A Place by the River

While returning from college in Thimi, I passed a familiar spot beside the Hanumante River.

The cobbler who usually sits there wasn't around, but the smell of the polluted river still was. I've seen him there so many times sitting right beside the water, tools laid out, the river behind him dark and dirty.

Badhyata cha bhane, you do what you have to.

This is where his work is, where his customers know to find him, where his living is rooted, even if the air around it is thick with rot. Standing there for just a moment felt unbearable to me.

I couldn't even breathe properly for sixty seconds.

And then I thought about him doing this every day, just to earn enough to get by.

Does the smell even register to him anymore, or has his body just learned to survive it? Or maybe, somewhere quietly, he still hopes for clean air to breathe and clear water to look at, the way I do in that one uncomfortable minute. This is exactly why Safa Hawa matters to everyone.

No one's livelihood should cost them their health.