Sunday/Monday: As usual but quite busy. I don’t know how fast time is passing and I haven’t been able to do any significant work. Time is like bullet, travels fast. By the way, I haven’t been able to go for tea with Deepak Adhikari, my colleague at Nepal Magazine, in a nearby teashop. So no tea-time chitchats. I am missing them.

Yesterday many good news came into the newsroom. Mobile lines (at least the post-paid ones) are not working and that makes to feel like “Thank God, I am connected”. As I knew the cell phone was working, I tried to call a person. The other end wasn’t responding. I get sort of irritated when people don’t respond to phones and SMSs. At least you should call back after you are done with what you were doing. Anyway, how can I change others’ habit? Otherwise when I reach home in Kadaghari, Gothataar (behind the Kathmandu Airport), I feel like I am going away from the world because the phone at my home isn’t working yet. I reached home at 12:30 AM (that is to say Tuesday had already started).

Other good news of the day? Supreme Court paved way for Nepal Telecom to start the WLL phone service in Nepal. I think there was something fishy going on as a writ against the service was mysteriously filed on the court. Now many people will be connected and that is definitely good for the society.

Oh ya, nighttime curfew was lifted in Kathmandu and Lalitpur from Monday. That’s another good news of the day.

And the evening was the time for Kathak dance at BICC. Sobhana Narayan, an Indian dance queen, was almost at her best in the program organized to mark the 52nd Republic Day of India. There were some technical snags, the program started half and hour late but at the end of the show I felt like my time wasn’t wasted. I was there to cover the event and, to be honest, I wasn’t much interested in the Kathak dance that evening.

Saturday: One of the busiest Saturdays. I was running here and there covering the protest rally in Basantapur and when I returned office I was a bit tired. An assignment was waiting for me. I had to write a long piece on monarchy in Japan: possible succession by the female member of the Imperial family in the Japanese throne. That took my more than three hours time. When I was done, it was time to rush towards home as there was nighttime curfew in the city and, though they have curfew permit, drivers of the office vehicles wanted to avoid the irritating checking by the security forces. I though that was a good idea. After reaching home I realized that I was really tired. It’s a big physical exercise for reporters to cover such protest rallies especially when you want to capture those important moments in camera.

There is a comment on a UWB post about the protest, police behavior and journalists who cover the event. A photo of myself taking picture in the protest program seems to have compelled Blogbahini to drop that comment. “How come that guy is beaten up right next to Dinesh, while Dinesh is busy taking pictures. so the police only charge select people (i’m guessing journalists are exempt from the list)?” In another word, that could be, why didn’t the police beat me (journalist) up when the same was mercilessly baton-charging over a protester.

Journalists usually carry identity card, put them on display as and when the situation gets tense. I also do the same. I hang my identity card on my neck.

Yes, journalists have to be extra careful while covering such events and working in such situation. We have seen many a time they have been beaten and manhandled by the police. On that day too a police beat up at least one journalist. Journalists immediately protested the action and the police in-charge said sorry to the crowd.

So what’s the duty of a journalist? To shoot the picture of a man being beaten up by police or to save the person? How much a journalist can involve himself in news events? These are the questions that always produce contradictory answers. From the humanitarian point of view, I should have thrown my camera away and saved the man from the police. From the professional perspective, that would be an unethical thing to do. Journalist’s job is to report, not to get involved in the event itself. But then life is the most important thing and that comes above everything else. I pulled the second man out of the trap and handed him over to human rights monitors whose job is to intervene into such situation. Most of the time they do their job but sometime they miss the action.

To be honest, my presence there was a journalist’s presence, a camera’s presence and that made the police hesitate to take more severe action. I strongly think so as I have evidence of how police were careful to be seen not-so-regressive in front of cameras. “Hay, don’t beat him like that,” I had heard a police Inspector screaming at his subordinates an hour ago the same day. “Don’t you see journalists taking pictures?” Later the same policeman was “warning” or “requesting” us not to move here and there all the time, stay in place and see the action. But that wasn’t a formal “suggestion” and we didn’t even bothered to listen to him. We did our job on our own way.

