Perhaps because we were forced to memorize rather than learn, I recall nothing of the SLC English-language curriculum. As for literature there was none. But we schoolboys had our stocks of pulp fiction, gradually supplanted by the slower, profounder pleasures of the Victorian classics.

With O-Level Literature, an entirely different proposition. “Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements”, began the slim novel we were assigned, at first glance not too different from an SLC English reader. But Chinua Achebe (an exotic name to those of us accustomed to Toms, Dicks and Haris) quickly eased into a unique idiom, the deceptive simplicity of his language camouflaging a fluency imbued with the richness of Ibo culture. Here were wrestlers named after cats, and men who battled spirits of the wild. Like Okonkwo’s fame, Achebe’s masterpiece fanned through our sensibilities “like a bush-fire in the harmattan”.

Things Fall Apart provided perhaps the clearest articulation of how colonialism obtruded upon traditional society. In a country that had never been colonized, we were nonetheless passable students of history. We could empathize with the agony of Okonkwo and his people, the fabric of their society shredded by the likes of the Commissioner, who imagines summing up the experience in a “reasonable paragraph” to be inserted into a book titled The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.

Okonkwo was by no means a virtuous warrior, but Achebe framed his argument in a straightforward manner, and Things Fall Apart was the perfect primer for the flood of post-colonial literature that was to follow. There was something liberating and thrillingly relevant about Marquez, Llosa, Rushdie, Rhys and Coetzee that Dickens and Hardy (and even Stephen King) couldn’t quite match. Edward Said furnished the theory to counter the whole edifice of colonialism and then, of course, we had to reconsider which side Achebe and his English-penning brethren were on. Famously challenged by Nigerian critic Obi Wali, who declared that African writers who eschewed African languages were heading up a dead end, Achebe maintained that one could use the language of colonizers to infiltrate their ranks, but that in any case he had no choice, having English at his disposal. And how he disposed of it! The power of his writing, sparse and evocative, was instrumental in convincing generations of writers that it was possible to master a language not wholly one’s own, or at least not exclusively. The debate surrounding his choice, fuelled by such luminaries as the Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong’o (who began in English but later switched to his native Gĩkũyũ), sensitized us to the pitfalls.

Achebe actually had a practical reason to use English (if he needed one), given that he did not have what he considered a satisfactory version of his native, orally rooted Ibo to work in. Nepalis writing in English face no such lack, but English-medium educations conspire to limit them to oral Nepali. And writing the Nepali experience in English is no cakewalk, as much as those on the safe side of the barrier berate them for their failings. You dwell too much on cultural detail, and you’re accused of ethnographic writing. You transliterate to preserve the essence of the original, and it comes out pleasing no one. You import words wholesale – swearwords, yes, for who can translate the meat of the language – and you’re faced with either incomprehension or approbation. The Angreji bark is a mongrel one, and one that must build an architecture specific to the cultures it straddles. Chinua Achebe, among others, showed us the way forward. We’ll never forget how Things Fall Apart, somehow, brought it all together.

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Or
A weekend with the South Asian Association for Regional Cohabitation

In
Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal, the Cymbal of Eternal Love

The first inkling I had that the SAARC Festival of Literature was not quite what a gathering of self-proclaimed “mad dreamers” suggested was on the bus from Delhi to Agra. A veteran of several editions gave way to my questioning and conceded it wasn’t “serious”. The second was when I pushed my way through the scrum at the Grand Hotel’s reception to find, to my chagrin, that delegates had been paired off, two a bed. Was this about fostering good neighbourly relations? The third reminder came when the next morning, the obligatory Sufi performer began, “Since this is a Sufi festival…” Festival Directrice Ajeet Cour, best known for 1985’s Khanabadosh, corrected him, “This is not a Sufi festival!”

Then what was it? Cour began proceedings with a paean to Mother Nature, the theme of the meet. “We are sharing a civilisational journey,” she said, and it was all I could do to stop myself from sniping “and beds!” “He’s a wonderful man,” one of the organizers had said in reference to the Indian poet I was to share a double bed with. “I’m sure he is,” I replied, “but don’t you have twin beds?”

