Interviewer: Mahesh Paudyal
[Poet and playwright, Ashesh Malla (b. 1954, Dhankuta) is the founder of Sarwanam Theater. Associate Professor of Nepali Literature at Tribhuwan University, he has written, performed and directed several plays, and has won many prestigious awards like Sajha Puraskar, Musyachu Puraskar, Moti Award and Jalarika Award for his contribution in the field of Nepali theatre. He is the pioneer of street theatre in Nepal. He also served the Nepal Academy and headed the theatre department for five years. He also worked as a Board of Member of Nepal Television in early 90’s. He is an honorary life member of Nepal Academy. He has published more than 25 books, including books of plays, poetry and fiction. Presented here is an edited excerpt of his conversation with Mahesh Paudyal for Rupantaran, a Nepal Academy magazine of translation, and reproduced here by English.SahityaPost with due acknowledgment of the original publisher.]
Sir, greetings! Please tell us about your early inspirations for inclining towards the theater.
I grew up in a small town in Dhankuta. As children, my friends waited for Dashain and Tihar, but I waited for Bhadauré Jatra, a summer festival that lasted for months, and had dance, plays and several performances in every street. We had rehearsals for months before performing. When I saw my seniors meet and plan about the plays for the upcoming Jatra, I watched them from a corner. The plays were of two types: first, performed on huge stages erected on open grounds, and others performed on the front-yard of every home, and they included farces and short plays. In Tallo Kopché, my village, whenever my seniors discussed to select actors for their performance, I was never their pick, for I was very young. But my thirst for acting continued. And one day, though still a kid I was, I gathered all my peers and led a play of our own. I was a third or fourth grader then, not more than ten to twelve years old. Though I had no one to teach me, I caricatured one Purna Shrestha, a man in my locality, who limped as he walked. People called him Purna Lata. We performed the play for many days, moving from home to home, and every household gave us some money and breads. Everyone appreciated my performance, and I came to be known as a good actor. I was greatly encouraged. Even after the Jatra ended, I didn’t feel like going to school; I wanted to continue with the performance. In a way, my family thought I was spoilt. But the play really drew me toward the theater.
How did you step up from such informal performance to the proper theater?
Some time later, Dayaram Shrestha ‘Sambhav’ directed one of Bijay Malla’s plays, and asked me to act in it. Maybe he had seen me act earlier. My role was that of a man’s son. We performed it on a make-shift theater at Tundikhel. Every month, there was one play or another. Besides short plays on small stages, we did some large plays on stages erected out of bamboos. Such plays were performed on important social occasions and festivals. I saw two or three of such plays before they discontinued. It was a painstaking task to erect such plays. For curtains, people brought them from Calcutta, and artists painted patterns with colors to produce scenes they needed, including those of palaces, forests and rooms on small canvases, and held them in place with rolling strings. Nripenddra Malla, my own grandfather, was engaged as an artist. Those were the days when we had no electricity. Nor was there any vehicle. I wonder how they did such things those days. Such plays were performed in Tallo Tundikhel, one of the two open lawns in Dhankuta. The Army performed in Mathlo Tundikhel, the upper lawn, and the police performed on other grounds. These were the plays that formalized my acting.
It can be noticed that very early in your life as a playwright and actor, you developed a sort of rebellious attitude. What was the root of this sense of rebellion that has lasted till date, informing almost all the plays you wrote or directed?
