| ashu |
Posted
on 03-Oct-01 02:40 AM
Literary communities in Nepal are quite insular. They are often split along 'political-party' lines. They take grievous offence at any criticism of their writings/books/ideas. They are often UNABLE to cast aside differences to work with other artists who are, who think and who do things differently from them.
These members of our various literary communities claim to be writing for the public (i.e. for the oppressed masses, for the poor villagers and so on), yet they rarely deign to interact with the public through dialogues and discussions. When they do engage in dialogues, it's always in their roles as "maahan writers"
talking to "baccha readers".
They complain about not being respected enough. They want the government to set aside special funds to take care of their medical bills and their children's school and college fees. And no matter how many literary prizes there are in Nepal (more than a hundred, by one estimate -- enough to give out two prizes every week for a year!!!), the members of our literary communities never tire of demanding more state-funded prizes.
And so, the primary self-image the Nepali literary communities have of themselves is that of: high priests standing tall on 10-feet-high pedestals, from where they can putatively rise above us all, look down, and sneer at everyone else.
Predictably, the Nepali janata has had enough of this nonsense.
Though the number of reading public has increased, booksellers say that the sale of 'literature' books has not gone up. The Nepali janata have obviously responded by neither buying nor reading so-called works of literature. In fact, intelligent Nepali men and women do NOT spend their time reading Nepali sahitya, because most know how IRRELEVANT these works of Nepali literature are to their day-to-day lives as professionals.
This is indeed sad.
And so, I would argue that if there is any future for Nepali literature (literature: defined broadly), it first has to be SAVED from these Hezbollah-like established sahitya-kaars who have turned OFF many young Nepalis (in their 20s and 30s) from the simple pursuit of curling up with a -- any -- Nepali novel.
In this context, the MONTHLY Nepali sahitya discussion series, started in Martin Chautari last December, is a modest attempt to 'set' established sahityakars 'straight' on why they write bad novels, bad poetry and
how they can no longer get away throwing junk in our -- we the readers' -- eyes.
Just because someone famous says so-and-so is a maahan writer does not mean that we have to automatically consider that writer as a maahan writer.
Engineering has standards; so does economics; and so does medicine and even works of English literature are heatedly debated. Why is that Nepali sahitya
seems to be a place where anything -- I mean, anything -- goes?
And so, we the readers want to WORK OUT a basis of a writer's greatness by open debates and discussions based on textual and contextual evidence and NOT by relying on the easy praises one so easily gets in Nepal.
Some of the discussions pursued so far are:
December: Sirish ko Phool, a novel by Parijat
Discussion led by Sangeeta Pandey and Ashutosh Tiwari
January: Aja Ramita Cha: a novel by Indra Bahadur Rai
Discussion led by Sangeeta Pandey and Ashutosh Tiwari
February: Narendra Dai, a novel by BP Koirala
Discussion led by Sangeeta Pandey and Bhaskar Gautam
March: Pagalbasti, a novel by Pokhara-based writer Sarubhakta
Discussion led by Sangeeta Pandey and Ajit Baral
April: Abstract Chintan Pyaz: essays of Shankar Lamichanay
Discussion led by Ashutosh Tiwari
May-June: Naya Sadak ko Geet: a novel by Ramesh Wikal
Discussion led by Manjushree Thapa and Govinda Bartaman
July: Mangal Man, by Siddhi Charan Shrestha
Discussion led by: Khagendra Sangraula and Sangeeta Pandey
August: Aaama ko Sapana by Gopal Prasad Rimal
Discussion led by Banira Giri, a poet
September: Shakuntal, an epic by Laxmi Prasad Devkota
Discussion led by Ramesh Bhattarai, a literature professor
********
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| oohi_ashu |
Posted
on 11-Oct-01 09:55 PM
Hi all,
Thanks to Biswo, an audio file of a radio-discussion on "Nepali sahitya for the
new generation ko readers" has been uploaded to an Web address.
This discussion -- an FM radio interview -- features a conversation among Pratyoush Onta, Sangeeta Pandey and myself, and it will soon will be
broadcast in Hetauda and Pokhara.
Please check this site's literature section for details.
www.eng.auburn.edu/~bpoudel/martinChautari.wma
This opens up possibilities to introduce audio and streaming video files to
enrich our discussions.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
|
