Stories about businesses
Blurred lines between a rural idyl and a more urban reality
The realities of running a dohori in Kathmandu
Introducing Hari and his dohori business
Dohori, literally meaning ‘back and forth’, is a folk song tradition that originated in the mid-hills of rural Nepal. It is usually sung by two teams, one of men and one of women, who exchange questions and answers in lyrical phrases. In urban settings like Kathmandu, a dohori is a venue where singers and musicians perform dohori style music, accompanied by dancers. The performers wear traditional dress and perform on a stage with a backdrop decorated to evoke rural Nepal. Customers visiting the venues are entertained by the live performances whilst being served snacks and drinks, usually by female waiting staff, at tables that surround the stage. Dohoris generally operate between 6pm and 2am and so are considered part of the night-time entertainment industry.
Hari (name has been changed) runs a relatively small dohori establishment based in an area with fewer night-time venues than larger entertainment and travel hubs such as Thamel and Gongabu. The dohori is in a newly developed area of Kathmandu. The area is mixed, comprising both commercial and residential properties and is close to a main highway that runs through Kathmandu. Other nearby businesses include fast-food restaurants, clothing and grocery shops. The dohori is located on the top two floors of a six-storey building. A clothing shop is found at the street-level of the building, and construction and IT-related offices occupy the other floors. The main dohori establishment is found on the fifth floor of the building, while on the sixth floor, there is a small office with a computer for monitoring CCTV footage from the venue downstairs.
The dohori venue itself occupies a little over 300 square feet, which is soundproofed as is mandatory for night-time entertainment businesses in Kathmandu. From entering the dohori, on the right is a small wooden stage in the middle of the room. The stage is surrounded by tables and chairs arranged in a semi-circle where around 20 to 25 customers can be seated. Between the stage and the tables is a small area where customers can dance. On the left side of the dohori is a small kitchen, wooden cash counter and a toilet to be used by both men and women. The dohori’s stage has flashing, multi-coloured bright lights, while the seating area is dimly lit. Dohori performers wear traditional dress, while female waitresses wear sarees. There is no changing room for employees.
Hari has worked as a manager at the dohori for the past six years. A dohori artist himself, he still performs at the venue, which he enjoys. Hari’s duties are to supervise employees and to handle the day-to-day running of the business. This includes welcoming customers to the venue and developing and maintaining relationships with them. When performers are on leave, he fills in for them and performs on stage. Additionally, he gives singing lessons to the venue’s performers twice a week. During his free time, he attends activities organised by his community dozo (martial arts) group, often performing dohori songs at these functions.
The dohori opened in 2015. It is owned by one male business owner. His wife is the venue’s cashier. She manages the cash counter, which requires her day-to-day engagement in the business. Her husband only visits occasionally or when needed because he also owns a dance bar. The owner fully relies on his wife and Hari to operate the business.
There are a range of dohoris in Kathmandu, from venues which attract families, to those with a more sexualised atmosphere. Stories about children’s days and Stories about children’s lives show children working in a range of dohori venues, including those where children are working in the worst forms of child labour. The trust which CLARISSA researchers built with business owners over several months of involvement with an action research group, helped them to identify and gain access to a relevant dohori (where children were suspected of working). While Hari’s dohori is not representative of those with the most exploitative practices, gaining extended access to accompany an owner in such avenues is unrealistic. However, the business model and environment described in this account aims to illustrate the type of situation children will be working in.
Waitresses stand in the seating area of the dohori while singers, musicians and a dancer perform on stage. The stage is decorated to evoke a rural idyl, whilst the seating area is more akin to an urban night club or bar.
Accompanying Hari at work
In early January 2022, two CLARISSA researchers accompanied Hari for three days to observe in detail the day-to-day realities, practices and pressures of running a dohori. The workday started in the afternoon and finished in the early hours of the morning. The research team made in-depth observations about the performances, financial transactions, employee experiences and customer relations, and learnt from the manager and the workers about their roles and responsibilities. Sometimes the researchers would undertake specific tasks so they could experience what it was like to run the dohori. At the end of each day the researchers recorded their observations.
