Forty years ago, the open space in Tinkune was planned to be a Panchayat Memorial Park, a resting space for travellers before they boarded the flight out of the Tribhuvan International Airport. Ten years ago, the Tinkune triangle sprouted a lake and a mound in the middle with Buddhist prayer flags to appease the SAARC summiteers. The architect behind the 2003 transformation, Renchin Yonjan, had grander plans of turning the stretch into a symbol for the womb, with a lake in the middle, reminiscent of the times when the Valley was filled with water.

The then mayor of Kathmandu, Keshav Sthapit, agreed with Yonjan that the city should pay homage to Manjushree-era Kathmandu, but he did not want a lake. Sthapit wanted to erect a humongous statue (50-feet high) of Manjushree, the mythical demigod that drained the water out of the Valley and made it liveable. Flanking the statue would have been shopping malls, the epitome of ‘modern’ Kathmandu that Manjushree spawned.

In 2014, the plans for the Tinkune junction are not all that different: a park with benches and stupas and temples are in the blueprint. And the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) office is reportedly determined to realise that dream within a year. Many wonder how the government will green the area when it is still embroiled in the decades-old battle of land acquisition and monetary compensation. The office says all of the land has almost been acquired, with just a few ropanis left to sort out. But landowners rubbish that claim, saying only 13 out of around 50 ropanis have been sold to the government.

While this legal procedural battle continues and officials and landscape artists dream of a park most representative of Kathmandu and its identity, dust literally gathers on the space, settling over everything that comes to rest on the land—liquor bottles, cow and human dung, uncovered manholes, sleeping dogs, momo and noodle carts, parked vehicles and other paraphernalia of idleness. Except, every day, for the past dozen years, blowing that fine dust almost as high as the once-planned statue of Manjushree are driving students and their trainers from over 40 driving institutes, some from as far away as Chabahil.

Dipak Neupane, the president of the Ganatantrik Driving Organisation representing the driving institutes, says the lessons will continue until the government resolves the land dispute and starts planting trees for the proposed park. Neupane has been in the business for the last 17 years, 11 of which were spent on the Tinkune ground. He did not stop teaching people to drive even when the government “staged the gumba drama”, as he puts it, during the SAARC Summit or when it “dumped” on the ground the construction material to be used for the Tinkune-Suryabinayak highway.

There is an obvious reason that driving schools like Neupane’s would want to use the land. Rather than getting a land on lease for training purposes, it is cheaper to use the ‘public’ land, around which have mushroomed many driving institutes today. It is also illegal, and Neupane and his associates are well aware of that. Since last Tihar, the KMC office has banned driving lessons in the area except for two hours in the mornings. Every week, it sends police over to monitor the activities on the premise. But before the metropolitan police can catch the instructors, they drive away. “We’re like the vendors on footpaths scurrying off with their bundles at the sight of the KMC police. The difference is that we are faster because we’ve got vehicles,” says Dipendra Regmi, a former president of the driving organisation.

This cat-and-mouse game is, of course, not pleasing to anyone. “We respect the government’s decision,” says Regmi. “If it wants a park, it will get a park. We will find someplace else. A moustache won’t stop us from feeding ourselves. But since the government has been dillydallying for years with its park plans and since it has no interest in entering into a business partnership with us, the game continues. Where else can we to find such an open, central space in this city?”

After the KMC clamped the ban on driving lessons in Tinkune, Regmi and Neupane led a delegation to the Department of Transport in Minbhawan to see if the government was willing to rent out the land to the institutes instead. The organisation offered Rs 100,000 in monthly rent. It also offered to maintain the ground, including settling the dust down with water. The proposal was instantly refused on  grounds that public land cannot get parcelled and leased out like that. “Fine, we understand that the government has to seek tender proposals first. If it’s not going to have a concrete plan for a park, it should do that. But you know what the under-secretary at the transport department did? He tore my business card to shreds. He thought I had left, but I saw it,” says Regmi.

Along with the proposal for a lease, the driving tutors had gone to the Department of Transport with a list of demands, one of which included the demarcation of practice routes for drivers on the main streets. The tutors reckon it would be a lot easier for them if the government did so. Since the meeting did not give them a piece of the highway, the tutors decided to continue doing business on the Tinkune plot. As they see it, drivers practising on the disputed land cannot trigger a landslide, reducing the Tinkune triangle to mere memory. Nor are they erecting anything permanent there. When and if the KMC office decides on a park plan and is ready to start working towards that end, the businessmen say they are willing to leave. In fact, they too feel that the barren land needs some vegetation and beauty. “It’s unseemly, after all, to have a garbage dump in an unused piece of land right next to the international airport,” says Regmi.