Inside a cosmetic store on the second floor of a traditional house in Makhan, New Road, Nitin Maddan, 31, is busy attending to a customer and talking on the phone at the same time. For a Punjabi man, who was born and raised in Delhi, India, till his late teens, it’s surprising to hear him ramble off in fluent Nepali while conversing with the customer and then switch to Newari on the phone without a moment’s hesitation.

“One of my father’s friends told him that Nepal could be a good place to run small businesses,” says Nitin, as he settles down to talk about his first visit to Nepal. In 1998, he came to Nepal for the first time with his father who was scouring for business ideas. “Then, I didn’t even last a week. Despite of my father’s insistence that I stay, I went home,” he says. When he looks back now, Nitin confesses that it wasn’t easy for a 19-year-old to be away from his family and home. “My mind used to be in Delhi all the time,” he reminisces.