According to his five-year agreement with the Bhadrakali Guthi Sansthan, Babu Krishna Sapkota leases wall space belonging to the temple complex for Rs 495,000 a year. He rents out space to advertisers, pays the guthi its fee and pays the City a fee based on the sizes and types of hoardings. And, yes, he gets a 20 percent discount. The largest advertisement is a 10x20 sq foot hoarding of a co-operative for which Sapkota charges Rs 35,000 a year.

"Everyone's doing it. Colleges, private homes and guthis are selling their space. I make a living, the municipality gets some revenue and the guthi gets some extra money. If they don't mind, why should I complain. It's business," says Sapkota.

Like the Nepal Electricity Authority and the trolley-bus service sell pole space to noodles and oil, and the Public Administration College provides space for Coke, the Guthi Sansthan, the owner of numerous temples and old monuments around the city, endorses everything except alcohol and cigarettes. "Hoardings are not a major source of income for the Sansthan," says Haribol Acharya, the Sansthan's representative at Bhadrakali. "But since they've been there for quite some time, I don't see any harm in letting them be." Acharya's indifference is a widespread human problem, or as King Birendra puts it, maanawiya samasyaa, that the capital's citizens, caught up in the commercialism of the city, fail to understand. Against the canopy of overwhelming commerce, it's just not visible. t