Re-envisioning history and heritage is a work in progress. For those of us who had chosen a less strife-ridden vocation, the work IS progress, fraught as it is everywhere with times past and times best left untold. Babar Mahal Revisited is space and time captured, constructed and captivatingly modernized.

We come to Kathmandu from various places of Nepal but never return (permanently) until there is very powerful reason.

Summoning all the courage I could muster, I walked towards Bricks again a few days after April 25. I felt like the world had changed forever just standing at the entrance. The Café stood, sparse and skeletal, as a surreal reminder that this was an inescapable part of the past, present and future of Nepal. My world had changed - some parts in the hinterlands were now shards of their former selves.