Besides plays, there used to be frequent poetry sessions in Dhankuta. I used to take part and win some prizes. My childhood passed this way. We had clubs in every street. I wanted to mime the same. So, one day, I gathered some friends and started the Bal Sudhar Sangh, a children’s organization. We also started a library, organized poetry and quiz competitions, and dances and theatrical performances on front-yards of people’s homes. Six months after the foundation of this organization, one fine day, a policeman came to me and said I had been summoned by the Chief District Officer. On knowing this, my mother, Bharati Shrestha wept bitterly, because she recalled the old days during the 1951 revolution, when my grandfather Gajendra Bahadur Pradhanaga, the first member of parliament from Dhankuta after 2051 (also translator of Tagore’s Geetanjali) used to be nabbed and hauled. One day, during the revolution, the police happened to find a piece of paper thrown outside our home, following which it summoned my grandfather and others. My mother recalled the same incident and cried. On reaching there, the CDO said I had done an illegal thing by starting the children’s organization. I didn’t know that it was illegal. When he asked me to shut it down, I had no answer. Perhaps I wept. On seeing me in tears, he said, the Prime Minister would be visiting Dhankuta and he would ask him, and I would be allowed to do whatever the Prime Minister instructed. A few days later, Prime Minister Kirtinidhi Bista came, and I was taken to meet him. He asked me to shut down my organization, and instead suggested me to join the state-owned Nepal Children’s Organization. Deepak Krishna Shrestha, a friend of mine, had made a sign-board for my organization. The police smashed it, and thus bruised my sentiments. I wept bitterly. My father soothed me to some extent. I did not join the organization the Prime Minister suggested. That day, perhaps, a sense of revolt in me was planted, and it grew, infecting all of my future plays with a sense of rebellion.
This childhood rebellion appears to have lingered through your teenage and even later. What kept the fire burning?
My father Khagendra Pradhanaga, also a novelist, often came to Kathmandu. When he returned home, he bought for me several issue of Gaijatra journal, published once in a year, with open criticism of the state. When I read them, I learnt that even ministers could be criticized. Following it, I and my friends Rajendra and Nirajan Pradhananga, prepared a hand-written magazine on foolscap papers, and published it, criticizing the CDO and local leaders. We made three to four copies of it using carbon papers and pasted at important places where people gathered. A few days later, as we were sitting at Rajendra’s shop, some policemen came and made us write something on a piece of paper evidently to check our hand-writing. Rajendra’s father had a copy of Muluki Ain at home, and it clearly said our act, without permission, deemed legal punishment. We then started fearing the police. Luckily, the inspector there was a distant relative of mine from mother’s side. He came home and reprimanded, and said he had saved us; otherwise we would be behind bars. We warned us not to continue the prank. But the bitterness lasted in me. Later, when I was preparing for my matriculation, our guru Durga Pokharel, a scholar and a congressman, gathered all of us on a riverbank near our village and showed us magazines published by BP Koirala and others from Banaras (I think it was Tarun). He explained how BP, Ganeshman and others were launching a revolt. He inspired us to join the revolution, and washed our brain. He then gave me a letter-pad with congress flag on it. I went home with it, but my mother saw it. She reprimanded me, and snatched the paper, tore it and threw it down the toilet hole.
I also recall another bitter incidence. After matriculation, I started attending a college some half an hour walk from home. The path went past a jail. One morning, incidentally, I happened to see a gruesome incident in the jail from the outside walls: the police was dragging two men on the ground in an inhuman way. Later I learned, they were accused of Okhaldhunga Incident launched by Congress, and were Ram and Laxman, who were later killed. On seeing it, I was shocked. It was, however a time, I could write nothing. The grudge settled in me permanently, and I continued to be a rebellion.
What tickled you to move out of Dhankuta? How did this migration shape your theatrical career?
After finishing my IA in Dhankuta, I went to Biratnagar and joined the Mahendra Morang College in 2030 for doing my BA. There I met friends Krishna Bhushan Bal, Indira Prasai, Mahesh Prasai, Bishnu Bibhu Ghimire, Pramod Pradhan and others, and founded an origination. I often travelled between Biratnagar and Dhankuta on foot. Around the year 2030, we also founded an organization Nawakalakar Sanskritik Samudaya in Dhankuta, which started performing plays and this proved to be a turning point in my career. Initial plays were traditional ones, performed on open grounds. But we started modern plays on a stage in Gokundeshwar School. We started with plays by Bijay Malla, Govinda Gothalé and Mana Bahadur Mukhiya. For the first time in Dhankuta, we started ticket shows. I used to do the lead role, while my guru Upendra Dukhi, a versatile man—a poet, singer, musician, director, and a national level footballer—used to be our director. After some days, my friends suggested to me write a play of my own. I had never done that before, and I had never watched a play from outside. Yet, I wrote one. As soon as I wrote a page, my friends would take it away and get it typed on a typewriter at the office of one of my friends. The typewriter had just come to Dhankuta. This way, page after page, the play was typed (with no editing or revision), and a rough play came into existence. Soon, we went for rehearsal.
