"Jaawalaakheljaawalaakhellagankheljaawalaakhelsaatdobaato! O jaawalaakhellagankheljaawalaakhel!"
It was an early milestone of my stay here, the day I found myself able to decipher these strings of syllables. They unreel like gritty, oily ribbons from the mouths of the (pre)adolescent boys who hang out the doors of every microbus in greater Kathmandu. The system is simple enough: it's basically an audible sign conveying the vehicle's route. This one's headed to Patan, the former city-state that lies south of Kathmandu proper and that is now well swallowed-up by the ever growing metropolis. Everywhere are reminders that within living memory of most of the city's inhabitants Kathmandu was more like a modest town, one that gave way abruptly to a sleepy agricultural hinterland. Patan, only a few kilometers away, was enough of an entity in itself that its dialect of Newari is distinct, and Bhaktapur's (at less than 15 km from KTM) is only marginally comprehensible to a Kathmandu Newar. Place names around the Valley are reminders, in their simplicity, of simpler times: new road, Pipal tree, work-place, seven-way-crossroads (saat dobaato, "seven two-road"). Now Haadigaon, whose name imlies village, is in the middle of the city, a short and trafficky walk from Nepal's first and largest supermarket (which in turn is named after the local tantric Hindu temple, Bhatbhateni).
But I digress. I was talking about getting around: it's a trip. I mentioned systems, but when it comes driving they are nonexistent. The only rule is to drive on the left-hand side. Even that's more of a suggestion, for cutting across the road (there are no actually lanes) to pass is fair game. No, wrong word: that implies rules again. Driving is a free-for-all of three and four-wheeled vehicles, hordes of motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, a few rickshaws and the occasional wayward sacred cow. Horns are used not so much as instruments of expression, as in "Screw you bub, try and cut me off!!", as announcements of one's presence on the road. "Here I am coming up on your right." And the bigger buses are equipped with incredible horns that emit a staccato burst of deafening noise like a child hitting a huge organ's keyboard rapidly with a mallet. Do-mi-re-mi-do-mi-re. Intersections . . . work somehow, sort of, despite rather than because of the occasional traffic-light or uniformed mannikin unwilling or unable to direct anyone. But jams (as in "kasto jam bhayo!") are an everyday reality and are caused as often as not by road closures due to strike/protest (the infamous "banda"). Mind-numbing, chest-choking, soul-sucking jams. The motorcycles take their chance to squeeze between the immobilized four-wheelers but in the old city's narrow alley's they too clot up so that sometimes even pedestrians are stuck in the midst of the pack. It just came to me: the city is having a coronary. Anyway. There's talk of a Japanese initiative to expand the arterial "Arniko highway" (spectacular euphemism) into a 6-lane affair, but, as they say elsewhere than here, 'nothing good will come of this.' I take comfort in the near certainty that nothing at all will come of it.
If driving demands a different kind of canniness than we rule-bound Americans are used to, so does being a passenger. The first challenge is re-assuring oneself that there is indeed room in that sardine-can microbus: just find a foothold and someone to grab onto and duck your head inside the door, or hang off the side until the micro nears any sort of police presence (then it's all limbs inside). When two inches of seat open up, claim it like your birthright with one blade of your butt and be content. Make sure to shout out when your stop comes, and be up on the latest fare (11 rupees as of today) so you don't get shortchanged. It can be stressful, what with the discomfort of half-crouching in Twister-worthy contortions, gripping onto a seat with an old woman's head in your armpit. But more and more I find the closeness of the crowding comforting. No one will think twice about leaning on you or sitting closer than any New York subway-rider would find appropriate, and you can lean back on the supporting mass of humanity without reservation.
