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A visit to a government office for some work—license renewal, filing your taxes, getting a passport—means taking a day off. But if you are willing to spend a few extra thousand rupees for ‘chiya kharacha’ or if you happen to know somebody at the offices, your work will be done in a couple of hours. You might not even have to be present depending on how light your purse has become or how strong your connection is. Minor grievances aside, rapists have walked free because of political clout. The culprits of the Sikta scam were given a clean chit by the Special Court. The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) regularly files cases against government officials for corruption. But with political pressure and protection, the issues are eventually swept under the carpet. “The problem is everyone is corrupt, from the highest ranking officials to the lowest tier clerks,” says Shubham Karki, 39, an engineer who has come home to Nepal from the US for a short break. He says he would like to return and live with his aging parents in Old Baneshwor which is where he grew up. But having seen his family have problems with simple things like paying vehicle taxes or getting a routine checkup, he shudders at the thought of living in Nepal permanently. Karki says he has tried to get his parents to move and live with him. But they say they are used to the ‘Nepali way of doing things.’ What seems like big problems to him feel like small inconveniences for them. “That’s just sad, isn’t it? Nepalis have internalized corruption. Those who have the money and power will get their work done but what about those who don’t have that luxury?” says a visibly frustrated Karki. Nepal got 34 in Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 (most corrupt) to 100 (least corrupt). According to the Berlin-based anti-corruption group, scores below 50 indicate a high level of corruption. People ApEx spoke to in Kathmandu and Lalitpur said everyone is corrupt, from top to bottom. Nothing gets done unless you know someone or pay extra. This makes daily life difficult and they worry about their children’s futures. A few years ago, they would have liked their sons and daughters to stay in Nepal and do something in their homeland. Seeing how the system in Nepal is rigged to favor the ones in power or with money, they want to send their children abroad. “Corruption has led to inflation, lack of opportunities, and next to no progress and development,” says Ramesh Thapa, 48, who is originally from Sindhuli. His family moved to Kathmandu for a better life. They were able to establish small businesses—among them is a furnishing store in Kumaripati, Lalitpur—and send their children to school. But is that all, he wonders? What about the good life that he envisioned for his children? Corruption is universal. It’s prevalent in developing as well as developed nations, both in private and public sectors. But it’s the extent of it that determines a country’s fate. When there is an under-the-table price for everything, nothing gets done unless the monetary demands are met. And that makes for a hostile and insecure environment. Tika Limbu, 42, proprietor of New UK Fancy in Manbhawan, Lalitpur, says the top honchos of the country are shameless. Over the years, we have seen those in power favor their own—give them positions they were undeserving of, make laws that benefit big businessmen but put more pressure on the poor, and let party-affiliated criminals get off scot-free. In a way, we have come to accept these actions as part and parcel of daily life. But the recent incident of politicians and bureaucrats sending Nepalis to the US as Bhutanese refugees is the lowest of low, says Limbu. Thapa adds that they have done something he would have never believed even corrupt officials such as ours were capable of, had he not read many detailed reports of it in the papers. “The politicians aren’t working for the people as they are supposed to. They rather work for themselves, their close ones, and those who are willing to fatten their bank balances,” says Limbu. Worse, as no one is clean there is an unwillingness to take action when somebody is found guilty of wrongdoing. The rare ones who come into power determined to change things find themselves caught in a cesspool of corrupt officials who create roadblocks. Gyanu Timilsina, 47, who runs Khumal Store in Khumaltar, Lalitpur, fears nothing will happen in the fake Bhutanese refugee scam. As it is, political leaders are already trying to contain the outrage. The only reason it has come this far is because of the American interest in the case. “If those in power can suppress this, it will fuel their confidence that they can get away with anything,” she says. Corruption undermines democracy and lays the foundation for criminal activities. It creates bureaucratic quagmires in places where there should be none—educational institutes, hospitals, the justice system, etc. The effects are far-reaching, including but not limited to political, economic, and social instability. People confess that there was a time when corruption was just something they talked about. It didn’t bother them as the trickle-down effect wasn’t that great. But now it keeps them up at night. They wonder if the little money they have in the banks is safe. Many are working out a plan B. Some say they are searching for jobs in India and elsewhere. With little to no business on most days in recent times, Thapa is resigned to the fact that there may be no better days ahead. “The government only takes from us and gives us nothing in return. Unless you have people in the right places, it’s impossible to prosper in business,” he says, adding his family’s lifestyle is getting worse by the day and they are looking for alternatives. “We might have to move, even though we don’t want to,” he says. Timilsina says we ourselves are responsible for this mess. We are the ones who gave power to the politicians by voting for them. We are blind to their faults. “We vote for them hoping they will make Nepal better but every leader that comes into power has his own agenda to get rich,” she says. Nepalis, she hopes, will learn a lesson and elect good people in the future, and not egoists who toot their horns, aka those ‘who can fly in helicopters’. Ram Tamang, 45, a daily wage earner who lives in Ratopul, Kathmandu says people like him have never been the country’s concerns. He laments that those in power continue to exploit us for their gains and we let them do so by being swayed by their empty promises. “We think one leader is better than another. When KP Oli was the prime minister, we thought Sher Bahadur Deuba or Pushpa Kamal Dahal would be our savior.  But they are all corrupt and thus the same,” he says. There has never been a lot of power in public voices, as much as we would like to tell ourselves otherwise. And now it’s fading, suppressed by all the pressure politicians and bureaucrats put on the government to act in their favor. Limbu says there have been so many rallies and protests but they haven’t made much impact. They have managed to create an uproar and led to some conversations on social media but eventually, they have all fizzled out. “We need unbiased and fearless leaders who can differentiate between right and wrong. We need a complete overhaul of the system,” she says. Limbu doesn’t expect there to be zero corruption. She just hopes for a less corrupt government, for the sake of her 13- and seven-year-old daughters.

