The New Story Tellers
One of the Nepals most skilled theatre professionala told me that therearen't just enough Nepali playwriters.This came on the heel of the countroversy,when author Govinda Bartaman wrote a piece in a daily newspaper questioningthe revelance of the Ibsen festival in Nepal.A few days later ,author andprofessor Abhi Subedi explaied tkis in a similaar term.
Shakespear,Ibsen,Euripides,Sophocles,Bal krishna sama,Vijaya Mallaand Govinda Gothaleare all timeless,universal or pioneering.Through their work we think aout everything about everything about the Oedipus complex,to feminism,to love and death. But all I say this with the utmost respect for all these greats:while they all depist the school of life,thry each do it in terms of their spefic culture,time and milieu. What about us?We live i the age of the digital democracy,globalization,sex,drugs,AIDS,consumerismand all the rest of it.Who is talking about spefic factors that makes our lives what they are?Just look at its just finished civil war and modernisation and its place in the world.Life is mpre demanding and possibilities seems to be shrinking.We're bounded by our nation our culture.Where is our life?Who is writing about our conditionwhatever might be. We all have our story.Ihave mine.I've been involved with a guy in England forsix years.we've met just once.Over the years,our connection has only gotten stronger-through internet chatting,web camera,email that's it.We swear,talk about sex,andfantasise through this'Artificial' medium.One day i told my story through my play'Virtual Reality'.People were shocked to hear the swear words and explict talk about the sex mamas and being slippery when wet,but thats the chatroom reality.In mysore India where we performed, we were not criticised ,but congrulated for taking risks to deal with cuberculture. Our story will never br told by academics or believers in conventional threatre.They know too much about grammar and abuout dos and don'ts.At a recent event in Gurukula star threatre artist from Mugu was portraying about the life of the street children.In doing so,the artist spoke the language which contained the swear words.It was'nt overthe top or at the countroversy,it was there ,as it was in life.An old school critic objected,saying that in the threatre,one must speak the"language of the threatre".Now we get to see whether there is real or artificial scarcity of Nepali playwriter.The audience decides the 'language of the threatre',not the directors and writers.If the ego of the old school can get out of the way, we can be playwriters too. Every time I go to the Himalayan Java,I met Abhi Subedi.I am waiting for this playwrite,who wrote'MAYA DEVI KO SAPANA'in this very cafe,to writeabout a person who sis with one cup of coffee for two hours becausethough he cannot offer the other one he cant tear himself either.I amwaiting for sonu bhakta to write a paradox of some one who owns a Nokia N-seriesmobile,but instead of ringing and talking to the people he gives them a missed calls. I cannot write a story of my father and my children,only naarrate them.The only story i can write is of my own.
shivani Singh Tharu
illustrated fro wave mag