And the presence of journalists has definitely helped propel the pro-democracy movement on the street. Protestors intensify their activity once journalists reach the venue. If there is a TV camera then the actions become more intense. That is why police generally hate our presence in rallies.

[This post was written on Monday Jan 23]

Friday in Bharatpur: Okay, we arrived at Bharatpur and as per the kind suggestion of our driver we went to a Buddha Air sales office to inquire about the flights to Kathmandu. To our surprise, staffs at the office were waiting for the arrival of the flight. One of them even said that two tickets were available. Hurray!

While waiting for the flight I met a Japanese woman who was deeply interested in pro-democracy movement in Nepal. In the beginning I thought she was a Nepali girl, possibly Rai/Gurung, I guessed. And her fluency in Nepal language propelled me guess wrong. But the way she was wearing her kurta was slightly different. Well, I could sense that but don’t know exactly how. Later on I came to know she wasn’t a Nepali girl but Japanese interested in Nepali culture, society and politics. It was pleased to know that she was dissatisfied with her government’s low profile reaction to political developments in Nepal. Japan in fact can have enormous influence in Nepali politics for the shake of democracy. I was also pleased to learn that the Japanese woman was one of the UWB’s readers.

Friday in Kathmandu: This time around I saw a different Kathmandu from above the sky. Unusually calm Kathmandu with roads deserted. Barbed wire barricades in the middle of the road and armies roaming around the streets. The city was under daytime curfew that the government had imposed to curb demonstration planned for the day by pro-democracy parties. Our biggest worry was solved as taxis at the airport had Curfew permit. That meant they could take us to our destinations (mine was the office of Kantipur).

I knew a load of work was waiting for me. I hurriedly sat in front of the computer and started typing. By the way, I forget to mention that on Wednesday I used Internet from a cyber café in Itahari. The connection was too slow, computers were not updated with latest editions of software and I knew it would be next to impossible to check my Gmail account. I didn’t even bother to open the site but somehow managed to moderate some of the UWB comments.

I have a United Telecom Limited’s Wireless in Local Loop (UTL WLL) phone installed in house. The phone too had died along with other telephone service. I was in the office and I knew I couldn’t call at my home to let my mother know that I will be available for the dinner. By the time I reach the house, it was almost certain, it would be time for bed and everyone would be sleeping I hate to disturb others. And the worst thing? I was almost broke. I borrowed Rs. 200 from Devenedra Bhattarai and found something to eat in the canteen.

Thursday: Kumar was restless. Charlie wouldn’t move from the room before filing a report about latest development in Kathmandu to his London office. He was busy with his PDA and cell phone that was still working as he was out of Kathmandu. Mine was working too. All mobile phones in Kathmandu Valley were cut off from the very morning. Landlines died for a few hours in the early morning.

We headed for Biratnagar airport hoping to get three tickets. Tom had left us early in the morning. The problem with we three (Charlie, Kumar and myself) was that we didn’t have ticket for the flights to Kathmandu. But then we didn’t have ticket for Biratnagar the other day. We somehow managed to fly in a Cosmic Air flight. But this time around luck wasn’t on our side. At least for Charlie and me. Kumar miraculously, yes, found a ticket in a Royal Nepal Airlines flight to Kathmandu. After saying bye to him and disparately waiting for about two hours at the airport hoping for tickets, we hired a car and headed to Kathmandu. Hetauda was the destination of the day. Well, that was just a destination. We couldn’t move ahead from Pathlaya because of thick fog. Curfew would start at 9 PM in Hetauda and we were late by a few minutes.

Wednesday: We waited for something the whole day of Wednesday. We also talked to couple of people on the streets of Itahari.

Later in the evening I met a journalist friend from Dharan with whom I was in contact for the last several months.

By the way, folks couldn’t stop themselves expressing amazement of how intensely I use SMS. “Mane ba mane,” commented Kumar’s on my SMS habit.

Suddenly things started changing in Capital City. We all wanted to be in Kathmandu for news and stunning events were waiting for us there.