A peculiar jewel of the bus system lies in the interchange between the driver and the other character I mentioned, usually a twelve-to-fifteen year old boy, whom I'll call the conductor. His job is not only to spew those gorgeously melded syllables with as much brusque adolescent disdain as possible. He also collects fares and makes change, arranges passengers with impunity. You, brother, over here, you come sit, you up front. let's go, let's go! anyone for Tangal? No? Speak up! Guess not, go, go. He's constantly in and out of the vehicle, or standing in the open doorway, hanging on by the tips of his rubber sandal-clad toes. It's his exclusive right (though much abused by disgruntled passengers) to bang on side of the bus, signifying by the rhythm of taps to stop or go. On the bigger buses on precipitous roads throughout the hill region, this simple means of communication has evolved into a complex set of whistles and taps. En route from Syabrubesi in November, Wave was convinced she had decoded the conductor's bird-like calls: he was directing the vehicle as if by remote, with a call for L (away from the craggy blasted rock face) or R (away from the abyss). When we met another vehicle, both would shriek to a stop and the lowlier of the two would reverse around the switchbacks and minor rockslides to a place wide enough for the other to pass with a few inches to spare. It fell to the conductor to relay the signal that this operation could proceed: ta-tap ta-tap, ta-tap ta-tap . . . and the bus inched back, axles moaning, brakes crying for mercy. All this bussing is more fun, at least in nice weather, if you're one of the sardines stacked on top of the bus, sitting on the iron rack, your 50 kilo sack of rice or your trekker's pack. Avoid neighbor's vomit, get proper look at the screaming death down below.
Recently I've started riding on the back of Alden's bicycle, or what's known here as a "budho saikal" (old-man bike, in contrast to the ubiquitous motor scooters). The bike is, as he says, "very Southasian:" heavy as hell, comfortably upright in posture, no brakes to speak of. Nice loud bell. It must be made for the endless flat expanse of North India, which means it's not ideally adapted to Kathmandu's occasional hills: a slight incline and the brakes are apt to fail, as they did the other day when we took a nasty spill into a steaming pile of garbage (sweepers' strike?).
Biking around does give one a whole new perspective on KTM traffic, as well as a good lesson in faith. All I can see is Alden's back and the oncoming traffic to my right. I've trained him to shout 'bump' before a bump. I brace myself, thankful for the sweater wedged between me and the stiff frame. But mostly it's glorious, the smooth flow of the awkward machine in and out of traffic, the ding of the bell, the door-to-door service. Come bicycling with us!
It was an early milestone of my stay here, the day I found myself able to decipher these strings of syllables. They unreel like gritty, oily ribbons from the mouths of the (pre)adolescent boys who hang out the doors of every microbus in greater Kathmandu. The system is simple enough: it's basically an audible sign conveying the vehicle's route. This one's headed to Patan, the former city-state that lies south of Kathmandu proper and that is now well swallowed-up by the ever growing metropolis. Everywhere are reminders that within living memory of most of the city's inhabitants Kathmandu was more like a modest town, one that gave way abruptly to a sleepy agricultural hinterland. Patan, only a few kilometers away, was enough of an entity in itself that its dialect of Newari is distinct, and Bhaktapur's (at less than 15 km from KTM) is only marginally comprehensible to a Kathmandu Newar. Place names around the Valley are reminders, in their simplicity, of simpler times: new road, Pipal tree, work-place, seven-way-crossroads (saat dobaato, "seven two-road"). Now Haadigaon, whose name imlies village, is in the middle of the city, a short and trafficky walk from Nepal's first and largest supermarket (which in turn is named after the local tantric Hindu temple, Bhatbhateni).
But I digress. I was talking about getting around: it's a trip. I mentioned systems, but when it comes driving they are nonexistent. The only rule is to drive on the left-hand side. Even that's more of a suggestion, for cutting across the road (there are no actually lanes) to pass is fair game. No, wrong word: that implies rules again. Driving is a free-for-all of three and four-wheeled vehicles, hordes of motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, a few rickshaws and the occasional wayward sacred cow. Horns are used not so much as instruments of expression, as in "Screw you bub, try and cut me off!!", as announcements of one's presence on the road. "Here I am coming up on your right." And the bigger buses are equipped with incredible horns that emit a staccato burst of deafening noise like a child hitting a huge organ's keyboard rapidly with a mallet. Do-mi-re-mi-do-mi-re. Intersections . . . work somehow, sort of, despite rather than because of the occasional traffic-light or uniformed mannikin unwilling or unable to direct anyone. But jams (as in "kasto jam bhayo!") are an everyday reality and are caused as often as not by road closures due to strike/protest (the infamous "banda"). Mind-numbing, chest-choking, soul-sucking jams. The motorcycles take their chance to squeeze between the immobilized four-wheelers but in the old city's narrow alley's they too clot up so that sometimes even pedestrians are stuck in the midst of the pack. It just came to me: the city is having a coronary. Anyway. There's talk of a Japanese initiative to expand the arterial "Arniko highway" (spectacular euphemism) into a 6-lane affair, but, as they say elsewhere than here, 'nothing good will come of this.' I take comfort in the near certainty that nothing at all will come of it.
