Themes of Nepali Short Stories

It is of course impossible to classify a body of fictional literature under discrete and exclusive subject headings. It is possible, however, to define a number of themes that recur with regularity in the Nepali short story. The following discussion is not a thorough analysis of the whole of Nepall fiction; my aim is to identify a number of themes that occurred with striking regularity in the stories I read during this research. The sample is therefore inevitably limited, but it is far from random because I have concentrated on texts that are most frequently cited in works of Nepali criticism and analysis.

Village Life

More than 90 percent of Nepal's total population lives in rural areas, and there are few large urban centers in the hill regions that are the natural home of the Nepali language. Indeed, if a story is set in an urban environment, it is usually that of the Kathmandu Valley. It is not surprising that rural life is the backdrop to about one-third of these stories; although they may live in Kathmandu, many authors grew up in a village environment. A distinction can be drawn nevertheless between stories that are self-consciously "village stories," written either to paint an authentic picture of rural society or to point out some undesirable feature of it, and stories in which events simply happen to take place in a village context.

Village stories were rather more common during the early phase of

the short story's development in Nepali. This can be accounted for, at least, in part, by the popularity and influence of the Hindi/Urdu writer "Premchand." Almost all of Premchand's multitudinous stories are set in the villages of northern India. Despite his somewhat idealized, Gandhian view of rural life, he was often concerned about depicting the plight of the poor, oppressed by hypocritical priests and exploited by landowners and moneylenders. More than an echo of Premchand's fiction can be found in early village stories in Nepali.

"A Blaze in the Straw" (1935) is the most celebrated of Mainali's ever-popular stories and is the archetypal village story. The original title, "Paralko Ago," is rendered literally here, although there was a temptation to entitle it "A Storm in a Teacup." The concept behind the title is of a blazing row that flares up fiercely but burns out very quickly. The main purpose of the story is to paint a picture of a relationship between a man and his wife that is authentic and amusing and that ultimately imparts a kind of moral lesson. In this, Mainali is undoubtedly influenced by Premchand, especially in the use of proverbs and rural colloquialisms (for a selection of Premchand's stories in translation, see Premchand 1988). "A Blaze in the Straw" has now entered the folklore of Nepali-speaking communities; it is acted out in school dramas throughout the region and was recently made into a feature film, complete with Bombay-style musical interludes.

Shivkumar Rai is a noted writer from Darjeeling who developed this tradition further. Rai's particular talent was to write simple but evocative tales based on his observation of characters in the everyday life of the Darjeeling area, and in this he closely resembled Mainali. "The Price of Fish" (Machako Mol , 1945?) a melodramatic tale of the simple ambitions and untimely demise of a local fisherman, is one of the best-known. stories of Indian Nepali literature:

He cast his net into the same muddy pool. Again, the fish were mesmerized by the light from his torch. Twenty or thirty fell into his net. Rané found fish wherever he looked, in every basket he pulled out from around the dam. He felt neither hungry nor tired. His hopes grew wings, and he did not care how hard he worked.

Black clouds rose up in the west; a flood of water thundered down from the peaks. Little did Rané know that Yamaraj^[2] was coming, wading down with the torrent. He heard the waters dashing against the rocks, and he began to pick up his fish from the beach. But the river engulfed him and swept him away. Rané was dismayed by the loss of the fish he had labored so hard to catch; he did not realize that he was being borne away, too. As the flood washed him down river, he cried, "Is it so high then, the price of fish?" But before tie could complete the sentence he was lost in the waters. (Jhyalbata 1949, 236)

[2] Yamaraj is the lord of death and the underworld.

Ramesh Bikal's "A Splendid Buffalo" (Lahuri Bhainsi , c. 1962) is an example of a story in which the nature of rural life and society is the central topic. This is probably the most cynical depiction of village Nepal ever written and is justly famous. Its theme is reminiscent of that of Premchand's best-loved novel, The Gift of a Cow (Godan ), first published in 1936. Lukhuré, a poor farmer or perhaps even a bonded laborer, has bought himself a buffalo—a symbol of wealth and prestige in the village. His is no ordinary buffalo, either, but a lahuri bhainsi , an animal of high breeding. The dware , a powerful local official, cannot tolerate this; it is a blow to his own status. So he sets about depriving the gullible Lukhuré of his most cherished possession. Bikal conveys the atmosphere of village intrigue with consummate artistry: the dialogues are as authentic as Mainali's, but the theme of an official's corruption and the sycophancy of his lackeys sets this story apart from earlier, more idealized descriptions of rural life.

