Pokhara: Stay Clean, Stay Serene

Although this article is about Pokhara, I would like to start by saying Kathmandu was not always the DIRTY CITY turning into this endless sea of  garbage, nose puncturing odor and pollution.

I remember swimming in a CLEAN Bagmati river which now sounds like a big joke. One cannot even go near the river now, forget about swimming! The super pungent smell of rotting garbage and flowing faeces give you a clear "STAY AWAY !!! " signal from far off.

I dont remember a smelly and dirty Bagmati as a kid nor any traffic jams, garbage in the road or this cloud of dust and vehicle emissions otherwise known as SMOG. But I'll come back to this later.

Lets move on to Pokhara now.

October 2010, I entered Pokhara after almost 8 years. I have spent the best 4 years of my life in this city studying in one of the most popular schools in the region. It was almost like coming back home and it would also be a break for me from the dirt and the pollution of Kathmandu. I didn’t expect it to change much from when I saw it the last time. But things had changed, not drastically but still noticeable. After that, I have visited Pokhara 4 more times and since then I am pretty much confirmed of the negative aspects slowly creeping into this scenic city.

The first change you notice is the increase in population and the number of vehicles running in the city.Prithvi Chowk, one of the entry and exit points of the city has become much more crowded now. And yes, it looks more like a place in dirty Kathmandu than in the clean and serene Pokhara.

Baidam, known more as Lakeside to most people outside Pokhara. I was happy to see it still clean. The roads much wider than in Thamel, and the atmosphere is nice and quiet to take a walk in. There is just one concern though, the vehicles and its parking. One can see a dramatic increase in the number of vehicles parked in Lakeside compared to just a few years ago. I could also see that the water in Fewa lake is not as clear as it used to be. And if I’m not correct, quite a few sewage pipes also lead to the lake. That’s plain stupid, who in the right sense of mind would dispose sewage in a stagnant body of water?

Chippledhunga seems to be much busier now and seems to be following in the footsteps of Newroad in Kathmandu.

The residential areas also seem be much more populated now. Forget about the areas in the city even places like Lamachaur, which used to be an outskirts of the city, doesn’t look like an outskirt anymore. It’s full of houses and the number of inhabitants has also increased.

In short, you can feel the urbanization just starting to creep into the city. The good thing about urbanization is that Pokhara will have more facilities and become a better city with modern facilities.

But then is it completely true? What about the negative aspects of urbanization? Does it have anything that it can learn from the dismal fate of Kathmandu?

The reason I mentioned a clean Kathmandu as a kid, is because now in Pokhara, I can see what Kathmandu used to be like in the early nineties.

The city is just starting to blossom, more and more people from surrounding areas and towns are settling in Pokhara. The businesses are getting bigger and better and more vehicles plying in the roads. Pokhara is almost perfect now, but for how long? How long before the areas within the city will start getting dirtier? How long before the traffic jams in Chippledhunga and the constant annoying honking of the vehicles start driving you insane? How long before the local water supply plant wont be enough to supply water for the whole city?

Problems like these will continue coming one after the other and suddenly you realize that your city is in deep shit.

You cannot stop urbanization but then the locals of Pokhara have to be aware beforehand what their city is getting into. All I can do is express my concerns about the path that Pokhara is heading towards and try to make the people of the city aware of the things that I see forthcoming.

The rest is in your hands, in the hands of the people of Pokhara.

Stay clean, stay serene.

English Fucking English

The reason this article is in english is because my Nepali writing is comparatively much weaker than my english. Which is true for most of you Nepalese reading this article.

Reason ... I studied in schools where speaking english is promoted and except for nepali all other subjects are in english.

Everything is in english because according to the "WISE ONES" of our country, being literate in english opens a whole new world of opportunities and will eventually somehow speed up the development of the country. Somewhat true ...or is it now?

Let me mention a few countries now: China,Japan,France,Russia. What do you find common in these four countries?

Yes ... they don't speak much english or lets say no english at all.
Are they undeveloped or lagging behind from other countries? Did they use english to get where they are now? I don't think so.

Let me mention another country now ... our neighbours from the other side ...India. Everyone knows how cool the Indians think of themselves when they communicate with their fellow countrymen in English. Have you heard them speak? I find it fucking hilarious when they speak in English with a stupendous Indian accent. They sound and now even look like White people wannabes. Not at all a good sight for a country so rich in culture and with numerous languages of their own. But then, for all I care ...they can all go to hell. :)

Lets come back to our own country Nepal now. If you look around, you will see English everywhere these days, hoarding boards, banners, pamphlets.The funny thing is that they are meant to attract people, most of whom are either illiterate or not good in english. Why do we need to write in English when we have 92 totally different languages to boast of?

Yes, tourist and export-import related businesses need english, which I have no objection towards. But then why on almost each and every little thing that we see these days, ranging from cheap biscuits and noodles (which no English or non-english speaking white fellow will eat unless they are really broke) to large size hoarding boards we see in all major cities. And boy o' boy are we creative in choosing ENGLISH names. ALIVE HOSPITAL, BRIGHT BABY BOARDING SCHOOL and GAYLORD ICE CREAM are top notch examples of the statement I just made.





Forget about our ethnic languages, even our national language is loosing against English when it comes to writing and being used for public displays. I do not mean that English should not be taught at all in schools. I just don't think that all the subjects should be in english medium. Actually there should be only one subject taught in english and that is english itself or maybe mathematics too. But why other subject? Especially History, in which we are learning about our own history in a foreign language!!!

To sum it all up ... I don't think english should be so prevalent in our country. Yes, its good to learn it a little for convenience's sake but not to the extent that our new generation gets even weaker than us in Nepali literature. A tree with weak roots will never stand for long. What good can come being weak in our own language and literature?

If the reason for learning english is economic growth then learning Chinese is a much better option now considering how it has started to dominate world economy without a word of english.

What say my friend? Am I right or am I right ? :)

Marwaris vs Nepali Businessmen.Why the Marwaris will always dominate the Business of Nepal?

I am not going to write two whole paragraphs describing bullshits about the background of either of the two subject matters mentioned in the title like they do in Nepali style essay writing by already boring the readers before one actually gets to the main topic.

The answer is UNITY. Unity which our Nepali business-folks think exists between them due to the mutual primary aim of all involved in business, the mutual primary aim of making money.
So we Nepalese try to use each other for making money.
What do the marwaris do? They help each other to empower themselves so that they can use others (non-marwaris) for making money. They have a mutual understanding and know which people to work with and which people to make money out of.

The result? Look at Nepal's market now .....

1.Who do most of the major business houses in Nepal belong to?
2.How many of them belong to Nepali business men?
3.Which amongst the two is the major player in import and supply in Nepal?
4.Which amongst the two are actually running most of the shops from inside in almost all major marketplaces in most cities of Nepal?
5.Who do you actually see selling the products in our shops?

The answers are:

1.Marwaris or someone of the Indian origin

2.Very few

3.Marwaris

4.Marwaris

5.Nepalese (working directly or indirectly for marwaris)


I dont have statistics to show and impress all of you reading this because frankly speaking its a boring job searching the stats and making a graph to impress my readers.But I am sure all of us have an idea who is dominating who?

I am sure atleast one of the readers has already come up with the excuse of us Nepalese not having enough capital for investment like the Marwaris.But then thats where UNITY comes in, united investment is one thing that I dont see many Nepalese practising. We would rather have two small shops of our own then one big shop for the both of us.

United we rise, Divided we fall.

Who is rising and who is falling .... I think we all know.