At a pharmacy in Tripureshwor, Kathmandu, the number of people coming with complaints of flu, skin rashes, stomach aches, and other common ailments has doubled in the past year. The pharmacist there says that people skimp on doctor’s consultation fees whenever they can, especially since a less than five-minute visit sets them back by almost a thousand rupees. Sarina Lama, 45, who was at one of the pharmacies in the area to buy some antidiarrheal medicine for her teenage daughter, says she hasn’t been to a hospital in the past five years or so. Every time someone in her family of five falls sick, a local pharmacist is consulted. She also has a nurse in her neighborhood whom she sometimes asks for advice when a fever shows no signs of abating or a cough won’t go away. Rai realizes how risky that is. The last time her nine-year-old son was ill she was up all night, for several nights in a row, as he was ‘making strange noises’ in his sleep. She was contemplating taking him to the hospital, wondering if she could ask her employer for an advance, when the wheezing stopped and she heaved a sigh of relief. “A doctor’s appointment would have created havoc in our monthly budget since he would have run ten different tests. We would, most probably, have had to cut back on some basic things like eggs, meat, or petrol for my scooter,” says Rai, a salesperson who works from ten in the morning to seven in the evening six days a week at a retail store in Mid-Baneshwor, Kathmandu. In February 2021, the Nepal Medical Association (NMA) doubled doctor’s fees. It shot up to Rs 825 from Rs 450 per consultation. It’s likely to go up again. The NMA and the Association of Private Health Institutions of Nepal released a joint statement informing people about the increment due to inflation. According to the government’s rules, doctor’s fees can be revised every two years. Most people ApEx spoke to said going to the doctors is expensive. At most hospitals, they will order a battery of often unnecessary tests, sometimes even asking patients to repeat a few blood works for confirmation. People also say that as the prices go up, the quality of the service deteriorates. The wait is long, and doctors spend just a few minutes with each patient, sometimes even openly discussing their case in front of other patients. A reputed hospital in Thapathali, Kathmandu, is notorious for sending people inside the doctor’s office in droves. Though this violates the medical code of ethics, doctors can be seen talking to and examining patient number one while patient number two waits for his turn on the bench right behind him and another lurks by the door, ready to step in as soon as patient number one gets up from the stool. Sanjit Chaudhary, pharmacist at Alka Hospital Pharmacy in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, says people seem to rely on over-the-counter medication rather than visiting a doctor. Sometimes, the condition worsens and they are left with no option but to spend thousands on treatment. This, he says, wouldn’t be the case if healthcare was affordable and people didn’t have to shell our hundreds of rupees for a two-minute chat with a doctor. “People tend to adopt a wait and watch approach when they are ill. If their condition worsens, they spend a few more days trying out different over-the-counter medications. There is this hesitation to go see a doctor right away,” says Chaudhary. This, people ApEx spoke to at a few hospitals in Thapathali, Kathmandu, and Jawalakhel, Lalitpur say, is because of how expensive a hospital visit is as well as the fact that the testing process before the actual treatment is tedious. Despite how expensive private hospitals are, they lack proper facilities. You are made to go from one building to another and the queue is long. Everywhere you go, you are told to wait. “You don’t want to come to a hospital unless you absolutely have to,” says a 62-year-old resident of Kupondole who was at a hospital in Thapathali, Kathmandu, for his annual checkup. He confessed he wouldn’t have come if his son and daughter in-law hadn’t been after him. He, on the condition of anonymity, says he has been coming to the hospital for five years and while it has always been expensive, it’s even more ridiculous now. “Worse, the hospital charged around Rs 700 extra during the Covid-19 pandemic. Apparently, it was for all the precautionary measures they were taking,” he says. Hospital and physician prices are often extremely high and vary across institutions. These arbitrary high prices are a major driver of the increasingly unaffordable health care costs. For example, a Vitamin D blood test costs Rs 4,500 at a hospital in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, while the same costs Rs 2,700 at a reputed lab a two-minute walk away from it. Forty-two-year-old Goma Raut, who has been running a retail store in Battisputali, Kathmandu, for the past eight years, says everything is expensive and healthcare even more so. “If we fall ill, we have no option but to surrender to our fates,” she says. Raut laments that the government only takes from its people and doesn’t provide anything in return. “There are rules we must follow and taxes that we must pay while the government does as it pleases,” she says. “Is it even monitoring how private hospitals are run?” Renuka Thapa, 49, who works as a maid, took up two additional jobs after her husband’s death due to Covid. This means she has to work at five different homes every day. She doesn’t have a single day off. Though she has managed to pay off the loans she took to foot her husband’s medical bills, she has no savings. The money she makes is spent on rent and food. She struggles to pay her children’s school fees. Her eldest son has asthma and she worries about what she will do if he falls ill and she has to take him to the hospital. “I can’t afford healthcare on top of all our daily expenses. It’s way too costly,” she says, adding most doctors don’t even attend to their patients properly. Government-run hospitals are poorly managed and private hospitals seem to bill you for the air you breathe while you are there, she adds. An ophthalmologist who has been practicing for over 40 years refused to hike his fees when it went up from Rs 450 to Rs 850 in 2021. Many of his patients wouldn’t be able to spend an additional Rs 500 per visit, he said. Six months ago, he started charging Rs 650 but he says that is as high as he will ever go, even when he spends at least 10 minutes with a patient. But not all medical practitioners think that way and that’s perhaps where the problem lies.  

