“Fool me once shame on you, Fool me twice shame on me”

It was perhaps the incompetence of Nepalese Governing bodies back in 1934 that led to the reconstruction of Bhimsen Sthan so inadequately after a 8.0 magnitude earthquake that it would meet its previous fate of turning to rubble once again in an earthquake of a weaker reading years later. The earthquake on the 25th of April, 2015 took thousands of lives and affected millions more. A hundred and eighty people lost their lives only because of the collapse of Dharahara.

After the rescue operations are over we are faced with the task of rebuilding and once again the  prospect of reconstructing Dharahara. For making this decision we must first take into consideration the sad  fact that the original Dharahara is long gone and the construction of a new Dharahara will be nought but an attempt to construct a meaningless monument that will continue posing a threat to the lives of people in busy area it was located in. Nepal is situated on an area of high tectonic activity and the construction of a monument as tall as Dharahara in the capital can only stand as a threat to the hundreds of people who live close to it. The reconstruction of Dharahara also requires great amount of money which could rather be spent  in improving the conditions of people affected by the recent earthquake.

 “You can rebuild monuments but you cannot rebuild the lives of the people they have taken” says the sister of an earthquake casualty. The most reasonable, feasible and safe option that we have left after the collapse of Dharahara is to not rebuild it and turn the area it once stood on into a park where the nation’s casualties can be remembered. A place where people can come to look back on the people they lost in the earthquake, a place where people can seek refuge in in future disasters, a place where people can come to stand proud and tall of the efforts that were made after the tragic earthquake, much taller and prouder than Dharahara could ever stand.