These travelling stories

If a place was a person, Patan Durbar Square, for me, would be a healer.

When you meet with this beautifully built history dating back at least to the 1600s, during daytime, you share it with elderly locals who while away their time basking under the sun, the young who have the luxury of calling this ancient Royal Square their tea-joint, women who make several trips back and forth to stone sprouts, elegantly balancing a gagri filled with water, on their hips.

The Square is a place that is not easy to forget. But it is the Square and the persona it becomes at hours neighboring midnight that I will always remember.

We take one of the many back alleys of the Square and start the tour at around 11 pm. For a city that has to bear with power-cuts for most of the day and night, the surrounding is magnificently lit. Save a few people who are making their way back home, there is no stranger I have to share the Square with.

With our hearts in this place, we let our minds wander off.
Any moment now, the gigantic lions that guard the temples will start blinking their ferocious eyes. The peacocks that decorate wooden windows of sleeping houses will wake up from their slumber, the various manifestations of deities and demons worshiped by the Newars will come alive from the tundals they have been carved onto, and the Garuda kneeling in front of the Krishna Temple will soon take flight.

The golden bird perched on top of the Nagas that canopy the statue of King Yog Narendra Malla, commissioned by the King himself, glistens in the incandescent yellow light. The dying King had announced he would be alive as long as the bird didn’t fly away. So the bird doesn’t allow itself to leave.

An owl hoots, once. The dogs bark. Patan Durbar Square gently breathes: its inhale and exhale in tandem with the gentle day-dust-free breeze. We can’t help but stop and stare. We sit, legs folded on the dabali and look around us in awe. In front of us, is the palace of the then Malla Kings –built with bricks, wood and labor of the ancient city’s devoted craftsmen who knew not how to ask for payment.

In the quiet and calm that now blankets the atmosphere, we find peace. The kind that helps us let go. So, the woman with the dancer’s soul and I dance while the boy with the golden voice sings. We become the royal entertainers for the night. Perhaps, the kings and queens are watching.

Patan at midnight liberates me with possibilities.