All of us, we either live in an apartment or a home, right? We go to school or go to work and then we come back home. We are tired many times when we come back home. And all we want to do is relax, rest and sleep. Maybe we want to watch some TV. Maybe we want to have a little conversation with our roommates or family. Maybe we want to laugh a little before bed.
So we do this everyday. We work hard in school or work. And then we go home and we hang out with our family or roommates.
But let us say that oneday you go home, and you open the door, and there is no one that you knew in your home. And you look around your home, and all you see is that there are a whole bunch of new faces.
This is how I feel when I go to Kathmandu. I go to Kathmandu and I see that there are many other kinds of people living in Kathmandu that I don't recognize. There are people from all the villages all over Nepal who have come to Kathmandu. And it makes me want to ask: "What are you doing here?"
Kathmandu is a mess. Sewage mess. Load shedding. Water not flowing through the tap. Why is this happening? Why is my home such a mess? Why is my apartment so filthy? Why do I have to stand in line in my own home just to brush my teeth? Why do I need to ask permission in my home just to use the lamp to read my magazine?
In many ways, it is a capacity problem. Kathmandu was never designed to support so many people. The population in Kathmandu has doubled and quadrupled. So it is like my apartment is a 2 bedroom apartment. But there are 30 people crowded in this apartment. This sucks!
the apartment is stinky and smelly. There is dirty laundry everywhere. Hygiene is poor because everyone is crowded. I don't ever recognize half the people in the apartment because there are so many new faces. Who are all these people? Where did they come from?
Once upon a time, people from villages all over Nepal came to Kathmandu for economic opportunity and education. This has been going on since the Rana sassan and Shah Kingdom and Panchayat. But now they come to Kathmandu because of a lack of security in their villages. They come to Kathmandu so that they can feel safer.
So it is like people are coming to live in my apartment because they don't feel safe in their own apartment. So I am asking them: "Hey, why are you here? Why are you in this apartment? You don't live here. Go to your own home."
And they are saying, "Well, my apartment is not safe. I live with a very violent person. I am scared of the violence in my own apartment so I have come to live in your apartment."
So I feel bad hearing this. I don't want to kick this person out of my apartment when they have come here because they want a sense of shelter. I can feel that they are battered and feel wary and hurt. They have gone through a lot of abuse in their own apartment. Many of these people have gotten hurt in their own apartment. And because they are scared and battered, that is why they have come to my apartment. They feel they will be safer. And they are right. My home is safer than their home.
So I don't want to kick them out of my apartment. My apartment is Kathmandu. This is where I grew up. This is my home. This is where my family lives.
So all over Nepal people are coming to Kathmandu. Kathmandu's population is growing. And because of the capacity problem, there is more sewage in Kathmandu than can be processed properly. There is not enough water to go around. And there is not enough electricity for everyone according to their needs. This is a big problem.
What is the solution?
The solution is to kick everybody from the villages out of Kathmandu.
I know how rude my words must sound. And I am not trying to sound rude. What I am proposing is a solution. The long term solution for Kathmandu is to improve the infrastructure, education, and security situation in the villages in Nepal so that the villagers will go back to their homes. Because if they go back to their apartment, then my life will be more comfortable. If there are only 5 people living in my apartment, then I don't need to stand in line to take a shower. Then I don't need to wait my turn to use the lamp to read my magazine. Then the trash will not be smelly. And there will not be laundry all over my apartment. Then there will not be crying children all times in the night.
Then I will be peaceful. And my Kathmandu will be the beautiful city that it was, like when I was a child growing up in it.
The above is from comment made by Forum user: Homeyji (the rest of the conversation in the forum is as interesting as the above posting)
http://sajha.com/sajha/html/index.cfm?threadid=95162
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