‘Chiya khanu bho?’ (Did you have tea?) is the Nepali hello. Most people begin their day with a cup of tea. You must have tea when you are visiting someone. Tea is a staple at meetings and other gatherings. A little bit of ‘chiya kharcha’ speeds up official work. Tea is a huge part of our culture, and local tea haunts have always been conversation hubs, where people gather to discuss politics, the economy, and everything else under the sun. Cashing in on this social pull of tea are numerous cafés where tea is the main focus. Several years ago, Kathmandu saw a proliferation of coffee shops with a new establishment opening up every other month or so. Today, tea shops are all the rage. Nitesh Bhandari, the founder of Mr. Chiya, a quaint little place serving tea and a few other drinks like lassi and lemonade, says he started the café two months ago despite the looming economic crisis because ‘people will always drink tea’. Business, so far, has been promising and Bhandari already has plans to open a few more outlets in the future. “Nepalis love tea. They don’t need a reason to drink tea. People might want to cut back on their coffee consumption but they will always say yes to another cup of tea,” says Bhandari. Mr. Chiya’s outlet in Shantinagar, Kathmandu, sees a lot of regulars from the area. Bhandari says they come to discuss work, catch up, or get a few minutes of rest during a busy day. Chiya Ghar in Kumaripati, Lalitpur, is usually packed from 10 in the morning to noon. It’s mostly college students who come to have a cup of tea or two before heading home, says Nirmal Thapa Magar who has been working there for a year. Their bestsellers are ‘Matka Chiya’ which has nuts and dried fruits, and spices like clove and cardamom infused ‘Masala Milk’. “People sit around chit-chatting and drinking tea. It’s a lively atmosphere,” says Magar. This is true of the other three outlets of Chiya Ghar located at New Baneshwor, Putalisadak, and Pepsicola in Kathmandu. The outlets open from seven in the morning to eight at night and the busiest hours usually start from two in the afternoon. “People don’t just drink tea. They socialize over it which, I believe, is why it’s so popular,” adds Magar. However, that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when only a few of Kathmandu’s elites and the privileged class drank tea. In the 1800s, a Chinese emperor gifted a tea sapling to Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana. His son-in-law Gajaraj Singh Thapa had the sapling planted in Illam in eastern Nepal, thereby establishing the country’s first tea garden. Currently, there are more than 160 tea gardens in Nepal, and over 17,000 farmers engaged in tea cultivation. In 2021, Nepal exported $24.3m worth of tea, becoming the 30th largest exporter of tea in the world. Nepali exports tea to mostly India, Germany, Russia, Japan, and the United States. In the fiscal year 2021-22, Jhapa was the largest tea-growing district in Nepal with 10,500 hectares under cultivation according to the National Tea and Coffee Development Board. Rajesh Regmi, founder of Dari Bhai ko Chiya Pasal in Sankhamul, Kathmandu, says Nepal is a tea-drinking society. He says he started the tea shop three years ago as he saw a good business opportunity in the sector. “It also doesn’t take a lot of investment to open a tea shop either,” he says. The returns, he adds, are decent. Those who frequent the place vouch for its popularity. Dari Bhai ko Chiya Pasal is always crowded, they say. So is The Chiya Spot in Kumaripati and Boudha. Or Ghainte Chiya in Ekantakuna. The places that serve tea enjoy steady business. There isn’t a time of the day when these places are empty. There are always a few customers. Sujan Shrestha, manager at The Chiya Spot, says youngsters spend hours at their outlet. With a daily visitor count of around 200, the café has around eight to nine varieties of tea. Their specialties are nut tea and chocolate tea. But a lot of people prefer to stick to regular black tea and milk tea. “Nepalis take their tea differently. Some like it sweet while others like it strong, without milk and sugar. You could say everybody has a type,” says Shrestha who works at the Kumaripati branch of the outlet. People who come to The Chiya Spot know what they want but they are also intrigued by the different varieties that are available there. Since even the most expensive of their teas doesn’t cost more than Rs 200 for a cup, people don’t mind trying new flavors. Shraddha Shakya, 22, an engineering student, who drinks at least three cups of tea daily, says she is fascinated by the burgeoning of tea shops in the city. She has been to a few of them and says they all have lovely setups. Unlike local tea shops where you step in, have a cup of tea, and get out, you can actually spend a few hours in these cafes and get some work done while indulging in some good tea. But as a self-confessed connoisseur of tea, Shakya says she wants to try them all out before settling on a good one to visit regularly. And with a new place popping up every now and then, she says she’s spoiled for choice. “It’s hard to find a good place to sit and do your work. Coffee shops are expensive. But tea shops are moderately priced and now there are just so many to choose from,” she says. Bhandari says tea shops and cafés are good businesses because tea will always be relevant and important in our society. Though Mr Chiya serves coffee too because “they don’t want to ostracize the occasional coffee drinker”, people mostly order tea. Shrestha of The Chiya Spot says nobody ever asks for coffee and they don’t serve it either. Magar of Chiya Ghar agrees and says coffee shops serve just one or two types of tea, that is if they serve tea at all. So, it makes sense for tea shops to exclusively sell tea as well, he says. Café operators say that tea sells round the year, though sales are slightly more during the winter season. But that doesn’t mean business wanes in the summer. “We have a ‘chiya khadai kura garum na’ (let’s talk over tea) mindset and that’s the reason behind the success of tea shops in the city,” says Regmi.

