I’ve just begun a three-month stint in Kathmandu, and already the walls are speaking.

Maybe it’s the way this city wears its decay—Or maybe it’s how the people walk past it all—past peeling paint, past gaping doorways, past graffiti—without without pause. As if the city’s textures are a second skin, too familiar to notice anymore.

I’m new here, so I haven’t gone numb yet. And so I watch. I walk. I linger. I wonder what lives behind the curtain, who walked through that dark doorway, and whether the walls will ever shout loud enough to be heard again.

Kathmandu is a city that doesn’t bother performing for you. It just is.

July2025