Prettypur

Sunday morning, I was getting late for college. Slipping on my tie with one hand and polishing my shoes with the other, I hurried out of my house, ran up the path...splash! ... right into a huge puddle.

With no time left, I rushed on, hopping and skipping along the bigger puddles. Soon, a girl observed that I was wearing mud-colored pants. My teacher asked me why I had not polished my shoes. And my friend queried whether I had just come from the fields. Once upon a time, I would have found all this hilarious.

Then, I used to go out and squash around in the mud, sit on the grass, dig dunes and tunnels. But back then, I had nowhere to go and no deadlines to meet. Now I do. And I am beginning to understand what everyone means when they nod their heads knowingly and mouth ‘irresponsible.’

This path is the worst example of irresponsibility that I have ever seen. In the records, this path is probably described as a smooth twelve-feet mud-path. Except in the monsoons, it should have been quite satisfactory. But it’s winter, not a drop of water has poured for weeks, and I still shudder to think how the others living farther up the path go through this hell that I have to bear for a mere five minutes everyday. With houses treating the path as their private drainage and garage and driveways and toilets, it has become a gooey, yucky mass of mud and dirt and earthworms.

Me and my friend were shocked the other day to see a woman hurling a huge plastic bag right on the bridge above us. “What are you doing?” We, the environment conscious students, screamed. The woman calmly chuckled, “Throwing some sweets, you know.” What do we call this? Insensitivity? Ignorance? Or plain indifference?

Take an example from this evening. We were all waiting for our dad’s great treat, and all he could reach home with was one fourth of the original delicacies. He had dropped everything when he had to push and pull his bike, to find a way, as a huge truck was parked right at the mouth of the path.

It’s not as if we have not done anything either. Forms have been signed, funds have been collected and land has been donated. And yet, this lackluster attitude provides no initiative for any sort of development.

If getting to the main road is a hurdle, the less said after that the better. Up to the gate of Tribhuvan University (TU), all you can see are an endless number of potholes and pebbles with tiny patches of pitched road here and there. It is a heroic task to wrestle your vehicle within that teeny-weeny space that too after swerving and dodging an alarming number of cattle let out just anywhere. By the time you get down, your back is black and blue, and every nerve of yours is aching and trembling.

Yet, another recent phenomenon is a dumping-site (?) created right in front of TU gate. Even at 5:30 in the morning, it spreads such a disgusting smell... you feel giddy and nauseous for hours afterward. Agreed, a site must be built somewhere but it must be properly planned. Think of how it must be for the people who actually live there day in and day out. And I do not even want to imagine what example we are setting by raising Mt. Waste in the gateway of the most prestigious University of the nation.

I was just giving an example of Kirtipur. The truth is that progress is always focused on the main streets, the already developed places and the concrete jungles. Why not on really attention-deserving places like this? Why do we have this all-embracing laziness to any work in these places?

The problems won’t just go away. Without any beginning, the path won’t dry up, the potholes won’t get evened out, people won’t tie their cattle and will not stop flinging their dirt on our face either. Let us begin now, before it is too late to create a Prettypur.