Kathmandu Summary Class 9 English

Summary of Kathmandu

Kathmandu summary will help students learn about the story written by Vikram Seth, which is an excerpt from his book ‘Heaven Lake’. This story tells us about the author’s visit to the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu. We see that he was coming from China to visit India via hitchhiking. In this hitchhiking, he crosses Tibet and Nepal. Thus, this story gives us an account of his experience in Kathmandu. This travelogue gives an insight on his trip to the city and what he feels about it. On his trip to Kathmandu, Vikram visits the two most popular temples of the city. One is the Pashupatinath temple and the other is Baudhnath Stupa. He notices the difference between the two temples and the atmosphere surrounding them. Thus, through Kathmandu summary, we travel to the city without actually going there, through Vikram’s magical words.

 Kathmandu Summary in English

Vikram Seth describes his visit to the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu through this excerpt from his book ‘Heaven Lake’. During his trip, he visits two temples where notice stark differences between them. One temple was a pilgrimage for Hindus, the Pashupatinath temple.

After that, there was the Baudhnath temple which is for the Buddhists. He notices that they restricted the entry at the Pashupatinath temple to only Hindus. Thus, there was quite a chaos amongst the tourists, priests and the pilgrims. To top it all, people were polluting the River Bagmati by washing clothes in it, bathing in it and throwing away dry flowers in it.

After that, he went to Baudhnath temple. He saw that the scenario here was completely different from what he saw at the Pashupatinath temple. This Buddhist temple had a huge dome which is white in colour. The place was very calm and serene. Outside the temple, there was a Tibetan market and people were selling bags, clothes, ornaments and more.

He notices the numerous things Kathmandu offers from religious places to many tourist destinations. Moreover, it also has various shops of antiques, cameras, cosmetics, chocolates and more. Nonetheless, it is also a very noisy city from the car horns to the music and vendors. He enjoyed having a marzipan bar, corn, coca-cola in the city. After that, he also read love stories, comics and Reader’s Digest books.

On returning to Delhi, he thought of taking an adventurous route which comprises of a bus or train journey and then a boat ride, but he dropped the idea for that would have been too tiring. Thus, he booked a flight back. He saw an interesting flute seller outside his hotel. He had a pole with a lot of flutes on it and seemed like a porcupine body.

The flute seller kept playing his flutes and also did so in different tunes. But, what set him apart from the other flute sellers was that he played the flute thoughtfully. He did not scream to attract customers, he played it. This attracted the author and he wondered that flute is so common all over. Then, he compares it to the human voice and says how he is noticing even the little things now.

Read Summaries of Other Chapters here – 

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• The Sound of Music Summary
• The Little Girl Summary
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• The Snake and The Mirror Summary
• My Childhood Summary
• Packing Summary
• Reach for the Top Summary
• The Bond of Love Summary
• If I Were You Summary

Conclusion of Kathmandu

To sum up, Kathmandu’s summary, we learn that we must all try and maintain the purity and serenity of the holy places and practice thoughtful actions.