At a time when Daura Suruwal, the national dress of the country is slowly becoming limited to ministers and high-level government officers, Khem Raj Rizal, an English teacher at the Nabodaya English Secondary School in Topgachi-3 of Jhapa district has decided to wear only Daura Suruwal throughout his life.

Rizal has been wearing the national attire continuously after he received a set of the national dress from prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba a few months ago.

Wearing the Daura Suruwal that symbolises Nepal’s tradition and culture, this 20-year-old teaches modern western education at an English medium school full of students dressed in pant, shirt and tie.

Where do you live? What’s your father’s name? - are the questions he has to answer frequently while on his way to the school dressed in the national attire comprising of Daura Suruwal, Istakot and Dhakako Topi.

Seeing their teacher in an attire that they hardly get to see people wearing, the students of the school talk to themselves, 'Why does Khem sir come to school dressed like a old man?'

“I decided to wear the national dress in order to bring to light the traditional Nepali culture that the people have been forgetting in the name of modernisation”, is Khem’s reply to those who query about his dress. He also retells how his friends and even colleagues initially tried to discourage him by disregarding him.

“I will exercise modernity in my own traditional way”, says Khem adding that, “To speak English you don’t necessarily have to wear shirt and tie, exchange kisses or toss up whisky glasses'.

He also proudly recalls how prime minister Deuba patted on his back saying, “The country is presently in need of people like you”. I wrote a letter to the prime minister conveying to him my determination to wear the national dress throughout my life and my wish to initiate the life-long determination by receiving the Daura Suruwal from him.

But I did receive any reply so I went to his Baluwatar residence in Kathmandu where I fulfilled my wish, adds Khem.

Khem, however, agrees that wearing the national dress will not make a person patriotic or nationalist; one has to have that feeling from deep within the heart.