It is hard to pigeonhole the late Diamond Shumsher Rana. He was many voices in one body.
Rana fought oligarchy of his own clan. He was jailed for the same cause; his properties confiscated. It was perhaps the cost of being an independent writer during the Rana era. In fact, Diamond Shumsher was nearly killed for his stand against the bloodstained machinations of the Ranas hankering for power.
His death on this day last year therefore marked an irreparable loss: of a revolutionary, of a reliable teller of the Rana history and of a formidable voice in Nepali literature. Rana was a master of fictionalizing history and historicizing fiction; his techniques a benchmark for modern writers on Nepali history. On the first anniversary of his passing, here is a short commemorative on Diamond Shumsher’s ageless novels.
Rana’s novels mirror the nineteenth and twentieth century Nepali politics dominated by court intrigues, conspiracies and incessant struggle for power in the palace corridors of the Shahs and the Ranas. He looks behind the luxuries of the Rana oligarchy, contrasting it with the fate of the Nepalis who struggled to earn two square meals a day; analyzes the Rana-era diplomacy aimed at keeping the British in India happy and the ramification of such a strategy in Nepal. With history as their mirror, Rana’s novels span the pre-Rana period (pre 1845) to the early days of the Panchayat era (which began in 1960).
Basanti (1948), his first novel, is a tragic love story between Gagan Singh and Mithu (renamed Basanti when she enters the queen’s court as a maid). This epic tragedy brings to light events from pre-Rana period to rise and death of the Queen Rajyalaxmi’s consort Gagansingh (1846) and ends with the notorious Kot massacre (1846) looming. Grihaprabesh (2002), in a way, ties up the loose ends of Basanti.
Like Basanti, Grihaprabesh too has a love story at its heart, this time between Jung Bahadur Rana and Serbu, who later becomes his maharani (queen), while it also chronicles Jung Bahadur’s turbulent life before he reenters the Rana Durbar. After Bhimsen Thapa’s fall, JBR’s property was expropriated, and the future Shreen Teen forced to leave Kathmandu for Tarai (apparently somewhere around Chitwan) with nothing on him save the clothes on his body. On his return to Kathmandu, he meets Serbu in a Nuwakot forest.
History, in this novel, stretches as far back as the demise of Bhimsen Thapa (1839). The court conspiracies hatched against Thapa’s life (he would eventually commit suicide) are convincingly chronicled. Grihaprabesh, as such, largely dwells on rise of Jung Bahadur, the Kot Massacre and his entry into Thapathali durbar as a married maharaja and prime minister.
Seto Bagh (1984)—translated by Greta Rana as The Wake of White Tiger—reads like a sequel to Grihaprabseh and Basanti. It too centers on love, between Jagat Jung, the eldest son of Junga Bahadur and Princess Royal (daughter of king Surendra). The novel also talks of JBR’s loosening grip over court politics as he struggles to come to terms with his own aging body. The story pivots on the murder of Rana Udip (1885) and the subsequent annihilation and exile of Jung Bahadur’s sons by Dhir Shumsher and his 17 sons.
Satprayash (subtitled second part of Seto Bagh) speaks of the clash of reformist voices from within the Rana clan (led by Dev Shumsher) and the status-quoist mindset (epitomized by Bir Shumsher and Chandra Shumsher) at the time. Here the evil wins over the good as Dev’s reformist dreams are nipped in the bud by his wily brothers.
Diamond Shumsher does not confine himself to Rana history in his novels. He would prove this in Pratibadhha (1977) which is based on the anti-Panchayat rebellion led by Nepali Congress.
Romance features prominently in all novels of Diamond Shumsher but they are primarily the means to foreground history. The characters are not products of the writer’s imagination, but are real actors: Jung Bahadur, Dhir Shumsher, Jugat Jung, Chandra Shumsher, King Surendra, all come to life in his books. Historical details are so accurate that the distinction between history and fiction is often blurred.
Love, dirty power politics and cotemporary social and political milieus are superbly blended in his works. To read Diamond Shumsher is to be transported into the past, literally. His history is more than a chronology of major events. For Diamond Shumsher delves into the socio-political conditions behind major historical events while simultaneously offering a glimpse of how rulers make and unmake history. Seen another way, his is a plebian take on unending court intrigues and the luxurious lifestyle of the rulers.
Many events have shaped Nepal’s history, for both good and bad. Especially post-unification (ending1768) period is a saga of the rise and fall of nobles, courtiers, kings and consorts. But few in Nepali literary establishment have been able to capture those momentous events. Some have tried: Manjushree Thapa (Forget Kathmandu and Tutor of History), Samrat Upadhyay (Royal Ghosts and Buddha’s Orphans), Sheeba Shivangini Shah (Loyals of the Crowns and Facing my Phantoms) are a few names that spring to mind. There are also a few writers in Nepali like Kesab Raj Pindali and Singha Pratap Shah who have fore-grounded works in Nepali history. Still, literary works that have historicized fiction and fictionalized Nepali history are few and far between.
A great deal of Nepali history awaits representation in literature. Prithvi Narayan Shah’s Gorkhali Conquest, Anglo-Nepal war (1814-16), the rise and fall of Bhimsen Thapa, Nepal-Tibet War (1855-56), rise of Jung Bahadur and his visit to Europe, People’s Movement (both 1990 and 2006), Maoists Insurgency, Nepal’s Transition into Republic—all await creative writers. Diamond Shamsher has set the bar high. Eclipsing it will be no easy matter.
mbpoudyal@yahoo.com
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