During the accompaniment, the research team observed the specific tasks and working environment of 17 employees at the dohori, including Hari. Of the 17 employees, ten are performers on the stage: five are female performers who sing and dance, and five are male performers who primarily play instruments but also sing occasionally. Non-performing staff include: a cashier (who is the owner’s wife) who handles the daily takings, keeps track of sales, and provides bills to customers; three female waitresses; a cook; and a security guard. On first appearances, most staff members seemed to CLARISSA researchers to be aged 18 or older. However, due to their use of heavy make-up, the researchers found it difficult to estimate the age of the female staff. One female performer looked younger and could be under 18.
Approximately 20 to 25 customers were observed during the three days Hari was accompanied. All the customers who patronised the venue in this timeframe were male and were aged between 20 and 45 years old.
During the accompaniment, researchers supported Hari with welcoming customers at the entrance of the dohori. This is a task that Hari would normally carry out himself.
What happened at the dohori
Day One
On the first day of the accompaniment, a Thursday in early January, two researchers met Hari at his home at 1:30 pm. Hari didn’t perform any dohori-related business activities until 4 pm when he got a call from the dohori owner to enquire what time he would be reaching work. After 4 pm, Hari occasionally checked the dohori’s CCTV camera footage on his mobile phone to make sure it was secure and to check whether the employees had arrived on time. Usually, they arrive at the venue between 5.30 and 6pm. But on Wednesdays and Thursdays, when Hari provides singing lessons, they begin at 4.30pm.
At 6:30 pm Hari reached the venue. The employees had been waiting for him to give a singing class. However, because he was suffering with a cold, he felt unable to do so and came later. Most of the performers were already in full-make up and/or dressed in traditional attire by the time Hari arrived. One female performer was still getting ready: putting her make-up on and changing her clothes in the corner of the main dohori area.
Once all the employees were ready, Hari had an informal discussion with them. He suggested they should perform ‘elegances’ for customers from the stage (gestures to entice and welcome customers), should invite customers to join them on stage, and should encourage them to request songs of their choice.
The performers then went up onto the stage at around 7 pm, sang the national anthem, and then turn by turn, sang ghazal songs (classical songs) of their choice. Hari gave advice on singing techniques to improve their performances, and at one point, used the microphone to motivate the performers to continue their performances, even though there were no customers at that point. He encouraged them by asking us, the researchers, to enjoy the songs.
There were a total of ten performers on stage (five male and five female artists). Hari supported the performers by singing songs and playing some of the musical instruments himself so that they could take a break until customers arrived. During breaks, female performers used their mobile phones frequently whilst on stage, to take calls and check messages. It was unclear whether calls and messages were personal or work-related.
A female performer who looked to be one of the younger members of staff, came to sit next to us. She wanted to express her interest in working for a non-profit organisation and mentioned having passed her higher secondary level a few months before. Despite saying that she was 22 years old, she looked around 17 or 18 years old (which is the age most children complete their higher secondary education in Nepal). She was from a district in central Nepal, and had joined the dohori two months earlier, with the help of a ‘neighbourhood didi’ (an older non-relative neighbour), who works in a club nearby. This is a common way for children to be recruited into dohori work.
Meanwhile, two waitresses sat on a couch watching the performances. Despite having strict rules on punctuality, one waitress arrived late, at 8 pm, and started putting on her make-up in the corner. One male employee brought in a box of beer and another employee brought in groceries.
