Stories of people and the turning points in their lives—a wife losing her husband during the decade-long conflict, a young man finding about his HIV— is what Kalyan narrates on his weekly radio show “Mero Katha.”[break]
“Every person has a story to tell and Mero Katha is one such platform,” shares Kalyan, who has been the host and scriptwriter of the show for the past 13 years. However, the most read narratives on the show are related to love and tragedies, informs the anchor.
Kalyan’s storytelling journey began from HITS FM, when the station was transmitted on 100 MHz. Currently, the show airs on Image FM 97.9, which covers 75% of the major areas of Nepal.
His first show started with a story of his close friend.
“My friend had resorted to drugs to overcome the ordeal brought by the breakup with his girlfriend,” recalls Kalyan.
“After the story was aired, people were concerned about him and sympathized. And I guess that helped him regain the grip over his life,” Kalyan reasons. At present, according to him, the friend is happily married and lives a drug-free life.
“I came across a lot of incidents where young people were depressed and tried committing suicide because they could not unite with their lovers due to some unfortunate circumstances or they were betrayed by them. Moreover, they didn’t have anyone to share their pent-up emotions,” recalls Kalyan.
And there sprang the idea of a radio show where people could share their stories.
Although the program was initially targeted to teenagers and mostly circled around love issues, the concept has evolved into more diverse subjects, targeting a wide range of listeners. According to Kalyan, he has received letters from around the globe—Europe, Malaysia, Middle East—and members of the ex-royal family. However, in the beginning, people were skeptical about the show’s concept.
“Queries like who would listen to a one-hour-long program based on real-life stories surfaced. And to some extent it was true as well,” says the 38-year-old broadcaster.
But the program appealed to the ones who lived in solitude, like the 80-year-old Chandra Badan Rajbhandari and “gave them company” adds Kalyan.
Some six/seven years ago, Chandra started tuning to Mero Katha, previously titled as Mero Katha Mero Geet on Hits FM. “His voice and the way how the stories were presented is what I liked the most,” shares Chandra.
The mood of the show usually is gloomy with Nepali instruments like flute playing in the background as Kalyan narrates the stories. “I felt like the story was being staged in front of me when I listened to the show. And I even cried,” recalls Chandra.
Chandra, who lost her husband at the age of 16, found a friend in the show. Inspired by Kalyan’s words, she even penned down her story— ups and downs of life, journey to Benaras with her husband and the life without him—which was aired on “Mero Katha.” “I felt content after listening to my story,” shares the octogenarian.
Apart from transforming the letters into narratives and breaking them into subplots so that the show flows like a “film screenplay”, Kalyan also searches for other ideas.
“Whenever I visit places, I try to track down local stories,” he says. And one such story is of Shanti, who lost her husband during the Maoist insurgency. For this particular story, Kalyan, who hails from Dang, traveled to his native land.
Shanti, whose husband was a Maoist leader, had lost him during the insurgency.
“As the situation was not appropriate then, I planned to revisit Dang to chronicle Shanti and her husband’s story,” says Kalyan who was there to set up Radio Tulsipur, a local radio station.
Not only was Shanti’s story aired, but now it also shares space with about two dozen stories in Mero Katha 2, a collection of short stories penned by Kalyan. Based on real life events that he has narrated so far, the radio anchor has published two anthologies—Mero Katha Part 1 and 2.
“Writing a book is less difficult than scripts,” opines the man. And that is why two years ago, Kalyan took a break from his radio show.
“It had started getting monotonous for me but requests poured in to resume the program,” he shares.
And now, as he is back to the scene, and so is the program that gave him his “Dear Kalyan” identity.
“Maybe I’ll continue the show for some four-five years,” he concludes.
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