<aside>
**Circles of Connection**
“सम्हालेर राख , संगालेर राख” -अम्बर गुरुङ
How do we revive a city? When you enter Tokha, the sweet AIR of Chaku, an essential winter ingredient of the Newari community, is sure to make its way to you. Chaku, paired with ghee, or contained in soft rice dough, or rolled with toasted sesame, ignites the FIRE within us. Chaku is made from sugarcane, and if you wonder why there are so many chaku factories in its SPACE, it is because Tokha, also known as Tu:khya, was once covered with thick sugarcane (tu:) in most of its fields (khya). Irrigated by two big WATER forces flowing from Tarakeshwor and Budhanilkantha, the five gates of Tokha once took its people to the playground, the workplace, and the life force of the agrarian community, but now, there is no sugarcane to spot and little agriculture left, and so you wonder if the EARTH even remembers the sweetness it once held?
Dating back 1500 years, Tokha—once known as Laxmipuri and Jaipuri—was a self-sufficient, sustainable city. This ancient Newari town treasures the heritage of the Lichhavi and Malla dynasties, celebrates the folklore and festivals that date back centuries, and also features modern wall art, sustained by guthis and, more recently, youth clubs dedicated to preserving its identity.
Positioned along the trade route between Kathmandu and Tibet, Tokha once thrived on both agriculture and trade. Yet in recent decades, modernization has disrupted this ancient place: black-topped roads have dried the Tukucha irrigation systems, concrete houses have replaced self-sustaining fields, and policies have reduced heritage to merely an exterior shell, trapping the soul that once livened it.
But an identity, a memory, a pride cannot be easily crushed. Activists, youths, and the elderly come together to rebuild the heritage with wood and bricks, not concrete and tiles. They fight to preserve the soil that sustains the Pukhus and the Hitis. They promise to gather us every Saturday for their food festival to remind the world of what they were — the historic producers of the winter delicacy, Chaku.
As we walk through तु:ख्य, a city that seeks to keep its name for its ancestors and its children, let us breathe in to feel — what still keeps this place alive?
</aside>
Chronicles by @asthaha, Curated by @srichchha, Compiled with ChatGPT5
Further details will be added after the event on 25th January 2026.