A day in Kathmandu
JUL 18 -
It was a quarter to five when the sun shone again. It had been quite a rainy day but now the clouds were gone and the sky was a deep blue colour, the dust had settled and the trees looked rejuvenated, the dirt and dust which had made the leaves of the trees their permanent home had now been washed off by the mighty rain.
People were out again resuming their paused work. Little children came out of their houses and started playing in the small puddles of water which had collected on the ground while their mothers shouted at them to come back. The adults, on the other hand, were walking cautiously avoiding the puddles to save their shoes from getting soiled. Walking in Kathmandu at this time of the year is not an easy job, most of the roads have been torn apart due to construction work, and there is muddy water all over. Parked motorbikes lie half submerged in water.
The motorcycle owners who had left their machines behind to take shelter from the fierce rain returned to retrieve them. Two out of three people who dared to pull their bikes out were successful; but for one unfortunate lad, the bike wouldn’t start. Water had gotten into his engine parts thus preventing the ignition from firing. The boy, who was in his late teens, stood perplexed next to his fancy bike he couldn’t take home. He tried his luck one more time, but it was in vain. He had no alternative than to go look for a mechanic. Kathmandu is a mess at this time. If one could look from above, one would see broken houses, broken homes and broken dreams. Nothing is stable or cheap, except for the rich.
The boy came back with a mechanic, but before he could reach his motorbike, he had an obstacle to cross — a huge pile of bricks, cement and iron rods that had been dumped on the roadside as the building nearby was destroyed. The boy and the mechanic carefully walked over the debris, avoiding stepping on sharp pieces of metal. Just as they were about to cross the debris, the boy bumped against a bystander watching the building being bulldozed. The boy apologised and went ahead to deal with his problem The bystander was the owner of the house. He was watching the rooms of his house being sliced in half along with the rent and his problems being doubled.
He had been betrayed by the real estate broker who had assured him of the legitimacy of the building and the land it stood on. It was almost 10 at night when the mechanic finished repairing the boy’s bike. The old man had gone to sleep in his house, which now had no door, along with most of Kathmandu’s people, clutching on to their problems, waiting for a sunrise of hope. Awaiting tomorrow.
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