SIKKA BABA-POKHARA,NEPAL

 Arpit Gurung 

 30th March

W

andering around the street of Hemja with his unusually, bizarre funny kind of clothes on,  Ram Bahadur Pariyar has a different story unlike ours. He prefers to be called as Sikka Baba. One can see him walking around Tibetan Camp of Hemja with his weird looking dress full of coins, similar looking hat, with his ears pierced like grandmothers’, two flags of Nepal on each side on his arm, some metal bangles, big swag chain on his neck and lastly an old camera hanging around his neck. 

The inspiration behind this was, he had this strange dream one day, where he was wearing clothes with lots of coins sticking onto it. Then he started having the same dream again and again. So, he decided to live his life differently. During his 44 years of lifetime, he spent half of his age travelling all around 68 districts of Nepal. He started collecting coins and started sticking them on his clothes. He first started with his cap, then on his coat and later on his whole clothes. He claims that he has in total of 20 set of such clothes and they were all designed and sewed by himself. All the time, he is seen wearing his uniquely designed costume and he says he feel comfortable on them unlike other colthes. His clothes contain coins of 180 countries so far, mostly from Nepal. He has even got ancient coins of Nepal which we can see only in the museum. 

His further plans are to visit the remaining districts in Bagmati and Karnali. He says that most of his expenses are provided by the local V.D.C. he visits. Because of his clothes and his life stories he tells to people, he doesn't have to worry about his rent and food I guess.

Besides his coin collecting part, he stated that he is deeply concerned about World Peace & Development. And apart from his different life from us, his view on the Nepalese government is similar to ours, not a happy one.