Chocolates then and now

FROM ISSUE # 135 (March 2007) | IN THIS ISSUE
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Celebrating Dasain and Tihar in Nepal after a long time was good. Now I am back in Africa to continue my journey around the world.  The concluding days of my trip to Nepal was dotted with farewell dinners hosted by Education Sansar and my family members.
 
I was taking an evening flight of Qatar Airways to Qatar from where I would be traveling to Africa to continue my journey. Delayed by twenty minutes the flight was almost packed with fellow Nepalis flying out for better career opportunities to the Middle East. After a smooth takeoff, the 'fasten your seat belt' sign went off, this was followed by a pretty airhostess approaching us with a tray of chocolates. Sitting besides me was a young Nepali bhai, who seemed to have mistaken the chocolates for popcorn. He grabbed a fistful to the surprise of the airhostess. May be she wasn't use to such behavior. I, on the other hand, no longer had a taste for the sweets.

But it wasn't always like that. One of my school memories is that of going to celebrate the royal couple's birthday in the district capital. All the students were told to be dressed neatly and be present at the celebration program. After the jubilations we were returning home and had no money to buy chocolates or toffee. So to kill time and make the journey back home easy, my friend and I started to collect chocolate wrappers from the street. By the time we got home we had plenty and we used them as money in our game of marbles.

But the children in many remote villages these days no longer get to enjoy such sweets, as the commence of democracy in 1990 made such celebrations optional.

Moving away from the fond memories I turned my attention to my flight partner. "Where are you from," I asked him. He hailed from the far East and was flying off to Middle East on a loan. First time in a plane, my friend here had never been to Kathmandu. All excited about his new job as a security guard in Qatar, he flaunted his two years contract of safe guarding someone else's property. "I am going to be earning Rs  15000 per month approximately," he boasted. As he chewed on his chocolate and told me about his future life, the stewardess approached asking us about our preferred drinks.

I asked for a glass of wine and he drank beer, solely because he didn't know what wine tasted like. "He will know later," I thought to myself. Drinks were followed by dinner which was scrumptious. Since he didn't speak any English, he asked me to ask the flight attendant for another dinner set for him. And I did.

Uhi Saikale.