Cows, Corpses, and Communists

Walking the streets of Kathmandu

Photo by author. That’s me in the green hat, 15 years ago!

The air is clean in parts. Like you’re standing on a mountain peak. Dive down into the alleyways of Kathmandu, and it burns like exhaust. Passing an open widow I catch the scent of dumplings filled with goat meat I think.

The smells both scar my throat and make me drool, they will never leave me.

I walk along the bricks and shattered stones and upended asphalt roads. I step over the bodies of dead puppies, their throats tied off with the string that choked the life out of them.

Nobody passing by cares. Maybe it’s too common.

Like the army of shoeless children that hold onto my shirt, pleading for money. One child asks for milk to feed his baby sister, I want to oblige but was warned that this is a scam; they can sell the milk to a store and pass the earnings off to an adult behind the scenes.

So I pass them by, maybe it’s too common for me now, too.

Cows saunter down the middle of the road because they are untouchable. Cars swerve madly around them, but with no hint of fear in their eyes, none that I can see behind their spider-webbed windshields at least.

Monkeys clamber down temple walls with their tiny hands open, expecting homage in the form of fruit and candy. They yank on women’s skirts when not paid what they think they’re owed. One man chases after them while the rest of the hoard circle his family, demanding their due.

A woman with no feet or hands sits near the sleeping god Vishnu. Leprosy has eaten away her ability to make a living. We sit with her and talk about life and reincarnation and God. Crowds of men stare at us, expecting something to happen, like monkeys with their hands out.

Nothing happens. Does it ever?

I see a man with half a leg, split down the middle, freshly made that way by the car that clipped him. He has no insurance or safety net or family to call on. Ten dollars might help so I drop it in his cup.

Rice fields fan out away from the scorched air of the city. A family sees us wandering the farmland and grabs our hands. Takes us in and feeds us till our stomachs near bursting. Their baby goat jumps in our lap, we drink our chai, they joke that the goat’s name is “Curry.”

We spend the night. All is quiet save for some men down the road yelling at a TV screen about a football game.

It wasn’t a game. There are men dressed in red marching down the street, waving the hammer and sickle high above their heads. Proletariat power stomping their way to the king to demand his resignation. Bricks fly and windows shatter and police fire their guns. We stay far away.

On the roof of the bus, we grip the bars tightly, lest the low hanging cables knock off our heads. We laugh as the bus swerves and nearly tilts over. It’s almost as fun as riding on top of the gas trucks.

The Himalayas cut through the smoke and the haze. Icy points of pure white gracing the sky. Above all the pain and the need, they watch over the city.

Maybe one day we’ll get there.