"Will He Ever Return?" (Tyo Pheri Pharkala 1940) is set in a village on the main thoroughfare between Kathmandu and India before the modern highways were built and is Bhavani Bhikshu's simplest and most popular story but possibly his most formulaic. It contains passages that are notable for their economy and effectiveness, but some parts of the narrative may strike a Western reader as overextended. It should be remembered that the readership for whom Bhikshu was writing fifty years ago liked nothing more than a tearful melodrama. A young woman, Sani, falls in love with a traveler when he stays for one night at her mother's inn, and she spends the rest of her life waiting for him to return. If the story's plot has a weakness, it is the unlikeliness of Sani falling in love with the traveler to the extent that she does: his attractions are not evident in Bhikshu's descriptions of him. Nevertheless, that a poor village girl should become infatuated with a high-caste sophisticate is to some extent credible. The most interesting aspects of the story, perhaps, are Bhikshu's ruminations on the nature of women and the unexpected psychological subtlety of his ending.

More recently, several writers have attempted to describe the stark contrast between life in the village and life in the town. Indra Bahadur Rai's "The Storm Raged All Night Long" (Ratbhari Huri Chalyo , 1960) is a straightforward narrative with little of the abstractedness of its author's later works. The story, which has not been included in this selection for reasons of space, tells of a man and his wife, known to us only as Kale's mother and Kale's father, a common form of reference in the Darjeeling district, who have moved out of the town to make a living as farmers. The wife goes into Darjeeling every morning to deliver the milk from their two cows to various households. After a violent summer storm, she decides that the hardship of life in the hills is not worth the slender reward it brings. After several encounters in the town next day, however,

she changes her mind; she finds the townspeople arrogant and petty, particularly one woman who died during the night while trying to save her cat:

She arrived on B. B. Gurung's verandah. The house had been full of people since early morning. A few stood outside, talking under umbrellas. Kale's mother went around to the back to deliver the milk. She could not discover what was going on. Something must have happened—either to the husband or to the wife; there were no children. The fat wife used to come and go all day, her wooden sandals clacking. She went all over town carrying her white cat, Nini. The husband owned a dry-cleaning shop up on Laden-la Road.

"What's happened? Why are all these people here?" she asked the woman who came from next door to collect the milk.

"Nini's mother bad a fall last night. She's unconscious."

"Where did she fall?"

She heard that the cat had been outside in the rain when the door was locked in the night. It must have mewed and mewed, but nobody heard it above the din of the storm. When the rain eased a little, there had been a search for the cat. They had looked outside and called and called, but the cat had not come. Nini's mother's sandal had slipped as she was going down the hill to look for the cat, and she had fallen down onto the road. A doctor had been called urgently, but he hadn't come at once. The woman was still unconscious.

"It's all the fault of that stupid cat!" said Kale's mother quietly. "That's it there, isn't it?"

A white cat sat warming itself and licking its fur by the fireplace. Kale's mother couldn't just walk away. She sat down on the doorstep, and soon the husband came out in tears. The woman had died.

"How astonishing! What a shame!" Kale's mother picked up her bag and the churn. (Rai 1960, 8-9)

Several later stories view the village from the perspective of the town. Dhruba Chandra Gautam's satire in "The Fire" (Aglagi , 1976) is aimed at the corruption of government officials and the ludicrous inappropriateness of projects devised at the "center" when they are translated into the realities of village society. In "A Small Fish Squats by the Dhobi Khola" (Sano Machha Dhobi Kholako Bagarma , 1983), Manu Brajaki mentions that his character Ganesh has been punished for accepting bribes by being transferred back to Kathmandu, where there are fewer opportunities for corruption.

Life in Kathmandu and Darjeeling

As I have mentioned, Kathmandu is the city to which Nepali writers most commonly refer, and the picture they paint of life there is generally a negative one. Ramesh Bikal's somewhat overextended "The Song of

New Road" (Naya Sadakko Git , 1960) describes a blind beggar with his pitch on a New Road pavement and is clearly meant to point out a contradiction between the grinding poverty of the majority of Nepalis and the veneer of prosperity apparent on New Road. New Road is the main thoroughfare of Kathmandu's busy commercial center, and with its supermarket, import shops, and tourists, it symbolizes for many writers the new age into which Nepal is passing. Bikal also paints a convincing picture of official attitudes to the urban poor, and his concluding passage contains a cynical view of democracy in Nepal:

Sani picked up the stick that lay nearby. The blind man stood up and moved forward, leaning on Sani's shoulder. "How old are your skirt and blouse, Sani?"

