Slumdog

8th of October

A rapid drummer disturbs our slow and peaceful breakfast at a restaurant along the, by now well known for us, tourist street a block from the lake. The disturbances comes from a young nepali kid, sitting in the middle street and rhythmically beating his worn drum while yelling what sounds as encouraging invitations for donations in his language. He could be about 7 years old, dressed in torn jeans and a unbuttoned shirt, witch a dirty face and hungry but decisive eyes.

In front of him dances an other boy in the same age, with equally torn jeans and the same hungry eyes on an as dirty face as his coworker. He does a self thought belly dance and some exhibitions of his flexibility, all of them to me kind of repulsive to me were I sit, stiff like an uncooked asparagus, in the morning and eat my overprices breakfast menu. I try not to pay attention to the show, as my bacon arrives.

It got the feeling of Slumdog Millionaire, with these independent looking kids, performing the poverty they live in for us rich people. Not even the poverty in Lakeside feels real, like everything, from the supermarket and bookstore to the massage centers and the holy Hindu begging, is designed to capture and spend our money. This isn't Nepal, it's a comfortable Asia in the eyes of an outsider, with every citizen watching the passing tourists as a lion prowls on the horde of grass eater.

The skepticism ends here, because Lakeside got some fun accessories that I don't care if they're real or not. Not to mention all of them, but my favorite most be the transportation of buffaloes along the main tourist street in rush hour. These isn't the buffaloes I saw when I was a little boy on wildlife programs, whose life consisted of a never ending rush hour, panicking along the savanna and getting eaten by crocodiles. These water buffaloes are hardcore gurus in meditative strolling and looking goatishly interested at passing people or vehicles. If someone trained them not to care they certainly did a good job and should receive a bonus.