Saturday vibes are witnessing a change

Kathmandu, June 24:Saturdays have not felt like Saturdays for years to 43-year-old bank employee Rajesh Bhattarai. “The holiday-ness is gone,” he said, believing that the frenzy of the work days had caught up to the weekend.

Gita Acharya, a 39-year-old homemaker, also believes that the nature of Saturdays has changed. “It is not like how it used to be,” she said. “The peace and serenity are gone.”

Due to changes in people’s lifestyles and preferences, Nepal’s single-day weekend is no longer the slow and uneventful hebdomadal leave marked by tranquillity and predictable routines that it once was. “It seems to have become even more fast-paced than the weekdays,” said shopkeeper Sandeep Dhungana.

“You could ever really stay at home or go for walks on Saturdays because everything else was shut,” Dhungana, 40, remembered. “Stores, hotels, recreational spaces – everything!”

“People would stock up on supplies on Friday and enjoy themselves at home,” he added. 

Now though, businesses have to stay open on Saturdays because they get more customers on the weekend than on the weekdays, explained Prakash Tamang, owner of a fast-food restaurant. 

“Sometime around the turn of the century, our culture shifted,” he shared. “Saturdays went from being a day for rest and idle to one for fun.”

“We go to clubs and pubs, eat out or go shopping. So, commercial establishments cannot afford to stay closed on Saturdays,” Tamang said.

Saturday television has also lost its appeal, believed 30-year-old teacher Dharma Shrestha, partly due to the absence of good shows but mostly due to the changing of view patterns. 

"Saturday cartoons were a delight back when we were kids," he recounted. "There were many animated shows that imparted moral lessons. Those shows do not exist anymore," Shrestha said, sad that his son would not be able to watch classic shows like Moomin, Mina and others. 

In fact, children do not watch TV at all, he shared his observation. "Mobile is their primary medium of entertainment." 

This has also taken the charm off Saturday afternoon movies, Bhattarai said. Up until a generation ago, the movies Nepal Television showed at 2 pm on the last day of the week (he remembers the exact time too) was the only way people could watch Hindi movies. "They were not new blockbusters but they were treats that families would wait all week for."

"But now, with the rise of streaming, people can watch any movie they like anytime and anywhere," he said.