Hi Sum off, Oh sire, you chastize your own for seeking solace in the "mundane!" You clearly have a knack for writing--ethnographic, it's not--it leans more towards your dismay at finding out Kathmandu has stagnated or even "deteriorated" to a standard below your expectations--even those of your family members(?). My curiousity as your reader is--are you judging or sensationalizing the parts you dislike about the ways of life, there. Interestingly, I will be there within a few weeks too. Hopefully, I can pick up on stuff that remain in the core of my blood as I carry those memories of my childhooded wherever I go. Perhaps, I can appreciate the cohesion of family members who find it safer to cry over a hindi dharavahik than verbalize the fears of a dynamic and fast changing Nepali society. Perhaps, I too can eat my way through my jetlag and wonder at the nostalgia of Saturday morning late brunches. Perhaps, I can revel in my mother's touch as she applied hair oil in my below waist length hair as she chides "Hareeey tyahan tel payenna bhanya... jaanda nariwal ko tel lanoo hai?????" As I explain, " Mamoo, phursad hundaina tel sel laoona..." And in the silence of my mediation exeprience a mother's love as she watches me leave home to come back to my current home in US. " Mamoo, airport aaoona pardaina... I hate farewells!" And she knows it. Sire, there is more to the TV, dust, airport corruption, political frustrations and melodrama over TV series--- THERE IS LIFE IN THE MUNDANE! I shall think of you when I am in KTM! :)