Paris, Chhatra Man Gurung learned to appreciate the value of charm and persuasion.

"One of my hardest battles," he recalls in his study in Kathmandu, "was fought in my home village of Pulimarang." He slaps his thighs at the memory and laughs until his mustache begins to quiver. During that campaign, the colonel had to overcome some stubborn resistance before his neighbors finally saw the light.

A finely jointed index finger traces an imaginary route across a map of the ancient Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal. Halfway between the capital, Kathmandu, and Pokhara lies the town of Dumre. Here, we suddenly veer north into the mountains. From this point on, the colonel can only give directions with the help of landmarks: "Once the road ends, follow the track along the riverbed. Take a sharp left at the big tree and drive straight on for another two hours. Park the jeep where you’re likely to find it again, walk for another hour, and you’re there. Welcome to Pulimarang."

The name Pulimarang means "Four Homesteads" - even if nowadays the village has swelled to include some 150 houses. Getting there, however, is as difficult as ever. Even though Pulimarang is situated just 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Kathmandu, the trip between the two takes 10 tortuous hours in a 4x4 Jeep.

At Tuttipani - which means "Little Water" - we finally abandon the off-roader and proceed onwards and upwards by foot. Isolated from the outside world, cast down as if by chance, the thatched roofs of farmhouses and barns suddenly appear amid the terraced rice paddies of Pulimarang. Behind the humble dwellings, the snow-capped giants of the Himalayas rise majestically above the sleepy village.

For all his pride that Pulimarang is meanwhile very much on the map, the colonel is much too modest to reveal that it was he who more or less put it there. Shortly before our visit, the village played host to a group comprising two Swedish researchers, an employee of the Fraunhof Institute in Germany and a representative from the European Union. The colonel’s international contacts are also paying dividends in another way: every year, two students come here from Britain to teach the children a little English.

But what is it that attracts visitors from all over the world to this tiny corner of the Himalayas? Quite simply, Pulimarang is at the cutting edge of green technology. A pioneer in the use of solar energy in Nepal, the village is a shining example of the benefits that ecologically sound energy can bring. Just about every roof in the village sports a solar panel and some even have a TV antenna.

Supplied by Siemens Solar five years ago, the 35-watt modules deliver enough power to drive two low-energy light bulbs as well as a TV set in each house. "Solar power has made a lot of things different around here," says Dak Bahadur Gurung, the village leader. "For example, our children can spend much more time on their homework. And what’s more important, they no longer ruin their eyesight reading with a kerosene lamp. The women have good light to cook by and have started to weave handbags in the evenings. They also hold literacy classes. Making the decision to bring solar power to the village has brought us all closer together." His neighbor, Captain Karna Badhadar Gurung, nods in agreement before adding: "Having light makes us different from all the other villages in the region. It makes us a big attraction. People come from all over just to check out the solar power system."

Karna Badhadar proudly throws back the wooden door to his clay dwelling to reveal a two-story interior. A group of white chickens cackle in the corner of the first floor, which serves as a store for freshly harvested ginger and beans. Perched out of harm’s way on an old cupboard in the upper level is the holy shrine of the house: a color TV. And it’s not just any old TV. Karna Badhadar is the only person for miles around with a satellite dish. In the meantime, the captain has become a connoisseur of British soccer and the world news broadcasts from the bbc. In the evenings, he invites neighbors to come and watch an Indian melodrama or the educational programs produced by the government. "That tells us what seeds to plant for a good harvest," says the captain. "Thanks to TV, village life has changed. In many ways, we have become city dwellers."

Unaware that she has become a city slicker, Gunshari Gurung rams four wooden staves into the red-clay earth in front of her house, strings them with metal wire and begins to weave a mat out of dried bark, or bast. A golden nose-ring flashes in the sunlight; 10 red coral bracelets on each wrist jangle with every nimble movement. Meanwhile, four young goats leap back and forth across a pile of finished baskets in their vain attempt to avoid the sharp beaks of a group of territorial chickens, each with a clutch of cheeping chicks in tow. The smell of sour radish, drying next to dark-red chilies in large round dishes, hangs in the Air. The rhythmic rumble of the diesel engine from the village mill echoes through the valley. Dak Bahadur’s daughter kneels on the earth outside the house. With slow, methodical movements, she grinds corn with a handmade clay mill. The fruits of her labor will provide lunch for the 12 members of her family.

It is five years since the lights first went on in Pulimarang. Despite the advent of solar power, however, day-to-day living is still dominated by manual labor. For the 500 inhabitants of the village, life is much the same as it always has been. Up here, in the foothills of the Himalayas, most people living outside the few large cities get by without a host of things regarded as essential in the industrialized world: hot water, mains electricity, toilet paper or dish-washing liquid. An electric stove, for example, would consume more power than the solar modules can deliver.

