Didi ko pasal

At the didi ko pasal I frequent, I've started to notice the quiet but persistent outlines of class difference shaping the space. The place itself is crammed into a tiny space in Lamodhunga, with three tables at the forefront and blue-coloured benches attached to them. The place itself is known for selling one of the best buff momos in the community [a pleasure in life I've abstained from]. The colour itself is hued with stains of smoke on the walls, but the real texture of the place lies not in the food, but in the social hierarchy it holds together.

The people who gather here come from many walks of life and different material conditions: food delivery riders, daily wage labourers, tired mothers, corporate employees, and older men who have retired from government jobs. Among them, one retired man stands out. He seems to carry a different kind of ease- a financial cushion from being a petite bourgeoisie - that allows him to buy food, soda, raksi, and cigarettes for others. His generosity draws a kind of admiration, but it also quietly reveals the gap that makes such gestures possible in the first place. His wealth isn't something self-earned but inherited, and what appears as kindness on his part is merely a performance of class- one that reflects the surplus circulating in the local economy.

Conversations here rarely move beyond the surface, often slipping into petty, misogynistic remarks- especially about why and how often I smoke, and whether or not my friend is coming (I often try not to give my time to men who are actively trying to converse with me, mainly due to the nuances in thier approach) hence marking a social rhythm I no longer feel fully part of. Even something as small as cigarettes marks a difference: most people here smoke Khukuri or Pilot, while I smoke Arctic/Ice, which costs nearly twice as much. This marginal difference in my choice of vice also reveals a consumption pattern shaped by my class and location, creating a subtle social distance among the regulars. It's not only the cigarettes that make me feel displaced here- it's my class position itself, one that structurally benefits from the very relations that constrain the lives of those around me, implicating me in a system that extracts value from their labour.

The environment carries these contrasts in small, everyday gestures. People tuck away unfinished cigarettes into their pockets, preserving them for later - stretching value out of each purchase -while I tend to leave mine half-smoked without much thought. This small, almost unconscious act brings me back to a time when I would have my father buy me orange balls in seemingly infinite amounts, never once feeling the weight of material scarcity.

The regulars here, often labourers, arrive in the morning and indulge in raksi, the raksi of the masses, drinking as a matter of course. In contrast, I am only ever passing through: reduced to buying cigarettes and leaving.