Certainly art has a historic responsibility in urging us towards some sort of sustainable future. But in the jumble of jargon-strewn academic papers and torrents of parlous poetry that followed, I could not see history in the making. The only history was personal – that between those venerables hugging each other with variations on “Wonderful to see you again!”

Declining to inflict my adolescent poetry upon the august conference, I read out a short story about a young journalist frustrated, among other things, by the futility of climate change conferences. The message was not lost on Arpana Caur, who later explained how she and her mother had been actively involved in the preservation of forests. “Well I was mostly referring to the big international conferences,” I clarified, meaning the giant environmental meets that let out more hot air than that they aim to contain. “Yes, like Jaipur,” she said, comparing her conference favourably to the most successful literature festival in the world.

I won’t say networking, in of itself, is to be spurned. My roommate turned out to be a fine poet, and I was glad to have made his acquaintance. But such revelations were far and few between, and perhaps limited to the cultural broadenings of those yet very green, such as the Afghan delegation of twenty-somethings who trooped about in close formation and only on the last evening eased off to shake their collective booty at the close of a cultural performance. One stayed on stage to gush, “I am so happy, happy to dance, because in Afghanistan it is not allowed for women to dance…” I turned to the elderly Afghan journalist seated behind me, and laughed, “Very modern, eh?” He had no acquaintance of his young compatriots, and clearly did not know what to make of them. “If the Taliban saw them,” he ventured, “they would kill them!”

I did not stay to see the Taj Mahal, fearing that the sight of the mausoleum might spark an insupportable tsunami of romantic tosh on the part of the 8 nations in attendance. I took refuge, instead, back in Delhi’s Connaught Place, where I purchased books enough to last me months on a tropical island, and certainly enough to efface the drear of the poetic purgatory I’d been put through. SAARC, as usual, left no mark.

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It was, you could say, a Valentine’s Day Massacre. Perhaps all the waiters in Kathmandu were distracted, lovelorn, unable to keep their minds on the job. If you were out there staring gloopily into some significant other’s eyes, you were unlikely to have been much bothered either. For those of us who were most certainly not, it was a bad day to be sniffing about town.

True, Love is more exalted an emotion than Duty. But when you slap 10% onto every bill in the name of services rendered, you would hope to get the service you’re paying for whether you like it or not. We know of course that the reverse has happened, and service has vanished into the mix in most cases. In what has been termed the manparitantra of Nepal, this is hardly remarkable. Still, I’d like to remark upon an extraordinarily ordinary run of service.

Disclaimer 1: at each place I will now proceed to shred there were mitigating factors (and staff), which seems to indicate that it is less maliciousness than a lack of proper training.

Disclaimer 2: I am not a stickler for service. I cook for myself and wash my own dishes. But when I pay someone else to do it, and pay them a gratuity on top, I expect them to do it properly.

Exhibit A: Roadhouse Cafe, Thamel

We sat down within view of the bar/barista, ordered two lattes, and began to discuss Nepal’s problems, as one does on V-day. The place was not busy (3pm). Several reminders and 20 minutes later, we got two tepid lattes. When asked why it took so long, the waiter declared there were other orders before ours. Twenty minutes for a coffee! What business model does Roadhouse run on? It left a bitter taste.

Exhibit B: Tings Tea Lounge, Lazimpat

We were delighted to discover this haven for white, green, black, herbal and assorted fruit teas and settled in one of several quirkily decorated rooms. Our order was a very long time in coming, by which time the cranky two-year-old with us was off the ‘Rasta Pasta’ we’d ordered for her and wanted an egg. My friend’s father (from India) left the room and came back to say they couldn’t serve us a boiled egg because it wasn’t on the menu. I decided to ask them again (as the local), and didn’t think anything of walking just past the open entrance into the kitchen, as it was only separated from the rest of the house by a short corridor, also inhabited by customers. The chefs said, no, it wasn’t on the menu, and I said really, it’s just an egg, for a child, when the waiter came up behind me and rudely told me off for entering the kitchen (’tapai kina yaha aunubhayeko’) and for bypassing his authority (’tapai le malai bhannu parcha’). Rather stunned by his bluntness, I asked him why it was not possible to make such a small adjustment, and he replied, unsmilingly, ‘Mathi bata hamilai tyastai bhaneko chha’. To be reminded of the worst aspects of the Nepali state (worse, in a place run by a very friendly Danish couple) ruined the charm of the place for me.

