Telling Tales

Nepali tales are eroding away and taking with it a bit of our identity itself.

by SUBEKSHA POUDEL

FROM ISSUE # 169 (January 2010) | IN THIS ISSUE
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BILASH RAI

My French language class is very international in its student composition. And when we discuss French culture, it inevitably turns into discussions on how it is different in our respective countries. There was this one time when we were discussing children's tales, and the teacher asked me to talk about a famous Nepali character from children's tales that every child would know about. I thought, and thought some more but only characters from English fairy tales would pop into mind. It was sort of embarrassing not being able to come up with anything.

Back in primary school, reading Mero Nepali Kitab was almost like a treat. Partly because as kids, all of us were a bit geeky and mainly because the stories were rather engrossing. The clever crow that dropped pebbles in the pitcher and the witty nomad who made khichadi out of stones. Despite these interesting tales, solid fictional characters seem to be missing from our lives.

But it wasn't the same in the lives of generations before. Our parents grew up reading about Latobungo and Rajkumari Sunkesari and our grandparents were well versed with the myths of Ramayan and Mahabharat. The stories though, to a certain extent, have failed to flow from their generation to ours while tales from elsewhere continue.

These children's tales nonetheless have much more depth than they appear to have. It portrays what many regard as universal human problems and what they accept as desirable solutions.  Had people not identified with the troubled princess or the heroic prince, it would not have been listened to with the same enthusiasm year after year.

But is it logical to compare Nepali literature with that of English? It is a fact that Parijat's The Blue Mimosa was included in the curriculum of Maryland University in USA and the movie Muna Madan from Laxmi Prasad Devkota's epic was actually nominated for the Oscars. Nevertheless, the absence of a single eminent character questions whether our literature is actually good enough.

Moreover, considering over a third of Nepalis actually live under the poverty line, many simply can't afford to buy texts books, let alone story books. Those who can seem to prefer English books over local ones, because their content and print quality is "much better".

Says a shopkeeper in a book store in Mangal Bazar, "Only
20 per cent of the books we sell are Nepali." When asked why this was so, he said that today's kids find it difficult to read
Nepali – a shameful insult to our mother language.

Bal Sansar, perhaps the saviour of our own tales, is making a difference though. It collects every single children's tale published in Nepal and not just preserves them but donates and sells such books to educational institutes within and out of the Valley.

Basanta Thapa of Bal Sansar says, "Despite the lack of reading culture in our society, we promote story books." He also points out that as Nepalis have more than 124 languages, it makes it difficult to promote a single character. In Bal Sansar's mini room in Patan Dhoka, there are a wide range of books: from flimsy colourless texty papers to glossy immaculate picture books.

Nepali literature is there for those who seek.