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By Devendra Gautam

A crisp morning greets Vasantpur, our city of the eternal spring, towards the end of the year 2025. You see, guys, Quito is not the only city on Earth that has spring all for herself round the year. By the windowside of a hip and happening cafe, this eternal scribbler tries to dissolve the beautiful morn in a cup of neat, black Nepali tea and have it all, sip by sip, as part of his attempt to organize his thoughts into a piece of writing. 

Balmy rays of the sun cast a golden hue on curios old and new, original and knock-off as their owners look at passing tourists expectantly. 

You see, in this one of a kind city of ours, things are available (almost) for everyone under the sun and beyond, depending on their purchasing power. 

After all, where else do you see backpackers sipping tea and feasting on doughnuts with ordinary Nepalis with extraordinary potential, which pushes them away from home to global metropolises, sweatshops and other so-so work stations?

With Hilton gone in a collective fit of rage along with the headquarters of three organs of the state plus provincial and local nerve centres, how about us promoting a new strain of tourism—ruinage tourism that involves visiting ruins, taking wefies and selfies—in the aftermath of the September 8-9 protest in a bedlam republic struggling perennially to establish an ideal state in the parlance of Plato and Ram Rajya in the parlance of Valmiki, the great poet of the Ramayan fame?

Even through the tinted glasses of the restro, things do not look quite rosy a bit beyond. At the Vasantpur Square, the ancient-looking Hotel Sugat looks sadly over a measly collection of trinkets and valuables such as gems and masks of deities, as if a granny were looking sadly at a poor harvest, which is hardly enough to feed her big family for six months, leave alone a year, thanks to a shrinkage of farmlands accompanied by an alarming decline in soil fertility. 

Those were the times and these are the times, isn’t it, good ole granny? 

But who on Earth has the time in this young and fleeting republic to listen to her old yarns?

From the vantage point of Maju Dega, this scribbler sees an ancient looking Garud, the sunbird, with his left knee folded along with his hands, waiting for his lordship Vishnu to arrive, for a trip of the world and beyond, all without travel documents. Eons have passed yet the sunbird has not heard from Vishnu, even in this day and age of the internet. Has his lordship also left Nepal for abroad and landed in one of those prestigious museums, with very, very slim chances of a return and the resumption of intergalactic tours? 

Northwards, from the window of another ancient temple, the couple of Uma and Maheshwar watch at the courtyard with a smile—they have been doing so for ages—hoping, perhaps, for lakhs of their prodigal children to return home and bring in good times.

As a flock of pigeons fly over Maju Dega, perhaps to feast on another shower of maize from selfie and wefie enthusiasts someplace else, a porter finally has a great treat at the end of a hard day as he is driven in his cart by an assistant, perhaps to his comfy quarter, even as the sunbird keeps waiting for his master. 

Alas, the sunbird cannot become Vishnu and vice-versa even in this revolutionary republic, even after endless cycles of birth and death, can he?

As Don Corleone says in the Godfather: You are what you are, and the world is what it is!

As the last of the pigeons leave and the dusk sets in, this scribbler leaves too, after the day’s wait for the good times. 

At the exit, where he had a cuppa, mellifluous music flows, once again — all for free this time. 

This triggers a thought: How about organizing a mega musical event at Vasantpur by involving the maestros from Sur Sudha, Kutumba and other globally acclaimed bands in our serious attempt to bring in the good times and a much-needed healing? 

Across time and space, this ancient country has seen good times and more than her fair share of bad times. From the ashes of death and destruction, it has risen like the proverbial phoenix, giving the world a pleasant surprise with every phenomenal rise.  

It’s time to celebrate this undying spirit with a musical and invoke the phoenix within. 

Let the good times roll.