The women cook the traditional meal of dahl bhat - a lentil curry - in a homemade clay oven over an open fire. In Nepal, the roles of the sexes haven’t changed much with the onward march of time. While the women work the fields and harvest the potatoes and corn, milk the buffalo and gather firewood, the men stay at home to look after their sons. Needless to say, there is still enough time for the menfolk to discuss the important things of life over a game of cards with the neighbors.

"It was a difficult job persuading the villagers of the benefits of solar power," says Chhatra Man Gurung. "Of course, they’d seen mains electricity in the towns, but solar power was something completely new. It was hard for them to believe that such a thing was possible." Perched in a valley some 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) above sea level, Pulimarang is not only too remote to string power lines up across the rice paddies but also too sheltered to profit from wind generation. Hydroelectric power is also a non-starter. The small stream trickling down from the mountains just about suffices to meet drinking and agricultural requirements.

The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), a charitable organization based in the U.S., has long championed the use of solar power as an environmentally sound source of energy, particularly for the 40 percent of the world’s people who still rely on kerosene, firewood and batteries. Neville Williams, a former head of SELF, pushed hard for the introduction of domestic solar systems for Nepal - just as he had done in other Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, India, China and Vietnam. However, given that Nepal was still getting over an unpleasant experience with the technology, it was no easy task. What had happened? With the help of French government money, solar energy had been introduced to four remote regions. Unfortunately, a lack of proper consultation with the local population plus a faulty central power distributor led to disaster. The reputation of solar power was permanently damaged as a result.

Learning of the SELF proposal to provide small, mobile domestic units instead of a central solar power system, Colonel Chhatra Man Gurung - who was by now stationed in the Kathmandu headquarters of the Nepalese army - called in the Pulimarang elders and asked if he should put the village forward for a pilot project. "It was a big risk for the villagers. They’d never heard of solar power and the system didn’t come free. People there don’t have much money and the modules are expensive." But with a chief called Dak Bahadur Gurung - the name means "the brave" - the villagers weren’t about to let anyone accuse them of being short on courage. People from Nepal’s own Solar Electricity Company (SEC) and the Center for Renewable Energy (CRE) in Kathmandu were invited along to the village to negotiate, as were several representatives of SELF.

Back in Kathmandu, SELF and CRE worked out a multilayer model. SELF financed the start of the project with $50,000, which was paid into a fund, while the villagers themselves agreed to cough up between $250 and $350 for the modules and batteries - a princely sum when you remember that the average annual income in these parts is just $200.

However, thanks to pay or pensions from the military, most families in Pulimarang are not totally dependent on the money they make from selling buffalo milk or eggs. Most carry the name of Gurung as a mark of their membership of this traditional warrior caste. Not surprisingly, at least 50 percent of the young men still go to the army, while many older villagers proudly bear military titles.

Even today, most of the men and women carry a curved saber slung across their backs - if only to cut or peel the tangerines and papayas the village is famous for. Yet it would be wrong to think of the Gurungs of Pulimarang as a warlike or backwoods folk. Friendly and hospitable to a fault, they all share a powerful feeling for community and progress. And so it was that after many hours of talks back in late 1993, they were able to hammer out a deal with the solar engineers over a glass or two of rakshi, the local homemade liquor. In January 1994, the first low-energy lamp went on in the village. Since that day, Pulimarang has been shining like a beacon across the night-time valley and beyond.

The intervening years have seen a flourishing system develop. Working in collaboration with the SEC in Kathmandu, the CRE trained three villagers as technicians. The three have become so skilled that they not only handle repairs but have also begun to install the technology in nearby villages. Replacement parts can be purchased in the village shop. At the same time, the domestic solar modules have proved to be not only better for the environment than kerosene but also cheaper. The batteries have already provided five years’ reliable service and are still going strong.

In 1994 the prime minister flew in by helicopter, accompanied by the national TV broadcasting station. During his visit, he pledged to release government money for more such projects should solar power prove itself in Pulimarang over the course of an entire year. In the meantime, several dozen villages have profited from his promise - and the technology. Back in his study in Kathmandu, Colonel Chhatra Man Gurung casts a piercing gaze at the distant mountains. "The lessons learned in Pulimarang," he says, "are beginning to light up the lives of people throughout the whole of Nepal."

MICHAELA HAAS works as a freelance author for German and English magazines. She lives in the South of France and Nepal. THOMAS L. KELLY has lived for 22 years in Kathmandu and works mainly for U.S. magazines.