Madan Award-winning novelist Leeladhwaj Thapa

In the Nepali literary world, there is an award that every writer aspires to – the Madan Award. The award has been given since 2013 and was won by the novel “Man” in 2014. It also became the first novel to win the Madan Award. The novelist of the book, Leeladhwaj Thapa, was awarded the title of “the first novelist to win the Madan Award”. I have to say it is an interesting and funny coincidence that the first novel I read in my life was this “Man”.

For this I have to go back to my school life. I was studying at Devi High School in Hetaunda, Bhutan. My elder brother Shambhuraj Giri used to live in Kathmandu and would visit Hetaunda Mulghar from time to time. On such occasions, he would regularly buy the Gorkhapatnam and bring it home. Sometimes he would bring a book to read.

Once, he brought a thick book and was reading it. Usually after reading it, he would take the book to Kathmandu. But this time he forgot to take that book. In the book that he left behind, the section of Gorkhapatra was inserted. I opened the cover of that book and saw that the book was the novel of Man. Author name Leeladhwaj Thapa.

So when I didn’t know what literature was, I knew nothing about language and literature, I was introduced to the book Man, a novel. People introduced him to the name of Leeladhwaj Thapa, the author of the novel. Little did I know then that one day I would meet this author and be interviewed!

Read the book. But I didn’t read it. I used to read school textbooks with big letters, but I didn’t have the courage to read such a big book with such small letters. On top of that, reading a textbook or a novel was unthinkable. It was considered a form of juvenile delinquency at the time. I put the cover of that book in a drawer. No one else in the room was interested in it.

But which day the song started playing, I started reading that book, “Novel of the Heart”. The taste became stronger and stronger. I read that novel “Luki Luki”. I don’t remember how many days it took me to finish the novel, but I still remember that it took a long time after I finished the novel. When the man came to marry Mana, Mana ran away and married her sister instead of Mana, and the description of playing secrets did not disappear from my mind, it has been lingering in my mind for a long time. Mana ran out of the back door of the original house and made a sarcastic sound in the cornfield. When I went to weed the cornfield myself, I found this sound in the text of the novel, and it impressed me in a childish way.

Later, when his brother returned from Kathmandu, he began to look for the novel. But I read it over and over again, the pages were torn, and the whole book was gone. Because I had read the description of playing Ratauri countless times.

Today I remember that in Nepali narratives, this phrase of Ratayuli is as vivid as in Heart, and perhaps it is difficult to find other examples. Perhaps now the word “Ratayuli” may seem strange to the new generation. The tradition of playing Ratayuli at weddings is disappearing. The wedding was held in the evening, and people arrived at the bride’s house, where people enjoyed the evening. On the other hand, the custom of women playing Ratayuli all night at the groom’s house has almost disappeared, although some are still preserved in the village. But I think that the expression of nocturnal culture will live long in the novel Man.

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After completing SLC from Hetaunda, I went to Kathmandu for further studies and started walking towards literature, I became a figure who arrived at Nayasadak Peopleboat, a literary plaza. After working as an accountant in the Financial Management Department of the Central Office of Tribhuvan University in Tripureswar at that time, it was convenient to go for a walk in Nayasadak after get off work in the evening. The peopleboat of Nayasadak took the form of meeting, talking, drinking tea, writing in newspapers and receiving newspapers for free with the literary figures there.

Leeladhwaj Thapa also wrote a poem to be recited at the festival. He narrated that poem to us. The poem contained words like “Yo Niyogko…” and he fluently recited “Yoni Yogako…”

Yes, the meetings and discussions of two writers were very memorable so far. One of them was Balakrishna Sam. He used to come from his residence Dnyaneshwar in a rickshaw wearing his special dress. It was a dress which was a mix of kameez and daulah. He was seen from time to time in Naya Sadak with a smooth and well-maintained face. I used to see him coming like this and saying hello to someone. But since I was a complete stranger, people saw me from a distance. Another personality was Leeladhwaj Thapa. He also dressed up and rode a bicycle with a very gentle personality, dinging ding bells, through Naya Sadak to Indra Chowk. He had curly hair, a coat, a hat, shiny black shoes and sunglasses. It is said that he used to carry another handkerchief to wipe the stains on his shoes! His personality also looked magnificent. I remember reading the novel Mann in Hetaunda.

