Homage to Nepal industrialist late TR Dugar

N. P. Upadhyaya, Biratnagar

Biratnagar then was not that much what could be taken as a town.

It was a small landmass stretched over some four kilometers-North to South. This is what I recall.

In the extreme south, we have the Indian border town, Jogbani.

My family, in one way or the other, was detached from the town as we lived in a nearby BAKHRI village, some three kilometers west of the town itself. We had no roads then which could have linked the village with the town itself. A different story could be penned on how we the three brothers used to go to the school every day save the holidays.

So this way, I was a simple villager (I take myself still that way though I have spent some good four decades in Kathmandu city) who has had to walk some five kilometers to go to the school, Adarsha Bidyalaya.

The entire town began from today’s Bazar Adda Chowk to Sani Haat. Small buildings were there all along but with some large gaps.

In the midst of this N-S stretch, the Dugars had their private house. It still remains there, I suppose. Now it is not that. Biratnagar has expanded both length and breadth wise. It is just a concrete jungle everywhere. The original Biratnagar remains only in memory.

I faintly now recall that one gentleman had come to see my father one day when I myself should have been below ten years for some silage for his home grown Cows and other cattle.

This he used to get each year from our land.

Later my father, now late, told us that he was an emerging Biratnagar industrialist, Tola Ram Dugar. Though late Dugar was some years junior to my father yet they were good friends. After all, Biratnagar had limited number of families.

Thus I begun to know this businessman who, I was told, entered into the business sector when he was eleven years of tender age.

Sometime later, in the class room some of my friends told me that the junior Dugar in our own class was senior Dugar’s own younger brother.

Thus Moti Lal Dugar was my friend since then. This childhood friendship still continues. We feel that we belong to the same family. It is thus natural that I too should feel the loss of senior Dugar-Tola Ram.

Tola Ram Dugar was a man of immense courage. He initiated several industries in this country but each time he preferred to open those industrial or say business enterprises which benefitted the most under developed and neglected part of Nepal where poverty was rampant. His businesses must have immensely benefitted the poor strata of the western region.

Starting from a humble beginning, late Tola Ram developed his business to greater heights and thus made the family of the Dugars a big business house.

Scaling heights one after the other.

Dugar brothers stand tall among the Nepali big business houses. The Dugars are revered among the community of the Nepali Marwaris.

Beginning at eleven years, he remained active even when he was about to count his last breath at eighty one.

He died of heart attack in his Naxal based private residence, Saturday morning.

Since my attachment to this family of the Dugars begins right from my own childhood days and since I knew this senior Dugar from those very good old days and thus my affection and affiliation both remain with the bereaved family even as of today.

My heart goes to the Dugar family which lost its elder patron.

I know that Tola Ram’s son, Mal Chand Dugar, is a capable man having the knack of running business and thus I hope that Mal Chand will take over the charge of what his father shouldered till the other day. Moti Lal will definitely assist his nephew.

I express my deep condolence along with the family of the Biratnagar ARYALS on this sad occasion.

To me, Tola Ram was just a pioneer. A soft spoken, modest and a man of high integrity he definitely was.

May his departed soul rest in peace. I pray the Almighty to offer the needed courage to the family members of the Dugars to bear this irreparable loss.

Lord Krishna says, “The moment one takes birth, his or her death is certain…this is the absolute truth”.

Bear with this reality.

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