Kailash

I stepped down from the sidewalk, across the curb to the other side. There was a taxi parked there but before I could get to it a couple walked towards it, spoke some words and walked away towards me. An older woman remained standing by the driver's side window, looking away from the car as though she were shielding it. Her yellow sari showed many shades in the darkness, it was illuminated in parts by the ATM in front of her, the streetlight, the neon lights from the stores nearby. I wasn't going to get that taxi.

The fuel shortage that has been going on for about a week now was supposed to have made it difficult to get cabs. It wasn't any harder than before for most of the week. I only felt the slight scarcity today on the way to work and on the way back. On the way back more so than the way to work.

I turned back to the other side, where another cab had parked. He said 150 Rupees. It usually costs 85 Rupees. I was about to get into the car when I felt a slight tug on my left arm.

"Dai, can you tell me how to get to Ratna Park?"

I said, without looking, "That way." And pointed South.

He didn't turn to look where my hand pointed. I could see in his face that he really wanted to.

I noticed that he had a thin, tapering walking stick in his right hand. He was blind.

He didn't have sunglasses on and I don't remember what his eye area looked like. He was much shorter than me and wore a grayish brown suit. When I looked down, I could see a blue hat, sort of an ocean blue with a white pattern. The bottom was folded up around the rim, like it was made to collect any raindrops that might happen to roll down the sides of the head. At least it would keep the ears dry in case of a storm.

But maybe it also served to shield the eyes- he did not have anything else to cover them with. I turned him around, and let him go. My eyes followed him as he stumbled, bumped into the brick base of a tree planed in the sidewalk, the ones with red brick that line this street. With the bronze plaques on them which say "Embassy of Germany". He kept stumbling.

After the fourth or fifth stumble, I was by his side and we walked. At first my arm was below, but that was difficult. So I put my right arm above his left and he clasped my fingers as we walked. I don't remember much of the walk, only the things he told me. By the time we reached the roundabout, I knew that he has been blind since childhood. An operation on a cataract had somehow led to complications and he had lost his sight.

"Can you see anything?"
"Yes, I can see light here and there."

He had the walking stick for about two years. It was given to him by an NGO and they had trained him how to use it for two months. He was from Kailali, he had a rough idea of his age- something like 30 or 32, he had been married, he counted his money with help before he left home, and he lived with the people who employed him to sell incense. He had been married to someone like him but she was a little slow in the head. And so, "I gave her separation papers and sent her off." There was an odd satisfaction to his voice when he said it. He had no kids.

Selling incense in Kathmandu, returning late at night to Ekantakuna with the assistance of people who would guide him from one point to the next.

We walked, and asked for Micros, whether any would go to Ekantakuna, or Nakkhu, or Balkhu.

"Perhaps you want to go home now? You probably have things to do."
"No, it's ok."

"Is there a public bathroom nearby?"
This was Ratna Park, on the side where all the micros stop at night, and where people are packed in the streets, in buses, in micros. It is dark, and dusty, and there is noise everywhere. The pace is frantic, nobody wants to miss the last ride. Most of the Micros are Lagankhel ones. I had never tried to find an Ekantakuna one before.
Nor had I ever tried to find a bathroom. The only one I remembered was the one way on the other side, under the overpass next to Bhadrakali.

So I asked him if it would be ok if I put him in a car first. He said ok. Then about twenty minutes later- and perhaps ten laps back and forth across the north side of Ratna Park trying to find the right car- we crossed the street to a corner near the police station next to Rani Pokhari on the Tri Chandra side. I turned him towards the wall, and stepped a few paces away to face the street.
"You can do your stuff now."
And that is where he was finally able to relieve himself.

We crossed back.

Many more cars came. I asked him how he would do this on other days. The usual answer came, "With people's help."

As we walked, and he held my hand, another odd couple passed us. It was a blind man, leading a blind man. Both had their walking sticks. But perhaps the one in front was less blind.

It reminded me of the description of the situation in which one who has not reached enlightenment tries to teach someone else: the blind leading the blind.

They were going from Micro to Micro, asking where the car was going. Kailash, that was the name of my guy, was standing by one of those concrete blocks that are striped yellow and black and stand like inverted T's if you look at them from either end. We settled on that mechanism. I would see a micro coming- the headlights are distinctive- and then tell him to stand there while I ran to find out where it was going.

When we were coming down the steps on the overhead crossing before reaching the Micro universe, he told me about the government's policies towards blind people. They were not doing enough, he had wanted to say. He said something to the effect of "the government could do more to help us." One wouldn't know that he was blind by seeing how he walked. Except when he tried to navigate stairs. He would step up too late and miss the first step, or he would step one step too far, and have his foot come down to the floor with a thud at the top.

I narrated:

Steps are coming up.

Walk slowly here.

Be careful here.

Walk this way.

Stop.

Walk.

Turn.

Wait.

"La, hai ta dai. Ramrari jaanus."

And that was it. A micro had pulled up. The metal sign- black on yellow- read " 21 Nakkhu" and below that "Ekantakuna" and I didn't read any more. I asked the Kid manning the door to find space. And he pulled some people down from the door to stuff Kailash into the Micro. He disappeared into the mass of bodies and I strode away.