The silence of the scroll

In the heart of Bananapur—a quiet, sun-scorched land where banana groves stretched for miles like a cruel joke under a blazing sky—something strange and heavy settled over the people. It wasn’t a storm. It wasn’t war. It was silent. A digital silence.

The government—bloated with greed, drunk on power—had pulled the plug. Major social media websites and platforms were shut down. Declared “unregistered threats” to national security, they were erased with the flick of a bureaucratic switch. Only TikTok and Viber remained—not because they were innocent, but because they paid the right people. Their survival was bought, not earned.

For the people of Bananapur, this wasn’t just an inconvenience. It was a wound. 

 

Everybody in the village gathered, some of them looked at their smartphones as if they were broken mirrors. Loading screens. Government-approved news tickers. Nothing more. The internet—once a cacophonous, mad, beautiful mess of memes, messages, marketplaces, and movements—had spoken itself into silence. And in quiet, something else resonated: the hum of lives disintegrating.

Kancha Dai, a farmer with calloused hands and tired eyes, sat on a cracked wooden bench. His phone lay in his lap—useless. He didn't throw it. He didn’t scream. He just stared. The screen reflected nothing. No messages from his son working in Qatar. No weather alerts for his crops. No funny videos to share with his neighbours after a long day. Just… nothing.

The air smelled sweet—too sweet. Ripe, rotting bananas fermented under the heat. It was the smell of abundance gone bad.

His wife, Sita, walked over. Her sari was dusty, her arms full of wilted vegetables from the market. “Oy Budho,” she said, voice flat with exhaustion, “the radio says this is for our own good. ‘No more fake news. No more distractions.’ But… how will we know when the fertiliser subsidy arrives? All the WhatsApp farmer groups are dead.”

Kancha Dai regarded her. Not angry. Not even angry. Just… empty. “For our good?” he repeated. “Budhi, this is not protection. This is robbery. They stole our money. Now they’ve stolen our voices. Social media? Well, of course, it provided false hope. But this silence? Bad. Worse. It's like being buried alive and conscious.”

Her daughter, Priya, had run screaming into the square, her eyes wild, her phone gripped like a wounded bird. She was 22. She had created a tiny startup online business selling bespoke jewellery—peacock earrings, necklaces embroidered with local beads—all on Instagram. Her clients weren’t from the village next door. They were based in Kathmandu. In Delhi. Even abroad. She had DMs, orders, followers, and ambitions.

Now? All gone.

“Amaa! Buwa!” she cried. “Instagram is blocked! My shop is gone! My customers can't reach me! How will I eat? How will I live? This ban is killing me!”

Her panic sparked something in the crowd. Others stepped forward—farmers, students, shopkeepers—all feeling the same invisible chokehold.

Hari Dai, a senior citizen, leaned on his stick. His spine was crooked with years of work. His voice, like gravel, cut through the din. “Killing us, nani? We’ve been dead since the day we were born. That internet? It gave us ghosts to converse with. Videos of politicians accepting bribes, partying hard in Dubai and Europe while we languished—everybody had them. But did anything change? No. Now, in this silence, we're not even ghosts. We’re just… air.”

Then came Gopal—the local shopkeeper and owner of the now-empty cyber café. His belly was round, his smile oily. He had made money off the internet, too—charging villagers to scroll, chat, and escape. But he was also one of the few who still had access because he played by the government's rules. He even helped enforce them.

“All this drama!” Gopal scoffed. “The ban will bring peace. Social media made us crazy—spreading rumours, starting fights. TikTok paid the fee, so it’s allowed. Simple. Pay or perish. Without the internet, we'll go back to real life—talking face to face, working with our hands.”

Priya whirled on him. “Real life? Gopal, you call this real? My 'likes' were illusions? Maybe. But those illusions paid my rent! They gave me confidence! They connected me to the world! Now? I'm stranded. And you? You lick their boots for a few coins and call it wisdom? Their greed is killing us—and your silence is helping them!”

Gopal laughed—a dry, empty sound. “Confidence from likes? Rent from shares? That’s your problem, nani. You dreamed online but never learned to survive offline. Want to protest? Go ahead. But how? No one will see. No videos will go viral. The police will come—and no one will know. That's reality. Harsh. Final.”

Kancha Dai stood up. Slowly. Deliberately. The crowd quieted. He wasn't a loud man. But when he spoke, people listened.

