Driving along the duel carriageway from Kathmandu to Banepa last week I mentioned to my friend that on my first visit to Nepal that area was completely fields. We started to talk about the trolley bus on that route and my friend said, as a teenager, he would get on the trolley bus at its starting point in Kathmandu and ride it to Bhaktapur, turn around, and come back on the next one. Just for fun. For ‘timepass’ as they say here. That got me thinking of ways we used to ‘timepass’ when I was young.

I’m not so old that aeroplanes were a new thing when I was young! But when I was a pre-teen one of the things we used to do as a family on a Sunday was drive to Prestwick Airport, at that time Scotland’s only international airport. So on a Sunday we would get into the family car and drive the three hours or so to get there to go up to the viewing platform and watch planes take off and land! No doubt we had a picnic lunch on the way. We had a lot of picnic lunches in those days cheaper than taking us all to cafes and restaurants!  

I could equate this to people in mountain areas (with the exception of busy airports like Lukla) where the arrival of a plane is quite an exciting thing! We still see locals who have perhaps come from a couple of days walk away from the district HQ where the airport is located, pressing themselves against the fence to watch the planes arrive. I can’t imagine anyone in the West now managing to cajole their protesting teenager to a family outing of a picnic and plane spotting.

Playing outside was another thing that we used to do in my childhood. It was what we did. What our parents did. What our grandparents did. But unfortunately today it’s not what kids do. This practice of playing outside seemed to have stopped a couple of decades ago when people became very security conscious in the West. I remember my aunt coming to visit me in Bardia in 1998, where I used to live. She loved to play with the local kids and they would all hold hands, as kids do. She said that there was no way she would ever contemplate holding a child’s hand in Canada where she stays. If a parent was not present she could not even talk to an unknown child in case it was misinterpreted. This is extremely sad. Especially when you think how babies and children are passed around here and thus grow up without a fear of strangers.  

‘Stranger danger’ aside, my little gang would be found playing outside until dusk. And then up again early to get another round of play in before school. I used to go over to a deserted old house later converted into a country club-so it was a big place where a horse was kept on the grounds. I used to pet and feed carrots to the horse before school. In a deserted field, near a deserted building. With health and safety not such an issue as it is today, I also used to play in half constructed houses. The first two houses we lived in were newly built and situated in housing estates still under construction.  Playing in, under and around half-built houses and on machinery was just part of the game! 

Today’s kids, as well as the safety factor, real or imagined, probably couldn’t be dragged away from their phones, ipad or laptop long enough to get out into the street to play or gossip under the light of a street lamp. They are missing so much!