Prema Shah, 67, frequently recalls and narrates accounts of Kathmandu during her school and college days when the air was clean, the mountains surrounding the valley clearly visible and a stroll around the neighborhood left you refreshed. But when she starts describing the city as it once was, her grandchildren often wonder if she’s misplacing the facts or blatantly exaggerating.
Kathmandu today is nothing like it looked back then, says Shah who wonders how the city plummeted to such lowly standards. “There used to be a lot of trees and everything looked a lot cleaner when I was young,” says Shah adding that the disarray the city is in now, alarms her. Kathmandu, till the late 1970’s, was a paradise, with a small population and a few cars on its narrow roads, she says. Since then, Kathmandu has undergone enormous change to become a polluted, traffic clogged, urban sprawl that is fast becoming unfit for living with each passing day. [break]
From the pavements to the roads, nothing in the capital city is in order. At every step there’s a pothole to avoid, muddy lanes to jump over and wire lines to navigate your way through. Motorbikes and buses snake their way around pedestrians as they pass through the streets and the pedestrians in turn squeeze themselves in between vehicles in an attempt to cross roads without having to climb the steep stairs of the overhead bridges. Shruti Bhattarai, 21, a bachelors level student commutes on her scooter but instead of enjoying her newly acquired ride she feels frustrated at the end of a long day.
“I’ve been riding the scooter for two months only but I’ve already had three accidents,” says a visibly frustrated Bhattarai adding that though all three accidents were minor ones they could have easily been avoided had the city been a little less chaotic. Bhattarai’s scooter first skidded on the muddy tracks outside her home. The second accident occurred when she bumped against a lone divider that had overturned and the third one was when a taxi turned right while signaling a left turn.
Bhattarai’s annoyance at the city is echoed by thousands of others who drive in the streets of Kathmandu. However, Pawan Karki, 32, a banker, says that commuting to work on public vehicles is even worse than cruising on your own ride.
“Sometimes, sitting on a bus feels like being on a roller coaster,” says Karki narrating an account of how once the bus he was on had a mad race with another bus and all the passengers had to hold on tight to their seats.
Keshab Thoker
The unattented after effects of the road widening campaign that has left roads around the valley in a complete state of disarray.
Karki has once also been on a tempo that overturned because one of the rear wheels got stuck in a mud pit. He mentions that every day at work, almost all his colleagues have tales to share about some accident or the other. He agrees with Bhattarai that many of these accidents are avoidable ones. “The accident cases I get to hear of from friends and colleagues are mostly repercussions of living in a messy city,” he adds heaving a sigh.
It seems the city dwellers are frustrated with the state Kathmandu is in at the moment and their frustration is justified. From heaps of garbage piled high on the roadsides to the wire lines that sag menacingly, the city looks dirty and disorganized and the price the valley denizens have to pay for it is high with accidents being a daily occurrence.
For Shah whose early memories of the city include wide lanes lined with trees and air laced with the smell of flowers, the current state of affairs is disheartening and the fact that the situation only seems to grow worse add to her worries.
“I want my grandchildren and their children to witness and live in a beautiful country. Nepal is a pretty country or I should say was beautiful when I was growing up. Now it’s just one messy dump,” she says adding that wherever she looks she doesn’t even see a slight resemblance to the old Kathmandu. Stacy Kennedy, 28, a native of Australia who is on a vacation in Kathmandu with her friends says she was alarmed to witness the state of the capital city.
“I think my horror began the minute we came out of the airport premises, not that the state of the airport was any better but things got worse on our way to the hotel at Thamel,” she says mentioning how horrified she was to see broken poles, dangling wires, dangerous looking pavements, the terrible state of traffic and the apparent lack of rules. “The city I’d envisioned was an oasis of calm and serenity. What I found instead was a place that had gone haywire and in dire need of attention. Kathmandu needs a complete makeover,” she adds.
Stacy’s friend Marissa Callies, 29, also agrees with her and says that the city disappointed her and she feels they should have chosen some other place instead of Nepal. She also adds that some of her friends who had visited Nepal in the past year warned her against making the trip but she didn’t listen to them.“I didn’t think the condition would be this dreadful. It all looked so good in photos and postcards,” says Callies confessing that she can’t wait to head back to Australia.
