I Have no Complaints since My Earning is Sufficient to Run My Family......

"The people that stay here are from our village. If the work is completed with dedication and honesty the rewards are fruitful"- he says.

Where don't we lurk in search of a story? We do it even when the stories are in front of us, albeit scattered but they are there.  Maybe we embark on this treacherous search not knowing that they are there waiting for us.  Or even more likely, we make a voluntary choice of not seeing them. This is one such story, forgotten by time, of Krishna Mijhar.  Even I unknowingly received the services of Krishna Dai for twelve years.

With darkness slowly ending its shift, Krishna Dai surrounds himself with four or five large bags with a brush, polish, some old shoes, colorful shoelaces, and soles on a corner of Lagankhel Bus stop.

As always, I am at Krishna dai's seeking his services. Unlike other visits, today I have additional work for him to sew my bag's stripe. I ask, How is your son's study? And with this just like any other day, our conversation begins. He answers, "It is going well, thankfully even in the hard times of lockdown, we didn’t have to send him any money. On the contrary, he sent us some money to repay his loan." The fact that his eldest son was in Australia to pursue his master's degree was known to this writer. 

Krishna Dai had begun this job in 2050 after incurring a loan of ten thousand rupees on a domestic matter. To walk from Daphakhel to Lakhankhel early in the morning at 4 and return the same route was his daily routine. Polishing and repairing old shoes was his pledge, service, and job.

I continue my line of questioning, "Are you satisfied with your work Dai?"  He replies, 'I am satisfied and why shouldn't I be? I taught my eldest son till 12 and after that, he read by himself without my support onward to grade 16. Then I sent him to Australia. The youngest one also studied till 12 with my support. After that, I haven’t have had to spend a penny on him. Although I have some loans, whatever I have achieved is due to this work.

I ask him again,  "During the day there are many people here but why do you arrive here early in the morning when no one is here?"  "The people that stay here are from our village. If the work is completed with dedication and honesty the rewards are fruitful", he answers. Adding on to that, he says, "People from all walks of life come here.  You can see the stark difference among the people who visit me. You will find the rich and powerful and you will also find common people like us. Some even blatantly challenge, to do whatever I can take them where ever I can but they won’t pay for my work. Whatever happens, we must not be dishonest. Hard work is enough to survive."

When I asked him what people say upon hearing that he sent his son to Australia by sewing shoes on the roadside, Krishna dai responds that some people express happiness while some become jealous. Krishna Dai then adds that people should never be jealous. In between our conversations, he points towards the internal revenue office situated in front of us and recalls the hardship he faced when applying for PAN.  Dai in all his modesty didn't know the meaning of PAN and was referring to it as a group of numbers or something else like that. He laments about his illiteracy.

During the corona pandemic, he remembers the dire time when didn’t have a single rupee with him. While we were speaking a lady comes with a thermos full of tea and serves it in a glass for him. Krishna Dai offers me the tea too and upon my rejection starts sipping it by himself. Continuing our conversation he points out that he has no complaints with the world since his earnings suffice in taking care of his family.  I then, ask his permission to write his story since it could be an inspiration to many. With his face oozing with happiness, he grants me his permission. Now that I had his approval, I continued towards my destination after paying for his services.