If driving demands a different kind of canniness than we rule-bound Americans are used to, so does being a passenger. The first challenge is re-assuring oneself that there is indeed room in that sardine-can microbus: just find a foothold and someone to grab onto and duck your head inside the door, or hang off the side until the micro nears any sort of police presence (then it's all limbs inside). When two inches of seat open up, claim it like your birthright with one blade of your butt and be content. Make sure to shout out when your stop comes, and be up on the latest fare (11 rupees as of today) so you don't get shortchanged. It can be stressful, what with the discomfort of half-crouching in Twister-worthy contortions, gripping onto a seat with an old woman's head in your armpit. But more and more I find the closeness of the crowding comforting. No one will think twice about leaning on you or sitting closer than any New York subway-rider would find appropriate, and you can lean back on the supporting mass of humanity without reservation.
A peculiar jewel of the bus system lies in the interchange between the driver and the other character I mentioned, usually a twelve-to-fifteen year old boy, whom I'll call the conductor. His job is not only to spew those gorgeously melded syllables with as much brusque adolescent disdain as possible. He also collects fares and makes change, arranges passengers with impunity. You, brother, over here, you come sit, you up front. let's go, let's go! anyone for Tangal? No? Speak up! Guess not, go, go. He's constantly in and out of the vehicle, or standing in the open doorway, hanging on by the tips of his rubber sandal-clad toes. It's his exclusive right (though much abused by disgruntled passengers) to bang on side of the bus, signifying by the rhythm of taps to stop or go. On the bigger buses on precipitous roads throughout the hill region, this simple means of communication has evolved into a complex set of whistles and taps. En route from Syabrubesi in November, Wave was convinced she had decoded the conductor's bird-like calls: he was directing the vehicle as if by remote, with a call for L (away from the craggy blasted rock face) or R (away from the abyss). When we met another vehicle, both would shriek to a stop and the lowlier of the two would reverse around the switchbacks and minor rockslides to a place wide enough for the other to pass with a few inches to spare. It fell to the conductor to relay the signal that this operation could proceed: ta-tap ta-tap, ta-tap ta-tap . . . and the bus inched back, axles moaning, brakes crying for mercy. All this bussing is more fun, at least in nice weather, if you're one of the sardines stacked on top of the bus, sitting on the iron rack, your 50 kilo sack of rice or your trekker's pack. Avoid neighbor's vomit, get proper look at the screaming death down below.
Recently I've started riding on the back of Alden's bicycle, or what's known here as a "budho saikal" (old-man bike, in contrast to the ubiquitous motor scooters). The bike is, as he says, "very Southasian:" heavy as hell, comfortably upright in posture, no brakes to speak of. Nice loud bell. It must be made for the endless flat expanse of North India, which means it's not ideally adapted to Kathmandu's occasional hills: a slight incline and the brakes are apt to fail, as they did the other day when we took a nasty spill into a steaming pile of garbage (sweepers' strike?).
Biking around does give one a whole new perspective on KTM traffic, as well as a good lesson in faith. All I can see is Alden's back and the oncoming traffic to my right. I've trained him to shout 'bump' before a bump. I brace myself, thankful for the sweater wedged between me and the stiff frame. But mostly it's glorious, the smooth flow of the awkward machine in and out of traffic, the ding of the bell, the door-to-door service. Come bicycling with us!
No comments:
Post a Comment