this morning

these are scenes from this morning in kathmandu. i was at the rally of youths mobilised through facebook to make their voices heard about the timely drafting of the nepali constitution. not a youth myself, i felt that being 'young at heart' justified my being there to show my solidarity on their issue. i started walking back home once the rally, chanting slogans started circumnavigating the bcci premises. the rest of the pictures are those that i took during my walk back from baneshwor to bagh bazar.


this clip of the crowd chanting slogans like "no work - no pay!" and "पन्ध्र दिनमा सम्बिधान!" amongst others...


rallyists in front of the banner that said "अहिले नगरे कहिले? हामीले नगरे कसले?"

some of the buntings...

... and placards...

... rameshwor khanal the current popular activism 'flavour' spoke for a while (we at the back could not hear a word)...

... and lo and behold.. mr. dhamala appears where the cameras are focussed...

... some of the participants...

... a while later the rally decided to go around the bcci, where the samsads are meant to sit down to draft the new constituion...

a relection of the mess our country is in... haphazard, chaotic planning in baneshwor...

the city keeps growing... these buildings next to dhobi khola.. which luckily, due to the daily rainfall the valley has been experiencing, at least has some water flowing in it...

the other बिजोग is of the maitighar shanti mandal. there was a time when the mandal, with its coloured pebbles, the small moat outside it, and the wonderful flowers growing in this traffic island, used to be a thing of beauty. it was sad to see the burnt grass remnant of some recent protest...

the lost glory of the ढुङ्गे धारा ...

... and the mandal itself.. the iron patterns already being displaced. protestors who throng this place, walk all over the mandal.. the coloured pebbles have been mixed about... a sad state of neglect of what once used to be something to boast about...

behind the giant billboards in between the army barrack and the health ministry, is some empty land... couldn't we reserve that green space to be converted into a place where children can play and romp? a park? or a playground?

.. walking further north, this statue of the unifier of the nation.. the monument disfigured by the well-meaning-enamel-paint-weilding नेपालको खलासी...

a man walks past with a metal cabinet...

thin traffic (lack of gasoline + saturday)in putali sadak...

... a cleared up area probably ready for another high rise.. another place that could definitely be developed into a green space to serve all the children in the putalisadak and new plaza area... नत्र 'कहाँ खेल्छन् ति नानीहरू' ?

... this is where the momo king restaurant was once housed...

kripa's artwork still showing on the wall...

narrow glittering buildings replacing crumbling ones in putali sadak...

signboards along pultai sadak, which could very well be renamed "'abroad study' & institutes sadak".... reflecting and feeding young people's pscyche to get out of the country...

... an overflowing dustbin on the roadside.. filled with plastic and paper that we could have easily separated at home for proper recycling...

and then... turning westwards into bagh bazar over the tukucha khola... a youth walks by the kind of posters naseeruddin shah might have been referring to in his interview with girish giri... and also past the rubbish pile...

at least this pipal tree over the tukucha provides shade enough for business of the roadside cobbler...

... and that was what i saw this morning...