What was the play about? What was its theme? This is crucial, for this is your written play, which directed your future course of action.
We had a farm in Hattikharka, and Father would take me there often, and we used to stay there for some days. The one who tilled our field was Bakhaté. One day, I saw his sons fall out on the issue of land rights. The issue got settled in the unconscious part of my mind. I wrote the play on this subject and named it Tuwanlolé Dhakeko Basti. Upendra Dukhi directed it; I played the lead. It was such a huge success; people came from far and wide—including from villages in Bhojpur, Chainpur, Tehrathum etc.—to watch us perform on petro-max light.
What brought you to Kathmandu from Dhankuta?
Universe is perhaps the thing that decides out destiny. Maybe the universe wanted it so. Before the series of Tuwanlolé Dhakeko Basti had ended, we grew quite ambitious and wanted to go to Kathmandu with the show. For our team of forty to forty-five people, Kathmandu was far like New York or Paris. We had no money. We came to Dharan after two days’ walk and performed a show, collected some money, went to Biratnagar. Wherever we halted we performed to collect money. Those days, we did not have direct bus to Kathmandu as we do these days. After halting at several places, we finally reached Kathmandu after seven or eight days. Bijaya Malla owned a lodge at New Road. A brother of ours, who knew him, talked to him and we stayed there. Malla was a member at the Academy. Lain Singh Bangdel was the Vice Chancellor. Tulasi Diwasa and Stayamohan Joshi too were its members. We approached Satyamohan Joshi, Member Secretary, for help. Even before seeing our play, he said he would allow us to perform but laid the condition that we would have to share the income with the Academy equally. We rehearsed on a stage that was far bigger than the halls we used to perform in Dhakuta. Prachanda Malla and Harihar Sharma, who worked there, helped us. For the first time, we performed on electric lights, with dimmers for morning and evening scenes. Before this, I didn’t know dimmers existed. There were electronic sounds for birds’ chirping and other things. In Dhankuta, a tape-recorder had just been introduced, and we used to stay for hours in coops waiting for roosters to crow so that we could record its sound and use it in our plays. At last, Prachandra Malla, who helped us a lot, revised our ending, letting huge fans on two sides blow flour powder to devise the fog (tuwanlo). Many poets and prominent people had been invited. I was in daura-surwal before the play. A tall man walked from back-stage and asked who the artists from Dhankuta were. I said, “We are the ones, Sir.” He said, “I am Balkrishna Sama.” I was on top of the world. I fell onto his feet. He said he was there to watch the play and wanted a ticket. I said, “You don’t need a ticket, Sir.” But he said he would buy a ticket. My first play in Kathmandu had Balkrishna Sama in my audience, and this was a turning point in my theater life. In the audience were other prominent people like Bijay Malla and Haribhakta Katuwal as well. Everyone appreciated us but Bijay Malla vehemently criticized and said, “Why perform such a traditional play? You should perform a ‘modern’ play. Times have changed, you know.” I never knew what a ‘modern’ play was. But then, if he had not scolded me that way, I would never have come thus far.
Back in the lodge, I was in deep distress. Seeing me listless, Hari Bhakta Katuwal said the play was marvelous. In fact, he was consoling me. He said, “From now on, Ashesh Mallas should move on, stepping on the shoulders of Hari Bhakta.” But the idea of ‘modern’ play, mentioned by Malla continued to bother me. The play ran for many days and was a huge success. People lined up to Ganeshthan for buying tickets. At the end, we got our share of money, which we divided. My friends returned to Dhankuta but I was so badly infected by theatrical ambitions that I decided to stay back, though I had no relative, and no place to stay in. With the cash thus earned, I stayed, joined MA Nepali program at Kirtipur, and became a hostel ward. Basudevi Tripathee, the warden, had watched my play, and knew me as a playwright. He placed me there.