"About two years old, I suppose. Why do you ask?" Sani was puzzled by this unexpected question about her clothes.

"Two years is a long time. Come on, let's find ourselves a corner to sit in."

Sani led the blind man down the edge of the main road. A jeep came up behind them, and a loudspeaker blared something about democracy ... citizens ... a friendly nation ... a guest ... welcoming with open hearts, and so on. The sound of the loudspeaker filled the air; then it gradually faded away into the distance.

"What is it, Sani?" asked the blind man. Then he turned to a shopkeeper and asked him, "What is it, shopkeeper?"

"They're telling you to send your wife to the Women's Assembly to give a lecture. She should speak about democracy," said the shopkeeper. The air was suddenly filled with the sound of many people laughing.

"Oh, demcarcy!^[3] How long is it now since demcarcy happened? We've had that for years, for years," muttered the blind man, and then his voice joined the modern culture of New Road. It mingled with the noise of all its new songs. (Bikal [1962] 1977, 44-45)

Parashu Pradhan's "A Relationship" (Sambandha , 1970) paints an equally grim picture of the wretched lot of the urban poor. For centuries, the people of the hill regions around Kathmandu have earned a living from portering goods and produce in and out of the capital. Many of them will sleep for a night on the covered platforms that stand in several street intersections. This is where Gyancha, a Newar street cleaner, sees Ganga lying. Ganga is a woman with whom Gyancha once had a fleeting relationship, the precise nature of which is not disclosed. But soon he discovers that she is dead and that no one will accept responsibility for her body.

Tarini Prasad Koira1a's "It Depends upon Your Point of View" (Drishtikon , 1964) satirizes the moral hypocrisy of the professional upper strata

[3] The beggar mispronounces the word prajatantra , "democracy," as parjatantra .

of Kathmandu society. With uncharacteristic indiscretion, Professor Niranjan has had a sexual encounter with a shopkeeper's daughter, a girl of low breeding and little education who is, above all, a Newar and therefore somewhat despised. The story describes his guilt and remorse the next morning.

Later stories adopt a more caustic tone. Stories describing the alienation of the urban young are a new phenomenon in Nepali fiction. Manu Brajaki's "A Small Fish Squats by the Dhobi Khola" is a sardonically humorous account of the plight of a "small fish," a petty official in government service who cannot gain access to the lavatory at his lodgings and therefore has to squat beside the Dhobi Khola, a river in Kathmandu, to open his bowels each morning. The small fish has been transferred to the capital from a post in a rural area after being caught accepting bribes. The point of the title is that the really "big fish," his senior colleagues, were equally corrupt but escaped all retribution because of their status. As the urban centers of the Kathmandu Valley continue to grow, it seems likely that the alienation that is typical of much modern Hindi fiction will begin to enter Nepali fiction, too.

Darjeeling, which in a sense has a Nepali literature all of its own, is the setting for most of its own writers' stories. Rai's famous story "Maina's Mother Is Just Like Us" (Hami Jastai Mainaki Ama , 1964) was strongly influenced by the tenets of the Tesro Ayam movement and is the most abstracted composition translated here. It expresses the historical and cultural consciousness of the poorer sections of Darjeeling's émigré Nepall community: farmers and workers driven out of eastern Nepal during the past few centuries by landlessness, poverty, and unemployment. The viewpoint is that of ever-present time, and Darjeeling's past, present, and future are seen through the eyes of a vegetable seller we know only as "Maina's mother." "The woman selling vegetables in the market square is seen even before that market was constructed," writes Kumar Pradhan, "extending to the time of her mother's life and beyond to a remote nomadic past that is contained in the future" (1984, 159).

