This evening weighed heavily on the families who have lived for years in the Thapathali settlement along the banks of the Bagmati. These images capture the tension, uncertainty, and quiet fear that filled the air before the bulldozers arrived. The issue of managing informal settlements in Thapathali has long been complex, and now the ongoing struggle between the state and the residents appears to have reached a decisive moment.
From children’s school bags to the beds of the elderly, lives have been packed into bundles in anticipation of what may come.
Beyond the settlement, the night unfolds as usual. But along the riverbank, it carries a different meaning—one shadowed by doubt over whether the fragile homes, built on years of hardship, memory, and hope, will still stand by morning. Beneath the surface of routine lies a deep, unspoken anxiety. On the eve of eviction, residents are not only trying to protect their shelters, but making a final stand for their dignity and existence.
Some families sit quietly beside their packed belongings; others cling to what remains of their small, carefully built worlds. The stillness in the narrow lanes is not merely the calm of night—it is the heavy silence of impending displacement.
Can the pain of years be erased so easily, if the state reduces these lives to the label of “squatters” in the name of clearance? Tonight in Thapathali, it is not just homes that lie in uncertainty, but countless human stories, emotions, and one haunting question drifting through the dark: Where will tomorrow take us?
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