“Gopal,” he said, calm as still water, “you blame us for dreaming. But isn't your dream just as small? A full belly while others starve? We're all cursed—not by the internet, but by this life. This relentless, grinding existence. The internet didn’t fix it. It just showed us how broken we are. Now, in this silence, we see each other clearly—no filters, no algorithms. Just faces. Just truth.”

He looked around. “The sun still burns. The bananas still rot. The politicians still feast. But here, now—we are alive. Not because of likes or shares. Because we choose to stand. To speak. Even if no one hears.”

Something shifted in the square.

Priya climbed onto an old wooden crate—the same one farmers used to sell mangoes in summer. She raised her voice, not to beg or plead—but to declare.

“We are cursed!” she shouted. “Cursed by isolation. Cursed by systems that crush us. But this ban? It ripped off the bandage. Now we see the wound. Their greed. Our pain. Our silence is not submission—it's clarity. Shout with me! Even if the world can't hear—shout! Our voices are ours again. Raw. Ugly. Real. And no one can take that!”

One by one, others joined. Not with phones. Not with posts. With voices. With fists raised. With tears. With songs. With silence that now meant something.

Sita gripped Kancha Dai's arm. “What if the police come?" she whispered. “No one will see. No videos. No shares.”

Kancha Dai didn’t flinch. "Then we face them as we always have—without an audience. Without applause. We live as we've lived. We die as we must. But now… we see. And that's something.”

The sun didn't care. It kept burning. The bananas kept rotting. The politicians kept feasting.

But in Bananapur's square, something new was born—not hope, not victory, but awareness. A quiet, unshakable knowing.

The internet had been a mirror—distorting, addictive, sometimes cruel—but it showed them they weren't alone. Now, without it, they realised something deeper: they never really were alone. They had each other. Their voices. Their rage. Their love. Their stubborn will to exist.

This wasn't the end of resistance. It was the beginning of something older and truer: human connection—unmediated, unfiltered, unmonetised.

In the future, scholars might unearth fragments of this story—not from servers or cloud backups (long since erased), but from oral tales passed down in village squares, lullabies, and protest chants. They'll call it “The Silence of the Scroll”—the day the digital world died in Bananapur, and the human one roared back to life.

Not with hashtags. Not with trends. But with trembling voices in the heat, under a sky that offered no mercy—and no escape. And maybe… that was enough.

Published: The Kathmandu Post
Nepal's leading daily newspaper

https://kathmandupost.com/fiction-park/2025/09/21/the-silence-of-the-scroll

A banana republic

In sleepy Bananapur, nestled in Kavre’s foggy hills, the Banana Mahotsav, a noisy festival celebrating the village’s lifeline fruit, was set to unveil the grand Banana View Tower, a bronze symbol of wealth. But in Nepal, where plans always falter, chaos loomed. The village square buzzed with noise and colour, draped in banana leaves; the air was thick with fruit and incense. K Prasad Dai, a portly politician with a twirling moustache, boasted that the tower would make Bananapur famous. “From London to Cambodia, they’ll flock to our banana!” he declared, gesturing like a Kollywood star.

But trouble was growing faster than weeds.

At sunrise, when the hills were still misty, Prithvi Kancha, a skinny banana farmer with a face like a storm cloud, marched into the square, holding a bunch of rotten bananas like a sword. He stomped right up to K Prasad Dai, who was chilling under a banyan tree, sipping tea with his sneaky party buddies.

“K Prasad Dai, you’ve ruined me!” Prithvi yelled, shaking the bananas in the politician’s face. “My whole crop’s gone because of your stupid Banana View Tower!”

K Prasad Dai fixed his fancy topi and grinned. “Prithvi Kancha, don’t act like a drama queen. How’s my tower messing up your bananas? Are they jealous or what?”

“It’s not the tower, you greedy pig!” Prithvi shouted, his voice cracking. “It’s the monkeys! Your party workers left banana peels all over the site, saying it’s for Hanuman. Now, every monkey in Kavre eats my farm like a free buffet!”

K Prasad laughed, his belly bouncing. “Monkeys are Hanuman’s friends, Prithvi. You should be happy they’re blessing your land.”

 

“Happy?!” Prithvi threw the bananas at K Prasad Dai’s feet, splashing juice on his clean Dhaka topi. “I’m broke! The festival’s today, and I’ve got nothing to sell but monkey poop!”