The Lives of Women

Five of these stories describe the plight of women in a male-dominated society and reflect a very widespread preoccupation with this particular issue within Nepali fiction as a whole. In many of his stories, Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala attacked the tradition that permits elderly men of high caste and social status to take much younger wives or second wives. Koirala and Prema Shah both address the subject of widowhood in Hindu society. Koirala's "To the Lowlands" (Madhestira , 19407) is an early example of a Nepali short story that appears to have borrowed from Western literature. The story bears a striking resemblance to Maupas-

sant's "Boule de Suif" (The Ball of Fat). Both Koirala's and Maupassant's stories describe a group of people who have fallen on hard times and been thrown together and the way in which a woman from the fringes of society is taken advantage of during a time of common adversity, then shunned when things look brighter. In Maupassant's story, the refugees are escaping a Prussian invasion and the woman is a prostitute, whereas in Koirala's they are simply landless, unemployed villagers and the woman is a widow. Widows, who may never remarry, occupy an unenviable position in traditional Hindu society. It cannot be proved that Koirala consciously borrowed from Maupassant here, but his well-documented knowledge of world literatures makes it seem highly likely. "To the Lowlands," however, is a deceptively subtle and complex story and amounts to far more than a piece of literary imitation. In just a few pages, it comments on the sorry plight of the landless poor, the depopulation of the hills, the low social status of widows, and the exploitation of women by men.

Several noted women writers appeared in Nepali literary circles during the 1960s and gave the literature a more rounded perspective. Prema Shah's "A Husband" (Logné , 1966) introduces us to another widow, Nirmala, and describes her feelings and somewhat neurotic actions as she helps her younger sister prepare to meet her prospective husband. Parijat is perhaps better known as a novelist and poet, but she has also written several significant short stories. Like her poems, these often seem personal and subjective. It seems to me that many of her female characters seem to be based upon herself (although she denies this) or are drawn to challenge assumptions about, and stereotypes of, Nepali women:

My house is on the main road; my room faces the street. Opening the window wide and watching the pleasant bustle going on outside has become a major part of my daily routine. I often watch from here, and I know all the passers-by. Office workers, students, sellers of bread and milk—I recognize them all. Let me tell you, this window is my pastime, and it leaves me with no free time at all. This is not to say that I have spent my whole life there. Once it was considered a sin even to peep outside, let alone to sit by an open window. Then came the revolution in 1950, my father died, I progressed in my education, and gradually times have changed. Now my relationship with the window is intimate. Since I completed my education and began work in a morning school, there has been no one to prevent me from sitting here and looking out. (in Sajha Katha [1968] 1979, 224)

Bhavani Bhikshu's "Will He Ever Return?" and Daulat Bikram Bishtha's "The Andhi Khola" (Andhi Khola ) both describe the yearning of village girls whose loved ones have gone away; both are largely works of sentiment. Bijay Malla's "Sunglasses" (Kalo Chashma , 1960) presents

a strong contrast to such stories. By 1960, Nepali writers had produced a plethora of stories examining the nature of marriage and of relationships between men and women. Most of these were written from a reformist standpoint, with little moral ambiguity. In this story, however, Malla describes how a man is faced with a crisis in his marriage but reacts in an unexpected and unorthodox fashion.

Malla's brother, Govind Bahadur Gothale, wrote a number of very long stories on similar themes for which room could not be found here. The most famous is "What Are You Doing, Shobha?" (Ke Gareki Shobha? 1959) in which Gothale examines the mind of a widow who has become a prostitute. When first published, this story was innovatory for the unusual depth of its psychological analysis and its frank depiction of the hypocrisy inherent in Nepali society's attitude to prostitution. Shobha is clearly a high-caste woman who has fallen into prostitution after being shunned by her family for a marriage of which they disapproved, a marriage that brought her unhappiness and, eventually, widowhood. The story focuses on the mental conflict Shobha experiences when she learns that her mother is dying. A second innovation was the use of "flashbacks" to inform the reader of' the events in Shobha's life that had led to her fall from grace:

Dhanmaya had come downstairs. "Kanchi, where were you? What has happened to Shobha's mother?"

"I'm going," said Shobha.

"They've taken her to the river, at Pashupati," said Kanchi.

Shobha was on her way out of the door. "Where are you going?" asked Dhanmaya.

But she was already on her way down. Dhanmaya leapt up and ran to the stairs. "Don't go," she said, trying to catch her hand. "Really, it's late. And it's a long way. ... "She stopped. Shobha was already at the foot of the stairs. Dhanmaya shouted to her again, "Listen to what I say. Don't go. You'll be insulted. They won't let you near."

She hurried across the ground floor but stopped abruptly at the door and peered out at the dark street. Something moved on its surface. A shaft of light spread down the street as a window opened at the top of the house, and Dhanmaya shouted, "Shobha, come back! Listen to me! Come back here!"

