Lil Bahadur Chhetri
Interview
[Lil Bahadur Chhetri (b. 1933), a winner of Padmashree Award, is a renowned novelist from Assam Province of India. His novel Basai, translated into English as Mountains Painted with Turmeric is counted among landmark achievements in Nepali Literature. Besides Basain, he is also author of Brahmaputrako Chheu Chhau, a novel that won him the Sahitya Academy Award, one of the most prestigious literary awards in India. He has also authored two story collections, three plays, four collections of essays, a collection of one-act plays, a few poems, songs and research works. This interview was taken by Mahesh Paudyal with the octogenarian writer in 2017. Published herewith is an excerpt of the same interview, that originally appeared in Nepali in Garima four years ago.]
Would you excavate your earliest literary influences?
The first major influence that ignited my interest in Nepali literature was Poet Bhanubhakata. He is the author I read in depth for the first time. I spent my childhood in Shillong, and acquired my primary education in Bengali. The school I first attended was Gorkha Pathshala, where Paras Mani Pradhan was my teacher. He was the one who introduced me to the works of Bhanubhakta and Motiram. I learnt many verses from Bhanubhakta’s Ramayan by heart; much of it I can recite even today. I forgot much of the things I read later, but Bhanubhakta is in my permanent memory. At home too, Father used to read verses from the Ramayan. This was the earliest literary influence on me.
Did the influence continue through your teenage or you had other choices?
In my teenage, my admiration for Bhanubhakta became even deeper. In 1956, we observed Bhanu Jayanti (Bhanu’s birth anniversary), which was the first observance of the event in the entire North-East India. We got it done for a mere expense of 76 rupees, but the event was grand. I think an event of that magnitude has not been organized till date. We had hard times finding the portrait of Bhanubhakta. We found one inside a book Paras Mani possessed. We took the same and requested a painter, Ram Ballabh, to paint a portrait. I still have the portrait with me. It’s used during Bhanu Jayanti and other events even today. Since that event in 1953 also had some Assamese-speaking invitees as guests, the secretarial report was written in English. Later, the report was published in a magazine in Sikkim. I have read no other write-up of that quality on Bhanubhakta till date.
Means, you picked literary influence from family and society?
Yes. My mother used to sing sangini songs. I used to listen with a lot of interest. My novel Basain also has contexts that mention sangini songs. I have already mentioned my father’s love for the Ramayan. My father was quite staunch in religions matters. He used to worship every morning and evening. He always read scriptures like the Rudri and the Chandi. From them, I imbibed poetic taste. While I was still a small child, my father took me to Tehrathum of Nepal, where I collected profound experiences. Much later, I realized that those experiences were great sources of literature. When I came of age, I recollected those emotions and wrote Basain in 1957. As long as I was in the college, I opted for Nepali as my Major Indian Language (MIL) paper, though my major was Economics. But then, the literary inspiration my family gave me has lasted till date, and I am using it even now.
Your childhood influences hint your inclination towards poetry and epics. But you earned fame as a fiction writer. Do you accept that you didn’t do justice to the poet inside you?
Poetry is the first literature I wrote, around the year 1949. Upon hearing Hindi aarati “Om Jaya Jagadish Hare,” I felt an urge to write a similar thing in Nepali. Those days, aarati was not available in Nepali. So I wrote “Shiva Stuti,” invocation to Lord Shiva. It was published as a booklet from Vani Printing Press, Shillong. Together with it, I also wrote other devotional songs. Later, when I became a job-holder with All India Radio Guwahati Station, I faced the need to air Nepali devotional and other songs. But it was hard to find a Nepali lyricist those days. So, I myself took the initiative. Many of my songs went on air from the radio. They are still broadcasted. Maya Thakuri and Chandrakala Newar also sang some of my songs.
My poems used to be published in Madhupark and other magazines in Nepal. One of my poems, “Vishwadarshan” was highly acclaimed. Uttam Pradhan, the editor of Guwahati-based Nepali magazine Hamro Dhwani searched out songs and poems form my diary, and when he had fifty of them, he published a special edition of the magazine, dedicating it to me. On knowing that I also wrote poetry, some critics lambasted me for ignoring my poetic faculty. But that is not the fact.
Though that is not the fact, it is true that the poet/lyricist Lil Bahadur got strayed elsewhere. Isn’t it?
