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Kathmandu Friday January 12, 2001 Paush 28, 2057.
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All quiet after the storm
By Utpal Raj Misra
KATHMANDU - The storm is over. Nothing marked its arrival and nothing marked
its end. It came when no one anticipated anything, and died down when people started
anticipating many things.
The strom, of course, is the violent protests that gripped the capital city
some days ago. Now as the mercury is dipping down and the chilly northern wind is taking
the capital in its fold, all that is left of the storm is the marks left behind by it- on
the streets of the capital and in the minds of the people. But that too seems to be fast
fading away.
It has been more than a week since the pieces of bricks and stones, which had
made the streets look like virtual battle-zones only a few weeks back, have been cleared
away. The broken windowpanes replaced, pieces of shattered glasses swept and the black
ashes of burnt tire washed. Vehicles are back on the streets causing nuisance and traffic
jams. The vendors and hawkers are again busy with their activities selling their items
without fear that they will be manhandled or that they will be looted. The shutters are
up, and although still a bit apprehensive, both Nepali businessmen of Indian origin and
the Indian businessmen are back at work.
It seems that the general people have put behind the storm but the
inexplicable way it arrived and departed and how it presented the countrymen as a bunch of
fools to the world still lingers in the minds of many. Like a person who has just received
a huge blow, Kathmanduites, it seems, have not been able to react to other general things.
Or is it that nothing has changed, things are just as they always were? Have Kathmanduites
ever reacted to general things?
There is a huge shortage of cooking gas lately. Everybody knows it, everybody
says it, and everybody is affected by it but no one protests against it. No one is
pressing the responsible body to do something to solve the problem. Similarly there has
been a hike in the price of salt. The general people have said not a word against the
hike. It seems people are taking these things as if it were something unavoidable as the
winter chill. They have just put these things in the back of their minds and are getting
along with their activities.
A taxi driver seems to be happy just to be able to drive his vehicle. A
shop-owner seems happy enough just to lift up the shutters of his shop. And so seem all
the people just because that they are able to get on with their work without any
hindrance.
Yes, this is more like a Kathmanduite character-People not concerned even to
what’s happening in their backyards as long as they are not individually affected. If
one looks back over the years one finds no such incidents to which the locals of Kathmandu
have reacted strongly against apart from the riots demanding for the present democratic
constitution some 10 years back.
But then what caused the storm? Everybody knows, it was not just a reaction
to a film star’s remarks. Most find it hard to swallow what the media say that caused
it. Ask the general people about it –"What really happened? Why did it
happen?" Everyone manages to say something or the other or rather reiterates what the
media has said but every face expresses confusion and bewilderment that clearly says
–"I don’t know what really happened."
And do they care? Negative. People seem more
interested in the forth coming Nepali Congress Convention. Maybe they expect the heat that
is certain to be generated then will somehow relieve them from the biting cold.
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