First posted nepalitimes.com on 18 April, 2009
Making it finally to Ilam on nepa-laya's Yuddha Chitra Film Tour, one is struck by signs of the legendary tolerance level of Nepalis. People watch Prem BK and Kesang Tseten's film, Frames of War, in complete silence and many are moved to tears.
They follow the stories of the relatives of those disappeared and killed during the war and remember what they themselves went through. The film warns of what wars do to people and it has special resonance in the eastern Tarai where the violence never stopped, and in the mountains of the far east where there is the rumble of an ethno-separatist militancy. But the ten-year war itself has become a distant memory, overshadowed by the daily struggle for survival. As in the rest of Nepal, most people here wake up every morning trying to figure out which highway is closed today, whether someone has shut the shops to protest something or if the schools are indefinitely locked out by someone else.
Eastern Nepal has been particularly badly hit: everything east of the Kosi has been cut off from the rest of the country for nearly two weeks now because of the protests by tens of thousands of flood victims in Sunsari. Passengers have to make a gruelling journey through north Bihar to re-enter Nepal, but that border will be closed this week for the Indian elections. The only alternative is a detour to the ferry at Chatara that adds at least 24 hours to the travel.
Having made the Kosi crossing through the skin of our teeth, we head east from Itahari to find out that Jhapa is also closed. Travelling stealthily by night like Prithbi Narayan Shah's Gorkhali guerrillas we finally make it to the Birtamode turnoff. Mercifully, a settlement was reached between the administration and the family of a murdered taxi driver so the road was opened by the time we had to carry on to Phidim.
The Mechi Highway climbs through scenic tea gardens and comes to within 32 km of Darjeeling in Fikkal. Legend has it there are no dogs on this road because it was built by Korean contractors. There are small pebbles and boulders at many places where the highway passes through settlements: schools are on holiday so children play make-believe chukka jams by pretending to close the road. They learn fast when adults behave like children.
Fading election graffiti from last year prematurely proclaiming Prachanda 'the first president of the Republic of Nepal' gradually give way to Limbuwan slogans, including one that warns 'long noses to keep off'. So that's why the Gorkhali Raja travelled by night here. Every bus and micro carries 'Limbuwan Rajya' painted over the front. We pass a group dressed in camouflage fatigues and carrying bamboo staves patrolling the highway.
The gates of Phidim welcome travellers to the State of Limbuwan. Get used to it: Panchthar is now called Panthar (pronounced pun-THAR) Phidim is Phenden. There are now over 22 Limbu groups agitating for a whole range of self-determination demands from federal autonomy to separatism of the entire chunk of Nepal east of the Arun. There are five screenings of Frames of War at Phidim's only cinema hall, all packed to the rafters. Wiping tears in the darkness, many in the audience know what it would mean if the violence of Nepal's class war depicted in the film turned ethnic.
Once more, we are forced to travel at night. The reason: bus owners plying the Birtamode to Taplejung route have closed the highway indefinitely.When a journalist's daughter in Ilam was killed in a bus accident earlier this year, it was the first time that the media called a banda. The dispute went to the courts and the verdict came last week: the bus owner had to pay compensation. So the transporters decided to give it back by stopping not just their service but also all other vehicles on the Mechi Highway. If the ruling party can block the streets of the capital because it doesn't like the Supreme Court's verdict on retired generals, who can blame the bus companies?
Banda Update: the Tharus have decided to resume their blockade of the Tarai that closed the country down for three weeks last month because their demands were never met. The Kosi flood victims are still blocking the highway, Chitwan is closed indefinitely by an accident. If you are killed on the highway the going compensation rate is six lakhs, if you are declared a martyr it is 10 lakhs. So it makes sense to block the highway with the demand that the deceased family member be declared a shahid. We're going to be a nation of martyrs.
Climbing to Ranke in the darkness, the only other vehicles on the road are ambulances and a janti bus, the strike has wrecked the plans of many who were planning to get married. As we round a bend our headlights illuminate a young woman with a new-born baby who waves feebly for a lift.