Sunil Dahal
Everybody dreams. Daydreaming and carving to get something or be somewhere unique is a special one. I had also been dreaming of approaching my dreamland since my childhood, the Kathmandu city. I got that opportunity three years ago.
My first night-bus travel was trapped by the long queue of vehicles behind and in front of the bus where I was. I remember now, the place was near Naubise. The scene I was looking through the window was nice, just nice, not more than that. I was listening to birds chirping but it was disturbed by the continuous harsh horn of vehicles. After almost three boring hours, the bus started its dawdling pace. A small girl behind me was poking her mother shouting with joy at the sight of a short waterfall. Some people were snapping every scene with their expensive camera saying ‘wow’ to everything. I thought I was the only guy sitting inside the bus feeling bored with everyday like surrounding and questing some surprising scenes that could make me sought ‘wow’ in a loud voice keeping both hands on the cheeks.
Boredom escaped from my mind after hearing a name ‘Thankot’ because I had been told that this is the entrance to Kathmandu, the place I had been dreaming to get in since my childhood. I started looking out from the bus. My eyes were seeking my dreamland to take a glance. As I had taken my head out of the window, dusty air covered my face and coloured my hair brown. I guessed there might be a cement factory near the area. With the slow motion, the bus arrived at Kalanki at 11 am. As I got out, I saw dusty cloud was roaming everywhere. So I went to an old woman sitting at the side of the road, covered with dust keeping masks for sale. I bought one of them and became a mask-man. I headed towards Kirtipur by another vibrating old bus up to Balkhu and by a microbus from there.
Next day, my visit to so-called beautiful park of Chovar was disturbed by the odour of the river beside. The bared dry hill having rubbish everywhere did not attract me. Dharmashala, a hill covered with lush green grasses and pine trees where we graze our cattle, is hundred times better and beautiful than that very dry hill of Chovar. In the evening, my brother-in-law took me to Baghbhairav Temple and showed me the beautiful scene of Kathmandu valley twinkling with lights everywhere. That was just the time I had screamed with joy and felt that I was really in my dreamland. But when I went at the same place next morning, I was hurt by the scene. The rising sun was shaded by dust, whole valley was like a bank of river full of sand and stones. I became shocked when I first saw the picture of Gods and Goddesses at a narrow corner of the street beside a leaflet saying “Don’t Throw Garbage Here” and the other leaflet was saying “Don’t Pee Here.”
I was surprised by the place where I had been. My dreamland Kathmandu had clean roads, tall buildings, shining buses, standard people and their lifestyle, amazing Dharahara and Ghantaghar at the mid. My dreamland was a panorama blanketed with lush green hills and roofed by a clear blue sky shining in front of the background of twinkling Himalayan range.
Next day, we planned to go to Pashupatinath Temple via Ratnapark. So I and my brother-in-law caught a microbus towards Ratnapark. I remembered that I had forgotten my mask when dusty air entered in the microbus at Balkhu. I just took my muffler up to my nose and took hard breathe. The crowded city was in its own pace without interruption but the microbus- in which I was- had interrupted several times by the traffic of vehicles. After passing Kalimati, I could not breathe properly because of the harsh odour of Bishnumati River. That was not the fresh Bishnumati river flowing with blue water in my dreamland but that was just a sewer which was supposed to have the responsibility to take every garbage out of this ‘dustmandu’ and ‘rubishmandu’. I saw some flower-plants on the both sides of road after crossing Tripureshwor. But I could see their pain from such a long distance as well. Leaves, stems, petals, buds and everything was covered with thick layer of dust. They were drying and dying without water. They were cursing humans who had planted them at such a deserted place and who were passing by them with sympathy like mine but never dared to approach them and pour some drops of water to save their life. If they had got right to defend themselves, they would have pinched people very cruelly with their sharp thorns.
We decided to make a visit Ratnapark where I could see various flowers and plants, decorated very beautifully. People were taking photos, enjoying and screaming with them. And those flowers inside there were teasing those of outside for their bad luck and those outsiders were cursing their own luck with the infected body. I thought if people like to get in such environment and nature then why they throw garbage on the way, why they make such a dustbowl to this city!
We caught a bus to Pashupatinath temple. I was just breathing quite easily through the mask I had bought at Ratnapark. We entered the premises of the temple where vendors and shopkeepers were shouting for their sales. I was feeling sacred and happy because I had got the opportunity to be inside the greatest temple of Nepal. After worshipping lord Shiva, we went to the bank of Bagmati river. My happiness was faded away by the worst sight of it. I remembered a lesson in class seven i.e. “Ma Bagmati Nadi Hun”. That was the time I was experiencing the real pain and sorrow of the river pictured exactly the essayist in that text. Bagmati was not Bagmati in reality but it was ‘Dhalamati’. And it is so nowadays as well. We were taught that water does not have colour, taste and smell but the water in Bagmati river consists of all the qualities. Bagmati, which was once believed to be the river of purity, holiness, freshness and godliness, nowadays has become the origin of odour, the vehicle to take whole garbage of the valley out. It was not that fresh Bagmati river in which I had planned to swim with the holy praying of lord Shiva and offer the holy water to my ancestors.
Every place I had visited for the first time in Kathmandu in quest of my dreamland remained in vain. I could not get Kathmandu that my grandfather and father used to tell me about. I did not get that facility and happiness here that I was hoping for. I just got lots of concrete houses nearer but did not get human hearts so close. I remembered my village where houses remain at a long distance but human hearts get very close. I remembered the fresh air, the cold water, very soft petals of rose, marigold and rhododendron having their own way of blooming, without any interruption of humans. I compared those dirty, sad and poor faces of those flowers at the road sides of Kathmandu with those of happy, fresh and fragrance-sprinkling flowers of my village. I remembered those fresh and happy streams and waterfalls which accelerate their pace to meet sea and compared them with Bagmati and Bishnumati which move with a fear of polluting those fresh streams, rivers and seas. And I remembered those places which are never touched by humans, those wilderness which have its own holiness and freshness and compared them with Kathmandu, the ‘dustmandu’. I compared us, today’s people, as ‘The Once-ler’ in Chris Renaud’s movie The Lorax and just like the way ‘The Once-ler’ regrets at last of cutting down all trees, people also have to regret at their act of harming the nature in the near future. I portrayed a picture of human race as a dangerous monster clinging nature’s neck and ready to snatch it at any moment.
Nowadays I think about me, after living here in Kathmandu for three years, I have started to wonder for a glimpse of real nature. I have started to scream with joy at the sight of such short waterfall, which had bored me a lot at my first visit to Kathmandu. I sought ‘wow’ very loudly in my way to home when I see my usual mountain, which had been being my first sight in the morning since my childhood. I have started to feel relieved when I get out through the entrance of Thankot, where my eyes used to become curious and quest my dreamland Kathmandu. Who can answer, in the name of modernity and development, where are we heading to?
[Sunil Dahal is an MA in English from Tribhuvan University. He lives in Bhaktapur and teaches at a school.]