Five days of Maoist Jana-Andolan

My sister is a great cook. I come home to her innovate recipies like prawn biryani, pasta with home-made buff-sauce, mutton-stew, chopsuey with huge chunks of chicken and carrot slices dipped in butter, or spaghetti dripping with yak cheese. These, since the Maoist strike began. Since there’s nowhere to go during the Maoist called clousure, she spends her days practicing her culinary skills. Pehaps a preparation for married life, as she’s soon to be wed. Or perhaps, a way to keep her mind busy since she doesn’t even know how many times she’s going to have to reschedule her wedding to find a day there’s no hadtaal.

Of couse, I relish what she prepares. There’s nothing more delectable that a dish cooked by someone you love.

Am I supposed to be feeling lousy about eating these while the Maoist protestors are living on dalmoth and chiura and water supplied by tankers and sleeping on the cold cement floor?

I did feel sad for the Maoists walking in the rain today, some in their kasrat uniforms, some with red bandannas, some with flags- all of keeeping the pride of their party and the “noble” cause they are offering themselves to. They weren’t mounted on trippers like their leaders. But they walked just as far as the office van took me around the city, while the rain fell without any signs of ceasing. And the Maoist protestors kept walking, still cheering for reasons some of them don’t even understand. Some of them don't even know why they are there. But why would the leaders care?

I got off the office van for a while to feel the rain just like they did. But I had the option of getting back in it after my cameraperson colleague was done. The protestors didn't. Most of them looked worn-out. Thin.

Ironically, the one thing the closure has done for me is helped me gain weight. One, my sister doesn’t stop cooking. And plans her menu without guilt, when a mootha of pharsi ko moonta is selling for over fifty rupees.

Over half the population in Kathmandu is already running out of essential supplies. If you have stored stuff in your larder, you’re lucky (like my sister). Otherwise, either you have money but you can’t buy. Or, you can’t buy because you have no money. Some of us who do have some money, can't buy as they don’t have access to cash because the banks are closed.

The other reason that has helped my flabs is because I don’t walk anymore. I spend the day, waiting- sometimes for five hours- at home, for the office car to pick me. You have to be on stand-by because you don’t know how long or short it might take for the car to arrive. It could be anything between five minutes to five hours. You can’t walk, because the office needs you and you’re not supposed to get injured or too tired to work.

But I walked half-way today. The first walk in days.

So, the streets are filled with people, walking, chatting, listening to the FM, playing badminton, cricket, walking around with canes. The only vehicles that ply are ambulances, press vans and human rights defenders’ cars. So I walk and stare at people. And stare and walk. There are such sights to see on days like these. The same things or even more interesting things won’t even register in your mind on other days. But the silence of a bandh magnifies everything and everyone.

For instance, the elderly lady who was walking in my direction this afternoon, seemed highly attractive to me. Possibly in her 70s, her face shone against the blood-sari and the huge red tika on her forehead. It was the kind of tika that shone like a light. Her bangles shone too. And her bun sat almost atop her head like a Rishi’s. She looked stunning and I had to talk to her. It was her energy. She said she had walked from Budanilkantha to Om Hospital in Chabel and back to visit a sick relative.

So I walked and watched people and talked and walked again, until I came to the little girl in a wheel-chair who is always there at the Chakrapath tempo-stand, watching the world pass her by.