It was almost evening and people were in a hurry to reach their home. Traffic was heavy in the road and the pavements were crowded due to the movement of a large number of people. A fat lady in her thirties was cashing on the crowd by distributing some pamphlets standing in the busy pavement in between New Baneshwore and Minbhawan. She wanted to give everyone who passed through the pavement a leaflet from a bundle she was holding on her left hand. But many were seen denying to take them. She also gave me one and I took it thinking that it was about some political issue. But to my great surprise, it was a leaflet describing some magical incident supposed to have happened to someone in Pashupatinath temple area and urging the readers to publish and distribute the same leaflets. It also mentioned how the men who published and distributed 1,000 copies of the leaflets made a fortune and how a man who did not publish and distribute them lost his son. After reading the contents, I realised how frightening the woman was upon reading the leaflet and was spending money and energy to avoid the unwanted things and to have good fortunes by publishing and distributing them. Standing in the busy pavement braving the dust and smoke emanating from the busy roads, she was determined to accomplish the task. Probably, other men and women who took a leaflet from her were also distributing them somewhere in the city in the same manner.

Indeed, publishing and distributing such pamphlets have been a common practice in Kathmandu and elsewhere. Although no one knows about the origin of such leaflets full of false stories, many keep on distributing them only because they fear the God. Many may undergo tension once they happen to receive such leaflets and print them even by borrowing money from their friends. Fear factor is indeed what makes people to spend in such silly works.

In fact, only those who do not understand the God resort to such futile methods. They do not know that God does no harm to humans. They do not understand that God seeks good works, God wants the men love and care each other and help the needy people. God never resorts to give and take game like our leaders do. They do not understand that the God will be happier with them if they have distributed food to the poor with the money they have spent in publishing such leaflets than distributing them. Only ignorant people believe in such stories and undergo several mental problems.

We also receive such contents in our email box with similar requests and duly follow the instruction by forwarding them to several of our friends. Even highly educated people cannot help forwarding them as they also cannot overcome the deep-rooted fear easily. Indeed, most people fear death and God the most and they keep on doing things like the particular woman of Minbhawan pavement was doing.