Crazy Kathmandu - Rush

If rush means modernity and dynamism, Kathmandu must be in the top echelons globally. We Kathmanduites are always in a rush. Rush to the offices, schools and colleges from home. Rush back home. Rush to board public transport. Rush to get off. Rush to put on clothes. Rush to take them off. Rush to prepare meal. Rush to eat and clean up. Rush with office work and class work. Rush with homeworks and assignments. Rush to succeed and earn. Rush to do mischief and run. 

We do love to do things the short cut way. We do love even more to get 'something' in return for the short cut. Taxi drivers ask for 'consideration' to give 'some more' over metered amount. Clerks expect 'something' in return for accepting, registering, forwarding files that should have found their way through the process by default. Something 'even more' for putting them on the top of the piles for fast action perhaps. 'Something' is even expected for providing services for a fee that is willingly and readily paid according to the norms. Only the norms will not do. 'Something' is the key. If no 'something', the result means 'nothing' in terms of the actions, milestones and escalations. 

In places where public service providers are supposed to 'serve' people, the service givers rarely look directly at the face of the client. They are too busy looking at the paper in front of them or conversing with their colleagues in adjacent tables. While talking to the person in front, they do not have time to look up and smile. The 'something' in their mind weighs their head downward and they prefer not to face the source of that elusive but mandatory 'something'. And those service takers who are always in a rush to get things done, have no choice but to relinquish that 'something' out of their few, scarce and precious 'things'. Once they get the service, they feel privileged and extremely thankful to that eye-contact-evading service giver who should have readily provided that service for 'nothing' as that is what is supposed out of them as public servants. But Kathmandu and the whole country itself has accepted this phenomenon as a normal behavior accepted and agreed to by everyone. 

The rush does not stop in the homes and offices. It is also seen on the road. Vehicles with power mixed with the driver with courage means no rule applies. You can honk. You can cross lanes. You can overtake from left. You can intimidate fellow road users by your speed and wavy riding. You just stick your hand out and stop whenever you want as if the road were in fact your private lawn. If you are a tipper or bus or truck, you condemn cars, taxis, vans. If you are a car, SUV, taxi, VAN, you take two wheelers as non-entities to be pushed, bullied, overtaken and intimidated. If you are a speedy two wheeler you consider less speedy two wheelers and bicycles as ants crawling on the street, curtailing your progress and disturbing in your rush. If you are a simple two wheeler, you think the pedestrians are pathetic nuisances there to hinder your pace and cause you catastrophic delays. If one were to see the real example of 'big fish eats small fish' adage, there is no better place than Kathmandu. 

Colleague in a rush to outpace and outperform colleague. Seller crying the heart out to outsell fellow sellers. Buyers draining their pockets to out-buy other buyers. Friend trying to outwit friend. Partner willing to outsmart partners. One bidder trying to outbid other bidder. The spirit of competition, wish to be ahead at any cost and a tendency to equate competitive advantage and show-off to fulfillment in life has beset everyone. No one wants to stop till the absolute end. The rush keeps on becoming more frantic. 

But one can't help wondering at the sheer tenacity, tolerance and tensile strength of the Kathmanduites who handle all these stresses and interminable rush with calm without banging their heads on walls or stamping their feet on the hard ground. A rare capacity evolved out of the environment, upbringing and hard learning that only the rush-filled, high speed, chaotic life of Kathmandu can give.