At any rate, you discovered what a ‘modern’ play as hinted by Bijaya Malla was. Which pursuing this discovery, you have to meet many difficult challenges. Would you recall the trajectory of this discovery?
As an MA student at Kirtipur, I continued to follow my dreams to become a famous playwright, director and writer. I wanted to know what a ‘modern’ play really was like. I had no one to teach me. I tried to meet Bal Krishan Sama, a reserved man, but it was not easy and so I could learn very little from him. I often watched plays performed at Academy and National Cultural Organization. They used to have huge curtains that closed at times, made clumsy preparations behind the screen, and resumed later. Even Bijaya Malla’s plays were performed like that. I wondered if that was what he meant by ‘modern’ plays, but I did not like the curtains. I also did not like the gritting sound of the mike and thought, curtains and mikes are enemies of the theater. I never used curtains and mike in any play I did later. Kirtipur turned out to be a blessing for me. The Campus Chief allowed me to use the auditorium. His support has been immense. He also offered monetary help at times. One day, my hostel mate Bimal Koirala and I wrote a play on the issue of the scarcity of firewood in Kathmandu. Those days, people had to bribe others to get firewood even to burn dead bodies. We made a play on this issue. We performed it. Students were hooting, for those were the days when students enjoyed anything that criticized the government. In the middle of the performance, the curtain suddenly fell, and some goons came onstage and beat us black and blue, leaving us badly injured. If the Campus Chief had not shown up, we would be dead. He managed to lift us to the clinic and treat us. Those goons were supporters of the Panchayat, and they would not tolerate any criticism of the government.
My next play there was Murdabadma Utheka Haatharu, which ran for a few cycles in Kirtipur itself before the police forced us to stop it.
In the meantime, Nepal Academy started the Drama Festival. I decided to participated, for which I wrote Raatka Banda Aankhaharu. Bishnu Bibhu, Nawaraj Karki and Kishor Pahadi were my co-actors. In the meantime, I started visiting libraries, especially the Indian, British and American libraries, to read dramas. I had no one to ask which play I should read. Incidentally, I found a play Aadhe–Adhure by Indian playwright Mohan Rakesh in Hindi. I read it several times, and read Brecht’s Three-penny Opera. The plays impressed me a lot. In the meantime, Dr. Shreeram Laghu, the famous Indian cinema actor and his team, came to Kathmandu to perform the same play Aadhe Adhuri at the City Hall. I went to watch it, and for the time, in such light, setting and design, I enjoyed a foreign play, and thought this was the ‘modern’ drama Bijay Malla was talking about. Even Academy plays were old and traditional, which I did not like at all.
As you confessed yourself, Aadhe-Adhure was the first ‘modern’ play you watched. When did you yourself write a play that was consciousness ‘modern’?
I had an uncle at Thamel, at whose place I often stayed. From his place to Ratnapark, I used to walk meandering through New Road because I did not know a short-cut. One day, I discovered the short-cut through a narrow street in Asa. Asan, you know, is a mysterious place; one can procure virtually everything there, from votive items to household things, and the place has every type of character. One day, I went to Ashok Cinema in Patan to watch a movie. When I returned to my Uncle’s home, it was quite late, and the doors had been locked. My Uncle and his family were in the USA, and the house was under the care of a caretaker. I knocked several times, but in vain. So I returned to Asan and knocked at a lodge. The lodge denied me a room. After nagging for a long time, it allowed me to roost underneath the ladder, where the workers slept. Early next morning, I saw women, with babies on their backs, sweeping the streets. On hearing the sound, I went closer and observed them. It struck to me that if I could lift the entire Asan and place it on the Academy stage, it would be a play in itself. Accordingly, I wrote Sadakdekhi Sadaksamma, which was performed several times. It has no single incident; it has no single character. At last a drunkard comes and says, “Be warned; no one should sleep tonight.” Chhetraparata Adhikari, the Manager at Sajha Publication, had come to watch my play. He called me and asked me to give him the scrip. He got it published from Sajha Prakashan sometime later. The play won me Sajha Puraskar. This is the first of my ‘modern’ plays I consciously wrote. It uses no mike or light. Its setting doesn’t change. The same is true for all my subsequent plays.