Later I read the novel Mann again in Kathmandu. I also read his other novels Shanti and Pre Smriti. I even greeted him. He smiled back at the greeting. But there was no special conversation. Anyway, I had no relationship with her by then.

But I had the opportunity to listen to several of his conversations with other writers. From that conversation, I discovered that he had some strange and magical quality or ability, he was content to give sexuality to everything. For example, the ability to make everything obscene, which Hamesi did not have.

Yagnanidhi Dahal seemed to come from somewhere and he said, “Here comes Hal!” Someone brought up God. He said, “Bhag ko wan!” That’s when I realized that bhaga means yoni. I was able to see, hear and understand this quality of him up close. I was able to be a witness. He could express such things in a very simple and easy way, with a smile on his face.

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One day after 2040. I was married. I went to a literary event near Karoppur with my wife. The event was held at the main reception of Leeladhwaj Thapa. There I met Jyoti Bhandari. When he was studying in Padmakanya campus, Ashesh Malla’s play used to be rehearsed there and I was also a part of it. One day, the rehearsal of the play was postponed. In the rhythm of watching the rehearsal, Jyoti also came home late. As he was not comfortable going alone, I had to go to Kalimati Dera, so I went to Dnyaneshwar to his residence. Chatting along the way, I became a brother and sister with him. The relationship is still intact.

After that literary event, Jyoti invited my wife and me to her residence. She lived somewhere there and she was married. Meanwhile, Jyoti indicated that she was related to Leeladhwaj Thapa. But how distant or how close, it was unknown.

After some time, I learned that Leeladhwaj Thapa was unwell and was admitted to Veer Hospital. I went to meet him. Others also met there, including Jyoti. Although Leeladhwaj Thapa was admitted to the hospital due to illness, he was full of gossip and energy.

He said that when he saw the nurse misbehaving with the patient in the nearby bed, he called the nurse nearby and slapped him. Today was the day when the nurses stopped working. During the strike. That happened.

It must have been May or June. Because by then the king had given the title to the Baisak-I poetry festival. Poets had already started sending poems to Pragya Pratishthan. I found out in the hospital that Leeladhwaj Thapa had also written a poem to be recited at the poetry festival. He had been reciting this poem to those who visited him. He also told us about the poem. The poem had the words “Yo Niyogko…” and he was reciting “Yoni Yogako…” very quickly and the women, including Jyoti, were listening with their heads bowed. But Leeladhwaj Thapa was acting very relaxed.

Later it was learnt that he had been discharged from hospital. On June 9, when he reached Pragya Bhavan for the 2041 Poetry Festival, he saw Leeladhwaj Thapa sitting in the front row of the main Pragya auditorium. As we are poets, we dare not sit in the front row and are not allowed to go in. In the previous 3-4 waves, people used to sit behind the seats and block the way.

The poetry recitation was over. But Leeladhwaj Thapa was not invited to the poetry recitation. He questioned why he was not invited to stand up and recite the poem. Maybe the announcer said that the poem could not be recited or something. Maybe because of the vocabulary or because someone had already talked about the poem, he was not allowed to recite the poem. He then stormed out of the auditorium, cursing the Pragya officials.

Especially when reading that poem, Pragya Pratishthan did not hurt. There was no need to scold a senior writer like Leeladhwaj Thapa for not understanding that poem! There was a special excitement in the auditorium.

That was the last time I saw Leeladhwaj Thapa in person. He passed away in October of the same year.

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Leeladhwaj Thapa is a highly respected novelist in Nepali literature. Born on June 11, 1978, died on October 14, 2041, and when searching online, neither his biography nor his works nor any interviews with him were found. Sometimes I wonder, is the relevance of Liladhwaj Thapa in Nepali literature over! Are readers of the digital world not interested in the context of his writing? This is impossible. There is no doubt that the relevance of his novels will disappear or diminish. He is the first novelist to win the Madan Award, a Nepali literary award for fiction. In 2004, he won the first prize in the novel competition organized by the Bhasha Prakashini Committee of Nepal.

His first play, Amar Maya, was published in 2002. His works Dahri (Prose-2009) and Shri 5 Mahendra Shubharajyabhishek (Khandavya-2013) have also been published. In addition, works such as For All (2016) and Forever (2027) have also been edited and published by him.

But basically all his three novels bring out vividly the social, economic and political aspects of Nepali society of that time and cultural aspects of Nepal also fit in easily. Novelist Thapa will live forever in his novels.

-Falls ChurchVirginia, United States