“The smoke doesn't stop. Neither does anyone else.”
Just Tuesday in Kathmandu
This photo was taken when I was simply standing around in Bhatkali. See the smoke from that truck? Comes before the truck, thick and white, pouring into the street and sitting there like it owns the place.
And right behind, in single file, a series of bikes driving straight through it.
No turning back.
They had no choice but to follow the truck and ride straight through its fumes. The guy in the red helmet has a backpack on him.
Maybe he was heading off to work or school.
Didn't expect this morning to be filled with the contents of whatever engine was spewing those fumes. Nobody honked.
Nobody stopped.
Nobody even turned their head to look. And there, right then, is what I couldn't believe.
That smoke was nothing special, you see it all the time on the streets of Kathmandu.
But it wasn't the smoke.
It was how perfectly normal the whole situation was.
How not one person was upset.
How this was just Tuesday. And we've become so used to things that when a truck fills up a crosswalk with smoke it just becomes something that you don't get mad at anymore.
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