Road Rage

As the poor soul that is our subject maneuvers his motorcycle through the ruthless streets of Kathmandu, there is no rest to the thoughts that race through his mind:

What the hell is up with this stupid car? Get out of the way, you nitwit! The road is wide open… either speed up or let me through!! I’ve been trailing your ass for the last ten minutes. I’ve been on second gear all along, burning all my precious fuel — half of which I had to queue up all day for, and half of which I had to buy at double the market price. Where the hell do you get your fuel, anyway? Doesn’t look like you’ve had to go through much to get it. You aristocratic scum, get out of the way or I swear to God I’m gonna ram your ass!!

Finally, the road widens and our subject manages to overtake the slow car, but not before a confused bicycle cuts him off from the left. Our subject has to brake hard to avoid hitting the bicycle.

Holy crap! Where the hell did you come from? You dumbass! Why do they let imbeciles like you on the streets? You know what, I’m sorry I braked — I should have just rammed you head on. That ought to have taught you.

Our subject carries on and approaches a turn. His mood improves for he knows that this is a wide one-way street.

Finally — some space.

As he turns, he almost runs head on into another motorcycle coming towards him against the one-way in the wrong direction.

Jackass!!

Finally, a wide enough road ahead of him provides some relief.

Aah, at last, fifth gear!!

His joy, however, does not last. In the distance, in the middle of the street, a bunch of people are waiting to cross the road. They march on without any regard for traffic. Obviously, our subject has to slow down yet again.

You nincompoops — just holding your hand out is not going to stop my motorbike. And staring at me is not going to do it either. What is wrong with you people? Have you lost all power of reason? Didn’t anybody ever teach you how to think? Retards!!

Things will only get worse, and our subject knows this — for now he approaches a narrow alley — full of potholes, bumps, speed breakers — and big enough for just one car to pass through at a time.

God damn all this… bloody potholes… why even put gears above second on a motorcycle, really!! And why the hell do they need a speed breaker every 10 goddamn meters!!

As our subject goes through a turn in the alley, he encounters an urban motorcycler’s worst nightmare: a slow moving car in an alley. The motorcycler, in this case, knows he has no choice but to trail behind the car at half-clutch until the alley opens up.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!!

At this point, the car passes over a pothole and covers it up so our subject can’t see it. As soon as the car passes over, our subject’s motorcycle hits the pothole.

Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn, goddamn, goddamn!!!

Finally, with all of God’s graces, the alley opens up and moments of torment later, our subject reaches his destination. Parking, of course, is a whole different story.

Revisiting the attic

Well, Nepal has been a republic for a little while now. We don’t have a government yet — but who notices the difference anyway? At least we have a President — and a Vice President, also, for that matter — one who does not care much for our language, but a Vice President nonetheless — one that will live it up all he wants in Hindi in that nice little “palace” neighboring my favorite bowling joint. We have gone from being a dysfunctional monarchy to a dysfunctional republic. In principle, however, the latter is always better than the former.

I haven’t been to the attic atop Prithvi Narayan Shah’s Nau-Tale Darbar in Basantapur since I went there for the first time a couple of years ago and wrote about it in this very forum (see Bliss in the attic — http://www.everestuncensored.org/585/2006/06/04/bliss-in-the-attic/). Not that I did not want to go — a couple of things got in my way. The first and obvious one would be that I am as lazy as anyone can be. The second one would be the fact that a woman threw herself with her child off that very attic and killed herself. Since then, they don’t allow visitors up there. I am glad I did go when I had the chance, though.

Anyway, my own memories of the attic are pretty vague at this point. The couple of years in my life following that visit were pretty eventful and contributed towards blurring my recollections of the so called “bliss” I felt that I refer to in my original entry. I just stumbled on to the entry and felt its relevance given that we are now a fresh republic. I foresee some other schmuck like me visiting a museum someday that will inhabit the current vice-presidential “palace” and hearing voices of the vice-presidential spirit that will haunt it then. It will probably utter one of the following lines in its ghostly, pro-Indian voice.

“This is where I was headed when I was asked to do something stupid. I did as I was told. The mob arose and asked me to back down. I did the right thing. My own people slaughtered me, but the country was saved for you to live in.”

“This is where I was headed when I was asked to do something stupid. I did as I was told. The mob arose and asked me to back down. When I didn’t, they strung me up. What could I do? If I had backed down, my own people would have killed me — and trust me, they are way more ruthless than any lynch mob. Anyway, that is what led to the state of extreme anarchy that you currently dwell in.”

“This is where I was headed when I was asked to do something stupid. I did as I was told. The mob arose and asked me to back down. I didn’t, and nobody cared. You see, Nepal used to be much bigger than it is now, but that was what led to the gradual process that caused Nepal to split into all these bits and pieces — and that is eventually what led to all the genocide and ethnic cleansing that is going on right now… oh, not to mention the famine.”

I have been told I am overtly pessimistic, but I don’t think it’s my fault.