It started as an idea for radio veteran Khagendra Nepali after he retired. During his BBC days in London, he made audio books part of his life and fell in love with them. “I used to listen to a lot of them,” Nepali says. [break]
(From left to right) Ravi KC, Khagendra Sangroula, Kamal Mani Dixit, Diamond Shumsher Rana, Khagendra Nepali and SP Koirala.
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After his retirement, while trying to find some of his favorite literatures in audio form he realized Nepal had zero audio books. “There were none.”
“I wanted to contribute towards something substantial,” the person read on radio all his life says. “The only talent I have is reading and that is what I do best.”
But Nepali’s “only talent” is one in a million. His voice was a household name in the Nepali news service and he became almost synonymous to the BBC’s Nepali Service. The evening quarter-to-nine news was a signature of his deep, weighty but smooth voice.
So he began to try a few bits and pieces of “story-telling” out on his friends. With encouragement from friends such as Kamal Mani Dixit, he decided to release an audio book. His first endeavor saw B.P. Koirala’s Atmabritanta in an oral narrative.
You can hear his smirk as he says “It totally clicked.”
Last week, after the success of his first audio book, the inspired Nepali released his second initiative amid the luxurious setting of the Soaltee Hotel; a six-CD full-length audio book on Diamond Shumsher Rana’s Seto Bagh.
Seto Bagh, once banned, was written by Nepal’s premier litterateur Diamond Shumsher Rana. The novel itself is a bombshell of sorts. Another superb literature figure Kamal Mani Dixit reminiscences how it almost got him into trouble. Dixit was working for Sajha Prakashan then and read the draft of the novel. The then general manager of Sajha, Narendra Bikram Pant decided to publish the book and Dixit was supposed to write its introduction. The intro almost earned him a jail term and he was labeled an “anti-nationalist element.”
Diamond Shumsher Rana launching audio book of Seto Bagh with Khagendra Nepali.
The book, also known as The Wake of White Tiger, tells the story of Jung Bahadur Rana, Nepal’s first Rana Prime Minister. Seto Bagh is said to be closer to the truth and impressively depicts the story of the Rana family and the politics which surrounded it. It has a visual display of impressive characters and incidents.
Also called “a player of words”, Nepali laureate Shumsher is one of few who has been able to live solely off profits made from his books sales. He was jailed for more than 30 years, on and off, writing Seto Bagh during one of these terms between 1960 and 66 when he was jailed for six years. He first published the book in 1970, selling 200 copies.
“I wrote this book on account of things I used to hear around my house. It was a well-known fact what I wrote,” Shumsher says. 91year-old Shumsher was also an activist with the Nepali Congress at some point during the fight against the tyrannical Rana oligarchy rule, even though he was from a Rana clan and a major in the Rana army.
Shumsher believes every new invention contains a curse. “If you try to stay out in the sun for too long, your skin will burn. Audio books might replace reading books, but will not replace literature. We should be more progressive about these things,” he says.
Audio books are a recorded version of books, started as part of the Books for the Adult Blind Project in 1932. In the ‘80s, the medium truly began to attract booksellers and producers.
After the establishment of the Audie Awards in the mid ‘90s, the idea of audio books picked up in massive sense, going hand-in-hand with the introduction and popularization of MP3. With the advance of the internet, compressed audio formats and portable MP3 players, the popularity of audio books has increased significantly in the last decade.
“The audio book is not a new phenomenon. But with the development of technology, it has now entered our room,” Khagendra Nepali tells myrepublica.com.
And perhaps our eardrums!
At the launching of the new audio book Seto Bagh, one participant quipped, “It would be very funny if the audio book starts with – Yo BBC London ko Nepali sewa ho (This is the BBC’s Nepali Service.”
The audio book did not start with that sentence, but the lively voice is a stark reminder of Nepali’s BBC quarter-to-nine broadcasting. Nepali retired as head of the BBC Nepali Service in 2004 after working for the institution for 28 years.
Technology has revolutionized the way we see, hear, read and think. The 480-minute long narration is ideal for those who do not have time to read but enjoy books nonetheless. “They can take this in their iPod and listen to their favorite book during gym or driving or walks or even traffic jams. The housewife can listen to it while doing her household chores. People in their twilight years can listen to it from their beds and sofas, even if their eyesight is long gone. This is good for the blind and for those with weak vision,” Nepali adds.
Nepali is the sole initiator and planner behind audio books in Nepal. The idea took Khagendra almost eight months of planning, during which he read the book more than 40 times. “I needed to read it so many times because it was essential that I would not edit the important information as I prepare it for the audio book,” Nepali says. He then abridged the book to make it suitable for reading. “It was an ardent task and huge responsibility to take something out from something so grand.”
Khagendra Nepali spent a total 125 hours on-air for the recording of Seto Bagh, recording for half an hour each morning. “You can’t record more than that. Your voice gets tired and it shows on your speech,” Nepali says.
Now based in London, he hosts a fortnightly television show in Nepali targeted at the Diaspora on issues of immigration, investment opportunities, politics and the global recession. But he considers recording and producing audio books “a worthwhile pursuit.”
A self-claimed ferocious reader, Nepali believes listening books are now the “in” thing. “This does not destroy the reading culture. It snstead provides an alternative method for those who do not read,” he says. “Reading has its own pleasure and listening to it is all different joy.”
Nepali’s next plan is to work on verse.“I have always wanted to do verse. And who else would be better than Laxmi Prasad Devkota. This year will be his 50th anniversary and I plan to come out with an audio book on his poems. They are surreal,” Nepali says.
He also plans to do a few poems by Bal Krishna Sama, as well as a trend-setting masterpiece called Abiral Bagchha Indrawati, a short story by the late Ramesh Bikal.
The radio oldie wishes to see the culture of audio books pick up. He thinks as the cost of production is relatively cheaper here, along with the abundance of books available and hundreds of people with good voices, book houses should be more interested in looking into this option.
“There are hundreds of youngsters and adults who walk around with their MP3 players and their iPods. We have a good market and good amount of books that can see them turn into audio books. Good audio books,” Nepali says.
Sharp critic and unrivaled penman Khangedra Sangroula praises his mitjyu Nepali for being a “work of art with his earful voice.”
Sangroula believes Nepali’s work acts as a service and provides benefits for many illiterate people, who, because of their lack of reading capability, were always forbidden from the pleasures of the literary world. “They will be blessed, thanks to Nepali,” Sangroula says.
Poet and bureaucrat SP Koirala believes literature was limited to a certain class in Nepal, and now the existence of listening books has taken it to a different class. “The new generation is a lover of technology. This would be the best gift for this generation of the future who would probably never read these good, old classics otherwise,” Koirala says, who is also the government official for hydro resources.
Seto Bagh audiobook is published by London-based Waves etc. Ltd, and is available at Mandala Book Point in Kathmandu for NRs 600.
