THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

money paid agents in Kathmandu who arranged work permits (usually for
carpentry or construction work), flight tickets, visas and the like.
The first and most successful migrants had gone under the auspices of
the sub-minister for industry, a Gurung from Madi Mulkharka, which had
fairly well guaranteed them a safe passage. Unknown agents could be
quite unscrupulous, however, A trick which was becoming known was for
them to arrange for a batch of men from one community to go to 'Arab'
successfully, but then to collect up the money of a second group of
would-be migrants in Kathmandu and abscond to Bombay with the proceeds.
This had happened to one unfortunate man from Tamaphok who was left
owing people a total of nearly 50,000 NRs, and worked in the chaklaT
factory (mentioned above) in Kathmandu while trying to sort out the
mess, There were enough other success stories, however, that people
were generally convinced that the risks involved were worth it. "Going
to Arab? We think about it all the time. We can't stop thinking about
i t" , one young man to 1 d me at Dasa i - 1990.
"I wanted to see Saudi Arabia, but now I have seen enough" wrote one
man working as a carpenter in the country on a three-year contract,
after having been there one year. The situations people found
themselves in were discussed around the kitchen fires daily. A man back
from Bahrain scratched a map on the floor of our family's kitchen
showing how the country was an island connected to the Arabian peninsula
by a bridge. Some people were crj tical of these new labour
destinations. "There is no pension from three years in 'Arab'",
commented the pradhan DB-c who had the benefit of a regular pension from
his service in the British Gurkhas in Malaya, Borneo and Hong Kong. The
death of one Yakha migrant worker in mysterious circumstances in Saudi