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The federal democratic republic of Nepal is the land of mythical stories. We read stories about one man with a supernatural power who would carry water in a bamboo basket with large holes. His wife would cook food using her legs as firewood.
Then there is another story about the abominable snowman, which blurs reality from fantasy. The abominable snowman, known as the Yeti, is the mascot of our national airlines.
Then, people cook and churn out their own stories about bosses.
Accordingly, there was a story that swirled around in the travel circle. It is a story about a crazy boss. The story goes like this.
The boss would travel to ancient Newari hamlets like Bungamati and Khokana in his battered car with the swagger that would intimidate and cower the local populace of the day.
The man would get out of his car with a walking cane in his hand, scan around and ask a lone man, usually a peasant, sitting at the window to come down. The fearful man would ask the peasant threateningly, pointing his fingers at the stone sculptures: "Who threw all this rubbish around here? The frightened peasant would respond: "I did not do it, sir."
"If you did not do it, who did it? You sit at the window the whole day, and you have the compunction to tell me that you did not see anyone littering the place. Let us clean this place. Put all these into my car, will you?" The peasant would put all statues and sculptures in his car, and the man would drive away with the precious treasure as his showpiece trophy for his future business.
I don't know if the story is true or false, but in hindsight, if the man has done it, I would thank him. The boss, or the "collector", acted to conserve the statues and sculptures, albeit as personal pieces, rather than throwing our treasures around or piling them up at the police offices, where their worth is nothing more than stones.
Shockingly, the police should feign ignorance on how these precious items found their way into their circles. What if they had been contrabands or explosives? In the light of such state indifference, your suggestion about an archaeological garden makes a lot of sense. But who will bell the cat? And how can the state keep the statues safe from theft in the garden? We return to the anonymous collector of fine arts, our precious heritage. If the story is true that the man collected and preserved them in his business address, we should create more of such collectors to conserve our heritage in a museum in luxury hotels. The state can maintain a proper inventory under each hotel's care.
It is always better to restore 'orphaned' heritage to their homes. We should eventually return them to their places.
A version of this article appears in the print on February 16, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.