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KATHMANDU, JUNE 27
Mother Nature has unleased destruction in Sindhupalchok once again. Over half a decade ago, the quake brought unparalleled grief to the area.
This time, the gushing flood completely overwhelmed the settlements in Melamchi.
I love the area and go on a long walk along the Indrawati River to recharge my batteries as and when necessary. Besides, I have a sentimental reason to visit the area often. Nearly 75 years ago, my father and his sibling had invested a fortune at Shikarpur, also known as Bagua, across the river at Bahunpati, not very far from Melamchi Bazaar. A local told me that "your father wanted to turn this place into a Darjeeling".
My father had also helped open the first meteorological station at Nawalpur equipped with the instruments of the day, including rain gauge buckets.
During my frequent visits to the area, I have made many acquaintances who pester me to buy land. Every time I go, they take me to the bank of the river to show me land. My deceased father had told me not to buy land on the bank of the rivers, in the middle of the paddy fields and forests.
A few years after the historic earthquake, I had gone to Ichok to attend a building handover ceremony for a hospital. Beyond Melamchi Bazaar, the road to Ichok via long-gone paradise-like Talamarang was a dirt track through sparse settlements.
There were makeshift dirt tracks that were at an almost 60-degree angle. At some places, houses stood on precarious mounds approachable by motorable dirt roads from four cardinal directions. There were houses all over. Perhaps this is what we call progress in the new republic.
On our way back, a chopper stood on a dry paddy field. The chopper pilot had come to attend a marriage feast. I could not help admire the great leap the locals had made.
One of my co-travellers remarked that the Melamchi Drinking Water Project accelerated the seismic progress. At Melamchi bazaar full of houses, we stopped for our lunch at a large restaurant at street level. It had an underground floor at the river level. I looked at the beautiful river and thought that it would not be friendly during the monsoon. I decided to chat with the young and friendly owner, also a local political leader like all entrepreneurs in the villages or towns. I congratulated him and asked him if he did not feel the risk of having the river so close. I also asked him if the government allows hotels so close to the public river.
As we left and arrived at Dhadkhola, a train of tippers were struggling under the weight of the day's spoil, Nepal's equivalent of Congolese diamonds, to disgorge in Kathmandu.
I feared nature's fury in the distant future.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 28, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
