Owner of New Bombay, Jeetendra.

By JT Thompson

Jeetendra: owner of New Bombay, a tiny Nepalese market on the west side of Union Square. The market is nestled behind a chain link fence in the bottom floor of an old residential triple-decker, and looks like a throwback to a time when people would run businesses out of their homes. On Yelp, the growing clientele of white shoppers praise Jeetendra’s friendliness about welcoming them into the culture he brought with him when he became an American.

On the afternoon I walk in, Jeetandra is wearing a black hoodie, a grey down vest, jeans, and sneakers. Between his eyebrows is a faint red mark, a Nepalese custom that invokes blessings. He has jet-black hair in a helmet cut and is a solid looking individual. Stocky build. Round shoulders. Strong hands. Thick fingers. He looks built for endurance.

But his manner is light. He smiles often, a relaxed, self-confident, friendly smile. He has charisma, the quiet charisma of someone who’s contentedly happy, who knows where they stand. You get the sense it would be hard to ruffle him. And he’s fun to be around.

When I approach the counter, Jeetendra is having a rapid conversation, in a language I don’t recognize, with a friend who is sitting against the sill of the big front window. When I make my pitch, Jeetendra wraps up the conversation, then turns to me.

“Why you doing this?”

I tell him that mostly we hear bad news, what people are angry about, which is why I want to get people into conversations about what they love.

He nods, thinks for a moment, and says, “Here, not any problem. People in Boston living very happily. They understand each other. A multi-community. Living together.”

He gives me a serious look.

“I don’t see any problem around here.”

Jeetendra has been running New Bombay for two years. He came to the U.S. in the 90’s to escape the civil war in Nepal. Before the war, he had a happy childhood in Biratnagar, the second largest city in Nepal.

“I like to play,” he says with a big grin. “Volleyball. Soccer. Cricket. Table tennis. Everything!”

Then, when he was in his late twenties, war broke out between the reigning Nepalese monarchy, the oldest continuous Hindu monarchy in the world, and communists who wanted to create a democratic republic. The war would eventually go on for ten years.

“Very hard to survive,” says Jeetendra. “Life not certain. People moving everywhere.”

The first stop Jeetendra made on the way to Boston was the island of Tinian, in the Northern Mariana Islands, which has been controlled by the U.S. since WWII.

“Tinian was an important part of World War II. The nuclear bombs were deployed from that island,” he tells me.

Post-WWII, with the launching pads for Little Boy and Fat Man turned into memorials, Tinian gradually became a tourist spot. Jeetendra had worked in a casino in Biratnagar, and managed to get a job at one of Tinian’s casinos.

Then, having earned a visa, he and his wife moved briefly to Texas.

“Compared to home, Tinian was hot. Texas even hotter!” He laughs and raises his hands, waving them around his head as though chasing away a swarm of flies. “But my wife’s cousin had a sister living in Michigan. I was not worried about snow.” He laughs again. “I drive very nicely in the snow, very safely.”

In 2006, after a few years of delivering pizzas and working in a Meyer’s grocery story, Michigan’s economy began to go down.

“Everybody was trying to move away.”

Boston was next.

“This is a very good story,” Jeetendra says with a smile. But between his accent, his rapid delivery of the story, and his laughter, I can’t keep up. Something about North Carolina as a possible destination, then a visit to Boston with his wife and son. The point of the story seems to be that it was because his young son liked Boston that they decided to move there, instead of to North Carolina.

I ask Jeetendra what he knew about America before he arrived.

“The main thing, that it’s safe. You can be making good money. It’s good for the kids, they’ll have a good future.”

Jeetendra’s son is currently at Amherst College studying chemical engineering.

“That was my gift to him. I was a good tutor to him.”

“I like America because here, everybody can survive. Everyone can alive by his way. I can alive by my way. That’s the best part. Real democratic.” He nods firmly.

When he arrived in Boston, Jeetendra got a job in the groceries section of a Whole Foods in northern Cambridge.

“I like the job. Work for me, always entertain me. I was at Whole Foods, 6, 7, 8 years. Customers say, you always smiling.”

“Job is entertainment for me. I’m always happy. Don’t get tired. Every day, every year, so many people. People that always come back.”

He smiles. “This is a good story. At Whole Foods, one black lady came there. Talk to me very meanly, rudely. I smile, talk to her. She ask me many questions. I never mad, never irritated. She keep asking in a very mean way. A couple days later, she come back. ‘I’m very sorry,’ she say. She ask me, ‘Where are you from?’ She remember me at home, feel sorry. After that, we are really good friends. Share family history. Share unhappy stories, feel better after.”

After his long stint at Whole Foods, Jeetendra had an opportunity to buy New Bombay.

The little market’s shelves are crammed with products in colorful packaging, a wide variety of grains and spices and other dry goods. A row of shiny little statues, of Hindu gods and Buddhas, sits on the shelf by the register.

Jeetendra shows me around, taking particular pride in products that only grow in the high altitudes of Nepal. Brown sesame seeds and Szechuan pepper that flourish above 5-6000 meters. Sweet and sour plum. Daikon radishes. Himalayan salt made from ice and snow. He holds things up for me to sniff. His manner is generous – he’s not looking to impress me, just enjoying sharing his culture with someone who’s curious.

I ask him what he loves most about his life now, and what he wants to accomplish in the future.

“I’m happy.” He shrugs and grins. “Always happy. Even my wife always tells me – you’re always happy. No tension. Never take things seriously. I don’t like to take that way. The future … I’m happy now. I don’t know. If there was a good business opportunity, I might jump. That is human being – jump.”

A big smile.

I ask if there are things about America that he thinks are great.

“Definitely. Definitely. America giving good opportunity to everybody.”

He smiles, and repeats the sentence.

“America giving good opportunity to everybody.”

He thinks for a moment.

“Here, you don’t have to blindly support anything. Can say right or wrong. If wrong, I say wrong. If right, I say right. I have this other friend. Always support his religion, right or wrong. I tell him not to do that. Here all American people – I am American – have to do that one too. If right, say right. If wrong, say wrong.”

The monarchy Jeetendra grew up with had an unpopular tendency to manipulate the media with censorship and propaganda. The freedom – and obligation – to say what is true and what is not, what is good and what is bad, matters to Jeetendra.