The art, culture and ambience of old, medieval Patan has almost disappeared under the assault of historical neglect and runaway "modernisation"
Buddhi Man Shakya, a 77-year-old craftsman from Nag Baha, remembers the days when traditional Newer homes like his used to grace all the-narrow stone or brick-paved streets of Patan and its multitude of courtyards. Even till the late 1960s, the market thoroughfare of Mangal Bazaar, the Durbar Square, and the more than 175 residential courtyards had an ambience that was quintessentially medieval Patan. Lalitpur, the artisans' town, which is Patan's other name, looked and functioned like Florence, Milan or Rome might have at the height of their renaissance glory.
But no more. Over a span of just four decades, Patan has lost that luster it had preserved for centuries. Today the skyline of the "city of a thousand golden roofs" is being taken over by spindly concrete " skyscrapers" built on tiny plots of sub-divided land. The population has doubled many times, the town services are over-burdened and Patan today is a dirty relic of its old self.
Aged buildings with frescos, latticed windows and fired-brick fronts come down in a flurry of centuries-old dust and in their places shoot up multi-storyed cement boxes with ubiquitous steel shutters on the ground floor. Billboards of Pepsi and Coca Cola block views of stupas, political graffiti deface temple walls, and banners of assorted beers and lotteries festoon the narrow gullies. Patan gets to look more and more like India's provincial towns of Muzaffarpur or Gorakhpur.