Equivocality

My god, it’s like lace reaching into the sky! I mean, I’d seen pictures, but this, actually standing here in Durbar Square, Katmandu, watching the pagodas silhouette the dawn– it’s a fairy tale. This place can’t be real. Here, let’s climb the steps. Oh. There’s graffiti at the top. The sun rises, shadows form. The traffic arrives with first light. Suddenly the square is filled with belching diesels and kids on scooters, and vendors selling cotton candy and mobile phones. Also illuminated is every other building, the surrounding sprawl of hideous brick boxes. Katmandu, 21st Century. The pagodas cower before the hot, flat, smoggy light of the present time.