On a bright sunny afternoon this past week, a man lay face down on the grassy patch a little off the sidewalk in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur. As flies buzzed at his dirty, cracked feet, he was in a deep slumber. The locals say he is a regular. He comes over drunk, unable to walk, and plonks himself down on the grass before eventually tumbling over sideways. Another man had passed out on the footpath in Kupondole, his feet jutting out on the road. He strongly reeked of liquor, said the traffic police officer who pulled him out of harm’s way. Alcoholism has always been a problem in Nepal because of easy access and affordability. But the problem has gotten worse in recent times, say those who run rehabilitation centers. Earlier there used to be a lot of drug users but now there are far more cases of alcohol abuse, says Sanjeev Shahi, program coordinator at Alcoholic Recovering Voice Nepal. “This is mostly because Nepal has no rules and regulations on who can sell or buy alcohol and when,” he says. Shahi says they tried hard to lobby for a stricter alcohol sales policy. But their efforts have been in vain. There are liquor stores selling alcohol round the clock right outside the rehabilitation center. This, he says, shows the government’s indifference. Time and again, some rules to curb alcohol sales like restricting the sale of alcohol to those under 18 and prohibiting sales near schools and colleges have been proposed. But the implementation has been half-hearted, says Shahi. There are grocery stores selling alcohol right outside schools. A large part of the problem lies in the fact that alcohol is culturally and socially accepted. Many don’t think consuming it is bad. It’s rather the opposite—if you don’t drink, you don’t fit in at social events. Celebrations call for a shot. A hard day at work demands a glass of beer or two. In some indigenous cultures, alcohol is sent to the bride’s family during weddings and there is even a ritual of offering alcohol to the deceased. The Newars brew alcohol on many important occasions including religious ceremonies. “People drink alcohol under different pretexts. The government turns a blind eye to it because the liquor industry generates revenue,” says Tsering Wangdu, founder of Sober Recovery and Rehabilitation Center (SRRC). The biggest challenge in tackling alcohol addiction is the stamp of approval drinking seems to enjoy in our culture. But the use of alcohol is associated with an increased risk of injuries, accidents, and even fatalities. According to the Nepal Police, there have been lots of cases of alcohol-induced altercations. There are even instances of domestic abuse and sexual violence among other crimes. Earlier this year, a man from Parsa was killed in a theft gone wrong. Dhruv Bahadur Khadka, 57, was returning from a party when he bumped into Ram Bahadur Thapa. Since Khadka was drunk (witnesses at the party said he couldn’t even stand straight), Thapa saw this as the perfect opportunity to rob him. After coaxing him into a taxi, saying he would drop Khadka home, Thapa took him to a dark alley and punched and kicked him while trying to rob him. Studies have shown that children of alcoholics have higher chances of becoming addicted themselves. Alcoholism often leads to many health, social, and family problems. Shishir Thapa, the founder of Cripa Nepal, says he has seen people from all kinds of backgrounds—from daily wage earners to reputed doctors—risk financial ruin or be estranged from their families because of their addiction. Wangdu adds divorce cases have gone up as sober spouses find it difficult to deal with drunk partners. When both parents drink, children are neglected and are likely to get into bad situations, not to mention the emotional trauma that comes with dealing with an alcoholic parent. Sajina KC, 51, who works in the development sector, lost her father when she was in her 20s. He was an alcoholic who would drink day in and day out. In the year before he passed, she must have spoken to him less than 10 times, she says. He was always drunk and passed out otherwise. KC says it was painful to watch her once-strong father wither away like that. It still hurts, she says, to know that her father might have been alive today had he not been addicted to alcohol. “I realize I’m also genetically predisposed to alcoholism. So, I try not to drink much and usually stick to a cocktail or two when I’m out with friends,” says KC, confessing that she enjoys a drink and finds reasons to grab one after work, and that scares her. Those who work at rehabilitation centers say addiction starts like that. One drink leads to two and then to several. Eventually, you become a habitual drinker, says Wangdu. “There is no other way than to just go cold turkey.” But that’s easier said than done and relapses are common, both in habitual drinkers who want to quit as well as chronic alcoholics. The success rate of recovery at SRRC is around two percent. That’s because people rarely stay longer than the stipulated four months. Either the patient himself goes home saying he would like to try staying sober on his own or his family members take him home for various reasons like weddings or religious functions. “If people were to complete the course of treatment, then the success rate would be higher. But how long a person needs to stay in the center depends on how bad his addiction is. Some require four months, others might take six or eight,” says Wangdu who believes family support is essential for a person to come out of alcohol addiction. An alcoholic usually doesn’t realize he needs help until it’s too late. Family members have to step in, he says. “They have to ensure their alcoholic parent or child, or sibling gets to rehab and stays there for however long it takes to get out of addiction.” Thapa, on the other hand, says the government needs to support rehabilitation centers to make their work more impactful. “There are no awareness programs on the effects of excessive consumption of alcohol. Rather, social media glamorizes it,” says Thapa adding celebrities promote a drinking culture with photos of parties and gatherings where they are seen holding glasses of wine or downing shots. “It’s time we realized there are no upsides to drinking and stopped promoting it as a ‘cool’ activity,” he says.

