Sugar Dad

Krishna Sharma

Writer Krishna Sharma

About an hour after Kisan Upadhyaya’s interview with American Conversations went on air last Sunday on Channel 30 and on social media, I received two calls from New York and California with a request to help connect with Kisan, the guest of the TV talk show. They wanted to invite him for motivational speech for their clients and employees respectively.

While passing the information, Kisan informed me that he was also receiving scores of phone calls and comments in his Facebook page that said that they were in tears when they watched him crying on the show. He also informed me that the sale of his lost and found memoir "The Last Orange" in Amazon was going up.

I did not know men crying in public still makes a buzz in social news media.

Amrita Lamsal, like many others, shared the interview link on her Facebook wall and wrote “Like all that glitter can’t be diamond, all those who give birth, can’t be mothers …”

The reference was: Kisan being betrayed twice by his own mother. Betrayal not just once when he was four year old but also the second time when he discovered her after 42 years. "I was darn wrong to think that mothers are mothers. My mother could not be my mother in a truer sense. How can a mother who has found her son after 42 years, complain that he was not bringing anything for her from the USA? The unrequited love I had for her was nothing for her. She wanted me as her sugar dad. Oh, God!"

The point I am trying to make here is why people cry when they see others cry. The easiest answer could be they find themselves in the crying person's shoes and thus express themselves emotionally in a similar way.

I don’t know for sure whether after-a-not-so-happy-reunion with his mother, Kisan’s journey of love in life has halted or not but he is not the only person who feels like a lone wolf in the kingdom of love. Those who cried while he cried, including myself, are also deceived by some of those they loved. Otherwise, tear is not something readily available to roll down so easily from one's eyes.

Kisan’s story reminded me of an unwritten saga of my cousin brother whose beautiful life withered before my own eyes some two decades ago. I feel sorry that I could not be of any mediation. I was struggling myself. All I did for him many a times was to let a few drops of tears fall before I would even know that I was crying when he was crying.

This cousin brother of mine was a very smart kid in his school and early college life in Lumbini. During early nineties of the last century when Nepal had just begun to open up before the rest of the world, he was selected from Lumbini zone for a debate competition in Kathmandu. He also made it to the final round to represent SAARC youths from Nepal to Colombo, Sri Lanka at the sideline of the 6th SAARC Summit in 1991.

It is true that his parents worked hard to bring food to the table for six people in the family. But they were not as poor to ask him to earn for himself when his college life began. College tuition was way cheaper than the school fee of that time.

All of a sudden, he felt left out. He felt discarded. He felt unloved. He got frustrated. He started spending more time outside with people who had failed in life and had picked up bad habits. His time with the family was lessening. Both the sides failed to bridge the relationship that was falling apart. They nursed their own vain egos.

Binge drinking with friends, gambling and watching Bollywood movies in cinema halls became rituals of his daily life. Then somehow he managed to fly to South Korea under work visa. His job there was to work hard, save money and send home. Every time he called, his mother, brother and sisters would put pressure on him to send some more money.

They would be happy if I sent them money. If I delayed sending money when I would be sick or had to buy something for myself they would start talking to everyone. His dad, however, was an exception. He always wanted him to succeed and be a good person. He never expected money from his son.

“They never asked me how I was faring; whether I was sick or not. They never said they missed me during festivals. I would call them the day before Dasain and all I would hear back would be how they had prepared for the Day, what they had bought for the festival and why they needed more money. I had become a sugar dad for them. Just a sugar dad… Nothing more. Nothing less,” I could hear him sob when he called me one of those days and expressed the sorry story of the gulf of ever widening family ties, breaking family values and churning social mores.

This story does not necessarily hold true to many families with similar situations. Families love their kids and they really miss them when they are away from home in connection to their pursuit of higher education or employment opportunities.

But there are families that treat their kids in the gulf and other nations as the money making machines -- sugar dads or sugar moms. These young men and women are left to dry without love. And those who could not be sugar dads or sugar moms are forgotten completely. Their calls are not even answered.

We hear no conversations on love or the past that was full of love and family and social values when family members talk these days. All families talk today in Nepal’s households is whose son is in which country and who sends more money and who has built big and beautiful houses and whose wife dons herself with the most jewelry in her body and whose husband or son or brother rides on the most expensive car.

It’s no secret there are many Kisans in the streets of Kathmandu or other metropolis areas struggling hard to survive. But the well-kept secret is there are more unloved Kisans within the families across the nation.

Many may discard this story as an emotional outburst based on one single story of a person or a family. But there is no guarantee it will not replicate into another family's saga in their vain pursuit of riches.

Before we lose family values in the name of rooting out poverty and gaining material ownership, lets think more closely as to how this contributes to family's and country’s overall emotional health.

I am sure, answers are not easy. But they are certainly not unachievable.

Let's talk about love. Let's talk about our childhood that were filled with love. We don't have to lose anything by talking about that. We can talk about money before we end our conversations. But first, let's say that we care for each other.

(The link for Kisan Upadhyaya’s interview with American Conversations is -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a0OnYURXVc&feature=youtu.be )