Wednesday, July 2, 2008

What is good at Kathmandu Valley?

In workshop organized on the occasion of World Environment Day 2006 by Yatra, Ms. Renchin Yonzon, a social architect, asked participant to write three things that they find good and bad about the environment of Kathmandu Valley. Participant wrote three bad things in no time, however, in the context of good, entire participants were finding hard time to answer. Every one was asking each other but Ms. Yonzon strictly restricted participants to ask. Though, I was the organizer of the workshop but I was also not the exceptional.

Since, that workshop I am in search of good aspects of the Kathmandu valley. In that workshop we were supposed to talk about environment only however, these days I am not restricted to see from environmental perspective only. So, I am in the search of every other good thing in Kathmandu valley. And sometimes, as I don’t see any good thing, I consider myself as a pessimist who sees darkness everywhere, which I am not and I feel very bad about it. Sometimes I question myself, are there few things left that are really good at Kathmandu valley? I answer myself, certainly yes. There are still many things left which are very exceptional and unique and pride of Kathmandu (I expect answers from readers).

For example, in few days back I was very happy to see the duty performed by the lady traffic police at Thapathali-Kupondol junction. This junction is one of the places where most of the time lady traffic police are on the duty, according to my own observation. Though people those who are walking and driving don’t often enjoy following traffic rules, the traffic police are working really very hard to make them to follow the rules. I spent in an average of one minute at that particular junction every day on the way to my office. So, I everyday get opportunity to be the spectator of one of the very few positive aspects of the Kathmandu valley and at other side I also see attitude of many uncivilized people. I salute women police officer for their performance, also in a real difficult situation. I would like to thank them because they helped me to get an answer on the good aspects of Kathmandu valley.


P.S Dear readers you are requested to put your views on the good and positive aspect of Kathmandu Valley.

3 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

excellent starting

Anonymous said...

Here are three good things about Kathmandu Valley:

1) The surrounding mountains, hills and himalayas that provide a scenic background to this chaotic concrete jungle (if you are lucky and you get to see the beauty of himalayas in the early sunrise or at the dusk time you can't deny that it is still breath taking).

2) The historic architecture of kathmandu valley (try spending some peaceful time sitting in any one of the three durbar squares of the valley, and you'll recognize the mesmerizing beauty of traditional architecture of kathmandu valley).

3) The flow of culture and tradition between hindu and buddhists, brahmins and newars and many others.

These are three things I like about the kathmandu valley. As a child, i used to like its natural beauty, these days it is covered by the ever encroaching urban developments. Still, there is some remains of the lost beauty of valley which can be seen from few places.