A night in the suck city [2]

This happened a week before the wedding.

I was in Bishal Bajar to buy one of those rare trinkets for mom which you can only find in one specific store in a specific building because they have had a long relation with their Chinese suppliers and no one else has figured out that such random items in such nondescript stores can have such gloriously high margins and a surprisingly large market. After getting the goods I strolled around the complex figuring out how things had changed since my time. Bishal bajar had lost all the luster it had back in the day it was now a backalley building selling Chinese goods of questionable provenance quality and safety standards. The fountains were now froggy pools the top-notch first-in-Nepal escalators shut down half the time for repairs the floors dirty and muddy. Kathmandu had moved on to better things the shoppers of BB had found better places better tastes, BB had settled down into a new customer base with lower expectations.

I'm not a man of danger specially when it comes to questionable food. I could not resist the momo pasal however, the same I went to 18 years ago with friends before heading for drunk nights out with the boys. Three/four plates a momo, for fiften rupees a plate and we were set for the day. There were two stools to sit down and the boys would fight over them, I'd rather have stood because I thought that's how you built your muscles.

I ordered a plate of buff momo. A hundred and fifty rupees. I was not unaware of the prices in Kathmandu, but knowing in your face that the prices had gone up by a thousand percent in a matter of eighteen years was always a shock. It must have been psychological. I place no blame on the proprietors of the venerated -- well in its own way -- institution, the grumblings and rumblings that were happening in my stomach even before I finished the last momo couldn't possibly have been due to the momo. It takes some time for the food to make through your digestive tract.  I didn't order a second plate of momo, I was full and getting home on time was no more urgent than ever. I called the driver, he'd be out in the gate in three minutes. I ran for the escalators, and walked down the stairs with great patience. There is no cause of concern, I'm a fully functional adult who can take care of himself, I told myself. More rumblings from deep within my cavernous bowels. I considered buying coffee in Babarmahal -- actually I wouldn't have to buy coffee, they had a public toilet -- Revisited.

Bhai, I said, take me to Babarmahal revisited I need to buy something small there. We drove towards Babarmahal.