Slice Of Life

Nepal Diaries

Like bloodhounds, 'they' are coming to Nepal. A whiff of news and they arrive in packs. The situation is tense as the people's movement is picking up. Suddenly at 8.00 PM curfew is announced in the ring road area. It starts at 3.00 AM. Big demonstrations are planned for the next day. Quick thinking and 'they' move out of the hotel which is inside the curfew area, in the dead of the night.

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And in that night, it is ironical that everything is so quiet. Because everyone is awake- the government machinery; the armed forces who are planning what action to take against the protestors; the rule breakers and the protestors who are planning how to defy the curfew and the rules; the scribes. It is the calm before the storm.

200 meters from the line of curfew, the army tanks assemble and so do the police.

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Next day thousands of demonstrators demand for a democracry. They raise their voice, their flag. Violence erupts. People clash with the police. Tension can be cut with a knife. Three people are killed. They become statistics. Smell of death hangs in the air.

Yet another time, police uses tear gas and a wave of demonstators run in the directon of a person called X but X stands there with the cameraperson. News has to be sent. The world needs to know what is happening here.

The snow clad white mountains are dotted with red - of communism, of blood.

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Every evening someone or the other (people belonging to X's tribe) comes back thinking today I was almost done in, almost knocking on heaven's door. It's a job fraught with risks.

Another time X is caught in the midst of protesters. A battery of arms and body parts hits X before X can run to safety. A few aching body parts, no broken bones, X is back in action.

Everyday is a new experience.

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Suddenly there are bullets flying around. X and team members have run in different directions to take cover. In 10 degree temperature, X sees beads of sweat on a colleague's face. A person watching everything from her home gives shelter to them. A few minuters later they are back on the job while an army helicopter hovers overhead.

There is news to send.

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X is a person, any journalist, who has worked/is working in a situation of turmoil. This is a small documentation of that person's slice of life.

And there is no time for emotions.

Originally posted on Sunday, April 23, 2006 5:47 PM