Our Papa left this world on 10 September 2025, a year ago. He died peacefully in Sunita Di’s (his oldest daughter) lap. We did not post an obituary anywhere because we were all too sad to remember it, and no one told us to do so. I am writing his obituary here.
Our late father, Shri Dharamnath Prasad, was born on the day of the Teej festival in 1953 in Tajpur Fulwariya, Bihar, to Shri Bhuneshwar Prasad and Smt. Singhasina Devi. As a teenager, he joined his father (our grandfather) in his trade of goods—grains and spices—in Rhenock, Sikkim. As a child, he loved playing football, and he used to go to school, play football, and spend most of his time with his best friend, Mr. Suren, who once held the position of DSP in Sikkim Police. He studied up to class 7 in the Government School of Rhenock. He was offered a position in the Sikkim Government by Mr. Suren, but his father discouraged him from taking that role, as he had a disregard for working for a boss, so he joined him in the trade full-time. At the age of 17, in 1971, he married our mother, Smt. Saraswati Devi. They lived in a rented place in Rhenock along with his brother’s family. Our eldest sister, Geeta Gupta, was born somewhere around 1980 and brought much luck to our family. Geeta was followed by Sunita Gupta and Mala Gupta.
He left Rhenock for Rongli sometime in the 1980s. He set up a very successful tea shop (chya dokan) that would serve the local people and travellers warm food. He was evicted from the rented establishment by the landlord, who wanted to start his own hotel there, and he moved to a different rental in the town of Rongli. There, he ran the chya dokan in a leaky wooden building beside a pigsty until it was rebuilt with concrete, after which the landlord did not allow him to run a chya dokan, so he ended up opening a ration shop. His brother’s family wasn’t well-to-do then, so he would go out of his way to help them. He helped his sister Nirmala Devi get her medical education, and he would send his father money regularly. Much of his income went into helping his family. He was the strongest supporter of the people he loved. In 1999, his son, Amarnath Prasad, was born. Geeta passed away when Amarnath was 8 months old, and he was devastated. He drank the pain and stood like a stone to keep his family together.
He entered the cardamom trade in the 2000s and continued the trade until his last day on this earth. Along with cardamom, he also used to trade in ginger and broom grass (jhaadu, kucho). He braved all kinds of oppression and business losses to put his four children through school. He fought tooth and nail to get Amarnath into a private school in Gangtok (HCS), coaching in Kota, and then graduation at IIT Madras. He built his family a house they could finally call their own, after a full life of living in rented buildings.
For nearly 50 years of his life, he suffered from chronic bronchitis and had difficulty breathing during cold days, which is almost every day in Sikkim. Certain foods like lemon, curd, orange, and anything colder than room-temperature water would cause his health to get worse, so he never had any of these in those 50 years. In November 2024, a saint of a doctor helped him completely eradicate the breathing problems caused by the disease. For the first time in his life, he was able to drink lemon juice, have curd, and more without facing any difficulty breathing.
Our father loved his family and his work of trading cardamom. He taught us to always believe in ourselves—he would always stick to his decision, no matter how much people opposed it. He believed in his family and always did his best to provide them with the best he could. He passed away peacefully in the lap of his eldest daughter, Sunita, on 10 September 2025, at around 9:45 AM.
We—Saraswati Devi, his beloved wife; Sunita Gupta and Mala Gupta, his beloved daughters; and Amarnath Prasad, his beloved son—keep him in our thoughts daily. We miss him dearly and hope that he is in heaven watching over us.