K Prasad Dai’s buddies giggled, but his smile dropped. “Watch your mouth, Prithvi Kancha. I’m making progress in Bananapur. Without me, you’d be feeding bananas to rats.”

“Progress?” Prithvi spat, stepping closer. “Your tower’s a joke! The base is cracking, and Gopal, the sculptor, told me your ‘bronze’ banana is just cheap plastic!”

The crowd around them gasped, whispering like wind in the trees. K Prasad Dai’s face went red. “Lies! Who’s spreading this nonsense?”

“Gopal!” Prithvi pointed at a nervous guy hiding behind a banana fritter stall. “He said you stole the money and got a fake banana, plus a shiny watch for your girlfriend!”

“You’re finished, Prithvi Kancha!” K Prasad bellowed, pointing a fat finger. “I’ll lock you up for this! The Banana Mahotsav will make us legends!”

Prithvi leaned in, eyes burning. “Legends? You’ve made us a laughingstock, K Prasad. Wait till your ‘tourists’ see your plastic banana—a perfect symbol of Nepal’s rotten republic!”

The crowd roared, some cheering, others shouting insults. An old man yelled, “This republic’s a sham! Bring back the king!” A woman snapped back, “Kings were no better, you fool!”

By noon, the square was packed with angry villagers, a few confused tourists, and a news crew from Kathmandu, ready to film the next big disaster. A giant tarp covered the Banana View Tower, and a priest was chanting prayers, waving banana leaves like he could magic away the mess. But the tower’s base was splitting, and whispers about “plastic” spread like fire.

K Prasad, sweating in his tight suit, climbed onto a stage. “Namaste, great people!” he shouted, trying to sound holy. “Today, Bananapur becomes a star! Here’s the Banana View Tower of Prosperity!”

He yanked off the tarp. The crowd gasped, then groaned. The “bronze” banana was plastic, with paint peeling off like harmful makeup. The base was leaning, ready to fall any second.

A tourist in a loud shirt laughed. “I came from Canada for this? It’s a fake!”

K Prasad forced a smile, his moustache shaking. “Just a small problem! It’ll… uh… look better soon, like good wine!”

Prithvi jumped up, pointing. “Better? It’s plastic, K Prasad! You’ve turned us into a Banana Republic, worse than the clowns running Kathmandu!”

The crowd laughed, but then the base let out a loud CRACK. The plastic banana wobbled and crashed onto the priest’s table, sending banana leaves, coconuts, and flowers flying. The priest dove away, yelling, “Hanuman’s angry!”

“Hanuman’s not angry; you’re just a thief!” Prithvi shouted, grabbing a banana from the ground. He threw it at K Prasad, hitting his chest with a splat. “That’s for my farm!” He grabbed another. “And this is for lying!”

K Prasad ran, slipping on banana peels. “Stop this madness, Prithvi! You’re ruining the festival!”

“Ruining?” Prithvi chased him, throwing more bananas. “You ruined us with your fake tower and your republic’s lies!”

The crowd went wild. Some threw bananas at K Prasad, others at each other. A young guy shouted, “This republic’s garbage! We need a king again!” An old lady screamed, “Kings stole too, idiot!” Fists flew, and the news crew filmed it all, the reporter giggling. “Live from Bananapur; a festival for prosperity is now a banana war!”

The square was a wreck by night—banana peels, crushed flowers, and broken dreams everywhere. K Prasad Dai sat on a bench, his suit covered in goo, looking like a beaten dog. The tourists were gone, posting #BananaRepublic and #KingComeBack on X, making Bananapur a global joke.

Prithvi walked up, still mad. “You’ve killed us, K Prasad. The festival’s a disaster. Nobody will buy our bananas now.”

K Prasad looked down, his voice small. “I wanted Bananapur to be big, Prithvi Kancha. I thought a tower would make us like the old kings’ palaces.”

“Big?” Prithvi laughed bitterly. “You made us a Banana Republic, a mirror of Nepal’s useless republic. We don’t need your plastic towers or fake promises. We need roads, bridges, markets, and no monkeys eating our crops!”

K Prasad nodded, ashamed. “You’re right. I messed up, chasing republic dreams when maybe a king’s rule would’ve kept things straight. But what now? Everyone’s laughing at us.”

Prithvi Kancha’s eyes narrowed, his voice hard. “We fight, K Prasad, not for your republic or your lies, but for Bananapur. We’ll make our way—bananas, blood, or a crown. I’m done with your games.”

