It was supposed to be an ordinary Tuesday—the day after Gen-Z’s protest had turned violent, leaving over twenty people dead. My father, recently retired, felt a short ride would do no harm. It was meant to be a brief, simple trip. Earlier, I had spoken with my mother about the tragedy—how innocent young lives were brutally gunned down. My blood boiled as I tried to process the senselessness of it all. As a millennial witnessing this horror, their solidarity moved me to tears.
Curfews had already been imposed across several parts of the city, and I had a sinking feeling that tomorrow would be even messier. That night, I lay in bed scrolling through social media, refreshing it every few seconds, as though anxious fingers could force more updates to appear.
The following morning, I was in the kitchen when news of yet another curfew broke. Alarmed, I immediately called my mother and warned her that angry mobs could turn violent at any moment—burning tyres and blocking roads. Still, she reassured me they would just visit the temple. Surely, she said, the revered deity would never allow turmoil to befall His devotees.
And so, with that faith, their unexpected ordeal began.
I got busy with household chores, yet restlessly scrolled the news with my phone tethered to the charger. It was my fasting day, and a faint sadness crept in at the thought of going hungry. But that feeling was drowned by a heavier grief—the grief of a country reeling from the Gen-Z protest. Images flashed in my mind: children struck down by bullets, the sniper-like cruelty as the state turned its weapons on unarmed youth. There have been protests before, but I have never witnessed a government so tyrannical—one that would aim at its children as if they were not flowers of the nation but enemies of war.
With a strange mix of relief and guilt, I wondered how my younger relatives—part of the so-called Gen-Z—had been spared. Their parents, by chance or fate, had kept them home. They were lucky not to become names in the tragic list of martyrs.
Living with fear
After many unanswered messages, I finally dialed my father’s phone. He calmly told me they had reached Shahid Gangalal Hospital. I snapped. How could a trip to Jalbinayak Temple end up in Bansbari, in the middle of a city under curfew?
Anger and fear surged through me. The headlines screamed: furious protestors defying curfew, mobs burning tyres, clashes escalating, attempted attacks on ministers—the city volatile, charged with rage and grief. I yelled over the phone before hanging up. My parents were not toddlers needing warnings about fire; they were old enough to know flames are never to be tested.
Their account later made me shudder. They had set out early, hoping to return before the 8:30 a.m. curfew. But mobs began gathering by 8:15. My father, not one to travel often, unfamiliar with shortcuts, and clouded by age and panic, drove toward the hospital seeking safety. Meanwhile, my phone showed a different reality: agitators had torched Ullens School, not far from where they had taken shelter.
Panicking, I called my mother to ask if they were near the blaze. She tried to sound calm, but the tremor in her voice betrayed her fear. The government collapsed; ministers were beaten, their homes vandalized windows shattered, fires everywhere, looting spreading. The army was deployed. The capital felt leaderless—power crumbling in real time.
My parents, two elderly people, were trapped in a place soaked in the stench of blood and antiseptic, a place no one visits unless necessary, with no hope of returning home that day. My father stepped outside once—until he and my mother fled down a narrow lane when a mob with sticks appeared.
Famished, I carried the weight of fear in silence, trying not to reveal my anxiety to my in-laws. The state was rewriting its political destiny; the Gen-Z movement marched without a leader; governance felt uncertain—a doomed day. My parents slept in their clothes, like relics clinging to a harrowing day, while I lay awake, tormented by restless thoughts.
The next morning, the army posted at every junction turned them back. They had to retreat again to the hospital. Exhausted and irritated, my mother snapped at me on the phone, saying there was no point in calling repeatedly—they were safe. I smelled the sharp edge of her irritation, a shield for the guilt she carried for their carelessness.
On the third day, when the army relaxed the curfew for a few hours, I asked my father to buy a hospital slip and carry his senior citizen card to show at checkpoints. Still, I feared—the army had orders to shoot civilians who defied warnings. Would they be allowed to return?
Those forty minutes were the longest of my life. I would have live-tracked them if I could. Only when they finally walked through the door did the crushing weight in my chest lift. I had begged them not to travel because the city was simmering with unrest. They dismissed me, believing age brings prudence and faith protects. Though the god spared them, my emotional anguish felt no less.
While the country burned and chaos reigned, my parents remained stranded by their stubborn decision. Perhaps they will never forget the lesson.
Those school children who marched for peace never returned to the parents waiting with dinner plates and tear-filled eyes. The revered deity demanded an offering in the form of His nation's children. No nation is built without sacrifice, and the price is paid in the lives most precious.
My pain was only a ripple in their ocean of loss. Yet the story of a married daughter and her aging parents is a quiet kind of love—stitched with unspoken affection, distance, and helplessness.
The author is Structural Engineer based in Kathmandu.
