Civic Sense

Music, videos and calls at a level that stays inside your walls, most of all late at night and before 7 in the morning.

Keep the bag inside until the collection comes; one left at the corner overnight gets torn open by dogs and crows.

Shoes, cycles and boxes on a shared stairway or corridor are in someone’s way, and in the dark, a fall waiting to happen.

Before leaving a scooter or cycle by the road, check that no gate, shutter or narrow lane is blocked.

A puja, a party or building work is easier to bear when people know when it starts and when it ends.

A book, a ladder or a pressure cooker returned on time, clean and whole, so they lend again.

A namaste to the shopkeeper, the guard and the neighbor: small, and the start of a street where people look out for each other.

Drivers expect people at crossings. Walk a little further to one, and look both ways even there.

Footpath where there is one; where there isn’t, the right-hand edge of the road, so you see vehicles coming towards you.

No cycles, scooters, goods or stalls across it: people in wheelchairs, with prams or with a stick have nowhere else to go.

A pocket or a small bag for wrappers, peels and bottles until there’s a bin, or until you’re home.

Spitting spreads germs and leaves a mess for everyone; a tissue or handkerchief, then the bin.

On foot, on a cycle or as a passenger: step aside, and ask the driver to pull over.

A pillion rider’s head is as exposed as the rider’s, and an unbuckled helmet comes off in a fall.

At crossings, in lanes and in crowds, the person walking goes first: they have the least protection.

Someone older, pregnant, with a baby or a stick standing on the bus? Offer your seat before they have to ask.

Stand to the side of the door and let the people inside get off first. The bus empties faster and you get on sooner.

On a full bus or micro, a bag on the seat beside you is a seat someone else is standing for. Lap or feet instead.

Videos, songs and calls on speaker fill a whole bus. Earphones at a safe volume, or a quiet voice.

Students get 45% off public vehicle fares. Carry your school ID, show it as you pay, and keep calm if there’s an argument about it.

People there are ill, reading or praying. Speak quietly, keep your phone on silent and step outside for calls.

Keep to one side on a mall’s escalator or a bridge’s stairs, so people in a hurry can pass, and don’t stop at the top or bottom.

On winding hill roads: a bag in your pocket, a seat near the front, eyes on the road ahead, and the bag to a bin afterwards, not out of the window.

Kitchen scraps in one bin, paper, plastic and tins in another. Your municipality collects them apart, and the law asks for it.

Flush, aim, wipe the seat, put paper in the bin if the sign asks, wash your hands, and tell someone if it’s blocked.

A public tap left running wastes water other families queue for. Close it fully when you’re done, and report one that won’t close.

Carry a cloth bag; say no to a plastic bag for one small thing. Thin bags are banned in Nepal, and the rules ask everyone to use fewer.

Plastic, flowers wrapped in plastic and puja leftovers block streams. Bins and compost for them; keep rivers and ponds for water.

No names carved in temple wood, on stone or on walls. Heritage takes centuries to make and seconds to scar, and defacing it is a crime.

Desks, books, taps, toilets and the playground are shared with the students after you. Use them gently, and tell a teacher when something breaks.

A burst pipe wastes water and an open drain hurts people, especially at night and in the rain. Report it, don’t walk past.

At a counter, a bus stop or the canteen, the line is the fair way. Find its end, ask if you’re not sure, and never push in.

At a jatra or a concert, stay where you can still move, find the way out when you arrive, agree a meeting place, and leave early if it gets too tight.

At a jatra you see the people around you; the volunteers and police see the whole crowd. When they say stop or go another way, do it.

In Tihar or at a wedding, crackers go off in an open space, away from faces, roofs, dry grass and frightened dogs.

A priest at a puja, a family at a ghat, a child in the street: ask first, and put the phone down if they say no.

Take back everything you brought, and pick up a few things others left. A clean spot stays clean longer.

Before forwarding a shocking message, stop and ask “is this true?” That one question makes people share less that is false.

A friend, a cousin, a classmate: ask before their picture goes on your story or into a group.

Not in a group, not as a joke: a number or an address, once shared, can’t be taken back.

If you wouldn’t say it across a table, don’t type it under a post.

Sharing it to complain spreads it further. Use the Report button, tell an adult, and for something serious, go to the police.

A class group for homework stays about homework. Take a quarrel to a private chat, or let it go, and mute rather than argue.

When you’ve seen a message you can’t answer yet, a short note saves the other person wondering.

Police 100, fire 101, ambulance 102, saved under names you’ll find in a panic and taught to the people at home.

Tole, ward, a landmark and the nearest main road: what an ambulance needs to hear, and how a phone map can show the spot.

Call 102 or 100, keep yourself and others out of the traffic, and don’t move someone who might be badly hurt.

Where you’d take cover at home and at school when the ground shakes, and where you’d meet afterwards.

“Would you like help?” first, then help the way they ask, not the way you guess.

A wallet, phone or ID card to the school office, the conductor or the police, not left where it fell.

A visitor or a child alone: point the way, or take them to a shop, a guard or the police.

At school or online: telling isn’t snitching when someone is being hurt.

The ward office is the nearest part of the government: certificates, recommendations and local problems start there.

Take a photo, note the place, tell the ward office, and if nothing happens, call Hello Sarkar on 1111.

Municipalities hold public hearings (सार्वजनिक सुनुवाइ) and public audits on their work; go to one with a parent and listen.

A tole, a temple courtyard or a riverbank, with friends and a few gloves and bags.

Planting is the easy part; water, a guard and checking on it are what make it grow.

Setting up chairs, guiding visitors, serving water: a few hours that make an event work.

The sweeper, the bus driver, the traffic police, the ward staff: a word of thanks costs nothing.