Shobha stood still, unable to go out onto the street. She saw her mother, already half-immersed in water. She saw herself approaching. Her mother looked away. Someone shook her—was it her sister-in-law?—and said, "Don't show your face here; don't send your mother to hell." Her father just hung his head. Shobha slowly moved away. She did not even have the right to mourn. (Gothale 1959, 91-92)

Poshan Pande's "A Sweater for Brother-in-law" (Bhinajyuko Svetar , 1964?) investigates a woman's feelings of insecurity in her marriage and

is a further example of a male Nepali writer examining feminine psychology. The surprise ending of the story is one of Pande's trademarks.

Finally, in "A Living Death" (Mritajivi , 1982) Kishor Pahadi presents us with a story that is perhaps the most damning indictment of the status of women in Nepal's Hindu society. The prevalence of stories about downtrodden women in Nepali literature is one of its more interesting features, particularly as only one of these authors is a woman.

Caste, Class, and Ethnic Relations

The relations between castes in a Hindu society are somewhere in the background of most of these stories, but they form the principal theme of none. A Nepali reader will automatically understand that Mainali's Juthe the tailor leads a happy life despite belonging to a lower caste than the hapless Chame. Similarly, the simple honest character of Pushkar Shamsher's Rané is communicated as much by the fact that he is a Gurung as it is by Shamsher's portrayal of him. Rané is the central character of "Circumstantial Evidence" (Pariband 1938), the story of a wrongful conviction. This is one of the most famous Nepali stories and certainly Shamsher's best; because an English translation of the main part of this story is already in print, however, there seemed no need to include it here (Riccardi 1988, 4-7). The characterizations (particularly of Rané and the magistrate Lamichhane) are unusually strong and the dialogue unusually natural for a story of the period. Although not intended to make any comment on the society of its day, the story is interesting for its portrayal of Rané's naive honesty and for the hints it gives of the way in which justice was dispensed in the days of the Ranas. The following passage comes toward the end of the story, as the magistrate explains to Rané that he is sure to be found guilty:

"Then you, an honest, er, Gurung; you got blood on your clothes while you were giving him water. Maybe you'd have washed it off if you'd noticed it. You went to report what had happened but as you thought it over, you thought, 'Oh no! Now they'll arrest me!' Then, er, you decided to slip away, without a thought for the consequences. Then when you were arrested, your heart beat like a drum, and you started to admit and deny all sorts of things, I don't really know why.

"If you're really innocent, then perhaps this is how it happened. But what can you do? You're damned by the circumstantial evidence! And moreover, to get arrested beside the Rapti River just as you were getting away, to cover up what happened, and then when everything else was proved to deny only the murder itself—what are you left with now? Alright, if you hadn't run off, and if you'd told the truth from the start when the West number 2 court people came to sort it out, then perhaps there'd have been some hope. But now, er, now that the matter's been referred here there's not much chance at all." . . .

Rané stared at the magistrate without reacting: the effect these words had had upon him was not clear from the expression on his face. His forehead was soaked in sweat. Perhaps it was because he was straining hard to understand, or perhaps it was because each and every syllable had sunk deep into his heart and his tears could not find a way out of his dry eyes. His lips moved once or twice. Perhaps he was mouthing the words "circumstantial evidence." (D. Shreshtha 1987, 8-9)

The names of characters in every Nepali story implicitly reveal the caste or ethnic group to which they belong and thereby indicate their status relative to other characters. Rather more explicit reference is; made to rank and class: the fact that Gothale's prostitute, Shobha, is the daughter of a subba , a government official, is of great relevance to his story. Many stories by Ramesh Bikal revolve around the differences between their principal characters' status and those of their oppressors.

The Gurkha Soldier

The Gurkha soldier, or lahure , as he is called in Nepali, makes several appearances here. Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala's "The Soldier" (Sipahi , 1938?) is the most carefully considered portrait of a Gurkha soldier ever written in Nepali. The main characteristic Koirala attributes to the soldier is his complete freedom from responsibility and social convention. This, Koirala implies, is something to be envied. But is it to be admired?

Rai's "The Murderer" (Jyanamara ?) is another portrayal of an ex-soldier that questions the motives and mentality of its central character. The basic idea behind Rai's story seems to owe much to Pushkar Shamsher's "Pariband," which I have discussed previously. On the basis of circumstantial evidence, an ex-Gurkha is convicted of the murder of his young wife's lover. Here, the coincidence is between the word for "hear" (bhalu ) and the name of the murderer's victim. Despite this rather clumsy device, the story has many interesting qualities: the old Gurkha's character is well portrayed, and the way in which he turns out to be the only man in the village who knows nothing about his young wife's affair is a comment on such marriages. But the most telling passage comes at the end of the story, when Ujirman, the central character, admits to the murder he has not committed: is it that he has a sense of guilt for his past as a soldier in a foreign army, or is it that he simply wishes that he had indeed killed the policeman?

