Shiva Ratri

 

 

Shiva Ratri (Shiva Night) is a festival that I’ll say speaks for itself. I have no business speaking for what it is or isn’t because I have no idea. This is the only time I took pictures in Nepal, because it’s the only time I felt safe doing so. The day was mostly beautiful, but I experienced something that happened to my mother years ago in Cancun, Mexico, though I think quite a bit worse? You’ll have to tell me, Mom.

There are no public toilets in Nepal, and unlike Thailand, temples and government buildings aren’t an option either. Even most restaurants don’t have toilets. I often paid someone in the lobby of a nicer hotel that had a lobby toilet while I was out walking, but during the festival there was nowhere like that to try.

I asked around looking for a toilet, increasingly desperately and with dwindling inhibition. I was eventually pointed into the center of a complex of apartments five or six stories high toward a cement box about 4 feet tall and two feet wide on either side jutting out from a wall in the courtyard. It was a squat toilet, without a light, without enough room to stand and while the door was open I could see feces everywhere on the floor and the walls. I shut the door and started to pee in the dark, flies exploring every hole on my body, when I heard the door move. I thought someone was opening it but they weren’t, they had locked it from the outside or were standing against it. I pushed against it. I was still peeing and now peeing all over my pants. I started yelling and hitting the door. This shit filled cement box was smaller than the stress position boxes the CIA uses; I was panicking. I heard “Rupees, rupees!” from outside. He locked me in and was demanding money to let me out. This happened to my Mom in Mexico as well, but I don’t think it happened in a pitch black cement shit-hole.

The door was just slats of wood nailed together and had little cracks in it. I tried to push the door but the size of the room and the bags I was carrying made it almost impossible to leverage any strength. I got out my wallet and passed the first bill I touched through one of the cracks in the door. I don’t know how much I gave him, but it must have been enough because the door opened. I emerged to three men in their 50s or 60s laughing at the state of me; freaked out and covered in piss. I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was shit on me too. And I just left. I could hear the laughter back through the several corridors toward the street.

I may as well have avoided the whole ordeal and peed my pants for how much made it into the “toilet”. Thankfully I was wearing quick dry pants and because of the festival there were fires in the street I could stand at and dry myself off. It was obvious what happened and a few kids laughed at me, some adults stared, but soon enough I was dry. I’m sure I smelled funny the rest of the day but whatever, I guess that was my gift back to you Nepal.

 

But also, my god, look at how beautiful these people and this city is.