‘Fohor aayo’ is how most of us react to the trash collector’s shrill whistle. How many of us know their names? Would we even recognize them if we saw them when they weren’t emptying out our trash bins? Do we bother to tell them there is broken glass in one of the bags lest they cut themselves? Have we ever thanked them for cleaning up our homes for us? Khadga Bahadur, 40, has been a trash collector for 16 years. No one has said a kind word to him in all these years or inquired about how he is faring, not even during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Instead, they scold him when he doesn’t follow their orders, which is usually to collect trash from inside their compounds. Some rudely turn away, disgusted by his dirty work clothes—baggy and faded blue jeans, torn in far too many places, and a thick black jacket with a green stripe on the arms that has seen better days. “I visit almost 400 to 500 houses in a day. In most of them, people expect me to lug the trash bins out to where the vehicle is parked, empty them, and put them back. They say mean things like they are the ones who pay my salary and that I should just do my job when I ask them to bring it out themselves,” says Bahadur. “I’m usually made to feel like I’m beneath them.” Around 4,000 laborers from 75 private companies and municipalities handle the waste Kathmandu generates on a daily basis—1,200 tons, out of which 65 percent is organic and 15-20 percent is recyclable, according to the Solid Waste Management Association of Nepal. Most of these are men who first go from door to door picking up household trash and then segregate it at various collection points. Kathmandu’s inability and unwillingness to segregate means trash collectors like Bahadur often have to lift heavy loads as well as suffer cuts and injuries. Broken glass is thrown together with kitchen waste. Sometimes, mud, stones, wood, and other construction materials are hidden below heaps of paper or fruit and vegetable peels. “We aren’t allowed to collect mud and stones. And most people know that. But they trick us into it and our wages are cut by the companies we work for,” says Bahadur, a lump forming in his throat as he talks about how thankless and undignified his job feels at times, mostly because of people’s attitude towards them. Surendra Bhusal, 39, who has been in this line of work for a decade now, says it’s the little things that dampen his spirits—the way people won’t look at him when they are giving him instructions, the fact that many people call him ‘fohor bhai’, or how no one ever utters a simple ‘thank you’ even when he goes out of his way to empty their heavy, dripping bins and put them back inside their homes. A trash collector’s job is rife with risks. Small injuries aside, most of them suffer from long-term health issues because of exposure to different kinds of health hazards. Many are unable to afford medical treatment as their wages barely cover the costs of the basics. They have to work to survive but their job puts their lives at risk. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, many of them didn’t receive a single dose of vaccine but were compelled to work as theirs was an essential service. Naresh Majhi, a waste picker, says people who dump their trash on the roadside or on the river banks make their lives all the more difficult. In the summer months, waste quickly decomposes and gives off a foul stench. Majhi and his colleagues are often berated by the locals for not cleaning up the mess. “First, they dump it on the streets and then they are after us to clear it up,” he says, adding he requests people not to throw trash on the road and while many of them say they won’t, they soon go back on their word. “It’s a clear lack of empathy,” he says Segregating waste would make their jobs a whole lot easier, agree the trash collectors ApEx spoke to. But segregation takes time and effort and people would rather not go through the trouble, says Kiran Shrestha of Action Waste Pvt. Ltd, a waste management company in Kathmandu. It’s apparently far much simpler to dump everything together. Waste management companies had been trying to reduce the volume of waste at source much before Kathmandu Metropolitan City’s mayor Balen Shah made segregation compulsory at the beginning of this fiscal year (which, unfortunately, only lasted a couple of months). Time and again, efforts have been made to expand the lifespan of the landfill as well as to improve the working conditions of the trash collectors by urging Kathmandu residents to segregate, says Shrestha. Currently, in areas where Action Waste works, less than two percent of households segregate their trash, he adds. “The problem isn’t that people don’t know about segregating or recycling. But since there aren’t any clear policies regarding it, no one bothers with it,” he says. There was a time when Action Waste tried collecting dry and wet waste on different days, but people would invariably mix the two together. Fifty-year-old Prakash Pariyar, who has been a trash collector for 24 years, says the stench of rotting waste gives him headaches. Sometimes, he is unable to eat for days as he can’t get the sight of waste out of his mind. There are soiled pads, dirty diapers, and even dead mice in the trash he collects. When it’s all mixed with dry waste like plastic, paper, and metal, the volume is huge and difficult to manage, he says. “Sometimes when we drop some trash while transferring it into the collection vehicle, people balk at the sight of it. It’s their waste and they are disgusted by it. But they never stop to think how we feel while handling it,” says Pariyar. Worse, despite working long hours, from 5:30 in the morning to eight at night, and putting up with the many humiliations that come with the job, he doesn’t make enough to give his family a decent life. He fears how his family will survive if he falls ill and is unable to work. The company he works for won’t come to his aid, neither will the communities he frequents for trash collection. The government is oblivious to their sufferings. “Most people don’t even know our names. The thought of helping us will never occur to them,” he says. Kathmandu has always struggled with managing its trash and our houses would overflow with all the waste we create as we go about our lives, had it not been for the laborers who take care of it for us. Perhaps the least we could do to show our gratitude is to get to know their names, smile, occasionally thank them, and speak to them in a manner we would like to be spoken to. “We aren’t asking for people to respect us. We just want to be shown some basic decency,” says Bahadur.

