Born to musician Narayan Das Karki, she still remembers the day when her father held the instrument to her for the first time when she was just 11.
“I had no clue what the instrument was for. I just knew that it brought out sweet melodies. When I was 12, I was able to play the open strings,” she recalls.
Karki never thought that one day she would represent Nepal abroad as a female violinist. She never thought she would take it professionally, either. But as she grew, she slowly fell in love with the violin, her first boyfriend, she says.
There was no looking back. She took herself deeply into the notations of the four-stringed instrument.
Despite her father himself being a musician, he however did not want her to take up music as her profession.
“I was a daughter, after all. And that too in a society where people still live with orthodox beliefs. He didn’t want me to become a musician. But thanks to my mom, she always knew that her daughter wanted to go beyond the limits,” shares Karki.
Once she completed her secondary level of school, she started performing at college programs and was noticed by many.
She wanted to study more about violin. But in Nepal, it was something impossible because in her own words, “musicians in Nepal are full of ego and with I-know-it-all attitude.”
She applied to Allahabad University of India for a diploma course and completed her three years in violin with distinction marks. “I got 85 out of 100 after I performed live there,” she reveals.
It was four years ago when she first performed at the Nepal Academy for Karna Das’ concert. “My first payment was five hundred Rupees. When I played solo in the Academy Hall again, I got 3,000 Rupees. I was so happy,” Karki adds.
Having played in dozens of programs in Nepal, she is the lady behind the “Malashri dhun” of violin that is aired on Nepal Television during the Dashain and Tihar festivals.
Also an instructor at Little Angels’ School and LRI School in Kathmandu, the young violin player now looks up to internationally acclaimed violinists like Itzhak Perlman and other soloists. A graduate in management studies, she aims to organize an evening of symphonic orchestra in Nepal.
“As far as I’m aware of, there have been no such events in Nepal so far. To play in a symphonic orchestra, you need instruments like double bass, cello, violin, trumpet and clarinet. We hardly have them,” Karki elaborates with an expression of disappointment. “It’s really hard to conduct such shows because violin in Nepal is still a new phenomenon for many. In a symphonic orchestra, you need four kinds of violin; you need a brass section, trumpets, flutes, clarinets, oboes, and timpani for rhythm. Most of these instruments are owned either by the Nepal Police or Nepal Army. It’s keyboard, guitar and drums that are popular in Nepal.”
She highlights that it is because people from Asian countries are too much into guitar and sitar, which has made the popularity of violin go down.
Adds she, “Surprisingly, we have none in Nepal who qualify as professional violinists as per international standards. We still are confined to eastern music and haven’t been exposed to western notes.”
Karki laments that most Nepali musicians are conservative. “They don’t even want to teach their pupils as much as they’ve learnt. It’s because they fear that their students might become more popular in the field than them. It’s such a pathetic school of thought. In countries elsewhere, a teacher’s attempt is always to make his/her students brighter than him.”
The lady with the tight and tuned strings is now looking forward to hosting a symphonic orchestra in Nepal this August. “It’s not that we don’t have good musicians here. It’s just that we’re happy sticking to below-average performances. We can do better if we want.”
With that conviction, Kabita Karki resumes her morning exercises on her violin.
