This is going to be a saga of two teens from Palpa that came to Kathmandu in the early 1970s in search of better opportunities. This is going to be a story of Kathmandu city as it evolved over the decades from a sleepy town into a bustling metropolis. This is also going to be a narrative of how the place and the person interacted with, and changed, each other. This is homage to the memory of Shyam Sunder Lal Kakshapati, 70, who passed away last week in Bangkok. He was the elder sibling of a friend of mine of over four decades. Friends of Gopal Sunder Lal Kakshapati usually discontinued their banter whenever Shyam Dai arrived, but his presence was unmistakable even when he was not around.

Memories are said to be notorious liars. With the passage of time, the eyes of the mind begin to see things in a completely different light. The break in the continuity of events is filled with wistful details. During bouts of melancholia, the intensity of sadness seems darker than it actually was when endured. Nostalgia, on the other hand, makes recollection brighter than lived experiences. Remembrance, however, frees the mind from the pressures of either being accurate or sounding detached. Remembrances are more about the emotions of the narrator than the profile of actors or the description of events. I recount this story without the help of any notes and without consulting Gopal for the authenticity of what I remember.

Success stories

When hippies had made Jhochhen a happening place in the early years of the sanguine 1970s, I remember seeing a fancy-looking grocery store at the trifurcation towards New Road, but I am not sure if it was a Kakshapati enterprise. What I know is that the Kakshapatis liked to call themselves both Palpalis and Jhochhen lads. The grocery stocked Coca Cola in glass bottles that were probably transported all the way from Raxaul through Tribhuvan Rajpath or airlifted from Patna for the cannabis-smoking Westerners that flocked to Freak Street.

It was with Sam's Grocery near Rani Pokhari that Shyam Dai tried to recreate the ambience of unhurried shopping for connoisseurs previously exposed to such stores elsewhere. In the staid 1960s, posh localities such as Cantonments and Civil Lines of Indian towns stocked tinned food from Calcutta, quality tea from Darjeeling, coffee beans from Coorg, condiments from Kerala and locally manufactured cookies for their discerning customers. Shyam Dai managed to attract the neo-elite of Kamal Pokhari, Gyaneshwor, Lazimpat and Naxal who came for their morning constitutional to the newly created Ratna Park across the road. They shopped at Sam's while the chauffeur or the attendant waited outside with their pedigreed dogs.

It used to be a different crowd during the day. The grocery had attractive candy jars and a soda fountain near the counter. While a glass of soda was definitely cheaper than a bottle of Cola, it used to be more expensive than the nimki and chiya combo available nearby at a Bhotahiti eatery. A few students of Padma Kanya in their starched orange dresses thronged the store for cookies, candies and Colas.

Like most serial entrepreneurs, Shyam Dai probably wanted to do something new and thus came the Café de Park—or just the Café to its regulars—which lured youngsters of the aspirational middle class into the café culture. The distinctive feature of the Café, its USP in the lingo of marketers, was the designed informality of the interiors. It had paintings on the walls and easy chairs to lounge on; and it played an eclectic selection of pop, jazz, heavy metal and country records from a quality music system in the background. My enduring memory of the Café is Gopal pretending to be older than he was and imperiously looking at chirpy guests as they munched French fries, tucked into steaming sizzlers and sipped endless cups of coffee. Whenever Shyam Dai arrived, waiters began to wipe surfaces that had just been cleaned.

Within a few years, it was time to move on, and Nanglo opened its doors on Durbar Marg. Unlike the Café, Nanglo was a pub first and then only a café. It appeared from the beginning that Shyam Dai was sure of Nanglo's success. If sandwiches and burgers had made the Café popular, it was the selection of pizza and varieties of momo that made Nanglo a hit. Who else would have thought of spinach momo on the menu but the restaurateur brothers with a vegetarian mother? The Chinese Room and the Cake Shop followed in quick succession, each catering to a different set of patrons. Gopal presided over the beer drinkers at the Roof Top and Rani Gurung Kakshapati supervised the cake mix with elbow-length gloves. Shyam Dai spent more time with architects and builders of his cottage in what was then back of beyond near Mohan Chautara off the Ring Road.

Bigger successes followed as the Nanglo Bakery upended the bread market dominated till then by Krishna, Himal and Panna paurotis. The chain of Bakery Cafés recreated the ambiance of Café De Park on a bigger and brighter scale, and created history by hiring waiters with impaired hearing. Riverside Springs Resort was one of a kind for quite a while. In the enigmatic 1980s, students of business schools had been doing case studies on Nanglo. Shyam Dai became a rock star of sorts for management trainees by the end of the euphoric 1990s.

False starts

Not many customers remember it anymore, but Nanglo Bazaar at Putali Sadak was ahead of its time in stocking diapers, slings and strollers for young patrons of the Café that had become working parents. It folded up due to a misunderstanding between the successful tenants and their envious landlords. With its landline phones and walkie-talkies, the Yellow Cab had preceded experiments like Sarathi and Taximandu by a quarter of a century, but it was an idea whose time hadn't yet come in Nepal. When he realised that urban transport wasn't his forte, Shyam Dai lost no time and exited as fast as he had entered the field.

Shyam Dai had seen the potential of Nagarkot early on and invested in some property for developing it into a resort. Successful entrepreneurs invariably breed jealous and conniving competitors. When the Nepal Army claimed that it required the whole of the hillside for training purposes, he recognised his limitations and quietly withdrew into his existing businesses. After the noughties, the frequency of my visits to Nanglo diminished, and soon, my adda shifted to the Bakery Café at Teku. I met Shyam Dai even less, but his smile remained as warm, sometimes followed by a mocking remark—"Don't call me Dai, I look younger"—which he indeed did with his mane dyed jet black.

It is impossible to write an obituary of a person who touched several people's lives without them realising it, lived life the way he liked, unafraid of controversies, and then left leisurely so that those he loved would learn to cope with their loss. Remain strong, Rani Bhauju, and soldier on, Gopal—Shyam Dai lives in the collective memories of an entire generation.