During a late night skype conversation with a dear friend of mine, whose interest in ethnic conflict, movement and aspirations always led her to be the most vocal person of all during our undergraduate days, she expressed her ‘theory’ on what was happening in Nepal. She firmly believed that all this (which includes political stagnation, riots, uprisings and what not) had happened right after the World War II in the European countries.

Now, I am not a historian; neither is she but I would like to believe her extensive knowledge in this regard. So, she kept repeating, “See this has all happened before and the patterns are recurring.”

I am sure it is. If not with the exact historical instance she provided me with in that delirious skype call, somewhere something like is has happened, is happening and will continue to happen.

I was convinced, therefore, that my very concerned friend would like to understand what it means to live in Kathmandu right now; especially to travel in Kathmandu. I started with an excited voice and narrated my ordeal.

“As soon as I come out from the semi-urban/rural community I live in, I hear murmurs of strike or banda. Your informant is, of course, anonymous.” She laughed and I continued, “So, this other day. I had a busy schedule ahead...erm...trying to multi-task and finish up every tit-bits of works on the very same day was such a wrong idea!”

“In the morning, people from the community not very far away from us had declared a strike because of some ‘hit and run’ case, the truck driver was nowhere to be found and the victim was a seventeen years old college student. I walked all the way to the bus stop to find out that the ring-road was blocked due to which the micro-buses had to take another route. I ran up to reach the other route only to find that the micro was stuck in a long, arduous looking jam created by the equally long, arduous looking line of vehicles for fuel.”

I would think that the trouble was over then. But suddenly, someone from inside says there is a bandha in the main centers of Kathmandu (basically, every where in the ‘town’!). After one and half hour of ride, which should have only taken around twenty minutes, I reached my workplace.

“Now you would think it is all over right, but then when I am coming back home, Thapathali is suddenly crowded with individuals in a long line, blocking the entire road!” I hear they were the ‘squatters’ protesting their removal from the riverbanks.

Her voice cracked from the other side but I could sense her discomfort with the situation of Nepal. Time has changed; but just because I or she is not an active part of the riot, or strike, or bandha; I hope our invisibility does not mean our absence or lack of concern. I do not know where this is coming from, but wherever it is from, I am deeply concerned and every thing happening around us really matters to me and my friend. 

Microphile loves to travel however, since her fantasies of travels into the Egyptian pyramids and Saharian deserts are, well, mere fantasies; she makes do with the hazardous amount of traveling she has to do in micro-buses, aka, micros. She loves to read while traveling in micros. All that traveling has most probably caused some spinal/brain injuries that she is unaware of; while she continues to travel by micros every morning; observing the mundane and writing about them in this blog.

http://www.parakhi.com/blogs/2012/02/01/agitations