The next day, Bananapur was a powder keg. Villagers crowded the square, shouting and shoving. Some waved bananas like weapons, demanding K Prasad Dai’s arrest. “Thief! Liar!” they screamed. Others followed Prithvi Kancha, chanting, “No more republic! Bananapur for us!” A few old men waved pictures of the old king, yelling, “Monarchy was better!” Young kids spray-painted “Down with the republic!” on the tower’s broken base, while women argued, “Kings were crooks too!”

The priest, shaking, burned more incense, muttering about Hanuman’s curse. K Prasad was nowhere—some said he fled to a temple, others said he was plotting with his party goons. Prithvi Kancha stood in the square, shouting for a new Bananapur, but his words drowned in the chaos. Fights broke out—fists, bananas, and even coconuts flew. The news crew came back, filming the madness, while tourists watched, snapping pictures.

As night fell, Bananapur was a storm of anger and confusion. The square was littered with debris, and the air stank of bananas and rage. Some villagers whispered about burning the panchayat office, and others crowned Prithvi as their leader. A few prayed for a king to fix everything, while others laughed, saying only Hanuman could save them now. Prithvi Kancha stood alone, staring at the chaos, his face unreadable. Was Bananapur doomed to fall apart? Would they fight for something new? Or would the spectre of a crown—or a god—step in?

Nobody knew, and the hills stayed silent, leaving the mess for the world to guess.

Published: The Kathmandu Post
Nepal's leading daily newspaper

https://kathmandupost.com/fiction-park/2025/05/11/a-banana-republic

A coconut fiasco

In the sleepy village of Thori, the air buzzed with excitement. After years of promises, complaints, and endless cups of chiya at the local teashop, the long-awaited bridge over the muddy Khahare Khola was finally complete. The villagers had watched with bated breath as the contractor, Ram Bahadur Thapa—better known as ‘Ram Dai’—bossed around his crew of sweaty workers for months. Ram Dai was full of aspirations and big dreams, shouting to villagers, “The bridge which I will build will be a bigger achievement than Everest.”

The bridge itself was…well, let’s just say it was a bridge. It wobbled a bit when the wind blew, and the railings looked like they’d been slapped together with leftover bamboo, but it was a bridge nonetheless.

To celebrate this ‘monumental’ achievement, Ram Dai invited the Minister of Infrastructure, Honorable Shyam Prasad Sharma, to inaugurate the bridge. The villagers were thrilled. A minister coming to their dusty little village? This was the biggest thing that had happened since Bhim Bahadur’s goat ate the headmaster’s exam papers.

The morning of the inauguration was chaotic. The villagers had strung up marigold garlands everywhere, and someone had even borrowed a loudspeaker from the nearby town to play patriotic songs on repeat. Ram Dai was running around in his shiny new kurta, barking orders at everyone. “Oi, Kanchha! Straighten that party flag, or what will the minister think?”

Meanwhile, the local coconut vendor, Hari Bahadur, had the worst day of his life. He’d been roped into providing the ceremonial coconut for the minister to crack open—a Hindu tradition to bless the bridge. Hari was a nervous, wiry man with a habit of muttering to himself. “What a day! Why did they pick me to provide the coconut? I don’t even know if this coconut is good or not!” He held up the coconut, inspecting it like a ticking time bomb.

Around 11:00 am, a shiny black SUV rolled into the village, kicking up a cloud of dust. Out stepped Minister Sharma, a plump man with a moustache that looked like it had been glued on too tightly. He was decked out in a crisp white kurta and a Dhaka topi, waving at the crowd like a Bollywood star. The villagers clapped and cheered, though some whispered, “This minister looks fatter than he does on TV!”

Ram Dai rushed forward, bowing so low his forehead almost touched the ground. “Greetings, greetings, Minister sir! Your arrival has increased the pride of this village!”

The minister adjusted his topi and grinned. “Alright, alright, Ram Bahadur ji. I heard you built a fine bridge, so I came to see it!”

The ceremony began with the usual fanfare: a speech from the minister about ‘development’ and ‘progress’, which most villagers zoned out of while sipping their chiya. Finally, the moment everyone had been waiting for arrived. Hari Bahadur shuffled forward, clutching the coconut tightly, and handed it to the minister. “This is the coconut, Minister sir,” he stammered.

The minister took the coconut, looked at it sceptically, and chuckled. “This is so small, Hari ji. Couldn’t you bring a bigger coconut?”