As an afterthought Callies adds that the city definitely has the potential to become very attractive if it’s cared for. The city, according to her, is naturally beautiful and that fact can’t be overlooked. Currently, the alluring hills that surround the valley, the mimosa trees that bloom bright and culturally vibrant architecture are overshadowed by the mess but if Kathmandu could be cleaned up and organized then it would be a city people couldn’t get enough of or at the very least, don’t want to run away from.
cillakhatry@gmail.comPrema Shah, 67, frequently recalls and narrates accounts of Kathmandu during her school and college days when the air was clean, the mountains surrounding the valley clearly visible and a stroll around the neighborhood left you refreshed. But when she starts describing the city as it once was, her grandchildren often wonder if she’s misplacing the facts or blatantly exaggerating. Kathmandu today is nothing like it looked back then, says Shah who wonders how the city plummeted to such lowly standards. “There used to be a lot of trees and everything looked a lot cleaner when I was young,” says Shah adding that the disarray the city is in now, alarms her.
Kathmandu, till the late 1970’s, was a paradise, with a small population and a few cars on its narrow roads, she says. Since then, Kathmandu has undergone enormous change to become a polluted, traffic clogged, urban sprawl that is fast becoming unfit for living with each passing day. From the pavements to the roads, nothing in the capital city is in order. At every step there’s a pothole to avoid, muddy lanes to jump over and wire lines to navigate your way through.
Motorbikes and buses snake their way around pedestrians as they pass through the streets and the pedestrians in turn squeeze themselves in between vehicles in an attempt to cross roads without having to climb the steep stairs of the overhead bridges. Shruti Bhattarai, 21, a bachelors level student commutes on her scooter but instead of enjoying her newly acquired ride she feels frustrated at the end of a long day.
“I’ve been riding the scooter for two months only but I’ve already had three accidents,” says a visibly frustrated Bhattarai adding that though all three accidents were minor ones they could have easily been avoided had the city been a little less chaotic.
Bhattarai’s scooter first skidded on the muddy tracks outside her home. The second accident occurred when she bumped against a lone divider that had overturned and the third one was when a taxi turned right while signaling a left turn.
Bhattarai’s annoyance at the city is echoed by thousands of others who drive in the streets of Kathmandu. However, Pawan Karki, 32, a banker, says that commuting to work on public vehicles is even worse than cruising on your own ride.
“Sometimes, sitting on a bus feels like being on a roller coaster,” says Karki narrating an account of how once the bus he was on had a mad race with another bus and all the passengers had to hold on tight to their seats.
Karki has once also been on a tempo that overturned because one of the rear wheels got stuck in a mud pit. He mentions that every day at work, almost all his colleagues have tales to share about some accident or the other. He agrees with Bhattarai that many of these accidents are avoidable ones.
“The accident cases I get to hear of from friends and colleagues are mostly repercussions of living in a messy city,” he adds heaving a sigh. It seems the city dwellers are frustrated with the state Kathmandu is in at the moment and their frustration is justified. From heaps of garbage piled high on the roadsides to the wire lines that sag menacingly, the city looks dirty and disorganized and the price the valley denizens have to pay for it is high with accidents being a daily occurrence.
For Shah whose early memories of the city include wide lanes lined with trees and air laced with the smell of flowers, the current state of affairs is disheartening and the fact that the situation only seems to grow worse add to er worries.
“I want my grandchildren and their children to witness and live in a beautiful country. Nepal is a pretty country or I should say was beautiful when I was growing up. Now it’s just one messy dump,” she says adding that wherever she looks she doesn’t even see a slight resemblance to the old Kathmandu. Stacy Kennedy, 28, a native of Australia who is on a vacation in Kathmandu with her friends says she was alarmed to witness the state of the capital city.
“I think my horror began the minute we came out of the airport premises, not that the state of the airport was any better but things got worse on our way to the hotel at Thamel,” she says mentioning how horrified she was to see broken poles, dangling wires, dangerous looking pavements, the terrible state of traffic and the apparent lack of rules. “The city I’d envisioned was an oasis of calm and serenity. What I found instead was a place that had gone haywire and in dire need of attention. Kathmandu needs a complete makeover,” she adds.
Stacy’s friend Marissa Callies, 29, also agrees with her and says that the city disappointed her and she feels they should have chosen some other place instead of Nepal. She also adds that some of her friends who had visited Nepal in the past year warned her against making the trip but she didn’t listen to them.
“I didn’t think the condition would be this dreadful. It all looked so good in photos and postcards,” says Callies confessing that she can’t wait to head back to Australia.
As an afterthought Callies adds that the city definitely has the potential to become very attractive if it’s cared for. The city, according to her, is naturally beautiful and that fact can’t be overlooked. Currently, the alluring hills that surround the valley, the mimosa trees that bloom bright and culturally vibrant architecture are overshadowed by the mess but if Kathmandu could be cleaned up and organized then it would be a city people couldn’t get enough of or at the very least, don’t want to run away from.
cillakhatry@gmail.com
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