At the heart of your ‘modern’ plays, there is always a call from freedom and a criticism of the conservative establishment. You risked this even during the heydays of the Panchayat. Wasn’t that a risk? Who did you cope with it?
In 2033, the Panchayat had second amendment of the constitution. Freedom of speech was virtually withdrawn. My getting beaten up at Kirtipur is an outcome of the same. That was during the reign of Birendra. Though people call Birendra a liberal king, I don’t believe it. Had been liberal, this would not have happened.
Around this time, I was in a visit to Dhankuta. The BCC announced that Bhim Nayaran Shrestha and Yagya Bahadur had been hanged to death for attempting to bomb Birendra. The news shocked us, for Bhim Narayan was our neighbor. The same night, I wrote a solo play Atirikta Akash. It was performed at many places. Our plays used to be censored so much. Many pages from our scripts used to be cross-marked and banned. When performed, the police used to stay and monitor. This was very suffocating; we grew up in such an age.
How did the idea of Sarwanam sprout in your mind?
During those heydays of the Panchayat, when censorship was rampant and the police was always after us, I thought, unless we had a group, we would not be able to move. So, we founded Sarwanam in 2038. Though, much earlier, the name Sarwanam had been used as to perform the play Murdabadma Utheka Haatharu, we formally established it later in 2038. Since then, it was continued to survive and grow.
How do you observe the way our academia handles the drama as a discipline?
It is a bitter fact that university teachers, who teach drama, seldom come to the theater. In fact, they don’t know what a theater is like. One-Act plays have practically died out from the world stage, but the professors are still teaching. I recently said in a public event that such professors do not even have the right to teach dramas. The division of plays as full or one-act plays does not exist anymore. All plays are plays, be it short or long. Scenes change with light; the traditional concepts of scenes have disappeared. I say my plays are plays; they are not one-act, or full plays. Only Mohan Himanshu Thapa agreed on what I said. Others have continued with their outdated methods. This is painful.
You are credited for pioneering street plays in Nepal. How did you arrive at this idea of street plays?
Those days, we did not have halls where we could perform. I wanted some easy ways to perform, in every place I could. I wanted a low-cost theater to come up, where, even a table could be made a theater. We could not always pay for halls, but should that mean we should not be performing? I thought the very place we are in could become a theater for some time. I said my plays should be able create the theater where they need. Read my plays with this idea in mind; you will find that my plays can work everywhere on earth. In the same vein, I wrote Hami Basanta Khojiharechhau. In fact, it was about democracy we all had been seeking. It opens with a character asking, “Did you see my pigeon? Its wings have been severed. Who could have stolen it? I am here to find it.” And at the end, the character says, “Our play did not end today as well. It will end the day we find the spring.”
Those days, getting published in Rooprekha was a dream; it could make someone a writer overnight. With my script in hand, I went to meet its editor Uttam Kunwar. With much fear and hesitation, I gave him the script. He read the script there and there. Those were the types of editors those days. After reading it, he said, “This is what a play should be like! I will publish it in the current issue itself.” I didn’t believe my own ears. That was a dream-come-true! Maybe this was the ‘modern’ play Bijaya Malla hinted at.
We never had money, but we wanted the play to reach the public. So we decided to perform it openly. Censorship was always there. As an experiment, we performed it in Balmiki Campus Hall. The audience was there; the stage was there too. But we performed it among the audience, not on the stage. After this, we moved to Kirtipur hoping that if there was any reaction, the students and the public would save us. In fact, the police had been hunting for us. I can’t tell how many times we were nabbed and hauled. We performed anyway, with students sitting all around us. We named this genre of plays ‘sadak natak’ or street plays. This was the first ‘street play’ in Nepal. People did not even know plays could be performed like that. My plays did not need a theater; they created one whenever and wherever needed. Later, street plays became a movement.