That is a result of circumstances. I wrote plays before writing Basain. My play Daksha was performed in more than 15 locations, but was not published. I had written the title song for it: “Aaja samajko diyo dhipdhip chha.” It was a play against irrational social practices, and it basically lambasted the practice of marrying multiple wives, as soon as a man becomes rich. I don’t even have records of my radio dramas and serials. Dobato (1967) and Suruko Suru (1987) are my published dramas while Maang is a collection of my published one-act plays. The last named work was published in 1978.
After this, I turned towards stories. In 1952, two of my stories, “Kartavya” and “Saneki Aama” were published in Yugvani, edited by Laxmi Prasad Devkota, and published form Banaras. After this, my “Jeevanko Batti Nibhyo” was published in Gorkha Patrika from Kalimpong. Two of my story collections, Teen Dashak: Bis Abhivyakti (1983) and Lil Bahadur Chhetrika Kathaharu (1997) have been published.
Would you briefly talk about your essays, please?
My first essay was published in 1954 in Gorkha Patrika. Of my published essay collections, I want to mention Assamma Nepali Bhasha ra Tyasko Sahro-Gahro (1961), Purvanchal Bharatiya Nepali Kala Sahitya ra Patrikarityako Itihas (1997), Jhyaure Partyma Lagda (1999), and Simalko Bhuwa. According to a conclusion drawn by researcher Dr. Laxmi Prajuli, Assamma Nepali Bhasha ra Tyasko Sahro-Gahro is the first essay collection in Nepali published from North-East India.
And things were different after you turned towards novels, weren’t they?
As a writer, I earned maximum admiration from my novels. Till this day, my most sought-after works are novels. Basain, published in 1957, has run for several editions. It has the glory of being the first original novel in Nepali language, published form North-East India. Besides Nepali, this work has also been published in different others languages. It has two versions in English: Towards Unknown Horizons, done by Larry Hartsell, published by Aankura Publication, Sikkim, and Mountain Painted with Tumeric, done by Michel Hutt, and published by Cambridge University Press. In Assamese, it was published with the same name Basain, under DB Chhetri’s translation. This translated was a great success. A friend of mine also translated it into Hindi and showed me the first draft too, but was never published.
Brahmaputrako Chheu-Chhau earned me the Sahitya Academy Award. Agni Bahadur Chhetri translated it into Assamese, and this version too was published by Sahitya Academy. Dr. Surendra Shaha translated it into Hindi and Dr. Mameshwar Bodo in Bodo language. In English, the translation is being done by Utpala Shiva. Let’s see how soon the task will be accomplished. My third novel, Pratidhwanika Bismritiharu was published in 2004. I think that should be translated in English too. It has many sub-plots; it has a lot of allusions to world wars. I have made my father’s character the basis of this story. My critics think, it is a work that stands midway between modernism and postmodernism.
Assam is a non-Nepali state. Languages of the minority in Assam show a lot of Assamese influence, but your writing is free of that. How did you manage to keep yourself safe from linguistic influence of the Assamese?
I spent my childhood in Shillong, not in mainland Assam. Though Shillong too was under the territory of Assam those days, it later became the capital of Meghalaya, a different province that disintegrated from Assam, together with six other states. Linguistically speaking, Shilling is not a Assamese-speaking town. More, my first school was a Bengali medium school. Later, I attended the Gorkha Pathshala in Shillong and studied under the mentorship of Paras Mani Pradhan, an exponent of Nepali language and literature. I also have deep influence from the works of Bhanubhakta and Motiram. Later, we migrated to Guwahati of Assam, but our family language continued to be pure Nepali. So, the language I write or speak does not show much regional influence.
You are a senior writing. At such an age, many writers go for biography writing. Aren’t you preparing for anything like that?
Autobiography? No, I am not preparing for that. I think someone else should write a biography. If there is anyone willing to write on me, I am ready to give all the necessary resources. About half of my life has been written in Pratidhwani Bismritika, and the rest has appeared in Simako Bhuwa.
What can readers expect from you in the near future?
I have a number of plots for novels. I have a desire to write, but have not started yet. These days, I am writing micro-stories, and publishing them as isolated pieces. It’s a type of experimental writing. I hope a collection of my micro-stories will appear soon.
You have a lot of admirers among Nepali-speaking people all over the world. How would you love to remember them?
A man is rendered speechless, when he receives a lot of love. His tears speak instead. The love I received from Nepal and the Nepalese is so immense that I am completely soaked in it. I have no words to describe that. I feel my tears are rolling. I am much grateful.