Red Alert

Perhaps I shall not disclose all. Yet, the sanguine that I sometimes am, simply must lay bare on how I've come to know a little secret about crimsons. Some 'rouges' are able to become more sentient in specific contexts. This might be quite different to Monét's clear delivery of "Poppies blooming", but French springtime aside, Nepal offers a new and vivid look at its perennial reds. I selected the shades of red that gave Bhaktapur its untarnished blush. 

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I left the hotel in Kathmandu while it was still dark. Adventure always calls louder at that time of the day. Still quite low on light, I made my way through little streets that were smoke stained, dressed in chipped off whites and brick red. This little part in the world was waking up beautifully. Little did I know that the neon damask sunrise, so translucent then, was just about to bloom into the most vivid reds. I stepped out of the taxi - quite perplexed - because for a moment I thought I had somehow travelled back in time. I ran my fingers over the rice paper hand printed ticket. It seemed real. A gate lead me to the ancient Newari city’s plain: Durbar Square. A place that lost track of time. Bhaktapur seemed like a preserved slice of history - perhaps a fate for those places encompassed by the great Himalayas.     

The locals were quite oblivious to how remarkable their lives really were. In an everyday manner, the devotees dusted the statues in the square with neon powder, some leaving rice and flowers at the feet or claws of these figures.

School boys wandered off to their early morning class over the baked earth bricks. And every now and again a bicycle sped past, winding through the statues and figures, passing old temples. Some dating back to 1427. A mystical joyride, it seemed. 

The elders going about with their quiet lives.

A stone elephant looks out over the red square as a woman walks past.

The quiet and beautiful people of Nepal. And the energy of the playful kids. 

As the morning light became brighter, the smidgens of red reverently made their appearance. Each an inaudible wake. 

I looked at a beautiful entrance to a temple. A deep cool red peeked out from behind the wood carved pillars and doors. I wanted to take a photograph. Then a man entered my peripheral frame and slowly proceeded until he vanished through the door. Then there was a silence in the square. Not a person, not a pigeon in sight. For a moment the colours of a lost world faded and almost turned into a black and white photograph. Just another history book image. And I thought I had seen things that weren’t real. I turned around to go back home, and suddenly all life came back. In full colour. A bell rang, dogs were barking, pigeons flew overhead, people walked past, and greeted me with sunshine warmth: “Namaste.”

Bhaktapur: what an unreal place.

*t