After the flag was ceremonially lowered to mark the formal closure of UNMIN on Maghe Sankranti eve, the departing Representative of Secretary General Ban ki Moon in Nepal Karin Landgren was seen thanking everyone during the reception. Subedi embraced Landgren and thanked her in return for what the international civil servant had done for Nepal and Nepalis. Then she added a sentence loaded with meaning, “In addition to your professional contributions to the Peace Process, I’m proud of what you’ve achieved as a woman.”
The sentiment behind the sentence was so strong that Landgren probably understood more than what was translated from Nepali. Her response was even more evocative. “I had one advantage over most other Nepali women in dealing with men here, Purna. I could look into their eyes,” said Landgren, and then lapsed into a pregnant pause. The voluntary translator of the conversation could not figure out the real meaning of either the spoken sentence or the subsequent silence. Subedi, however, beamed with joy.
Landgren probably meant that she could measure up her interlocutors and gauge their sincerity even before they uttered a word. She may have implied that she could walk into the male-dominated corridors of power in Nepal without the fear of psychological intimidation. Perhaps it never occurred to her that the ability to look into the eyes of most Nepali men might have been a disadvantage in dealing with the caretaker premier and his team. Despite the sizeable presence of women in the Constituent Assembly, most Nepali men have yet to acquire the ability of treating their female counterparts as equals. Their defensive mechanism is automatically activated the moment they are in the presence of any female who has the confidence to look into their eyes. Her off-the-cuff remark, however, reveals the role that elevation plays in most interactions between different individuals.
To look down, gaze straight or to look up are not merely physical gestures; these are indicators of attitude that help form, cement or break relationships. Priests have been aware of the importance of altitude for ages. Dead ancestors and spirits of the departed souls lived on hillocks or treetops. Temples have traditionally been built on earthen mounds or stilts so that devotees could climb up to the abode of gods. Goddesses, however, could be housed at lower grounds. Even divinities are not beyond norms of gender relations in any society. Flags were invariably attached to poles so that people could see them from afar, as they fluttered in the wind.
Developments in architecture humanized infantile obsession with heights. Latter-day temples, churches or mosques were built to inspire awe rather than to intimidate. Even palaces began to be designed with balance, proportion and harmony in mind. Loftiness was still important, but it ceased to be the sole criteria of measuring the worth of a building or an individual. A person had to be handsome in addition to being tall and dark. Beauty needed brains too. Especially in structures, height was not everything; it was the craftsmanship that really mattered.
Perhaps there was something in the material of construction that prevented the evolution of ‘vertical cities’ for so long. Music in stone—Goethe’s definition of good architecture—was produced when clash of strength between the inherent rigidity of material and willpower of the master craftsmen occurred. Music, after all, is born only when something is beaten, blown or fiddled with passion and emotion. Without encountering some form of resistance, creation remains
mere vanity.
It may have something to do with the elasticity of iron bars, plasticity of cement, or ease of handling stone chips and sand that propels their designers into erecting towering temples of consumption. Forget risks of earthquakes—on second thoughts, never forget the very real risks that a country sitting atop a geological fault-line constantly faces—the very idea of building houses higher than the nearest temple or the tallest tree in the vicinity appears absurd in Kathmandu Valley. Values of market-led modernity make most people ignore the needs of the aged and the infirm. Requirement of playground have begun to be met with play-stations. But even for a healthy person, how many floors can one climb to go to a movie hall, do some shopping, or grab a sandwich? Escalators and elevators are all very fine, but the cost of running monstrous generators is not merely monetary. Exhaust from diesel-powered generators adds to the haze of vehicle fumes that has begun to hang like a shroud over the valley for most of dry months.
Streetscape and skyline have become unfashionable concepts, but someday someone would look into the eyes of history and ask derisively, “Who brought the mall culture to the temperate valley?” Enclosed areas have inherent advantages in settlements that are either too hot or too cold; in such places, even promenades have to be created inside climate-controlled spaces. The logic behind imitation street vendors in high-rise buildings in naturally-air-conditioned Kathmandu boggles the mind. However, few things make sense in contemporary Nepal anyway, so why blame designers, builders or consumers that frequent malls and clog city streets instead of patronizing their neighborhood vendors? When consumption pattern begins to change, we would be as usual one of the first to imitate the trend of reviving our shopping streets.
Meanwhile, eschew looking into the eye of the mall attendant if the person happens to be from a different gender. It will be quite a while before Nepali men and women become comfortable with the idea of looking into each other’s eyes in professional encounters without being intimidating or getting intimidated.
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