Literally, Kathmandu is breathing fresh air since I arrived last week on Wednesday. Until then the valley was making news consistently with new high records on air pollution. Thanks to daily rain since Thursday, the dust has settled. The smog is nearly gone.
This is an example that all is not lost yet. However, the problems are lurking in the backyard. They will sneak out as soon as you look away. You only need to notice that as soon as the rain stops and the ground dries out, dust particles start to rise from the ground up in the air.
The rivers are not that lucky. I’ve discussed the rivers elsewhere and more coming up soonish.
It is soul warming to see all the love and pomp that the heritage monuments and celebrations such as jatras are increasingly receiving. They seem to get more and more pampered with all the posh treatment they are deservedly receiving. Our heritage is our identity. This message has seem to hit the right chord. Albeit the messaging might be knowingly or subtle, doesn’t matter. The result is fantastically praise worthy.
Residential and commercial buildings are popping up everywhere. Retails that are located on almost every building facing the street, where pedestrian movement occurs, seem to be doing well. This is, to some extent, a sign of a somehow thriving domestic economy. Albeit at a snails pace, new roads are getting built; existing ones are getting widened.
The above is a sample of what’s going on in the air, land, water and the human interface of the city. These four pillars make up the urban environment. The individual components are inter-connectedly woven into a complex and dynamic ecosystem. You lose one leg of the quadruple equilibrium, the system gives up and the balance tips over.
I won’t go over the nasty comments about negative development. We all know the state of the affairs of our air, land and water. The only silver lining in the cloud is our love towards our heritage, and the result that is in front of us today. There is a lot to do in this space too. All is not rosy, as we know.
So. What to do then about our air, land, water (collectively natural environment) and the human environment (this can be understood as the whole of the social, cultural and economic environments)?
That is the kharab rupee question. I’ll try to answer in the coming days.
Images around Bhaktapur snapped on the New Year's Day.
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