The year is 2100. Kathmandu’s symbolic order has finally collapsed. It took more than a century and a half for the citizens of this city to get rid of their obsession for cars.
The year was 2050 when I got an opportunity to talk with a car. After the ban on the vehicle during rush hours was declared the previous year, cars had started being overjoyed. “The lazy old man does not take me to Gwarko anymore. What a beautiful life I have now!”
Nevertheless, new companies like MetaCars and ChaudharyDrive had found creative ways to work around the legalities. They started manufacturing hybrid cars before the bill was first tabled in the parliament and to get an upper edge over competitors, they had leased a manufacturing plant in Shenzen. They had argued that their cars were not really cars but rather flying locomotives.
The year is 2100 and finally flying locomotives have been banned in this city. The symbolic order has collapsed, one might think. But in Kathmandu, the material symbolic order can never collapse. They can merely reinvent themselves. To be more precise, people will find ways to reinvent the material symbolic order.
And we will keep on debating as to who’s at fault. But everyone knows – the answer swims clear in the river Bagmati.
Ishan Mainali 