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A little late in posting this. Put it down to Nepali time, will you? I’ve realized one of the downfalls of keeping a blog current is resisting the urge to finish artwork in order to stick it up with a post, as you’ll never actually get around to it. In a lot of ways, it’s like going to any sort of meeting here: you sit down, you have your contact’s immediate attention, you bat the usual “namaste, casto chhaa…tikay chhaa (how are you, fine thanks)” pleasantries back and forth, you get to the reason you’re there…and just when it’s all going swimmingly, RANDOM PERSON #1 enters the room. Not the same random person (that would be weird – though has happened to a couple of friends of mine and is just as stalkery as it sounds). But suddenly, RP #1, a propos of nothing, jumps right into the conversation. Often this will mean the person you came to interview/have the meeting with taking their time to talk RP#1 through what you’re discussing with them. Now you might as well not even be in the room. Only frantic hand-waving a la those guys on aircraft carrier runways, or faked coughing fits have any chance of re-grabbing your interviewees attention. You might get pockets of interest back from them, including bemused looks at you, sort of half squinting, as they struggle to remember why this large white person is now sat in front of them while they’re having a perfectly nice conversation with RP #1. And so it goes. Anyway, at the risk of rambling, that’s just what my posting process has been like this past week. “Sumiya lag chhaa” as they also say – “It takes time”.
Long story short, I’m going to post more often to the site things that aren’t quite as polished so we’re a little more up to date. What percentage of blog posts, I wonder, are bloggers promising to post more often. This month in particular has been filled with visa issues (finally sorted today, only after getting a press pass, and now, finally, a press visa), bike issues (just re-fixed after only being with me a week) and starting/finishing a new consultant job. Comics, naturally, are in the works. The book’s coming along nicely, though there’s nothing like watercolouring by candlelight to do your mince pies in. Oh and lest I overlook the reason for the hilarious title post, the first of many nationwide strikes, otherwise known as “bandh” (pronounced “bund”). In which I was merrily warned that if I took my new motorbike out I’d get pushed off it and it’d be promptly torched. Happened to a friend of a friend last year. The actual day (this past tues) was remarkably low-key, featuring children playing cricket in the street, shops everywhere closed, and assorted mobs in the middle of empty intersections waving their hammer and sickles about. Turns out the only thing the Maoists are reliably good at is stopping anyone else from doing anything.
UPDATE: turns out the RP rule (see above if you’ve skipped to the end, shame on you) doesn’t apply in reverse: I waited a good 10 mins while mr important bureaucrat man talked with his pal and ate his tiffin (love the ol’ school terms that fell out of usage 50 years ago everywhere else) at the dept of Immigration. All I got was a dismissive hand wave.
Cricket in the abandoned streets
The Maoist Mob takes to the streets
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