In fact tourists have all but disappeared. Thammel, the old part of Kathmandu full of narrow alleys bursting with tourist shops frquented by europeans and americans, seems a little desperate. I was told that guest houses and small hotels have been forced to close.
Maoists have declared a complete block of Kathmandu from 13 March and some big action by 4 April, so things may get even worse.
This means that it is easy to find a cheap room in a good hotel.
People speak about the BBC interview of Prachannda, the head of maoists and his assurance for maoists' willingness to renounce the path of violence and to be part of the political system. Yet, everyday there are news of new fights, bombs, and people dying.
****
I have been told that from some angles, I look like Prachannda. That really makes me afraid. I am suppose to travel in far away rural areas, some of which are close to maoists strongholds and theatre of their fighting with police and military. If they decide that I am Prachannda and decide to shoot me?
In the some of the rural areas that I visit, poverty and oppression are deep-seated. Most of the maoist boys come from these homes I am told.
With some friends, I discuss the revolution of maoists. I agree with their desire of human dignity, social justice and equity. But I don't think that violence or revolutions change things. Because, human beings are human beings and they want comfort, money, good things, power, etc. A few committed and idealists don't run the revolution, it is ordinary persons in villages, small towns and communities, the frontguards of the revolutionaries, who make a new system, replacing the oppressors of the past with new oppressors.
I understand their impatience with slowness of change and yet, I don't think that there is any alternative to dialogue, empowerment and slow change from within.
*****
Lovely green fields with women in colourful clothes makes for pretty pictures. The women mostly wrap the saries over the lower half, keeping the upper halfs covered only with blouses. To Indian eyes, it makes them look more defiant, less shackled by the veils of modesty.
This picture was taken after a meeting with a women's group in Chaimalle. The women were from Danuvar community, struggling for survival.
*****The bridge hanging over the waters is on Bhagmati river, about 35 km from Kathmandu. It is made of iron plates with gaps between them, and as you walk over it it moves and shifts like a sleeping snake, waking up and moving under your feet. Looking at the boulders and rushing water through the gaps gives me vertigo.
In Kathmandu, the river is filthy drain. Behind Pashupatinath, as people give the last bath to the dead bodies of their near and dear ones, before placing them on the funeral pyres, it seems that they can't see the thick filth in the holy waters, folding their hands in the sacred prayers.
It is like Jamuna in Delhi. Not the Jamuna of my childhood, when we played in the sand behind I.P. college. Wonder if Jamuna is still like that or they have been able to clean it!
Any way back to the frothing waters of Bhagmati, away from Kathmandu, crashing on the boulders, raising up a spray, it seems like a paradise. As I cross the river, I realise to my horror, the shining white froth on the water is like thick soap, probably coming out of some factories or drains.
Some persons stand in the middle of the river. Are they fishing, I ask. No, there is no fish in this river, not any more, according to the two women accompanying us. Those people are mining sand, they will sell it.
Do their legs get sores and rashes, standing in the middle of the soap foam of the river for hours, I ask. The women shake their heads, not understanding my question.
****Why do they carry things this way, holding the strap on their heads, I wonder.
Men, women, children, all of them. Small bags, big baskets full of green vegetables and fodder, bundles of wood, sheets of iron, logs. People walk bent forward, the straps straining on their foreheads.
It has been years since I trekked in the mountains. I feel fat and undignified, moving like an elephant while they move quickly and nimbly as goats or deer. The stones push through my Italian shoes and hurt my feet, they walk in rubber flip-flops careflessly. They chatter and I gasp like an asthmatic.
I look up with despair. The climbing never seems to end. Far away I can see the ribbon of the path, hugging the mountain, going down towards the river bed. We walked all that. Now this path going up.
They, the women, they made this path, Sarmila tells me. It is a narrow path on which stones have been placed. It is not a paved path, they have just been thrown there, one above another. I can understand that in rainy season, walking on these paths must not be easy and to have stones under your feet that stop you from slipping down, must be helpful. If you fell down, obviously you have greater chances of breaking your legs over them, I remind myself.
Each stone must weigh half a kg, how much time did it take for them to do it, to line this path? I imagine myself, going down the path, down to the river where we started, pick up a few stones and then climb up to this place. It is too tiring, I give up imagining.
Has anyone ever had heart attacks while climbing these mountains, I want to ask, but I am afraid that asking such questions brings bad luck. So I keep my mouth shut. Rather, I am too busy gasping to ask stupid questions.
*****We are staying with an old woman in her hotel at Biplate village in Okhaldhunga district. Her hotel has two rooms. A big room where she has the kitchen and the women's dormitory. The next room is men's dormitory. For breakfast we get roasted potatoes with chilli sauce. The toilet is a bit lower down, behind the house. After dinner I have taken my usual diuretic for the blood pressure and I need to pee, holding a small torch, I go out. It is pitch black and the idea of going down the hill to search for the toilet makes me shudder. I finally decide to cross the road and pee over the deep valley below. Above, the sky is full of stars. I feel like a naughty child, peeing in the open like that.
In the morning, there is a procession of donkeys going up on the mountain behind us. Tens or twenty of donkies with bells around their necks. Followed by a lonely man or sometimes by a boy. It is a 3-4 days journey they tell me, going to the Salu, some place in high mountains in Himalaya.
A man carryng a huge bundle of boxes who had slept in our hotel comes out and starts walking on the same day. For four days of walking to deliver those boxes he will get 450 nepalese rupees. For food and sleeping on the way he will spend about 400 rupees and after four days of back-breaking work, he will earn 50 rupees. I can't belive it. One Euro is about 81 rupees.
Then came this boy following his buffaloes or are they yaks?
*******It is the day of the sex workers they tell me. I am curious to see the sex workers, so I go their meeting. Where are the sex workers, I look around. I don't see them. I see young women, sitting together. Some of them have their children with them.
They talk about the difficulty of convincing the clients to use condoms. They talk of violence. They talk of discrimination, of being blamed for spreading AIDS. They talk of selling themsleves for a plate of momos, when children are hungry. They talk of dignity. They talk of coming out and raising their voices.
Do you want to say something, they ask me. I am used to talking but for once, I can't find the words. I mumble something, feeling inadequate.
*******They sit on the ground, patiently for hours. I squirm and shift. Move my legs this way and that way. I wish there was a chair. How can you eat this way, I ask myself, trying to reach the thali on the ground.
They talk of domestic violence, alcoholism, poverty, hunger, saving money, second wives, going ahead even if men of their communities do not agree.
Her husband cut the big toe in her right foot with a knife, Sarmila points out towards the woman who is speaking. He was drunk and angry. She is talking about the importance of her women's group, importance of her chicken raising, importance of not giving in to the threats of the men from the village.
Happy 8th March, even if I am late.
