As Dashain approaches in Nepal, a familiar seasonal demand returns to the banking system: fresh banknotes. During the festival, elders place tika on younger relatives and often give money as dakshina, a gift accompanying their blessing. An old note and a crisp new one have the same face value. But a fresh note can carry a sense of occasion that a numerical balance cannot capture.
On 7 October 2020, the Kathmandu-based news outlet Onlinekhabar reported that Nepal Rastra Bank, the country's central bank, was considering alternative ways to distribute new notes. COVID-19 had changed the meaning of gathering outside a bank. In ordinary years, the report explained, thousands of people lined up at designated branches ahead of Dashain. That year, the central bank's spokesperson expected the traditional long queues to disappear, though the alternative distribution plan had not yet been decided.
This is an important distinction in the evidence. The article was not an eyewitness account of thousands lining up in October 2020. It described a well-established annual practice at the moment public-health concerns threatened to interrupt it. A queue once associated with preparing for family visits had also become a possible route for infection. To preserve the celebration, officials were considering changing the way people obtained one of its familiar material ingredients.
For a central bank, new notes are a problem of supply and distribution. For the person seeking them, they may already be imagined in a younger relative's hand, given alongside a blessing. What looked like a currency-exchange queue was also a line of people preparing for encounters with family. The uncertainty of 2020 adds another layer: sometimes respecting the purpose of a queue means finding a way for people not to have to join it.
A new distribution method may remove the familiar bank line before the festival. Demand for gift notes will remain, shifting the wait from the counter into another reservation or supply channel.
In Nepal, the custom of giving fresh banknotes at Dashain had brought thousands to designated banks. In 2020 the central bank reconsidered that method because of infection risk. The missing queue did not mean missing demand; it marked an attempt to reroute a festival custom.