Exhibit C: Nepali Chulo, Lazimpat

Time then, I thought, for a proper Nepali meal, for the benefit of my visiting Indian friend. We headed to the magnificent neoclassical structure occupied by Nepali Chulo. The hordes of Chinese tourists in the place meant it was difficult to get anyone’s attention, though there were waiters dashing about everywhere. Waiter 1 told us to ask in the next room, Waiter 2 told us ‘pack chha pack’ before running off, Waiter 3 told us that he would see and disappeared, and Waiter 4, bless him, seated us, only to tell us that there was only a single fixed set available at 1100++. Fail.

Exhibit D: Bhumi, Lazimpat

The tried and tested Bhumi was the last resort. Happily, it wasn’t any more crowded than usual, and we got our first drinks and a chatamari within reasonable time. And then, as platter after platter made flourishes past us, we waited, and waited, and waited for our Samay Baji. Over an hour for the most fundamental of Newari sets? Not very down to earth, Bhumi.

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One good thing about the protests confronting Violence Against Women is that they are being organized by individuals determined to keep this fundamental blight in the limelight until the glare of collective disapproval bleaches it out of Nepali society. This takes time. Time enough, then, for one to attend a protest, stay away for whatever reason, and return to find the crowds still baying for justice. The staying power of a meaningful protest, more than the inconvenience or damage it inflicts, is what matters when it comes to bringing about lasting change.

The protests centred on Baluwatar – going strong a month since they began – are not about declaring someone a martyr, obtaining financial compensation, or releasing someone from jail. These are acts of appeasement that the government of the day seems to find too easy. The protests are about upending the entire system of impunity and corruption that characterizes Nepali society and the state that pretends to govern it. As such it is difficult to obtain tangible results.

‘They don’t seem to have achieved anything, after a whole month of protests,’ grumbled a journalist friend, barely audible through the banging of pots and pans (an initiative of some exuberant Lazimpatey youths) and the toots of passing cars (encouraged by protestors). ‘That may be so,’ I replied. ‘But isn’t this – this – an achievement in itself? Kids expressing themselves for a cause, people heading to work waving to the protestors, the sense of community that has been created here? Look, even the riot police are smiling. Even if the government doesn’t do anything at all, people will have taken the message of the protest to heart, and that will contribute to change. Hoina?’

‘Maybe,’ he conceded. ‘But there has been cynicism regarding the so-called agenda of the protests. The Nepali press, for instance. Who’s funding these people, these NGO-INGO people, they ask. Why are they protesting? What are they protesting for? These sukila-mukila have nothing better to do, they say.’

It was a familiar refrain. The Nepali-language press, more naturally attuned to the rough and tumble of political protests (given that so many are openly aligned to political parties), has its reasons to be suspicious of the VAW protests. In view of the opposition’s craven bid to politicize the government’s suppression of landmark cases, even those who advocate women’s rights could find cause to stay away. But cynicism is too often a symptom of intellectual laziness (ironically, posing as the opposite). One only needs to examine the core agenda of the Baluwatar protests – demanding justice in very specific cases in order to curtail violence against women, as explained on http://meroandolan.com – to dispel doubts.

In front of us, things were hotting up. The organizers were leading a push against the battalions of riot police in a bid to offer themselves up for voluntary arrest. Doubtless inured to the challenges of managing violent protestors armed with brickbats, the police easily (and good-naturedly) held back the line. ‘I wanted to get arrested, too,’ complained a friend. ‘But my father’s ill, and I can’t leave my mother home alone.’ ‘Yes, that would constitute mental violence against your mother, wouldn’t it,’ I teased, as cheers erupted.  One by one (eventually totalling 32), the more enthusiastic were managing to squeeze far enough into the police lines to warrant their being led off to a waiting van. The cameras came out; it had been a good day.

*

When I was a young man, teenage expression was limited to headbanging through the grinding rhythms of the seminal Metallica LP …And Justice for All. The album cover featured a bare-breasted, cracked statue of Lady Justice, restrained by ropes. Back then, I barely grasped the significance of that tableau, embedded as I was in a patriarchy of old fools and angry young men. Today, I watched a dignified lady in a sari, blindfolded and bearing scales, calmly walk up to a space that had opened up between the lines of protestors and policemen and policewomen. She smiled, as if to say: The angry young men have become old fools and in their place stand impassioned young men and women seeking only a fair society for all. Justice for all, is it too much to ask for?