At around 9pm, nearly three hours after Hari arrived, the first customers entered the dohori. Hari welcomed the customers, a group of three men, and invited them to take a seat. He gestured to one of the waitresses to come over to make them comfortable and to take their order. Previously the performers had only been singing solo ghazals, but after the customers entered, one male and one female performer began to sing a dohori song. The other performers started to dance to the song on the stage. The waitress took the menu to the customers. One customer asked her to come close to him and whispered something in her ear. She was smiling as she went to the kitchen to place the order. Later, another waitress came and sat next to the customers on the couch. She talked and giggled with one of them, and he whispered something in her ear and touched her face and hair. She went to the kitchen for a while then re-joined the customer with three bottles of beer.
Employees had dinner at around 10pm, taking it in turns to eat, so that the stage was never fully vacant, and customers could continue to be entertained. Hari played the harmonium and later a drum pad so that the musicians could have their dinner. While he performed on stage, some of the waitresses and female performers came to the bar/ cash counter area and smoked hookah[1], to which neither Harin nor the cashier objected.
It took around an hour for all employees to have dinner. Soon after, a second group of three male customers entered the dohori. They appeared to be drunk. They ordered rum soon after arriving and two others then joined them. Hari knew the group and sat with them to drink rum and then danced with them. Hari also showed some dance moves to the performers on the stage while sitting on the couch so that they could follow along and interact with the customers as the song played. At one point, Hari gestured to one of the performers to blow a kiss to one of the customers. This seemed to be a way of motivating the employees to get close to the customers, or a way he could use his staff to offer thanks to the customer for coming to the dohori. Alternatively, the customer might have expressed a desire to Hari to be entertained by that employee. Whatever the motivation, the way Hari dealt with this group of customers indicated that they were regular customers who felt comfortable with him.
A few more customers arrived at around 11:30pm. Hari had a similar approach with these guests: he occasionally went over to the customers, making jokes and laughing with them.
Some of the customers started leaving the dohori at around 12:20am. At the cash counter, they asked the cashier to give them a discount on their drink bill. However, the total amount of the bill didn’t seem to bother them, and they settled their bill and left. All the remaining customers started leaving the venue at around 12:50 as the dohori shuts at 1 am. Hari said that the neighbours complain about the noise if they continue to operate past 1 am; this prevents them from operating until 2 am which is the latest night venues are allowed to open according to government guidelines.
Hari asked the security guard to call the taxi driver – a regular driver used to take employees home. The number of employees meant that it took two rounds to drop everyone at their homes. The employees who live nearby were taken first, followed by those who live further away. Hari left the venue at the same time as the first group of employees who left for their homes.
[1] A pipe for smoking tobacco, consisting of one or more long flexible stems connected to a container of water through which smoke is drawn. Hookah’s are popular in night venues in Nepal.
Day two
On the second day, a Friday evening, Hari reached the dohori at 5:45 pm. The employees arrived at around 6 pm and immediately started to dress in cultural attire and put on make-up. A waitress cleaned the floor and tables and arranged napkins on each table, and the guard brought in the water jar along with some groceries. Like the previous day, the singers started performing songs after singing the national anthem. Customers started arriving just before 8pm – earlier than the previous day (because it was a weekend evening).
At one point, Hari and the cashier (the owner’s wife) went towards the kitchen area, closed the door and had a brief discussion, which we were unable to hear. Meanwhile, one of the customers requested a song and all the performers got together to search for the lyrics of the song on the internet. After some time, the lyrics were found, and Hari sang the song that had been requested by the customer. In addition, he later played the same song through the music system’s speakers for the customer’s enjoyment.
Later, a group of customers entered the dohori and ordered beer. One of the customers wanted to sing a dohori duet with one of the female performers. Hari welcomed him to the dance floor and encouraged other customers to perform. There followed some flirtatious song exchanges between the female performer and the customers. While she sang, another female performer encouraged a younger female performer to interact with the customer who was singing with them.
After 10pm, more customers came into the dohori and by this point it was almost full, with five or six different groups of customers, each group consisting of around four or five men. Hari sang and customers were dancing. At the cash counter, one of the customers complained to the cashier about the high price of the drinks, arguing that regular customers should get a discount. It was unclear whether the price was discounted for them, but they settled the bill through phone pay.
