TOPICS
KATHMANDU, NOVEMBER 20
What is a chaur in Nepali? It's not exactly a lawn or a grassland. Can we call it a nagi? Only stock farmers can affirm that, as they know the chaurs inside and out by way of taking their livestock for grazing. For Kathmandu-dwellers, Narayanchaur is perhaps the most prototypical chaur, but it's regularly mowed by man and machine; hence, it's not exactly comparable to natural chaurs that are, well, just natural and never require mowing.
As mentioned earlier, lawns or grasslands do not accurately describe Nepali chaurs. These are nonetheless grassy and treeless lands, surprisingly evergreen.
Besides, nature is so kind; she bestows on us no irksome task of routinely clipping the grass on these sprawling, vibrant green carpets - found equally in the Tarai, Pahad and along the lower Himalayan belt - by supplying only a 'measured' sprinkle of rain on them, so that the grass always achieves the perfect 'buzz cut'.
Nepali chaurs are places where oodles of activities revolve around people's lives, with a stark contrast in activities in "urban chaurs" and in rural ones. Now, an urban chaur, Narayanchaur revisited! It is a well-maintained chaur: green, relatively clean, and it has even a grassy berm sprucing it up.
However, being a tiny pocket parc with a busy road encircling it, the air inside the park is polluted, quietude therein is a forlorn hope and dog poops are an eternal nuisance.
But outdoor enthusiasts have no plethora of 'chaur' choices.
They spend hours sunning themselves at Narayanchaur, chewing on peanuts and eating oranges - the golden fruit is currently ripening! Besides, the tiny green patch is useful for all: the vendor can sell her stuff and bring home the bacon; flightby-night politicos can pull some kind of ruse to swindle people; children frolic; merry-makers enjoy a deep, hearty laughter and youths figure out the costs of their startup - just to name a few activities. Larger parks are amazing platforms, too - brainstorming need not always happen around five-star festivities - where people can work on myriad plans and projects.
Chaurs in the rural areas are bigger and serve greater purposes: stock raisers have easy access to green grass; freezing classrooms force students to take lessons on the chaurs in full sun; chaurs are nearly perfect for football or kapaddi grounds, too. Earlier, haat bazaars used to take place at chaurs. Cities nowadays hype their farmers' mart, not on chaurs but within a courtyard of a skyscraper. That's indeed an incongruous sight! The idea of a haat bazaar on a bucolic chaur is illegally imported into the cities: that's a punishable act of plagiarism, and cities must pay for it.
A version of this article appears in the print on November 21, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