The bills are mounting. The rent is due. There’s her daughter’s college fee to pay. Her son’s birthday is in a week and he wants cake and the fancy sneakers everybody at his school is obsessed with these days. Kumari Tamang, a 41-year-old resident of Ratopul, Kathmandu works as a cleaner at an NGO. She earns a decent salary but with rising prices of daily necessities, Tamang is finding it hard to cover the costs. “I got a decent job and managed to clear all my debts. But it’s piling up again as everything is getting just so expensive,” she says. Every time the price of groceries or fuel goes up, her heart sinks. Sometimes, she is up all night worrying about how she is going to pay for everything her family needs. Her husband suffers from a chronic illness and needs regular checkups. According to the Nepal Living Standard Survey III, 2010/11, poor people (those who earn less than two dollars per day) spend 72 percent of their total consumption expenditure on food. Increased spending on food often leads to reduced expenditures on health and education. This makes life more difficult for those already below the poverty line. Many even put their lives at risk by skimping on hospital visits and doctor fees. ApEx spoke to 20 people at random. Everybody said they were worried by the rising fuel and food prices. Worse, the pricing of most things, they said, seems to be arbitrary. The government isn’t regulating the market properly, they complained. People felt like they weren’t getting their money’s worth. As prices of essentials continue to surge, people are forced to either stretch their incomes by cutting down on expenses or look at ways to make extra money. A street vendor in Maitidevi, Kathmandu, said his family was only cooking only a meal a day to save on LPG gas, which is currently priced at Rs 1,800 a cylinder. A hospitality student in Kathmandu sold his motorcycle to pay rent and buy food. “I was spending a lot of money on petrol. Now, I walk to most places,” he says. Many people lost their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the economy was yet to recover when the conflict in Ukraine put a further damper on things. The disruption of the demand and supply chain meant inflation would only get worse. But as expected as that was, it has still been hard to cope. “My husband was made redundant during the Covid-19 lockdown and I’m the sole earning member of my family,” says Shobha Budathoki who works at Bajeko Sekuwa in Anamnagar, Kathmandu. Budathoki has two other part-time jobs besides her main one but it’s a struggle to pay all her bills. She has two sons enrolled at a government school. She worries about their future, about if she will be able to send them to good colleges. It isn’t just those from the lower economic strata who are feeling the pinch. With the official inflation rate now up to 7.68 percent—and the unofficial rate perhaps much higher—those with well-paying jobs fret about the rising prices too. Their household expenditure has gone up and, with no changes in their income, many are dipping into their savings. Anushka Pant, a 37-year-old banker ApEx met at Sanepa, Lalitpur, says she used to save a fixed amount every month. It was her emergency fund. But now she isn’t able to do that. All her salary goes to rent, utilities, and groceries. She is living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes even taking loans from her friends and colleagues. “This makes me feel extremely vulnerable. I’m not comfortable with my current financial situation,” she says. Her friends, Pant adds, are suffering too. There’s a nurse who hasn’t been paid in two months and she’s finding it difficult to cope. She is always stressed about money and how she can provide for her family as her parents depend on her. Another friend, who was living in Kathmandu by herself, has gone back to her hometown Biratnagar, after falling behind on rent. Nothing is cheap anymore, says Ram Kharel who has been running a hardware store in Lalitpur for six years. An egg costs Rs 18. The price of milk has shot up by Rs 20 a liter in just a couple of months. The price of sunflower oil is Rs 240 a liter while ghee now costs Rs 900 a kg. “At this rate, it’s getting increasingly difficult to feed my family,” says Kharel. Unlike in developed countries, Nepal lacks proper health care and education policies. There is no welfare system where the state takes care of some of your expenses. This means people need to plan and save for emergencies. Most people ApEx spoke to seemed to be preoccupied with ‘what ifs’: What if someone in their family falls ill? Will they be able to provide the necessary treatment? What if they can’t send their children to good schools and colleges? Will they lose out on the chance to live a good life? Shambhu Rai, an electrician who lives in Bhaktapur, says as prices escalate, he finds himself working round-the-clock. His day starts as early as six in the morning and ends as late as midnight. If he doesn’t take up as many jobs as possible, he says his family will have to compromise on something or the other. “Either my wife will have to take up odd jobs or we will have to skip meals,” says Rai who wants his six-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son to continue studying at the English boarding school they attend. He’s not compromising on their education, he says. “It’s their only shot at a decent life. My wife and I never got that chance and we want to make sure our children aren’t similarly deprived,” he says. High food prices are forcing people to make some difficult choices as their household budgets are upended. With no sign of even a cool-down, it’s unclear when the prices will stabilize and then drop. For those with limited means, it means having to pick and choose; it’s never having enough; it’s constantly worrying about tomorrow. “This makes for an unhinging experience,” says Kumari.