In the dohori’s main area, some customers were hugging and touching the cheeks of one of the waitresses. Her body language suggested this made her uncomfortable – she pulled away and sat stiffly with her legs crossed. Despite this, she stayed sitting with the customers for a while and then served them the food and drinks they had ordered.
At one point, two customers from two different groups almost fought on the dance floor; the dispute was triggered by them being too close while dancing. One of the customers involved in the disturbance was able to calm the situation. Hari was occupied with his singing performance on the stage and did not let the incident disrupt him.
Two waitresses were sitting and talking with a different group of customers. One flirted with one member of the group, while her co-worker talked with his friend. The customer left a 1,000 NPR tip (US $8) at the counter before leaving the venue. At the same time, a different group of customers asked some of the female performers to sit with them. The performers drank wine that had been ordered for them by the customers, which would later be added to the customer’s total bill.
Because it was a Friday evening, customers stayed until 1am. At 1:10am Hari started closing up the dohori, but by 1:35 am some customers were still hanging around and talking at the exit with some female employees. The taxi was called, and the first group of employees left for home and Hari left to go home on his motorbike.
Day three
On the third day, Hari attended a martial arts group function from 1pm along with one of the female performers at the dohori. They performed several songs after the martial arts games had been completed. During the program, at around 3:30 pm, Hari received a call from one of the performers, asking for permission to reach work an hour later than usual. He agreed to her request but asked her to come as early as possible.
After the function finished, Hari and the performer left for the dohori. They arrived there at around 5:30 pm, by which time most of the other employees had already arrived. Employees were already dressed up in their usual dohori attire and Hari again briefed the performers suggesting various ways they could interact and engage with guests. He also had a brief meeting with the waitresses where he suggested they hang around with customers for longer and allow them to settle before taking their order. He also suggested that the waitresses encourage customers to be part of the singing and dancing.
The performers then went up to the stage at around 7 pm. They sang ghazal songs, turn by turn, and Hari again offered guidance on their performance style. While the performances went on, Hari playfully teased one performer who arrived at around 7:30pm, saying sarcastically, “Oh, madam you are here?!”. She responded with a smile, and then quickly changed her dress and did her make-up before joining the other performers on stage.
At 7:30pm two groups of customers, one group of three men and one of four men, entered the dohori. Hari welcomed them from the stage using the microphone and invited them to take a seat. He gestured to one of the waitresses to attend to them. The two waitresses took menus to the two groups of customers and sat next to them on the couch. Some performers started to sing dohori songs, while others danced on the stage.
One of the customers went to talk with the cashier at the cash counter. He behaved in a friendly way, suggesting that he already knew her. They talked for a while and then he re-joined his group.
Meanwhile, a different customer was whispering something in the ear of one of the waitresses, touching her cheeks as he did so. The waitress went away for some time and then returned with beer for the customers.
After 8:30 pm a few more customers entered, and Hari and the waitresses repeated the routine of welcoming them and taking the menu to their table. Later Hari came down from the stage and sat next to one group of customers and ordered rum. While talking to them Hari gestured to one of the singers from the stage to join them; she came and sat next to the customers. They ordered a drink for her and whispered in her ear. Once they seemed engaged with each other, Hari shifted from that group to another, carrying his drink.
Most of the customers were singing and dancing along with the singers while some were enjoying their drinks. Some customers were standing near the couch, and some were on the dance floor. In one corner of the dohori, a customer was sitting with one of the waitresses, whilst holding her palm and whispering something in her ear.
Later one of the female performers who had been sitting with a customer approached Hari and discreetly told him something in his ear. Because the music within the dohori was loud, they both went outside to talk and came back after 10 minutes. The performer then went back to the stage.
At around 1 am the venue started closing and customers began to leave. One customer was still talking with the waitress. Later his friends called him, so he hugged the waitress and went away. As usual, Hari asked the guard to call a taxi and the employees also left for home.
