Silent streets of home

Silent streets of Home

Summer 2040, London. I was boarding the plane, eager and curious to reunite with my parents in Nepal. The anticipation of seeing them again drove me to rush through every detail. Upon arriving at Nepal’s airport, a wave of memories washed over me—the day I left Kathmandu for London. The nostalgia and melancholy of that moment made me weep.

Kathmandu, once bustling with life, now seemed deserted. Only a few elderly people sat on benches, chatting and gossiping. The bus park, usually teeming with activity, was nearly empty. I recalled how, during Dashain, it was the most crowded place. Now, ATM machines, banks, and ticket booking counters stood deserted, reminiscent of the emptiness seen during the COVID pandemic.

Since my hometown is far from the capital, the journey used to take about 12 hours by bus. I hurried to catch one, expecting to find it crowded, but there were hardly any buses making the trip. I found one that was nearly empty, with just four passengers in total, including myself. As the bus passed through the ring road, the lack of traffic was startling—this same road that once made me late by up to an hour due to heavy congestion.

As the bus started moving, the temples, once our pride, were now covered in moss and dust. Some elderly individuals were seen cleaning the floors, struggling with the physical task. When I looked at an old man gathering dust, our eyes met, and I could see a silent plea for help in his gaze.

The bus trundled through the eerily quiet countryside, and the image of Kathmandu’s empty streets lingered in my mind. It felt as if the city had been drained of its lifeblood—the vibrant youth who once filled it with energy and life.

The landscape unfolded before me in a breathtaking display of verdant splendor. Rolling hills were draped in a lush, vibrant green, creating a view that seemed untouched by time. The path to my hometown was like a journey through a land where nature thrived in its purest form. The air was crisp and cool, carrying the fresh scent of earth and blooming flowers, making it feel as though I was traveling through a forgotten paradise, where every curve of the road revealed a scene of natural beauty and tranquility.

I tried to distract myself by observing the few passengers around me. An elderly man, his face etched with lines of worry, clutched a small, worn suitcase as if it held everything he had left. Across the aisle, a young woman stared blankly out the window, her eyes glassy and unfocused, as if she were looking at something far beyond the landscape.

No one spoke, and the silence was unsettling. I felt a growing sense of unease, as though I was on the brink of understanding something I wasn’t ready to face.

As we approached a small town where the bus would usually stop for a break, I was struck by the sight of boarded-up shops and eateries. The bus rolled to a stop, and the driver—a gaunt man with a vacant expression—announced a ten-minute break in a voice that sounded as hollow as the town itself.

I stepped off the bus, my feet crunching on gravel that seemed to echo too loudly in the stillness. The air was thick with abandonment. As I wandered, I noticed a piece of paper fluttering against a lamp post. It was a weathered notice, barely legible, warning of a "mass migration" abroad, but the date was smudged, and the details were too faded to discern.

Why would people leave the cities to come to this desolation? Or had they already moved on to some other unknown place?

Curiosity getting the better of me, I approached the elderly man from the bus, who was sitting alone on a bench, staring at the horizon. I asked him cautiously if he knew why everything seemed so empty and why things had changed so drastically.

He looked at me with eyes that seemed too tired to hold any more secrets. "They left," he said simply. "Everyone who could… they left."

"Left for where?" I pressed, but the man only shook his head.

"For a better place, they said. But some of us… some of us couldn't go, or chose not to. And now, we're just… waiting."

"Waiting for what?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

He didn’t answer, but his silence spoke volumes. There was something out there, something that had driven people away or perhaps drawn them elsewhere. It was something far more significant than just an economic or environmental disaster.

The bus horn blared, signaling the end of our break. I glanced back at the notice on the lamp post, then at the old man, before heading back to the bus. The rest of the journey felt like a fever dream, with the landscape becoming more surreal and desolate with each passing mile.

As I approached my hometown, despite its beauty, there was a profound loneliness in the air. The few chautaris that dotted the route—simple rest stops nestled beneath ancient, sprawling trees—stood empty, their stone benches unoccupied, as if they had been waiting in vain for travelers who would never come. These chautaris, once lively with the chatter of weary souls seeking respite, now seemed to bear witness to an absence, a silence that echoed through the hills.

The greenery stretched as far as the eye could see, a vast, undulating sea of life, but it felt oddly desolate. The terraced fields, which once thrived with the labor of generations, now seemed untouched, as though the hands that tended them had long since disappeared. The rivers glimmered like silver threads, but their gentle murmurs only emphasized the stillness around them. Even the dense forests, once impenetrable with life, now felt eerily quiet, as if the very heart of the land had grown still.

It was a path that should have soothed the soul, but instead, it deepened the sense of isolation within me. The beauty of the land was undeniable, yet it was a beauty tinged with sorrow, as if each chautari, each blade of grass, was a reminder of what had been lost. The emptiness in this landscape mirrored the emptiness in my heart, a poignant contrast that made the journey back to my hometown feel both like a return to something familiar and an encounter with a world that had changed beyond recognition.

Disclaimer: This is the imaginary view of writer expecting how things could change by the year of 2040 in Nepal.

To be continue....................................