I had just laid the mattress on my balcony, which luckily still gets some sunlight throughout the day. With my stomach full from my last meal and with a novel that I was halfway through, I longed for a sunbath. I always associate a good sunbath to serenity and solitude, but on that day it was too much to ask for.

My sunbath was interrupted by the sounds of the jolts and turns of a crowbar. The drainage pipes had been jammed one more time and like always, Giri Buwa, and he alone, had taken it onto his shoulders to fix the problem.

Giri Buwa is one of those guardian figures that a tole, galli, or locality is seldom blessed with. His age does not speak for the relentless energy he possesses. An early riser, anybody who steps out for morning walks in the wee hours will surely encounter this old man who is either heading to or returning from the  Pashupatinath temple. Already in his early 80s, Giri Buwa still doesn’t use a cane for support. Soft-spoken and stern about his moral values, he is one of the most respected people in my locality. There’s a reason why: Nobody is as concerned about the prosperity of the place we live in as he is.

Giri Buwa never turns a blind eye when there is a problem. He takes responsibility for it and does what he can to find a solution to the nuisance. 

As I looked over at Giri Buwa trying to fix the drainage on his own, I thought of the ward member who had made huge, empty promises during the local elections. “I will fix every drainage related problem within two days,” he had said in his door-to-door campaign, and now he was nowhere to be found.

Nobody works on a sunny Saturday, but the local government representatives do not work on weekdays either. They turn a blind-eye to problems that are in plain sight. And then there are us, the ordinary citizens, who lay flat on cozy beds and complain about how “Nepal kaile bandaina!” (Nepal is never going to move forward.)

Nepal has been cursed with politicians that keep forgetting their promises, but then we, the ordinary people, are no better either. We keep forgetting that we are a part of the society and the society is a part of us. We keep forgetting that we are responsible for what happens to our local infrastructures. We keep complaining, but unlike Giri Buwa, never do anything about the problems that can be solved with our smallest initiatives.

I don’t have a clean chit to my name either. That day as I looked over at Giri Buwa, I realised how I am a hypocrite myself. I have attended a dozen tree plantation programmes on Environment and Earth days. I have tweeted a dozen of my photos from the Bagmati clean-up drive and  multiple cycle rallies. But, I have never joined Giri Buwa in fixing problems that are right there in front of me and need immediate attention.

That day, I felt embarrassed of taking pride in my ‘slactivism’ as I hesitated to help my old neighbour who dug his hands into the sewer and sludge. There’s a saying that goes, “Everybody wants a clean house but nobody wants to get their hands dirty.”

That day, I finally felt the push and need to join Giri Buwa, and so I did. “At least, you came,” he said, “I am happy.” 

For once, perhaps, we should stop depending on the government and be responsible for what we are as a country and who we are as its people.    

Pant is an A-level graduate from Budhanilkantha School