Why Supermarkets? In my mind they are places wryly sad, but then so is every fluorescent tube-lit store with cluttered and bright plastic and deep shadows; but then, so is Wal-Mart late at night, so is Ikea. The oddity in Kathmandu is in the plentitude, is in the convenience, is in the tension of a store whose value-add is time saved in a country where time is the resource most in abundance. There are clutches and clutches of everything in the supermarkets of Kathmandu--stores that combine groceries with shoes and school notebooks and kitchenware and towels and clothes floor after floor--for the word here denotes bazaar.
In a country of scarcity, they are loci of abundance, not so much of abundant things as of feelings of the absence of lack, of want.
Bhat Bateni, 2nd Floor, Bhat Bateni, Kathmandu
2 comments:
Seems like you have been traveling alot.. i am from Kathmandu and i appreciate people like you coming and experiencing our country to its fullest and in the end say... it was a good experience.. thanks alot..ciao..
hi i agree with the guy above. i am from kathmandu too... and i appreicate how you seem to have taken the time to learn the local place names and some of the language properly. i went through some of the articles and they are very insightful. it was fun seeing my own town from a foreigner - specially one that seems to have given in to go with the flow. you are a bona fide traveller... and if one day you write a book about it, i would buy it and tell my friends about it too. keep it up.
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