KATHMANDU: The Newari community is celebrating Maghe Sankranti as the festival of ‘Gya: Chaku Salhu’ on the first day of Nepali month Magh (January 14).

They celebrate the ‘Gya:Chaku Salhu’ festival by basking in the sun eating ghee and Chaku. It is believed that the consumption of ghee and chaku (molasses) will generate heat in the body.

With the festival just around the corner, the demand of Chaku has soared up in the market. Tokha is the famous place for making Chaku where the locals are as busy as a bee now-a-days.

Tokha is called ‘Tukhya:’ in Newari language. ‘Tu’ means sugarcane and ‘Khya’ means open space.

Sugarcane used to be produced in Tokha itself in the past but these days it is imported from Tarai for manufacturing Chaku. Chaku, a home-grown production of Nepal, is exported to foreign countries, too.