Jhochhen, popularly known as Freak Street, was the center of the hippy movement between early 1960s and late 1970s. The street hosted hippies from the West and the East. Today, the street is slowly fading into obscurity with all the traces of the hippy era memory vanishing gradually.
“Tourists come here looking for places they had heard about or read somewhere. They get disappointed when they find the place different from their imagination,” said Raju Manandhar, 43, who runs Snow Man Café in Jhochhen, one of the cake shops from the hippy era. The shop, with all traces of its past gone with the old building, reminds of the old days only by its name.
The last few remnants from the hippy phase were being torn apart when professor Abhi Subedi visited Freak Street in 2003. An old building next to Century Lodge had remained, for all those years, a sole archive of that period.
The rooms in which hippies had stayed were decorated with Mandalas, drawings of gods and goddesses, signs of peace and love, and all sorts of graffiti on the walls.
“Workers were busy demolishing the archive of that important phase of Nepali history, the place where East met West in the street through music, poetry, and plays," said professor Subedi, who mingled with the hippies in the late 1960s.
It is a place of interest for the people from the West, who come to learn about the hippies´ way of life.
The disillusioned youths of the time wrecked by violent memories of war were seeking peace within and they found Basantapur square and Jhochhen to be an ideal place. Jochhen and neighboring alleys had remained the center of that movement until the late 1970s. British singer Cat Stevens and an American poet Iran Cohen were among the youths who sang and recited poems in Freak Street.
“Violence in the area was something rare in those days where Nepali youths mingled with the Western youths and shared ideas," says Panchha Kumar Chhetri, 88, who was a Nepal Police inspector in Jhochhen area then. Chhetri retired as a deputy superintendent of police and now runs a shop in Freak Street. According to Chhetri, the atmosphere was so alive and musical that people opened shops until mid-night.
Professor Subedi and Chhetri offered the same opinion as to why the traces of the phase have been vanishing. They opine that the people misunderstood the movement back then and then the whole affair was misinterpreted in the later days, which is why the local authorities and people ignored the aesthetic value the movement borne. Only few understood that it was a movement that inspired poetry, music, story, and a whole new way of life. The concerned authority and locals did very little or nothing to preserve that treasure which could have been turned into an inspiring cultural center attracting foreign tourists and researchers alike.
“It was not just about drugs but more about the idea of peaceful protest against social conventions and war-mania. People tend to relate that era only with drugs, and that notion helped new generation to ignore the aesthetic and spiritual value of the movements,” said Olivier, 57, from Heidelberg, Germany, who visited the place in the late seventies.
The hippies who come back to Nepal can hardly expect anything in Jhochhen to transport them back to their rebellious youth. Oriental Lodge has vanished from the sight as the street was replaced by the new buildings, Eden Hotel remains only in name. Century Lodge and Annapurna Lodge are the two places from the decades of 60s and 70s that still remind of that age.
“I find it agonizing to see the memory of that most creative phase blown away with the dust of Kathmandu,” said Subedi
There are still few places the people of that era can recognize, but they have to look hard for them. Apart from the names of the places, the past glory of the town has comes across as a fable to many. “Without the tangible representation, the stories of the hippy age become fairy-tales, people hardly believe in them,” says Oilivier.
Freak Street had been to the hippy youths what Times Square of New York was to Jack Kerouac and the Beatniks. It was the street of the young poets, singers, musicians and playwrights who landed in Kathmandu during the sixties and seventies and walked their dreams.
It would be an inspiring gift for the future generation if we could retrieve the things and set a nostalgic gallery or a café or restore the architecture and artifacts of that age in the whole street. The memory of that age could inspire youth for peaceful protest and not violent one as you see today.
According to Chhetri what took place then was a real life illustration that you don´t need to resort to violence to protest against social injustices and corruption.
Since the movement was a total rejection of the pro-war societies by the youth, Nepal should preserve the memory of the phase, which has impact in tourism, fade away in the oblivion.
“We are very good at destroying and selling things of aesthetic and historical values, and not as good in preserving them,” said Bhola Khanal, 62, who lived in a rented room in Maru Tole during the phase and at times mingled with the hippies.
The memory traces of the movement may fade away from Jhochhen and other alleys of Kathmandu. The inspiring story may no longer remain in our collective memory. But Cat Stevens´ beautiful song will always be there, reminding us of our lost heritage.
Kathmandu, I´ll soon be seeing you, And your strange bewildering time, will keep me home!
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