Lessons to Learn in a Banda City

Hello from the autonomous state of Newa. The maoists, as a part of their third phase of protests demanding the establishment of the civilian supremacy, have been declaring autonomous states all over Nepal, and Newa, including the Kathmandu valley, was founded on Thursday. Despite the federalist re-structuring, life has not changed.

Apart the flying rocks, tear-gas and violent clashes between the Maoists and the security forces, leaving dozens injured, and many cadres arrested , doing as a well enough reason for more violence to come.

But really that's just a bandh for your, familiarly also known as banda.

During the day one security briefing I wrote the word down: Banda = strike. Only later I realised that in a banda city the word soon becomes a stable in one's vocabulary, and that to really understand the meaning of  banda one has to live through a couple of them.

First lesson: Recognise a banda.

a) If, in the morning when looking out of the window the mountains can be seen clearly and not hiding in the cloud of pollution, it is very probably a banda. It could also just be a sudden clear day.

b) If  the tooting of horns cannot be heard, it is most likely a banda. Although if it’s the time of an electricity cut, the deafening ruckus of generators hide any other noise beneath it. In this case children can be sent on an intelligence mission, and

c) if the streets remain empty of vehicles and shops remain shut, it is definitely a banda.

Second lesson: Be prepared at all times.

A banda may get announced beforehand, but just as well it may be called on or off with no prior notice
Be well stocked on water, gas and basic foods. things that are fairly hard to get when the shops, markets, businesses among schools and all the rest of it remain closed.

Third lesson: Avoid definate plans, make alternate ones on the spot.

Forget any plans you might have had involving travel or any other activity out in the town. If it is a working day, you walk to work if you can, and if you cannot, you welcome a day off and stay home, no matter how busy you thought you were. Lounge around, invite friends over for food, and hope one of them has beer or wine to indulge on during the dull hours.

Alternatively, popularly practiced by locals, enjoy walking in the fresh air in the middle of the usually traffic-jammed and polluted roads, hang around street corners to read papers, discuss the state of affairs, enjoy the tense, awaiting atmosphere looming over the banda city, and look over your shoulder in anticipation, ready to flee if action gets too close. Know the right back door to knock on, 

- you may be lucky enough to retrieve yourself for a meal or a drink.

Fourth lesson: Learn to deal with frustration and absurdity.

The office most likely, like mine today, reached by foot without interruptions, is like a cemetary in a ghost town. No emails, no calls, nothing moves as hardly anyone is working, nothing much to do. A wasted day. Drivers in their bullet proof vests were organising a convoy to take staff home at the end of the day.  Not quite understanding how the vests would protect you from stones and smashed windows I left on a bike early in order to get home during day light.

 Fifth lesson: Know your way, accept the struggle, learn to wait

Know your way, avoid roadblocks. On a friendlier banda you might be let through walking your bicycle, and on a less friendly banda you'll be knocked off and have your bike and anything else on you stolen. I think I avoided also the carpets of broken glass covering the roads, reaching home to find didi busy at work, clearing for our yesterday's banda lounging mess that also involved broken glass. She had walked over an hour to get here.

And that's what a banda is really all about for a man of a street: concentrating and wasting all the time and energy on activities that require none of the such on a normal day, struggling for nothing, waiting. We now commence to wait for our Christmas visitor having to trek from the airport tomorrow night, to wait to be able to finish the interrupted Christmas shopping, to wait to get our furniture and the rest of the carpeting. Basically we wait for the morning that'll tbring back the noise and the pollution, to get back to where we left it and get on with it.

Sixth lesson: When you can get on with it again, remember that the next banda is just around the corner.