Money. Life. Relationships

By Rameshwar Yadav

In Kathmandu, these three words rarely walked in harmony.

The city had grown louder over the years. Rattling buses along Ring Road, motorbikes snaking through narrow alleys of Ason, the aroma of momo steam drifting into the cold dusk, and the neon lights of Thamel where tourists and dreams mixed freely. Everyone was running somewhere. Everyone seemed to be chasing something. And most often, that “something” was money.

This was the city where twenty-nine-year-old Arjun had built his life.

He lived in a compact apartment in Koteshwor, the type of place where the sound of pressure cookers from neighbors could be heard through the walls and the evening traffic resembled a slow-moving river of impatience. Every morning, he put on a crisp shirt, polished shoes, and carried his aspirations like armor. He worked at a private bank—long hours, quick lunches, and impossible targets. Promotions came to those who sacrificed evenings, weekends, and eventually relationships.

He had done all three.

A few years earlier, Arjun had fallen deeply, quietly in love with Mira. They had met during their college days in New Baneshwor—when life was simpler, expenses lighter, and dreams still untangled. Mira was studying literature then, her world full of poems and metaphors, her voice calm like the Bagmati River before the industrial waste touched it. She always said, “Money is for living, Arjun. Not for loving.”
And he would laugh it off, promising he would manage both.

But Kathmandu had a way of testing promises.

The more Arjun earned, the more he felt he must earn. Money was addictive, not because it created happiness, but because the city made you believe you were always one step behind. If he bought a scooter, friends had a bike. If he rented a one-room flat, colleagues moved to two-bedrooms. He started taking extra shifts, bringing office work home, skipping dinners, and replacing conversations with messages that said “Busy today. Talk later.”

Life became a checklist. Love became an afterthought.

Mira waited—at cafés, in long messages, in silences that he barely noticed. She wanted simple things: walks in Patan Durbar Square, shared coffee at Basantapur, moments that felt like they belonged only to them. But Arjun thought those things could wait, believing that after he “made it,” everything would fall into place.

Kathmandu, however, never allowed anyone to “finally make it.”

The expenses expanded faster than salaries. Rent increased every year. Social media became a competition of lifestyles. Everyone showed happiness even when they didn’t feel it, and everyone believed everyone else was happier than them.

Slowly, Mira grew tired of asking for time that never came. Their calls shortened. The warmth faded. Finally, one evening in a quiet restaurant near Jhamsikhel, she said the words he was too busy to see coming:
“It feels like I’m dating your absence, not you.”

Arjun wanted to protest, to explain, to promise again. But he knew the truth: he had been present in her life only as a memory. In the world he was building, there was no space left for her.

She walked away before dessert came. He went back to work the next morning.

Months passed. Life continued with its usual rush—targets, transactions, deadlines. But loneliness began settling like dust on his furniture. His salary increased, but his evenings felt emptier. He could afford more things now: a better phone, branded clothes, weekend outings with colleagues. But all of it felt strangely hollow, like decorating a room with no one to enter it.

One winter morning, as fog wrapped Kathmandu in a quiet blanket, Arjun received a message from an old friend. Mira was getting married. A simple ceremony in Pokhara. No drama, no heartbreak, just acceptance.

He stared at the screen for a long time.

That evening, instead of taking a taxi home, he walked aimlessly—through Baneshwor, past street vendors selling roasted peanuts, past couples holding hands under the glow of streetlights, past children laughing in narrow roads where space was tight but joy was wide. The city looked the same, yet he felt separated from it, like someone watching life through a glass window.

When he reached New Road, he stopped near a small bookshop. Mira used to love this place. She once told him that people who read understand relationships better, because stories teach patience—something he never learned.

The shopkeeper asked, “Ke khojna bhayo?”
Arjun hesitated. “Thaha chaina…shayad kehi yaad haru.”

He browsed through books he would never read. His hands stopped at a poetry collection she once quoted from. He flipped through its pages, and a line struck him like a quiet truth:
“Some losses come not from misunderstanding, but from misplaced priorities.”

He closed the book.

Snow-cold air brushed against him as he walked outside. The city was fully alive now—cars honking, tea stalls steaming, the smell of incense from nearby temples mixing with dust. Kathmandu was imperfect but alive, chaotic but warm. And he realized something painful yet necessary:
He had not lost Mira to money.
He had lost her to the life he chose in pursuit of money.

The next day, he took leave from work—his first in years. He sat by the window of his apartment, watching the city move as if it had no time for reflection. He thought about life, choices, and what people value when they are young versus what they regret when they are older.

In Kathmandu, everyone seemed to be chasing money to improve life. But in the chase, many—like him—were losing the very relationships that made life meaningful.

That evening, he visited his parents in Bhaktapur. They were surprised to see him early. His mother cooked his favorite daal-bhat. His father talked about simple things—weather, electricity cuts, a neighbor’s new dog. The conversation felt strangely peaceful. He had forgotten this kind of warmth.

Later that night, as he walked through the quiet alleys lit by soft yellow bulbs, he realized something profound:
Life is not made of grand achievements but of small moments shared with people who matter.

Money helps life.
Relationships give life meaning.
Without balance, both break.

He knew he couldn't rewind his story with Mira. But he also knew he wouldn’t let the same emptiness shape the rest of his life. The city would continue demanding, pushing, pulling. But he could choose differently.

Kathmandu was still noisy, still restless, still expensive—but for the first time, Arjun understood that the city wasn’t the enemy.

The real battle was inside him—
between earning a living
and living a life.

And this time, he chose life.