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A farce unfolded at the Reporters’ Club at the end of the first day of the bandh, during which enforcers (or vigilantes, depending on who you believe) attacked several members of the public, including journalists. NEFIN general secretary Ang Kaji Sherpa began by apologising, but then launched into a rant against the media, threatening to finish off Brahmin journalists. Said journos reacted, let’s say, rather excitably. But reassured by reports of equally farcical ‘khada and abir samaan’ being accorded to journos by bandhers the next morning, I got on my bike to join the anti-bandh Facebook activists in Thamel.

I decided to thread my way along the Bishnumati, but the masses of people walking up the Teku road would have made it impossible to discern bandhers were it not for their swagger and penchant for red flags. A cyclist in front of me was stopped, a rush of children laid eager hands on his tyres, and that was all the riding he’d be doing that day. As I hesitated, a double-loaded cycle that had passed through encouraged me. ‘Janoos majja le, kehi pani gardaina.’ So I did, ignoring the calls of ‘O Dai! O Dai!’ at several junctures. They were just spread too thin. I was relieved, but what real satisfaction could one derive from being allowed to cycle in one’s own city?

The turnout in Thamel was a little disappointing, but I had to admire the determination of the regulars. We stood in the sun awhile, calling out to passersby, some of whom stopped. But others merely went about their business, with the non-commital smile of the apathetic sympathetic. And for most, staying home is much the easier option. Why expend oneself on a strategy that has no guaranteed returns?

Adjourning to the office of Social Tours, I watched Raj Gyawali, Ujjwal Thapa and others (including over Skype) affiliated with the various Facebook-fuelled movements discuss this very strategy. What were they trying to achieve? Could one focus on ridding our polity of the bandh culture, regardless of what one thought of the constitution and federalism? Or should the movement take a political stand? How could one generate consistent public support? Opinions were varied, but a decision proved elusive. Outside in a teashop we listened to the younger participants’ anecdotes, and I couldn’t help but be impressed by their positive energy. A few of us then moved on to a restaurant, and here we found a consensus on a ‘Sadbhab’ gathering to promote the simple, unifying message of socio-ethnic harmony.

Unbeknownst to us, several other organisations had decided on Sadbhab rallies for Wednesday. It’s clear that in Kathmandu at least, there is considerable anxiety about the potential of communal strife in Nepal, to the extent that the demands of ethnic activists have been veiled in fear and ignorance on all sides. No thanks to the politicians and radicals for having postponed and polarised the debate we never really had. But it’s never too late to talk about the best way to achieve the kind of harmony that will not only preserve the fabric of our multi-ethnic society, but also ensure that it is fairer than it has been. Tomorrow, we hope to reinforce the message of unity in diversity that has kept this nation together thus far. Let’s hope Nepalis of all stripes haven’t forgotten the essence of what makes this country unique.

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The tableau is all too famliar. You walk out into the streets at the end of the day, no longer marvelling at the incongruousness of a city of pedestrians on the move. You see the occasional bicycles, and then a motorbike, which signals to everyone that the day of enforced unproductivity is coming to an end. Still, a mother admonishes her rubbernecking son at the Kupondole junction, where a cluster of useless riot police still remain, watched by a mixture of criminals and innocents: ‘Don’t look at them!’

Across the river and left onto Tripureswor, I am sure some fragmented profundity can be gleaned from the group of squatting men commenting on a group of squatting monkeys. But in truth I am not interested today in the affairs of either my sapien or simian relatives. I’m headed to the ghats around the Kalmochan and Tripureshwor Mahadev temples.

Being native to the Kathmandu Valley is by no means equivalent to knowing all its neighbourhoods, old and new and somewhere in between, and I’ve been making up for a northern bias ever since I moved south of the river. It’s relatively recently that I’ve explored the 19^th-century temples of Kalmochan and Tripureshwor Mahadev and the ghats that line the Bagmati River. When better to open up new parts of the city than on a bandh day?

