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.