Hari’s face turned red. “Forgive me, Minister sir, this is the last coconut of the season!”

The crowd laughed, and the minister shrugged. He raised the coconut above his head, ready to smash it on the stone slab at the bridge's entrance. “May this bridge bring prosperity to the village!” he declared dramatically.

CRACK!

The coconut split open, spilling its water onto the ground. But before the villagers could clap, a loud creak echoed through the air. The bridge shuddered. The railings wobbled. And then, with a deafening crash, the entire structure collapsed into the Khahare Khola below, sending up a plume of dust and debris.

The crowd gasped. Ram Dai’s jaw dropped. Hari Bahadur clutched his head and wailed, “I knew it; I knew this coconut would bring disaster!”

The minister, still holding the broken coconut, blinked in disbelief. “What… what just happened?” he stammered.

The collapse of the bridge was the talk of the district. News spread like wildfire, and soon enough, the government announced the formation of an investigation committee to determine the cause of the disaster. The committee was headed by a stern bureaucrat named Bishnu Prasad Pokharel, who loved paperwork more than his wife. Bishnu arrived in Thori with a team of ‘experts’, which included a sleepy engineer named Suresh and a junior officer named Gita, who spent most of her time taking selfies with the broken bridge in the background.

Bishnu set up shop in the village school, turning the headmaster’s office into his temporary headquarters. He called Ram Dai in for questioning first. “Ram Bahadur ji, how did this happen? How much budget was spent?” Bishnu asked, peering over his glasses.

Ram Dai, sweating buckets, tried to play it cool. “Sir, I built it perfectly! All the materials were first-class! This… this is the coconut's fault!”

Bishnu raised an eyebrow. “The coconut’s fault? What nonsense are you saying, Ram Bahadur?”

Ram Dai leaned in, lowering his voice. “Sir, that coconut…that coconut was so hard! When the minister broke it, the shock wave must have broken the bridge.”

Bishnu stared at Ram Dai for a long moment, then laughed. “Shock wave? Haha! Ram Bahadur ji, you’re a scientist too, huh?”

But Ram Dai wasn’t done. He slipped a fat envelope across the table, winking at Bishnu. “Sir, you’re a wise man. Just conclude that this case is because of the coconut.”

Bishnu’s laughter stopped abruptly. He glanced at the envelope, then at Ram Dai, and nodded slowly. “Alright, Ram Bahadur ji. We’ll make a report saying it’s the coconut’s fault.”

The following morning, the committee released its findings. It said, “Due to the excessive hardness of the coconut used during the inauguration ceremony, a shock wave was generated, which led to ultimate structural damage and failure of the bridge.”

The villagers were stunned, the minister was relieved, and Ram Dai was ecstatic. But poor Hari Bahadur? His life was about to take a turn for the worse.

Two policemen showed up at Hari’s little coconut stall. “Hari Bahadur, you’re under arrest!” one of them barked.

Hari dropped the coconut he was holding, his eyes wide with terror. “Me… why me? What did I do?”

“Your coconut broke the bridge! You’re guilty!” the policeman replied, dragging Hari away as the villagers watched in disbelief.

At the trial, Hari tried to defend himself. “What kind of justice is this? A coconut is just a coconut! How can it break a bridge?”

But the judge, a grumpy old man who wanted to finish the case and go home, wasn’t having it. “Hari Bahadur, your coconut generated a shock wave. This is a scientific fact. You’re guilty!”

Hari was sentenced to six months in jail, leaving the village with laughter and outrage. As he was led away, he muttered, “I’m done selling coconuts; there’s too much risk in this job!”

Back in Thori, life went on. Ram Dai got another more significant contract to rebuild the bridge. The minister returned to Kathmandu, bragging about how he’d survived a ‘disaster’ in the village. Bishnu bought a new scooter with the money from the envelope. And the villagers? They went back to crossing the Khahare Khola on foot, muttering about how they should’ve just stuck to the old wooden plank bridge in the first place.

As for Hari, he became a local legend. When he exited jail, he swore off coconuts forever and opened a momo stall instead. “Selling momos don't cause any shock waves!” he declared proudly.

So, Thori’s great bridge fiasco became a story told everywhere, a hilarious reminder of what happens when you blame a coconut for a crumbling dream.

Published: The Kathmandu Post
Nepal's leading daily newspaper

https://kathmandupost.com/fiction-park/2025/03/16/a-coconut-fiasco