One Way Street

For Sunday's TKP appears below. Once [or, when] the posts for Nagarik and Republica are up, I will post links to them. Probably put a .pdf of the Nepali text, because I don't want to mess with unicode, mostly because I don't know quite how, yet.

Today is May Day--city is closed. I think there are lots of Maoist activists in the valley for the day's celebrations. Prachanda's plan to gift them with the expulsion [forced retirement] of Chief of Army Staff Rukmangud Katwal has failed, so they [the assembled Maoist masses] have little to celebrate, much to berate. I think the people who got caught going in the wrong direction in a one-way street were of the PLA.


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One Way Street

Traffic police in Kathmandu seem to delight in scaring pedestrians and drivers alike with banners advertising against reckless behaviour: riding without helmet, leaning out of buses, walking under a sky-bridge. At Gaushala they post the annual road-death toll in the valley. Then there are slogans reminding drivers that "little ones" wait for them at home. All in all, it makes a person feel good that the diligent, masked officers work hard to protect his life.

Among all uniformed services, their uniform commands and receives the least amount of respect, because they inspire the least amount of fear. A microbus driver had apparently been picking up passengers from Muglin to sneak them into Kathmandu during the night, against traffic rules. He was stopped at Thankot one day. He wasn't happy. He turned revolutionary. The driver's reply was: "Enjoy what life you have left, because the next time I see you I am going to cut your heads off."

The traffic police never lost their cool. "What are you saying?" One officer asked. "You couldn't cut off this head in ten years of war. Now we are paid employees to the bosses of your revolution." Once the microbus was sliding downhill to Naubise, the driver added: "Let them live. They escaped once. Now they show off the borrowed days of their lives." Which is to say: there is another revolution coming, and you'll be lucky to survive that.

The traffic police are always the first officer of the law to face the first stones of rebellion cast at the powers that be. They are also the first recipients of violence of a different sort: the folded bank-note after an infraction, the mercurial crowd that pools around a minor accident to offer bribes and threats. The short one-way slope from Thamel to Galkopakha probably yields a daily tally of thousands of rupees in attempted or solicited bribes. Everybody wants to gun up the short slope; nearly everybody gets caught.

These men have just been caught and hauled opposite a shop that sells boar meat. "We are staff," the biker and his companions tell everybody. Onlookers seem to grasp their meaning. "License," the traffic policeman demands. The biker opens his wallet, takes out a folded note. It is dusk; it is unclear how much money is being offered. Another policeman joins the commotion.

"What is happening?" The usual: motorbike gunned up the slope, a bad move at six-thirty in the evening. Onlookers don't volunteer that a bribe was presented. "License," the second policeman rhymes. The biker takes off his helmet, but doesn't take off his mask. He quickly tugs at the elastic bands to show his face, lets the mask snap back. "I said, I am staff," he repeats.

"Doesn't matter if you are staff or general," a policeman replies. "I said sorry. I said I am staff," the biker shouts back, not backing off, holding out his license tentatively. "You didn't say that first, did you? You didn't say you were sorry. You didn't speak to me like this. You threatened me, didn't you? What staff? Where is your staff ID?" The original traffic police doesn't back down.

"Look," the passenger grabs a policeman's shoulder. He pats his heavy, square backpack and says with significance: "We are staff. We came from outside. We didn't know. We are sorry." They don't look like they are traffic police staff. "What staff?" The biker snatches his license back, snaps his mask off and on again. "We are staff. We came from outside. We didn't know." He repeats what his friend said. "Doesn't matter if you are staff or not," one policeman says. "Did you talk to me in a civil tone when I asked for your license? What did you say then? Go ahead, repeat it. Repeat it in front of these people." The policeman grabs the arm that snatched the license back.

"We came from outside the valley. We didn't know it is one-way," the passenger says. His voice becomes more a warning than an explanation. He holds the backpack between him and the uniformed men, careful to avoid jostling it. A policeman with one star on his shoulder arrives, nose twitching, scratching his face with a walkie-talkie antenna. "What's happening? One-way?"

"We said we are sorry," the biker whines as the inspector snatches the key from the motorbike. The inspector waves his arms, irritated at his men, impatient with the men who insist they are staff, in Kathmandu for tomorrow, first of May. "I said I was sorry. They should let me go if I have asked forgiveness once," the biker turns to the onlookers. "Is this the rule of law?" his companion adds.

"You tried to bribe me in front of these people," an exasperated traffic policeman seems close to pulling out his own hair. "You threatened me first. Then you tried to bribe me."

"Take it away," the inspector tells his men.

"Listen," the passenger says. "We are staff. We came from outside…" The inspector stares at the passenger. "I heard that. Now shut up and follow them to the station." He marches off, pauses, and turns to add, "That is a one way street. You saw the sign at the bottom. You ran through a no-entry. That is a one way street!" Indeed, a one-way street, as it should be. The passenger is angry. He looks at the onlookers who don't say anything in his defence, just as they said nothing in defence of the policeman who refused the bribe, who enforced a small rule of law, who didn't care if the culprits were staff or generals. The motorbike is lead away. There is nothing more to see. But there is someone in the distance still shouting, and a policeman shouting back: "It is one-way. You made the mistake. Then you threatened me. You made that mistake. Then you tried to bribe me. You made that mistake."

A microbus stops right under the peepul tree to pick up passengers going to Samakhusi. From afar, cutting through the chaos, a shrill, lone whistle urges the microbus to get moving. It is breaking a rule if it lingers any longer.