“Can you come a day earlier? There’s going to be a bandh on Friday in Kathmandu.” The parents of a colleague had invited Stephanie and me for dinner, but now were calling to warn us that a one-day general strike was scheduled for the day we had chosen. It would shutter businesses and keep most traffic off the roads. We agreed to postpone.
At 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, we arrived by cab at their large, comfortable home in an upscale district. We enjoyed snacks and momos—steamed and fried dumplings, stuffed with meat or vegetables. And then the lights went out. Our hosts simply shrugged and brought out the Coleman lanterns. The other dinner courses were served. The conversation went on as normal. No one even commented on the power outage, let alone grumbled about it. When you live in Kathmandu and other cities in Nepal, outages and bandhs become part of your regular routine.
This was my second visit to Nepal’s capital, but I was still impressed by how people coped with what was euphemistically called “power shedding,” the scheduled shut-offs to specific districts. When you walked down a busy commercial street at night, all the street lights were off. Restaurants and shops with diesel generators kept the lights on, but everywhere else was in darkness, except for a few candles and battery-powered lights.
If there was ever a country that you thought could rely on its topography to generate power, it is Nepal. Hundreds of fast-flowing rivers and streams from the Himalayas have been harnessed for hydro-electricity but the plants, built in the 1960s and 1970s, and the electrical grid they support, need to be repaired and upgraded. The government, divided by political wrangles and facing other budget priorities, has struggled to make major investments, so the engineers just keep patching up the plants to keep them running.
Waiting to fill up in Kathmandu, September 2015
Along with darkened streets, one of the most common sights in Kathmandu was long lines at gas stations. Nepal imports all its petroleum products from India, with tanker trucks making the 12-15 hour trip from the state of Bihar to Kathmandu on twisting mountain roads. When shortages occur and the lines stretch for blocks, rumors circulate. Some claim the wholesalers are hoarding supplies, some that the national oil corporation has not paid its bills and India has cut off supplies. Whatever the cause, keeping a full tank is a challenge.
There’s much more about this fascinating but often frustrating South Asian country in “High Times in Nepal,” Chapter Nine of Postcards from the Borderlands, to be published by Open Books in November. You can pre-order here. Here’s what readers who had a sneak preview are saying about it:
“David Mould has done it again with Postcards from the Borderlands where he describes the complex religious, political, economic, and ethnic considerations involved in drawing boundaries. Mould’s writing is crisp and clean yet also descriptive and often amusing.” -Paula Claycomb, Senior Advisor, Communication for Development, UNICEF (retired)
Preview of “High Times in Nepal”
Landlocked Nepal was never colonized but has always been dependent on its larger and more powerful neighbors, India and China. When India does not like what the notoriously fractious politicians in Kathmandu are doing, it can stop the vital flow of supplies across the border. The result: power cuts, long lines at gas stations and commodities in short supply. Nepal’s physical geography divides it into three regions—the high Himalayas, the populated mountain valleys, and the sub-tropical Terai plain bordering India. Its borders are also ethnic, between groups fighting for political power and resources. It has a history of conflict and division—of feuding warlords, a 10-year Maoist insurgency and the tragic massacre of the royal family by the drunken Crown Prince. With Stephanie, I travel from the historic Newari kingdom of Patan, now part of Kathmandu, to Boudanath, the cradle of Tibetan Buddhism, the highlands west of Kathmandu, and to Chitwan National Park in the Terai, home of the Indian one-horned rhinoceros, elephants, tigers and crocodiles.
