Songs that jilted cowboys listen to while crying into their beer aside, South Asia has probably cornered the market in sad songs. The quality of compassion so pervades the literature of this region, the lyrics that find their way into the most loved songs tend to be filled with pathos and heart. Witness the popularity of Narayan Gopal in Nepal, whose death in 1991 compelled thousands of mourners to join his funeral march, including those who in Panchayat times decried him as bourgeois for not singing of revolt and revolution. 
There is a time for action, and a time for sitting back and feeling. Both ways of being maybe support each other. Event nepalaya and Music Nepal's new recordings of the songs of Fatteman-who at 67, after a gap of 20 years, has recently staged heart-stopping performances in a lovely butter-and-honey voice-allow us to feel sad in the most enlivening way possible.
The first of his songs translated below is a classic by the eminent songwriter Nati Kaji, who reminds us that there is nothing as personal, or as universal, as the loss of love.
IT WILL NOT BE AS EASIER TO DIE
Tirtharaj Tuladhar
It will not be as hard to die-
I just cannot kill my love for you
The greenery of springtime withers with the flowers
The white clouds of the blue ground fly away with the wind
But your warm love remains warm, still-
I just cannot kill my love for you
It will not be as hard to die-
I just cannot kill my love for you
A very long road we have walked side by side
Both of us have reached places far, far away
But my heart doesn't want to say that it ends here-
I just cannot kill my love for you
It will not be as hard to die-
I just cannot kill my love for you
Amber Gurung, a legend of Nepali music, is the author of the next song, which is philosophical and intimate at the same time.
LIFE OF GALES
Amber Gurung
If life is a song of gales we must sing it in any way
If we can't meet joyously then we must meet in sorrow
The wounds may be different, our pain is the same
The faults may be different, our separation is the same
So when defoliation takes place in you my leaves fall-
my leaves fall
Your country may be different, our earth is the same
Your face may be different, our tears are the same
So when earthquakes move in you, my houses collapse
my houses collapse
If life is a song of gales we must sing it in any way
If we can't meet joyously then we must meet in sorrow
The next song, also by Amber Gurung, is the classic song of pathos-lamenting ones' misfortune. It also captures the uncertainties and insecurities of life, the inability to know how to live in a way that makes sense.
I HAVEN'T KNOWN HOW TO BLOOM
Amber Gurung
I haven't known how to bloom, I haven't known how to sway
Laughter came but somehow I haven't been able to laugh
Tears came always but I haven't learned to cry
I have one essence: the heaviness of the heart
I have another essence: the heaviness of life
At the crossroads I wasn't able to choose one path
But being obliged to walk on I couldn't stay where I was
In the darkness I couldn't distinguish the moon and stars
I couldn't seek and string together love
I couldn't transform and change my complaint
I couldn't bear the distress of seeing a flower fall
I haven't known how to bloom, I haven't known how to sway
Laughter came somehow but I haven't been able to laugh
Tears came always but I haven't learned to cry
Fatteman's classic song of the unrequited lover, written by Nati Kaji, below, is enriched by its tone of open-hearted acceptance.
THINGS LIKE THIS SEEM TO HAPPEN
Yadav Kharel
From time to time in life things like this seem to happen
I made a mistake in loving someone. Things like this seem to happen
There must be thousands who would give you love like mine
For you there must be thousands of hearts that cry like mine
A person I had thought my own has become a stranger now
I made a mistake in loving someone. Things like this seem to happen
Let your love, stepping over my love, always grow and bloom
Let your desire, killing my desire, always be fulfilled
My sad eyes too used to see dreams once, long ago
I made a mistake in loving someone. Things like this seem to happen
From time to time in life things like this seem to happen
I made a mistake in loving someone. Things like this seem to happen
Indeed, things like wrong choices in love do seem to happen-at the best of times, as at the worst.
Fatteman's live songs can be heard on event nepalaya and Music Nepal's newly released CD and cassette, "Gaayak Fatteman Saanjh: Live Au."
