As the cold weather approaches, many traveling merchants arrive in the villages carrying warm clothes. They carry blankets, sweaters, and other clothes and do itinerant business. Many of those who do this business come from the hilly districts of the Far West and Karnali Province.

Not only in Nepal, they are also found doing business in the border Indian markets. Similarly, Dhanlal Neupane, 63, of Thakalipur, Lamki Chuha Municipality-3, Kailali, was found doing nomadic business in the Tanakpur and Banbasa areas of Champawat district of Uttarakhand, India, during the winter. He migrated to Lamki from Kalikot and started doing nomadic business in the Tanakpur area via Kalikot.

‘I have been doing business by wandering around Tanakpur, Khatima and Banbasa for the past fifteen years,’ Neupane said, ‘When winter sets in, we travel to villages carrying clothes, and when it gets warm, we return home.’ He has rented a room in Tanakpur. He stays there at night. He eats in the morning and walks around carrying clothes, returning to his room only in the evening.

The clothes he sells in this way are brought from the waterways of India. Some also order from the Himalayan region of Nepal. ‘Earlier, radi, pakhi and chutuka were sold a lot, but now no one knows about those fabrics,’ said Neupane, ‘Even if the fabric made from sheep wool is expensive, the custom of using it has started to disappear.’

He reaches Tanakpur after the start of Mangsir and returns home towards the end of Falgun. He says that by selling by walking around like this, he saves up to 1.5-2 lakhs in a season. He has met the education expenses of his four sons through this business. Now, 2 sons are in Kathmandu. One has reached Japan. ‘I do business by walking around in the winter, and when it gets hot, I stay at home during the monsoon,’ he said.

38-year-old Waldev Budha of Swamikartik Khapar Rural Municipality-2 Sappata in Bajura has also been doing itinerant business in the Tanakpur area for the past five years. Like Neupane, he also sells warm clothes from the river.

‘There is no hope of finding employment in his homeland, I had to come to India to do anything myself,’ said the old man, ‘We do business throughout the winter, and when the summer comes, I return home and do household chores.’ He says that it is not easy to do business all day long with a load of clothes on my back. He said that it is very tiring to reach the room in the evening. He says that he walks near and goes to the car if he has to go far.

‘Business is not always the same, some days it is good, some days there is not even a rupee of business,’ said the old man, ‘Online business has also put the profession of itinerant businessmen like us in danger.’ According to him, online business has reduced the price of clothes so much that he is not even getting the price of the expensive clothes he brings.