Coping with the urban chaos in Kathmandu

Commuting challenges sap the energy of commoners trying to make a living in the metropolis.

For a Madheshi boy from the political periphery, social margins, economic backwaters and the cultural other of the dominant Bahun-Chhetri-Newar ( BCN ) mainstream, the capital city looked alien in the early 1970s. Lodged temporarily in a crumbling Rana mansion with a rusted iron gate, rotting wooden doors and a disintegrating boundary wall, he must have felt lost for the first few weeks in the unfamiliar surroundings.