The economics of the dohori
This dohori was set up with a total investment of around 3,000,000 NPR (US $23,000). The average salary paid to employees is 10,000 NPR (US $80) per month, which is well below the government stipulated minimum wage of 17,300 NPR (US $130). With 15 employees (excluding Hari and the cashier), staff costs are 150,000 NPR (US $1,150) per month. According to Hari, the dohori’s rent at 55,000 NPR (US $420) per month, is high compared to a business operating in the daytime in the same area.
The dohori requires a relatively high level of capital investment, and has high staff costs due to the number of performers required (despite the salaries being low at an individual level). A minimum of ten performers are required at any time, as exchanges of lyrical couplets between teams of singers (often male vs female) are central to the dohori form as it has traditionally been practiced in rural Nepal. Furthermore, a range of musicians are required to bring the dohori songs to life on stage.
According to Hari, a minimum of 25,000 NPR (US $190) is needed in sales each day to make a profit. It is apparent that there are periods when the flow of customers is high, for example on Friday evenings, when between 15 and 18 customers might visit the dohori. However, there are also periods where there are no customers, and days where less than ten customers visit the venue. Due to the relatively high price of the alcohol served, customers often only buy one or two drinks, and it is common for customers to have already consumed alcohol before arriving at the dohori. During one of the nights when CLARISSA researchers observed the business there were over 15 customers. CLARISSA researchers estimate that the overall level of sales was around 30,000 NPR (US $230). This equates to each customer spending 2,000 NPR (US $15) – which is approximately two alcoholic drinks per person.
On many days of the week however, the level of sales undoubtedly falls short of the 25,000 NPR required to sustain the business. This makes it imperative to maximise sales when many customers do visit the dohori, and to ensure that they continue to visit in future. While this particular dohori has the advantage of being the only such establishment in the neighbourhood, this lack of competition is offset by the fact that the dohori is in a relatively residential area and has to close by 1am. This limits the amount of money customers can spend within the venue.
Building and maintaining relationships with customers
Hari plays various roles within the business: he performs, coaches and manages the staff, greets and entertains the guests. Building and maintaining relationships with customers is a central part of Hari’s role. He is skilled in handling customers, ingratiating himself within groups of customers, sharing drinks, dance moves and jokes, and meeting customer’s musical requests. He makes customers feel entertained and at ease within the venue.
Hari’s sense of closeness with guests is contingent, however, on him brokering a sense of intimacy between customers and female employees. This ranges from encouraging waitresses to sit and spend time with customers, to requesting performers to flirt with customers, to positioning some female singers as ‘prizes’ that honoured customers can sit with. Customers seem to expect and enjoy this intimacy: touching female waitresses intimately seems to be part of the experience expected at the dohori. Female waitresses are also touched frequently on the bottom and the face.
A waitress prepares a ‘hookah’ for a customer
Hari’s relationship with his employees
With salaries one third below the minimum wage, employees rely on tips from customers and commission earned from the sale of food and drinks. Waitresses seem to expect that engaging with guests in ways that include being physically touched is part of their job. There are differences between the employees, however. Some female performers are treated with more reverence by both Hari and the customers – for example, one female performer was invited to sit with guests, and was offered drinks, but was not subjected to being physical touched.
This hierarchy between types of different employees reflects a broader formality between the manager and the employees. Hari only seems to interact with his employees when required, for example, to impart advice or delegate tasks. For example, when Hari was sharing tips with employees on entertaining customers with their performances, there were no discussions between himself and the employees. Hari was firm in terms of work times: on the first day, even though he was unable to provide a singing lesson, the employees were on time, and permission was requested by an employee on the third day to arrive an hour late. Roles and responsibilities within the venue are also clearly segregated.
A female dohori waitress serves at a table in the seating area
Conclusion
The dohori folk-art form has a rich history. In rural Nepal, dohori developed as a way young men and women could engage with each other in ways that might ordinarily draw attention and comment from family and/or community members. Playful, romantic and meaningful exchanges between groups of men and women or boys and girls, which would normally be disapproved of outside of marriage, are socially acceptable when delivered through the musical medium of dohori.
