Nepali Times

NEPALAYA

We all have stories – stories of love and lust, sin and shenanigans or despair and death. Some stories are never meant to be known, and die with the protagonists. Some stories we would wish to tell the world, but maybe no one cares to listen.

Unlikely Storytellers by English language Nepali journalist Bikash Sangraula is a collection of compelling stories that leave the reader strangely hooked, and craving for more. Page after page, readers may feel they want to know more about the characters but the writer offers just enough of a tantalising glimpse and leaves the rest to our imagination. The characters stay with you long after you put the book down, and while walking the streets you wonder if the strangers you pass have similar life stories.

Deepak is a central character, but his story is not the soul of the novel. Instead, the characters he runs into share the more powerful stories, which make you feel sad. Unlikely Storytellers is not an out and out dark novel --there are lighter moments-- but one could say it isn’t escapist literature.  

Because Deepak is a journalist and edits the Saturday supplement of an English daily, one wonders if it is semi-autobiographical. He has a live-in girlfriend who later dumps him because of his lack of passion for life. He lives a routine life, afraid of trying anything new but is good at listening to people, writing their stories and protecting their secrets. This is why people, mostly strangers, end up sharing their stories with him.

Unlikely Storytellers

Bikash Sangraula

nepa~laya

Rs 375

One wonders if the stories Deepak hears are the ones Sangraula relates to. Right from the first few paragraphs, the characters pop up one after other and begin to tell their stories. There are many memorable characters, but the remorseful retired civil servant Ananta, the mysterious lady Megha, the embittered husband Kailash, the inconsolable friend Karuna and the guilt-ridden ex-guerrilla Tara are the central ones. There are also the mentally unstable Maya and the drug addict Naren. Deepak does not meet them in person, but their stories are just as lively.

The writer’s strength is not creating an intriguing or intricate plot, but building interesting characters around a simple storyline. Sangraula must have worked hard to develop even the minor characters. And you despise neither of them -- even the arrogant body-builder Pradeep who sleeps with someone else’s wife or the unforgiving father who calls his own daughter a ‘whore.’ Instead, you end up pitying them.

If you have lived through the painful years between the Narayanhiti massacre and the April earthquake, you can relate to the stories of Unlikely Storytellers. They are stories of people we are all familiar with.