There is less feminine space in the public places of capital. I will talk about a student who refused to come to Kathmandu due to overriding masculinity of the city.
Apart from the problem of spaces, there are multiple questions that need to be addressed regarding the capital city in the midst of tourism year. The urban questions are many for us to think about, for an urban researcher. What is the role of the real state in organizing city spaces? How do the community and neighborhood act within the structure of urban planning? What is the relationship of urbanization and environmental concern?
How does the suburb of the capital function? Homelessness, housing, migration, night life, crime and many such issues come to disturb us when we think of Kathmandu, but my concern today is the student and her idea of space.
When I asked my student to come to Kathmandu after the Puja break, she remained silent for 10 seconds and then refused my invitation in her best polite way. This is a good time to meet me for her graduate dissertation because the university is closed and I do not have to be pressed for appointments. She remained silent for five seconds or so and again refused with a strange laughter. I am not going to Pokhara recently so you have to come instead, I sounded teacher-like (Pokhara is my first home these days). She promised to talk to me again with a strange pungent laughter.
Why and how does one laugh pungently? I can understand pungent smell but how does one methodize laughter? And, to my disbelief, how do I smell her laughter over the phone?
Memory is a very powerful psychic quality. I am forgetful, people say, but my memory is very strong, I say. I will explain this paradox at some other time. Let me continue the story of the student’s denial. When I was in Pokhara a few months back, I remembered how repulsively she had declared that Kathmandu has a fetid smell all around. I cannot see the oozing out of oily water on the street from the undermined, corroded garbage. Even the garbage crumbles under its weight, sir! I will wait and meet you here sir (she repeated to be polite) even if I have to wait six more months to complete my degree.
A city like Kathmandu is a masculine space. Males gaze and scan when you are out into the streets, but such reification is normal. What is disappointing is that the feminine space is limited to places like Asan or some supermarkets.
Kathmandu by its appalling smell irritates the outsiders and while tourism year becomes a defective national policy. Kathmandu potholes have remains of the streets. Putrid garbage fills the holes. Near Maiti-devi, garbage heap causes frequent traffic congestion. Kathmandu smells sour that is why the tourists rush away to the mountains.
Pokhara is a beautiful city and a short visit makes Kathmandu disagreeable and unacceptable as a place to roam around. But Pokhara is being complacent of its beauty, which may be dangerous for her. I have seen corners in Pokhara that remind me of Kathmandu. You can already see the signs of urban ugliness.
Beauty makes you complacent at times, that is why I have seen that ravishing girls or cool boys become loathsome in bodily shapes in their middle ages. Not me though! When Ramdev was in Kathmandu, my wife had said that she does not do yoga but I do, and the yoga guru had looked at me and had said (I still remember with all the clarity of memory), “Wah to dekhnese hi lagta hai!” (His looks speak so!). I am not talking about myself but how complacency may quickly make Pokhara as ugly as Kathmandu.
This is the general condition of the city, but I was still surprised by my student’s refusal to come to Kathmandu for her serious academic work. She actually postponed her visit as much as possible. I called her and asked to come after Tihar vacation. She agreed but told me something, which I was not critically aware of.
A city like Kathmandu is a masculine space. Males gaze and scan when you are out into the streets, but such reification is normal. What is disappointing is that the feminine space is limited to places like Asan or some supermarkets. The woman feels the limitation of space – both physical and psychological – in the spaces of transportation, which is most frequented by women.
There is a sharp contrast, she told me, between experiencing her identity in a vegetable market and out into the street. The street space demands a kind of permission of the male to come and go around his penetrating gaze.
Taking leak at will and spitting are the urban behaviors of marking territory. The garbage is the consequence of the masculine urban space!
orungupto@gmail.com
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