KATHMANDU: On March 21, the Tavern Tales was held amidst writers and photographers at Quixote’s Cove, Jawalakhel. This edition of Tavern Tales shared the tales of Kai Bird and the Hamra Hajurama writers and photographers.

Bird is the co-author with Martin J Sherwin of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer and has also written many other biographies.

Bird, who has been in Nepal for the past two-and-a-half years said, “As a biographer we have to get people to talk, you have to dig into people’s lives and retrieve facts which you otherwise would not know. You intrude into their lives.”

He had started his career as a journalist. “Writing requires great patience and writers have to be persistent,” he added.

The evening saw people talk on various issues like whether a photographer could be a good writer and vice-versa. The writers shared their experience about their own grandmothers while the making of Hamra Hajurama and how they came up with the stories.

“People don’t really read nowadays, they look at the pictures, so writers are being asked to write less and the pictures are taking space,” shared Nayantara Kakshapati, one of the photographers. Rabi Thapa, one of the writers said, “Some grandmothers weren’t talking because they didn’t remember anything about their past as they were very old, and some grandmothers only remembered when they had a drink.”

The writers expressed there were certain things they could not ask the grandmothers as it would be very personal. Bird suggested, “There are ways to ask question in context so that a writer does not have to regret later for missing important details.”