The Kalmochan temple, commissioned by the powerful Prime Minister Bhimsen Thapa shortly before his downfall, and completed by his eventual successor, Jung Bahadur Rana, isn’t really frequented by devotees. This has much to do with its inauspicious beginnings. Not only did Bhimsen Thapa commit suicide in prison (unable to bear the shame resulting if, as threatened, his wife was paraded naked through the city), the temple is rumoured to be where Jung Bahadur cremated the nobles whose massacre he’d orchestrated at Kot. The structure itself, in a domed Mughal style, is only remarkable for the massive, ferocious brass griffons that adorn its four corners. Monkeys bound around the site, as do street cricketers making use of the flagstoned open space around the restored temple.

Linked to Kalmochan, but obscured by the concrete shrubbery lining the road, is the impressive three-storied pagoda of Tripureshwor Mahadev. Commissioned by Bhimsen’s long-running business partner, the Regent Queen Tripura Sundari, this derelict site too attracts the kids of local residents more than anyone else. The temple itself appears to be in decent condition, but the buildings surrounding it have either completely collapsed or are close to doing so. There are plans to have the site modified to accommodate a children’s home; for the time being the stone images of Shiva’s manifestations, scattered across the brick courtyard, hold sway.

Even more interesting than the temples themselves are the decommissioned ghats behind them. If you can ignore the black ribbon of the Bagmati, the jumble of vegetable gardens, trees, shrines and residences lining its north banks are more atmospheric than any green space in the city. With the wind blowing the right way, you can imagine how the sand and water must have sparkled from ghat to ghat, a full 100 metres wide and more. If ever the Bagmati is restored, it would be in part to resuscitate the natural and cultural beauty of the ghats.

Past the football fields below the ghats, I walked through a ramshackle settlement and wondered if they would meet the same fate as the slums east of Thapathali. Here there were kirana stores, lanes weaving amongst simple brick sheds, and a woman cooking rice on an earthen stove. Recrossing the river over the new bridge, I watched a group of young boys puzzle over how to retrieve a football from the river without touching the kalapani, then sat observing twos and threes munching on roasted corn, oblivious it seemed to the bandh. Cycles whizzed past, an old farmer watched me tramp by, and a black bull mooed belligerently. Men and women on foot, everywhere, in the cooling evening. And then a car tooted its way through, a pick-up rattled past and slowly, it seemed, the city returned to itself.

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Facebook nostalgia for Old Nepal, which has us Like-ing countless images of rustic Nepal, all mud brick houses, undulating rice paddies and gleaming mountains, appeals mostly because of its contrast to the bristling present. But the more you yearn for Old Nepal, the more depressing the New Nepal of concrete and steel appears to be (quite apart from socio-political considerations). Unless coupled with some vision of the future, dragging the present into the past is a futile endeavour.

For the inveterate pastoralists, though, Old Nepal is still out there in bits and pieces. Thanks to the ever-burgeoning network of microbuses (and roads for your Treks or Enfields) it’s just around the corner. When I was a child heading from Maharajgunj to St.Xavier’s Godavari, the intervening urban and rural spaces were simply landmarks that dragged me closer to boarding school misery. Yesterday, bussing it down to Chapagaon and walking through the rice paddies and brick factories of Southern Lalitpur, I was struck once more by how easy it is to access our recent past, and appreciate more than just the heritage of Kathmandu, Patan, Bhaktapur and lately, Kirtipur.

Even the smaller settlements are changing rapidly, but there’s still plenty to see in a day’s walk in southern Lalitpur. Chapagaon itself is charming, and it’s worth getting off before the bus stop for the 17th-century temple of Bajra Barahi (located in a woodland teeming with Saturday picnickers). Even if it’s just to snicker at (and then earnestly take photos of) the erotic struts of the two temples just off the road. Head east from Bajra Barahi, and a dusty, unfrequented road dips into terraced fields somewhat marred by the brick kilns that obscure the views that must have meant so much to the Godavari Village Resort half an hour down the road.

From Taukhel, on the road leading to Godavari, we asked our way up to Bisankhu Narayan, a curious cleft in a rock draped with antique chain mail. A boulder just below the shrine challenges those with slim bodies and uncluttered consciences to slip through – I’m happy to say I passed, through. We were rewarded by the sight of a half-dozen Kalij pheasants fluttering through the Phulchowki foothills.

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