Losing a loved one is traumatic enough. It’s something you will never forget. You don’t need reminders of it. But social media often drags you back to that one day you would wipe clean from your memory if you could. People take photos and videos of funerals—zooming in on the dead, the families’ tear-streaked faces, and the lighting of the pyre—and post them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter among other online platforms. Given how we document every aspect of our lives on social media, from where we holiday to what we have for lunch, it’s no surprise that funerals are now finding their way into that mix. However, most people ApEx spoke to shuddered at the thought of funeral photographs. They said it was disrespectful and horrifying. Some questioned why anyone would want to remember such a sad moment. Madalasha Karki, granddaughter of Nepali songwriter and filmmaker Chetan Karki, says taking photos or videos of a private moment, without permission, should be a crime punishable by law. Besides being a blatant violation of human rights, it has far-reaching implications. Almost two years after her grandfather passed away due to Covid, Karki breaks down while talking about how a relative posted a live video of the funeral. Her grandfather, she says, was a proud man. He wouldn’t even tell his wife, Karki’s grandmother, if he was feeling unwell. He wouldn’t have wanted everybody to see him in the state he was in—wrapped up in plastic and looking so shrunken—when he was brought to the Pashupati Aryaghat. Madalasha says the man who took the video stripped her grandfather of the dignified farewell he deserved. She only came to know about the video on the eighth day of the 13-day ritual. When she confronted him and asked him to take it down, his wife started arguing, calling her ugly names. The couple wouldn’t accept their mistake. They didn’t think there was anything wrong with what they did. Worse, they didn’t delete the post, even when Madalasha’s grandmother requested them to. “This man only wanted to show off that he knew my grandfather and that he had gone to the funeral,” says Madalasha, adding the relative hadn’t posted anything on social media when his father had passed away. So, why then was her grandfather given the ‘special treatment’? she asks, her voice quivering. “If it happens to you, it’s a sensitive matter. But when it happens to someone else, it’s content,” she says. Sociologist Chaitanya Mishra says traditionally ours is a relatively open society where everybody knows everything about one another. People are curious about others. The line between the private and the public is blurred. The society is now in a transitional phase. It’s learning new ways of being (social media use is an example of this), while not forgoing outdated customs. Mishra says there is also zero literacy of the concept of privacy. “Earlier people used to talk or gossip among themselves. News traveled slowly and faded from people’s memories as time passed. Now they post things on social media. It travels fast and is there forever,” he says. People, he adds, also aren’t aware of social media etiquette. “Forget social media, many people don’t even know you should ask for permission before taking someone’s photo,” he says. Mishra believes it’s mostly unawareness that fuels insensitive behavior. People, as inherently flawed as they are, aren’t deliberately trying to be vicious. It’s just that they aren’t thinking about what they are doing, he says. Everyone has a smartphone, and they are clicking pictures without a second thought. The internet has indeed changed what mourning looks like. It’s common to pay condolences through Facebook or tweet about the death of your favorite celebrity. But when you take photos at a funeral (whether or not you post them online), you run the risk of ruining the occasion’s solemnity, especially for the family that’s grieving. Also, capturing people at their most vulnerable moments can cause long-term stress. Dristy Moktan, psychosocial counselor at Happy Minds, an online mental health and well-being platform, says posting funeral pictures on social media is an insensitive thing to do. It will only traumatize the grieving family and prolong their healing. Unless you want attention for yourself, it serves no purpose. “The problem is people don’t reflect on their actions. They do whatever they want without thinking about how it might affect someone else,” says Moktan. Unless the deceased’s family explicitly requests it, it’s best to avoid taking photos altogether, she adds. A software engineer who lost his mother when he was 13 says he never wants to recall her final moments at the cremation site. But an uncouth relative took pictures and videos and, over the years, kept asking him if he would like to look at them. He wonders why anyone would even want to look at something that is painful beyond words and how someone can be insensitive enough to suggest it. He agrees with Madalasha when she says those who love you would never do it to you. It’s the extras, the ones who never cared, though they pretended to, who act in such inappropriate ways. Madalasha adds that some people feel the need to post every little detail of their life on social media, from whom they met to what they saw. They simply don’t care if it hurts others or violates their privacy. Taking pictures is not wrong in itself. It’s the intent with which you do it that makes it disrespectful. Many just want to show they went to pay their respects or they think of the aryaghat as a place to catch up with friends and relatives. People also take group photos and post them on Facebook and other social media. When Mukunda K Khadka, Nepal’s first rock singer who went by the stage name Mike Khadka, passed away recently, his friends posed for photos at the funeral site and uploaded them on Facebook. The caption read they were all there that morning for Mike Khadka. Another tribute, with photos of Khadka singing, ends with a close-up shot of his body on the pyre. If the final photo hadn’t been there, it would have made for a beautiful homage. There’s a place for everything and the cremation ground is no place for photographs, says sociologist Mishra. One reason why every other person seems to be doing it is because no one speaks up or confronts them. They don’t want to ruin the sanctity of the event by doing something that will invariably lead to arguments. Consumed by grief, people don’t even notice their photographs being taken. When they come to know about it later, they are often shattered. It feels like a mockery of their sorrow. “Would you spit in the kitchen? Have food in the bathroom? The aryaghat isn’t a picnic spot or a place to pose for pictures,” says Madalasha.