Bishtha's "The Andhi Khola" addresses the subject of Nepalis leaving their homeland to serve in foreign armies as Gurkhas. The Andhi Khola is a. river valley in the Gurung region of central Nepal from which many Gurkhas emanate. Bishtha's main intention is clearly to paint a touching picture of a faithful wife waiting for her husband to return, but he also touches on the motives such men have for joining foreign armies.

Nepali poets have on many occasions attacked the men who leave Nepal to serve in foreign armies, criticizing them for a lack of patriotism (Hurt 1989a). In the short story, however, the approach has been milder; the very nature of the genre means that it lends itself better to measured descriptions than to polemic.

The Rana Regime

The century of Rana rule is etched on the minds of Nepalis as a period during which Nepal's progress and development was deliberately retarded. It is remembered as a time of exploitation, censorship, and oppression, but there is also a kind of nostalgia for the ostentatious grandeur of the age. Several of Bhavani Bhikshu's stories are set in this time: one, Maiyasaheb (The Lady Maiya, 1956), an exceedingly long-winded account of an affair between a Rana princess and a commoner, is nevertheless interesting for the wealth of social detail it contains. This book contains two stories that reflect two different aspects of this period of Nepal's history. Bhikshu's "Maujang Babusaheb's Coat" (Maujang Babusahebko Kot , 1960) is a masterly analysis of the attitudes and beliefs of a senior Rana in the years after the fall of his family's regime, in which an old coat comes to symbolize the glories of his past.

During the latter years of the autocratic Rana government, many intellectuals and activists spent periods in jail, including most of Nepal's leading writers. Bijay Malla's "The Prisoner and the Dove" (Pareva ra Kaidi , 1977) recounts a disturbing incident from prison life based on Malla's own experiences.

Views on Tourism

Finally, this anthology includes two stories that refer to the mass tourism that has become a mainstay of Nepal's economy since the late 1960s. Lamichhane's story "The Half-closed Eyes of the Buddha and the Slowly Setting Sun" (Ardhamudit Nayan ra Dubna Lageko Gham , 1962) is regarded as a classic of modern Nepali literature. Since foreign tourists began to visit Nepal during the 1950s, the popular Western view of Nepal has been of an idyllic Shangri-la. This famous story is composed of two monologues. The first comes from a tourist who has achieved a long-held ambition to visit Nepal. He brings with him his notions of the culture and history of Nepal, acquired from books published in the West. Before dinner in his hotel, he treats his guide to a rapturous description of all he hopes to see. Next day, the guide shows the tourist an aspect of contemporary Nepal of which he is unaware by taking him to visit a farmer whose son is completely paralyzed.

Parashu Pradhan's "The Telegram on the Table" (Tebalmathiko Tyas Akashvani , 1975) has the tourist industry as its background. From Pradhan's

description of Krishna, a tourist guide in Kathmandu, it is clear that he is one of a new generation of Nepalis who has been so influenced by Western culture and his contact with tourists that his only desire is to escape from his native environment. A telegram brings bad news and forces him to face up to reality.

The Nepali poet Lakshmiprasad Devkota once wrote that the short story was like a glimpse of life seen through a small window, thus inspiring the title of an early anthology, Jhyalbata (From a Window). It is true that the genre reflects and portrays various aspects of life in Nepal and the adjoining regions of Himalayan India; hitherto, the Nepali short story has lacked the sophistication of fiction in other more developed South Asian literatures, but this genre is rapidly gaining ground. The changes and developments that have taken place during the brief history of the short story in Nepali are an important barometer of the cultural and intellectual climate of these societies, and it is my hope that this brief glimpse of Nepali fiction will inspire further, more detailed studies. In the field of Nepali literature there is ample scope for this, especially as my discussions in these pages have barely touched upon the existence of a surprisingly rich dramatic tradition and a growing number of novels.

The following selection is presented in approximate order of first publication, and brief biographical notes are given for each author. In general I feel that the stories demonstrate the authors' standpoints themselves and that the need for detailed analyses of individual literary philosophies is less pressing here than in Part One. The publication dates of several stories have not been easy to ascertain because many are drawn from anthologies that do not provide such information. In such cases, I admit to having made: educated guesses on the basis of their language and style and the birth dates of their authors.