There is something tremendously wholesome when two buses pass each other from opposite directions on a highway, and the drivers honk, startling and even annoying the vehicles ahead of them, just so they can get what looks to be the equivalent of people fist bumping. The noise is always brief, never the relentless blaring that follows when one is stuck behind an unattended vehicle blocking the way, whose driver has stepped out to buy the most random of things from the roadside Kirana Pasal, or situations as absurd, which I guess can only be commonplace in South Asian countries.

I don’t see much of this greeting being exchanged in Kathmandu. However, within city premises, I do notice buses from the same company, when across from each other—one starting the loop and the other turning back—have their drivers communicate through occasional shouts and sign language. I’ve never understood how it is possible to discern the entirety of the message without being blessed with some form of telepathy. Still, I guess they must have developed their own jargon and the capacity to perceive it as if it were a language of their own.

A lot is happening globally, with wars, economic issues, and countless YouTube experts making unsuccessful predictions about Nepal becoming a troubled nation—despite the fact that those already in turmoil have moved on. Our Guru ji’s concerns, however, remain quite straightforward.

Perhaps because the world that matters to him is not the enormous oblate spheroid, made deceptively smaller by information networks, but the ordinary and limited events of his daily existence, which are rendered more significant by the profound impact his actions have in shaping his surroundings.

As such, on top of his list of priorities, which he always discusses with his first mate, is the desire to know if the bus that left after them is getting close. On occasions when he wants to get ahead during a traffic jam that he thinks is going to open up soon, he also seeks counsel about whether to take a risk by going into the left lane instead of lining up in the middle so that they can get ahead of the queue and then slide back into their lane when and if the signal changes.

It might not seem like it, but this decision requires a lot of calculation and faith—more of the latter because regular mathematics doesn’t work with Nepali time—because should the traffic police not give the signal when the junction is near, there will always be a car lurking behind with the desire to see the bus punished. And honk they will, as if the end of the world beckons, and they’ve been tasked to sound the alarm bells. Only two things can happen then. The first is that the traffic police gives a ticket, which our boys refer to as ‘chit’ and probably spell as ‘cheat’, because that is what getting slapped with a thousand rupee fine while making a maximum of thirty per head must feel like.

The second option is that they go fishing, ‘balchi thapnu’ which means a detour spent trying to get back to the original route after having taken the left that they shouldn’t have taken. If traced live on a map, it would resemble the pattern of a fishing net that has been cast, hence the terminology. But I’m not too sure.

I know those who travel abroad tend to boast about the Himalayas, the rivers, the food, the traditional clothing, the dances, the festivals, and so forth. However, what I find missing in this Mount Rushmore of experiences that Nepal has to offer is the inclusion of a different and peculiar kind of culture—the bus culture. This doesn’t just encompass the experience of travelling as if one were cattle during peak hours or the eureka moment when one realises that the seat intended for two is actually meant for three. It also involves how the passenger beside you can extend a hand across you, yank open the window, and spit out of a ‘khakhar’ without uttering so much as an excuse me, but rather something far more enlightening.

The seats of a public bus are no different from the base camps to which people spend days struggling to reach, just to be close to the mountain. Through the windows of the bus, one gets a clear and up-close view of the absurdities of life that are quintessential to experiencing Nepal. This thought first occurred to me while I was in a traffic jam in a different part of the world, and I had the momentary illusion of being in Nepal, which suddenly made me feel as if something was terribly out of place.

If I were in Nepal, I would have seen, five minutes into the jam, bus conductors out on the road chatting, people getting out to stretch their legs or simply have a natter, and drivers climbing over the front tyres to wipe their windows, which always get dirty regardless, because it is Nepal, along with other random happenings like that. When all or part of this unfolds, the road, merely a passage between a person and their desired destination, becomes a spectacle in itself. Even vendors emerge from the street, approaching every window to sell water, gutka, titaura, and other vital essentials necessary for a person travelling. There are also those who will wipe the windscreens of whatever car is nearby to demonstrate that the wipes they are selling are indeed useful. However, all of this is a fleeting spectacle, disappearing the moment the officer blows their whistle.

The tell-tale sign of an experienced driver—though there are exceptions—is if they switch off the ignition while the congestion persists for over five minutes or so. Conversations often begin with the brakes, especially if you’re in a taxi or on a motorbike, sparked by the driver’s frustrations articulated aloud.

The misery of the nation and disdain for politicians becomes most evident during a traffic jam. It serves as a vantage point, a veritable base camp for observing the peak of the country’s disorder: the pollution, the chaos, the same road that has been under construction for I don’t know how many years, the potholes that never get repaired, the dust that assaults with a vengeance when the wind blows, and which transforms into a swamp when it rains, the plastic debris swirling about, the dog mess next to the open drain awaiting flood, the crooked poles, the entangled wires, and all the other issues that would necessitate three pages to enumerate. This sight leaves a lasting impression on people, for better or worse, that nothing functions in this country.

Coincidentally, what people also see when stuck in traffic are the signboards of consultancies tempting people to learn a language at a fifty percent discount and take a plane, providing the perfect escape at the most opportune moment.

Kalanki used to be the sweet spot for eliciting this feeling, but nowadays, Gwarko has taken over because of the flyover or whatever they have decided to call it. The place itself has become an artefact, a portrait of the incompetence of the regime, a grotesquely apparent apparition more visible than the mountains in the distance, which are slowly disappearing behind the blanket of pollution. When people have no option but to stop on the same road every morning while hearing ministers and prime ministers repeat that the country is developing, it quite naturally appears as deception. For the impression of the people to change, the portrait, which is a reflection of the regime, first needs to change. If only those in power realised that all they need to do instead of going to a thousand different inauguration ceremonies in an attempt to convince people is to patch up the Ring Road and what is within, the changes in the tangible would help cut significant and avoidable costs that comes along with feeding people masu bhat as patronage.

The vehicle came to a halt. The driver turned off his ignition and stepped outside with a small towel. In the distance, I could see an influencer’s photo on a signboard with the equivalent of an a la carte menu for choosing the escape destination. “Study in Europe, Australia, Japan”.