The establishment managed by Hari is steeped in this dohori folk tradition and the performers are highly skilled. However, in an urban context, dohori venues are capital intensive businesses. They require significant levels of investment and have high ongoing operational costs. This is in part due to the set up required, and large number of performers needed to run an authentic dohori. Rental rates are also relatively high, because it is usual for landlords to inflate business rents for night-time operations.
The business is under significant pressure to maximise sales, particularly during periods where the dohori is busy (i.e. weekend evenings). Having a customer base that returns regularly appears to be a key strategy for the dohori. Most of the customers observed by the CLARISSA team were either familiar with Hari and/or the employees or were with friends who knew the venue. But while the dohori performance was central, relying solely on the musical skills of dohori performers to attract and retain customers seems insufficient to make the business profitable. The dohori also relies on fostering a sense of intimacy between customers and female employees. Female employees are proactively encouraged to develop a physical and/or emotional closeness with customers to make customers stay longer and continue frequenting the venue, which in turn, enables them to secure revenue through sales of alcohol and food.
The dohori is a space for male customers to be entertained by traditional dohori music and enjoy an environment where loud music and dim lights conceal acts of intimacy (e.g kissing and physical touch) with female employees. This sexualised environment is an expected part of the experience, fulfilling customers’ desires to be physically and emotionally close with a female. Because the accompaniment was mainly based in the venue, and did not follow female employees, researchers could not observe whether the sexualised environment fostered within the venue led to further engagements outside of it. However, within the venue, there is the sense that these interactions are partly compensation for the relatively high costs of food and beverages: customers expected waitresses to flirt with them and increase their orders (and ultimately bill amount).
Given that wages are very low, using these relationships to secure tips and earn commission from food and alcohol sales is undoubtedly essential for employees to earn a sufficient wage. Any concerns employees might have about relations with customers (or other matters) are likely discouraged by the need to generate sales, and the dohori’s hierarchical management structure, where relationships between Hari and the employees are formal and fairly distant.
It is important to note the differences between how female performers and female waitresses experience the dohori. Even though female performers engage with customers as they sing, being on stage generally affords them a physical distance from customers. Although they are required to sit and share a drink with customers at times, they appear to be treated with reverence and respect. This might be due to their skill set: the musical art form and their talent is admired. The performers also may enjoy more leverage within the dohori because their entertainment skills are prized and in demand compared to waitresses. In contrast, the waitress role involves being physically closer to customers – meaning they are subject to physical touch – and they are treated with less reverence.
The differences between female waitresses and performers perhaps reflects a dichotomy that was observed in the dohori set up itself. On stage, a rural idyll is evoked where men and women engage with each other playfully and romantically through the medium of song. This is juxtaposed by waitresses waiting on customers. Here, in a space that feels more akin to the modern, urban reality of Kathmandu, relations are more transactional, and a sexualised business model relies on interactions with female employees (that includes physically intimate acts such as kissing and touching) to increase sales and secure a profitable business.
It was difficult for researchers to accurately assess the age of employees within the venue. Female employees wore heavy make-up and traditional attire which could make them look more mature. There seemed to be no distinction between the roles of performer or waitress based on age (the youngest employee was a performer). But in whichever role, minors working in this type of dohori will be exposed to environments where they are expected to engage in forms of phyiscal and relational intimacy such as kissing, touching and interacting in sexually suggestive ways (which constitutes the worst forms of child labour). The Stories about Children’s Days and Stories about Children’s Lives reveal the day-to-day realities of children working in dohori venues.
*Photo credit: Anish Bastola. Photographs were taken in a dohori in Kathmandu which is similar in size and set-up to Hari’s dohori. Written consent was provided by each employee featured in the photographs. Photographs have been blurred where necessary to protect individuals’ identities.
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