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KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 20
In Kathmandu, I never read books on the local bus. There was no chance of reading on the walk for safety reasons.
There were too many dangers, not less from stepping on abundant humansoils or tripping over on bad roads while travelling from New Road to my Intermediate College at Swoyambhu.
Those days, I would schedule a time to go and study in the American Library. The only downside was we could not take our books and had to use the place to expand our 'mental horizon'. We had the Russian and the Chinese libraries nearby, but they were of not much help except for flipping through the pages of magazines.
I picked up the habit of reading books on the bus during my student days in Delhi. The bus travel would last for at least over an hour. The time was enough for me to summarise my studies for class tests or even semester examinations.
One place that I extensively used for my regular studies was the famed Lodi Garden. Another place I went to occasionally was the Humayun Tomb, which I found not too favourable for my academic pursuits. There would be too many distractions, including the canoodling lovey-dovey couples. Lodi Garden was huge, with plenty of greenery, including trees and flowers to keep the temperature cool and the environment pleasant. It also had a pond with water sprinklers and abundant lights around the pond to read books. On weekends and holidays, I would go to the park in the late morning to avoid an army of joggers and yoga enthusiasts. It was here that I first saw people who engaged in laughing as an activity for healthy and holistic living.
Those days, when you did a sirshasan pose in a forest in Swoyambhu, the locals and the monkeys came to disturb you.
The hippies would cheer me up, so I naturally found an affinity with the hippies than with the locals. It has stayed with me to date. I feel more at home with foreigners than with the locals. Using buses as a reading room remains a habit, too. I don't board a bus in Kathmandu without a book or newspapers for a short and long-distance commute.
This reading habit, as well as reading while walking, came in good stead for me. The turn of the millennium brought thundershowers of a different kind: Nepal bandh, or general strikes, galore. I had to accompany my daughter far and wide on errands.
Both of us would pick up our favourite books and walk on for miles, reading our books.
Today, I am too afraid to read while walking in the streets because of too many dangerous obstructions, sand, stones, saplings with sharp leaves, drain holes, parked two-wheels, pedestrians, vendors' inventories and so on.
A version of this article appears in the print on December 21, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
