Winter is upon us and autumn is coming to a close. It’s as though nature has heard our call and allowed a pathetic fallacy to manifest, as spirits hit rock bottom and the weather personifies our hapless existence. The snow that fell in Kerung just over the border in China will soon begin to fall on Nepali soil. Premier Oli’s oil tankers have made it back across the border to Rasuwagadi this time, but it seems the weather, if nothing else, will likely get in the way of his abiding love of country next time around.
The cold is settling in Kathmandu as well and the afternoon sun is becoming dear to city residents. People have begun to make preparations for what will inevitably be a lacklustre Tihar, bereft of fireworks, deusi-bhailo and kaju-badam, thanks to the ongoing India-cum-Madhesi blockade. There is, of course, also the looming gas crisis, which has heralded the invention of new cooking techniques like the ‘rice-cooker daal-bhat-tarkari in one’, as well as the resurgence of the old with all-out retro firewood stoves on balconies. The fuel crunch also remains unresolved, although owing to the thriving black market, more motorbikes and cars are plying the Kathmandu roads today than in the weeks gone by. The middle class is sulking about not being able to burn up their gas heaters this winter and calling contacts to secure an extra cylinder of gas, the poor and working class are taking to the queues and that small class of unaffected elite are merrily still zooming past in their massive four-by-fours.
In the eastern tarai, summer is in full swing. The street is burning. The latest death in Birganj, of an Indian national allegedly with family in Nepal, has escalated violence in the region. The border points at Sunauli and Rupaidiha have been completely sealed on the Indian side. Apparently, the Indian and Nepali premiers spoke on the phone for 25-long minutes and yet no sign of either side ‘backing off’ seems imminent. Signs of a deal with agitators are also nowhere to be seen. One can only imagine what kind of negotiations are happening when the Minister responsible for leading negotiations, Kamal Thapa, is the same person who ordered security forces to open fire at protestors during the 2005-6 Jana Andolan and the agitators are those who have been fighting hard to dismantle the apparatus the former personifies.