Tihar, Toke and Sugar

During Tihar my friend Subash was a hero. If I am not wrong, we often call a man a hero who could accomplish any task that is almost impossible for the commoners. Quite precisely, Subash had done a great job that was not possible for his neighbours during Tihar.

 

Could you imagine what he might have accomplished? I hope you are well aware of the fact that sugar was the most precious and rare species in the market of Kathmandu during Tihar. At such a critical hour, Subash surprised all of the neighbours by bringing 50 Kg of sugar from the Salt Trading Limited where people queued in a long line and hardly got 5kg of sugar? Subash also distributed extra sugar to his neighbours without making any profit. He was indeed a hero.

 

Most of the people who wandered all around the city in search of sugar had returned empty handed at the end of the day. When they saw no hope till the eve of Tihar, they had decided to celebrate their sugarless Tihar –that hardly exists. Very few of my localities had discovered that Salt Trading is distributing sugar. But when they hurried there with their big sacks, they saw a one-kilometer long line of already-informed ants. So the ants who came late returned with a bitter story of sugar to tell their children at home. And this sugar-crisis turned into a national crisis. The children started crying. Rumour spread all over the country. And the news hit the headlines. The media started putting pressure at the government. The leading newspapers of the country published strong editorials and articles under the titles "Sugar turns bitter", "Sugar Crisis", "Lessons from Sugar Crisis" and so on. The writers asserted confidently that "the government is largely to blame for the mess that it has put the consumers into."

 

In this context, no one would disagree to call Subash a hero who helped his neighbours to successfully celebrate Tihar festival. But there is something hidden in his heroism. In his secret revelation, he told us that his miraculous adventure of bringing 50 kg sugar at a time of shortage was made possible by the Toke of the minister. He refused to tell who the powerful man was. By the power of the Toke, Subash was exempt from keeping himself in the one-kilometer long queue and was immediately served with 50kg sugar. His neighbours, at the end of Tihar, were making jokes that "now in Nepal we need Tokes even to buy sugar from the market, let alone the jobs".

 

Though we creaked sweet jocks, I think to most of the ants who lined up in the dealer and could not get sugar the Tihar was utterly bitter. Now, when I look back at Tihar in solace, I feel our family is privileged. At least we are the neighbours of a family, one of whose members have access to the high level 'Tokes' and powers and we don't have to celebrate sugar-less Tihar whatever crisis there would be.

 

[Published under the authorship of Sushil Pokhrel in The Kathmandu Post] 

KR Sigdel article series 2003-2004