Masked men and women of Kathmandu

Is this because of H1N1 flue that’s recently arrived in Nepal or because of pollution?

I was in a cinema yesterday watching a stupid Hindi movie, only because my wife insisted on it. We’d only gone out to watch Hollywood movies until now so this was our first Bollywood one. It was 150 minutes of complete waste though. Inside the cinema hall I’d seen several people watching the movie with their masks covering their faces.

It is kind of stupid, isn’t it? Maybe I’m little bit reckless for not wearing one but if they’re so worried about catching the flu, why don’t they stay home. It was stuffy inside the cinema hall and quite hot. To stay like that for 150 minutes to watch a movie would have been like a purgatory for me, especially as the movie was anything but interesting.

I have a feeling though that they might taken the mask out when the hall went dark. When the lights came back on again, they’d hurriedly put back on again. If was an owner of Nike or Addidas, I’d hand out the mask with their name written on it and given them to these guys. It’d been a novel way of advertising.

I can understand though when pedestrians on the streets of Kathmandu are walking covering their faces with masks. It’s so polluted. It’s not just the smoke from all the ageing vehicles. It’s the dust. All the rain that Kathmandu is seeing these days deposits dusk on the streets, and when the sun comes out back again and the streets become dry, the dusk just bellows everywhere. It’s unbelievably bad. I am just so sorry for the traffic police who make sure the streets of Kathmandu don’t get clogged with vehicle. They’re on the street all the time and have to face the brunt of dust storm on the streets of Kathmandu.

So it’s mask time for people of Kathmandu, and with pollution getting worst day by day, I think we’ll be wearing one for a long time. I’ve already got 3 myself.