My Top Five Nepali Songs of All Time
Personal reflections on five timeless Nepali songs.
Duita Fool Deurali Ma
Iswor Ballav wrote some good lyrics for Narayan Gopal. But in this song he attains sheer greatness. This isn’t an easy song to unpack its meaning. At its core it recollects a distant journey made by two people. The singer and someone else, who left their two flower offerings at the level place after a steep climb. Some details recollected are close and fresh. Narayan Gopal sings of beads of perspiration on the brow that rolled like the dew on rose petals and were fanned to dry by a fan of peepul leaf. But intriguingly, the refrain keeps saying - jasto lagcha - that is, it feels like we once travelled together. What’s happening here? We may never know. Is it a journey that is still being made, in which the travellers though close have grown distant and only the fading but at times telescopic recollections of past togetherness, kindle some hope? Narayan Gopal’s voice is the appropriate voice for this song. The flute coda, the weaving violins and the slowly beaten metronome of the percussions evoke a meandering walk up the mountain paths. And as the climb gets steeper, Narayan Gopal’s voice soars, up the mountains and into the skies. A truly haunting song that one never tires of listening to.
Pokhiera Gham Ko Jhilka
The opening burst of the violins truly evoke the brilliant photons of the morning sun as they stream and spill into the courtyard of the singer’s house. It is said that Haribhakta Katwal wrote this song when nursing a hangover. If true he must have really partaken of the wonderful stuff. This is close to what a perfect Nepali song can get. There is pace, rhythm and very fluent atmospherics. The violins soar and in their rise and ebb, the mandolins string along and flutes too give good company. Narayan Gopal’s voice, un-hassled by what’s happening with the music and lyrics, is grounded and earthy, clueless yet quietly clued-in. A song made timeless by the genius synergy of lyricist, musician and singer. A song that shines with the sparkle of a diamond.
Jati Maya Laye Pani
Another song that never ages. Arun Thapa sang some very popular adhunik geets. But this folksy number is his real deal. In most Nepali songs of the period, the arrangements are very well thought out. This song too is no different with its brilliant combination of violins, madal, and the flute. But the linchpin of this song is the Hammond organ. The lyric is straightforward and scores because of its sincerity. There is no other way to articulate the sadness of betrayal and heartbreak, except by a clear statement of facts. If someone is hellbent on leaving what can one do? The subtle punctuations of the electric organ — not overdone thankfully — give this simple gem of a song a timeless, eclectic appeal.
Bipana Nabhai
This is perhaps the one song I never get tired of listening to. Do the lyrics draw me in? Not necessarily. There is nothing brilliant about the lyrics. They don’t reveal any sound insight or shed a scrap of quotidian detail that resonates because of certain lived experiences. And yet there is a certain level of incomprehended profundity in these words. The song talks of dreams that live on even though they don’t become reality, of dreams that outlive the dreamer, of dreams that enmesh with feelings and with imaginations, of dreams that dissolve in tears and cavort with laughter. And yet what these dreams, these broken dreams are, the song never tells. Once again, Narayan Gopal had to sing this song. The genius of Dibya Khaling shines through in the arrangements of the violins and the piano. Their interplay creates a sparse but melodic tapestry of sounds that does everything correctly and in the right dose. There are no overkills and the way the final tactile flourish on the piano keys ties up the end of the song is simply brilliant.
Syndicate
Death by a thousand cuts is a form of torture or a metaphor for slow decline. Some songs too die because of a hundred thousand, or perhaps a million replays. Not Syndicate. This is perhaps, for the current generation, the most accessible song in this list. But because it is accessible doesn’t mean there is anything trite about it. Bipul Chettri takes the simple act of waiting and noticing and makes it a celebration of longing and memory. It is a lighthearted but ultimately uplifting commemoration of what is unrequited, unreturned. But if there was any closure, a happy ending to what began at the Syndicate, would this song have been written? Like “Penny Lane,” the song is a masterclass in storytelling craft. And the horns shine like the rays of sun that break through the clouds after a quick downpour.