Little girls in tutus—that’s the image that comes to mind when we think of ballet. Traditionally, a child starts ballet at the age of eight with pre-ballet classes before that. But various dance studios in Nepal offer adults a chance to learn this complex, theatrical dance form. “It’s better if you start early, but even if you have never had ballet lessons as a child, you can still learn it later in life,” says Arpana Lama, a dance instructor at Sushila Arts Academy in Kathmandu. Arpana mentions those in their 20s and 30s have taken up ballet in recent years for various reasons. Some want to correct their postures while others want to work on their flexibility. The fascination also stems from the fact that it’s a graceful dance form, one that’s visually appealing. Anweiti Upadhyay, the features editor at The Kathmandu Post, joined Lama’s weekend ballet classes because she wanted to work on her “awkward” body language. In a little over a year, her posture has become a lot better and her body movements aren’t as jerky as they used to be, she says, adding ballet has also made her more confident. But ballet is unlike other dance forms. It requires immense strength and flexibility. Anweiti confesses she thought she would be twirling like a pro in no time and was initially disappointed when that didn’t happen. “The classes mostly focused on stretching exercises,” she says. This, Arpana explains, is because you need to have a lot of core strength and control to perform the steps with the elegance they require. And that, she says, can only come when you are flexible. The muscles of your calves, hamstrings, and core need to be strong for you to execute and maintain difficult poses that have to merge seamlessly in order to create a brilliant dance sequence. Dance, in any form, requires discipline. It’s hard work. Ballet is often considered the foundation of a dancer’s career as a lot of basics is covered before you can get to the actual jumping and spinning. The focus on alignment, the dedication it requires, and the body movement fluidity it eventually gives you help you in other dance forms as well. Babita Lama, a 25-year-old hip-hop dancer, who started learning ballet five years ago says ballet is challenging but enjoyable. You learn to love your body, she says. She believes the reason it’s considered better to take up ballet as a child is because the body is flexible and thus training becomes easier. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn it as an adult. It just requires a bit more practice and focus, she says. People might draw similarities between ballet and yoga when they first take it up because of all the bending and postures they have to do and hold. Indeed, in ballet, the dance steps are basically modifications of the stretching exercises you are made to practice in class. Over time, as your body becomes flexible and strong you will be able to glide from one move to the next. “Only then will it feel like a dance form,” says Babita. Anweiti agrees with her and adds you might feel demotivated as she did after a few classes. But she swears by its effectiveness in making you feel better about yourself. You will feel agile and you will become fitter too, she says. Even better, if you suffer from unexplained muscle aches, ballet can help fix that as well. Arpana adds ballet is a great dance form to learn if you want to get a good workout—it engages the entire body from head to toe, with each exercise working on different muscle groups. For those who spend long hours in front of screens, ballet can also help correct bad postural habits. Additionally, the intense physical workout releases endorphins, giving you an instant mood lift. However, unlike children who learn ballet at a young age and level up gradually, adult ballet doesn’t follow a fixed course structure. This, Arpana explains, is because children who learn ballet are often training to become professional ballerinas. Whereas the goals vary in adult ballet programs. Adults might also have various responsibilities and constraints, limiting the time they can invest in ballet. “Ballet comes with its own vocabulary. There are names for all the steps and positions and they are in French. So, it takes time to learn that too if you aren’t already familiar with the language,” says Arpana. The best way to learn ballet as an adult is to take it slow and learn it in stages, without being in a rush to put on the special shoes or the pointe shoes, adds the instructor. “Sign up for a class and see how you feel about it,” says Babita. But you must be consistent with practice once you start. Even if you aren’t able to attend regular classes, you must do the stretches by yourself at home. “But don’t practice wearing ballet shoes if you are on your own. That must always be done under the guidance of an instructor. Else, you run the risk of serious injuries,” says Arpana.