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KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 6
Here is a simple fact regarding our environs: we cannot control everything. The more we think of it, the more appalled we might feel to discover that the things we cannot control are way trickier than what we might have previously figured out. If a State cannot perceptibly control such things that often appear easily controllable, it's not for an 'activist' to take the baton, either.
If a smoker, for instance, smokes inside a public WC, a CCTV is not cracked up to capture his illegal act: general norms dictate CCTVs should not be installed inside the WCs.
Presumably, the smoker ends up smoking even while peeing,or even... you guessed it.
Hence, no one else, not even the State, but the smoker can control himself.
Honking is now illegal. Consequently, those who seem to enjoy honking - count more than 2 million motorbikes in the capital - are engaging in punishable acts. A law prohibiting such acts was enacted years ago, and the State faced a hard test: silencing the 'horns' that the riders were used to blowing for decades was not as easy as a WC smoker trying to smoke while peeing or... So far, the State has patently flunked the test, though for a reason fairly intelligible: it has no resources to recruit traffic control officers to run after every cacophony.
Hence, no one but the rider can control himself.
Now, years later, the Bagmati cleaning campaign seems to have taught us a lesson. We seem to have left the river with her own karma and flow with filth.
In the first place, the whole effort of cleaning the river was tantamount to putting the horse before the cart. Downstream cleaning was taken up on a weekly basis, while the upriver contamination continued on a daily basis.
Meanwhile, the river kept flowing, with murky waters during the monsoon and sewage waters otherwise.
Upriver pollution easily undid the downriver cleansing.
Hence, primarily, no one but the city dwellers, including the so-called sukumvasis, in the riparian areas can control the pollution.
The above-cited social nuisances are just a tip of the iceberg.
Expectedly, we are at a loss as to how to start dealing with the sneakier chunk of ice.
The solution is not as sneaky, though. The bad habits must be nipped in the bud: at home and in schools.
Nonetheless, the proverbial bud has some thorny issues: a teacher may spit khaini out of the classroom window, or a parent may throw the junk food wraps in her karesabari.
Who can control the parents and teachers? No one but themselves, while children and students may learn a lesson or two by way of observation.
