I’m looking down and I’m thinking I am so glad I’m not down there, also How am I getting through that to get home? And, perhaps most vitally, I guess I am not having any snails today.
Snails not the only reason I came, but truthfully, they’re a big part of it. Curried snails.
I think I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Let’s rewind a little.
**
Maghe Sankranti is a major festival for Nepal’s Tharu and Magar ethnic groups. It’s now celebrated more widely in Kathmandu than it used to be, at least from what I can see, and over the last few years I’ve sometimes driven by Tundikhel, the big green space in the heart of the city, to see groups in festive clothing coming and going. Inside, music, fair stalls, food.
This year, instead of realizing what day it was when whizzing by or after seeing the pictures in the paper the next day, I planned ahead, and on Monday, the second day of the holiday fair, I planned to walk down and partake: I haven’t tried many dishes from those parts of Nepal, and I was going to remedy that. Specifically, I wanted to try ghonghi, curried freshwater snails that are commonly eaten in Tharu communities in the southern part of the country. Since this was their festival, I anticipated these and other hitherto-untried delights.
Like I said, I’d made a plan: early-mid afternoon, before things got really wild in the evening, seemed appropriate, and at about three I set out from home. In Kantipath I saw the first signs: women in brightly patterned traditional clothing, ornate gold jewelry in their hair. Before long I had the illogical but very definite wave-like feeling that everyone heading in the direction I was were all moving towards the same destination.
Paused along a wall covered in street art, a woman is adjusting the final touches on her daughters’ outfits, a match to hers; the little girls are so cute and I turned so to look at them I nearly forget I’m walking on the side of the road until the honk of a motorbike brings me back to reality… and then suddenly I’m not the only one walking on the road instead of the sidewalk, the moving crowd has spilled out, over, around the narrow space allotted for them; waves of people, everywhere deep reds and the glitter of gold.
I think this is also where I realized Oh shit it’s going to be a big crowd.
As we pass New Road we, the pedestrians, now take up an entire lane to ourselves—walking against traffic, mind—and suddenly the crowd swells just ahead and it’s all the cops can do to keep a single lane clear for the cars; the whistles are shrill and constant now.
**
A bike, marooned in a sea of people with nowhere to go. A man calmly walking against the tide, a small white puppy in his arms.
**
Just past New Road heading south is the gate to the festival grounds. I’m not anywhere close yet but I can see that it’s closed and I’m confused. There’s a noise and the gates start to open and suddenly there’s a surge and I naively think oh I got here just in time for opening but then people really start to move, and that’s when I know that I am not going in there, and I am not having any snails today.
People are climbing the trees that run along the fences, flipping over them since the gates have been shut again; apparently the grounds are too full to admit more people. The Kathmandu Mall, which I haven’t been inside for years, looms up as an unlikely place of refuge and I go inside and get a coffee and ponder my life choices.
Didn’t there use to be a rooftop restaurant in this place? At least I can see what’s happening from there. Up I go. The floors alternate between being creepy-zombie-apocalypse-empty-plus-a-little-construction and full of the products common to malls here, namely suitcases, ready-made clothing, face and beauty products, and so on. There also seem to be a disproportionate amount of hair salons.
The top two floors contain offices not open to the general public, so as far as that restaurant goes I either I have the wrong mall or it has long since closed (I later learn it’s the latter).
Heading back down, I’m peering around corners, searching for a window.
“Did you want a tattoo?” It’s a young man on his phone, sitting outside a tattoo parlor.
“No, I wanted to see the view…”
In seconds I’m welcomed inside. No-one’s getting inked at the moment; most everyone is at the window, looking down. A young woman is live-streaming it and I explain to another what I’d planned. “It’s better not to go,” she says, as we look down, and I can only agree.
From up here I see there are two gates, the one on the left, that I passed before seeking refuge in the mall, must be the entry gate; people are waiting there still in a growing throng that is once again nearly blocking the road. To my right is another, exit gate where a wave of people leaving has indeed fully blocked the road. It’s hard to tell which are more excited.
There are neat rows of vendors inside the grounds, I can even see cooking pots on the stalls. The appears to be a band, too, though I can hear nothing of them above the non-stop voice cheerfully booming over a PA.
If I was correct about the right gate being the exit gate, that has now been breached; as it was being closed after the exiting crowd, a wave pushed in from the outside, and now the police are pushing people back with sticks, though not with very much conviction; everyone is in too much of a party mood for that. On the left, the traffic has now completely stopped. The police have given up and are letting people in through the right gate. I’m glad I’m not down there.
But I didn’t eat earlier so I could have room to try lots of good things, and I’m hungry. On the lower floor there are some mo:mo shops; the steamers are running and plates are passed and while it’s not the best mo:mo I’ve ever had, it hits the spot for right now.
This mall is getting more business, I’m sure, than in has in the last six months. Colorfully dressed glittering people are everywhere, eating, talking, taking pictures.
A small boy has a strip of green and blue material over his shoulder matching his mother’s shawl; it’s very like a tartan. A girl whose hair piece I admire explains that her and the other women wearing red are Magar, those in predominantly white are Tharu; the latter’s jewelry is a glittery white metal instead of the gold that accompanies the red. For the visually inclined, there are some great pictures here.
Some men have a tasseled cream colored cloth square—striped or with colorful embroidered patterns—knotted in an X across their chests, the back ballooning out slightly as they walk. But it’s the women that are really eye-catching: elaborate hair ornaments, golden necklaces, a mass of fine strung beads, ropes of chunky coral, or that glittery, silvery white metal.
**
Things seem to be slowing down, eventually, but not enough to make getting inside the fairgrounds a realistic or prudent option. When I finally move towards the street again I can see that there’s a thin but steady current of people on the side moving back the way I came; once I join the stream it’s easy going and a few minutes later I’ve passed New Road and am on my way home. The tattoo parlor girl and I have agreed that if I want to get in there next year, ten in the morning might be a good idea. Is that too early for snails?
I felt like I was there. Thank you for writing this.