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by Nepali writer Abhimanyu Dixit
photographs of Kathmandu by Nepali photographer Deepranjan Dongol
- the scent of Kathmandu (this is not romantic and this is not a love song)
As always, she gets on her bike.
She does not like to travel in stuffed micro-buses.
No, its not the sex-crazed micro bus conductors,
they can be tamed with the support of fellow female passengers,
and its not the harassing passengers; they can be ignored.
Its the stink of sweat. Especially in the evening.
Why should she smell the toil and effort of everyone inside the micro bus?
She bought the scooter as soon as she could afford the down payment.
The first time she smelled it, the fresh smell of a mechanical pet. It took her 2 years in her new job, and everything was worth it.
Her scooter for her was her freedom. Red, fiery, and shiny.
She would always be careful where to park it. She would always have to find safer alternatives to her usual hangouts.
Her favorite was the New Road-Basantapur area.
She always went there to find her peace of mind.
This was a place where she could be by herself, where no one noticed her.
The area shone, especially in the monsoon.
The smell of fresh wet streets was inviting.
The faint smell of wet leather;
to many it might seem ugly, but to her, it was real.
She would walk below the restaurants, and smell dishes; from different countries, and imagine what kind of people were ordering them.
She would enter malls, never to buy something, but to look and absorb the scent of the huge fresh washed glass that forever separated her from this place.
With her scooter, she had other alternatives than Newroad-Basantapur.
She would go to Taudaha and Nagdaha,
small ponds around the rim of Kathmandu Valley with small temples.
She never entered the temples.
The fake smell of strong scented “Agarbatties” never appealed to her.
She liked the Diyo- the traditional oil lamp which is never so demanding to be smelt.
But to reach Taudaha, and Nagdaha, she had to cross the busy streets of Kathmandu.
She did.
But it is never easy.
Cars, Buses, Trucks, and India made motorcycles run in the streets selfishly and dirtily throwing black-leftover-carbon-smoke that burnt with all the rage and hatred.
She always had to wash her pink nose mask if she wanted to keep it clean. They get dirtier faster than her underwear.
And she had to cross the rivers.
The sad rivers which the selfish people of Kathmandu dumped all their garbage and sewage in.
The holy rivers that all the Hindus worship so much.
The pink nose mask was never enough to save her from the strong stink of overpopulation and bad management when she crosses every bridge and sometimes, normal dumping sites of of the city.
Every-time when she goes out to escape and rides to Nagdaha and Taudaha, she witnesses an accident. Maybe small, like 2 bikes colliding with a scratch, and sometimes large like a huge Truck hitting a passerby or a bike. It would only be visual then. Blood in the streets, and sometimes corners- they never give out a strong stink of rotting meat only animals give out that stink, human blood has a different smell; for her, it was a horrific and fearful.
Human life has no value, if anybody got hit, the road would instantly be blocked by the locals demanding retribution- money for the family and justice for loss of life. They would burn tires-tires of big buses, or tractors; in the middle of the road, and burn effigies of the present leader in the government. She never liked the idea of justice from the streets, and never liked the stink of burning.
But she always finds her escape. The rim, the edge of the Kathmandu Valley. Her escape, her edge… from the selfish people, the mechanical menaces, her escape from the fake refuge in religion. This was one place where she could find peace.
She closed her eyes for a while. Taking a deep breath of the pond, the vegetation, the greenery. Twice she took clean breaths of the green. But on the third breath, she smelled something funny. Peach, and something very strong.
She looked around and saw it. There was a couple, romantically kissing each other, it was like everything she saw in movies, french, indian, everything mixed, they were very indulged in their embrace. They were so indulged that she would never be noticed even if she complained even if she shouted them to get a room, she would be ignored.
Her safe refuge was a teenage-making out-spot. There was enough room if she went away from the perfume. But for how long? One couple would mean there would be others in the shades, and behind the bushes.
She will find some other place to escape. She had to. If this was to be her life.
AbhiManyu Dixit
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