If your compare those smothering Panchayat days with uncensored and free time we have today, what difference do you find?
The recent political changes have had a great influence on Nepali art and literature, and theater is no exception. Changes that occurred in 2036, 46 or 62 have impacted the theater a lot. Before 2046 and, during the Panchayat era, we could never perform a play freely. Some plays performed by governmental organizations or pro-government groups continued to eulogize the state, while we advocated for freedom. For this reason, we were in peril. After these political changes, doors have been opened in many directions today. Our confidence has multiplied. In our days, one of our eyes used to be on the police, and the other on our rehearsal or performance. In districts outside Kathmandu, the CDO set police against us, and many times, we were warned to go away lest they would be obliged to arrest us. Even during rehearsals, there could be spies. But today, there is great freedom and many opportunities are at hand. This fact should be noted and scripted in history. Another thing is ours is a digital age. The world has become a small village. National boundaries have disappeared. Plays from all over the world can be watched on mobile phones and laptops. We have that access. What is happening in America, Europe or India can be seen instantly. That is a great achievement. I was lucky to see many things, including scarcities of an age when we did not have even a recorder. I remember once, for a play, we needed the sound of a cicada and a dog barking. I and Govinda Giri Prerana went to the Bagmati bank to record the voices and outstayed the night. After recording the cicada’s voice, we followed a dog to record its bark. When we placed the recorder near the snout of the dog, it was by a thin margin that we escaped its biting! Look at this and compare I with the digital age today, where high technology gives us anything we need from anywhere in the world. Such a great help! Those days, we had no plays to watch and learn from; we performed whatever we knew. We had no gurus, no godfathers. But today, there are multiple facilities.
You have travelled to several countries in the world and have seen the theaters there. Where do you find Nepalese theater, compared to the global standard?
I visited many countries, performed there, and watched their plays. Our Nepali plays are in no way inferior to any other play. This is my estimation. At ours, where there is so much of scarcity and not even a play school, we are still doing great. I think there is no other university like scarcity. I was once in Canada to partake in a drama festival. There I said we use nothing in our plays because we don’t have; you don’t use things because you want an experiment. After all, we came from a time performing in the lantern light! We have little return; yet we are doing. We have no government support. Yet five to six play houses perform in Kathmandu daily, which is not a reality even in New Delhi. We have functional theaters. I recently told and American that our theaters have not been opened by business groups for income; they are founded by artists with extraordinary commitment, investing from their personal saving, or from the income earned by selling their properties. Still, they are performing. See the creative minds in our country! See the talent in our new actors and directors! I am very, very hopeful. Even without the state support, they are doing it. If only there was some state support, it would be magical. Yet, airing this complaint is of no much use.
And finally, a passing remark on Sarwanam—your dream project. Sarwanam has become an exhilarating fact today. How do you evaluate this achievement?
I had a dream—Sarwanam—for plays, and for several art forms including painting. I was once approached to become the Chancellor for the Academy of Music and Drama. Prominent politicians, including Minister Narahari Acharya and the then Minister for Culture Minendra Rizal approached me with the proposal. But I denied. I thought spending five years there would be a great loss. I am in my mid-sixties, and after fulfilling one dream (Sarwanam), I have to fulfill yet another dream. I always wonder why Sama, the Shakespeare of Nepal, in spite of being from the Rana family and so close to King Mahendra, did not start a theater. A school? And Bijaya, though such a legend, so close to palace, and many times a member of the Academy, did not do that either. Nor did Bhimnidhi Tiwari open any. They wrote plays and left, but I thought Ashesh Malla should produce thousands of Ashesh Mallas before leaving. I have to produce thousands of Ashesh Mallas in order to save the theater. I told the same to Narahari Acharya, who had come to inspire me to become the Chancellor. He said I could produce such people from there. I said, “No. You pick party workers. If you would allow me to pick my crew, I can think.”
I did whatever I knew. Seventeen batches have graduated from Sarwanam. I call it a ‘theater lab’, more than a performance place. Many of my students have become playwrights and directors. Each one of them is so bright. Now, even if I die, Sarwanam, as a movement, will survive.
