Kathmandu:

When Sunil Pokharel was dreaming of establishing the Sama Natak Ghar and Gurukul School of Drama, his wife Nisha, fed up with the long struggle to better the theatre scene in Nepal,

was dreaming of going abroad (to the US). She wanted Sunil to have a Master’s degree in filmmaking, and was ready to toil in the foreign land to make this possible.

Everything was ready, but at the eleventh hour Sunil managed to convince Nisha to give him a time of two years to realise his dreams. Nisha agreed, and the Gurukul School of Theatre was started in July 2002, while it took them around six months to build the Sama Natak Ghar, which was inaugurated in January 2003.

Today, it can be said without a doubt that Sunil, Nisha, their Arohan Theatre Group and Gurukul have managed to keep the theatre scene vibrant here. Talking about the 90’s, they say they used to do a play once every two months. Producing documentaries for NGOs and working in tele-serials were their only sources of income. However, Sunil got a contract for a year-and-half from the communication corner to produce a radio drama that was aired from Australia.

Even in such hard times Sunil was convinced that they would not attract more audience by just doing one play a year. He was clear that a play must be stage continuously for a month or two enabling the audience to come and watch it at their own convenience. And that the hall should be small so as to lessen the commercial pressure.

His dream became the Sama Natakghar that can hold 200 people. And it is the centre of theatre activity today.

But when the International Theatre Institute Nepal Chapter chose Sama Natakghar as the venue for the Nepal, India and Bangladesh theatre festival of 2004, they felt the need of another theatre hall. And only a month ago, the Rimal Natakghar was inaugurated, which can accommodate 400 people.

From begging for two years, Sunil has come a long way in the four years since he started Gurukul with his wife’s support. For him plays were his medium of expression since his teens. “I was a bahun (Brahmin) boy raised in the midst of dalit inhabitants in Biratnagar. So I grew up with many restrictions. Theatre gave me that freedom to express myself,” says Sunil, adding that friends like Ramesh Budhathoki triggered his interest in drama.

But after very early on in his career, he realised the need of some kind of formal training in theatre. He enrolled for training at the academy, and later in 1986 he graduated from the National School of Drama, New Delhi. He became an Ashoka fellow in 1988.

Sunil has acted in films and tele-serials too, but he prefers theatre as he believes that one can live the full life of a character on stage during a play. He believes that in all other mediums, the emotional, psychological and physical journeys of the character are fragmented. He says that this continuity can be experienced only in theatre.

However, he did not think tha the would achieve all these in these few years. And Sunil believes that dreams are not always clear. “In the beginning, there was a small perimeter. I had thought of a place where we could have regular full-time theatre activities, and a school that provides professional training to update actor’s skills,” he says.

But the aspirations do not end there. He is now dreaming about owning a place, getting academic recognition for their school, and at least seven Gurukuls outside Kathmandu. In this regard, they have finalised Janakpur where they hope to have plays in other languages than Nepali, like Maithili for instance.

Gurukul did not just happen. Nisha recalls those initial days of struggle when she had to manage to run their house on the Ashoka grant of Rs 5,000, when for almost three decades they had nothing but their devotion to theatre.

During the 90’s, they staged plays every week at the French cultural centre under ‘Aarohan Saturday’ performing one Nepali and one play by an international writer every alternate week. This lasted for a year.

Once under a UNICEF-funded project they managed a hostel for street children for a year. But once the UNICEF stopped the funds, it became difficult. “We could not leave them. So for a year we managed the hostel on our own. We had to sell everything from the small piece of land we owned at Putalisadak to all my jewellery. The year 1998 was the most difficult period for us. Sunil went into depression because of all that,” Nisha says.

Fed up of life, she made plans for a life in the US, but Sunil still harboured dreams of Gurukul. “He asked me for a period of two years to fulfil his dream and promised that if nothing happened in these two years he would be ready to do whatever I tell him to do,” Nisha says, adding she could not refuse Sunil.

Everything seems to have fallen in place for the Pokharels, however, Nisha feels that somewhere along the way, on the road to realising Sunil’s dreams, she has lost something. She says that the first words out of Sunil’s mouth at 5:30 in the morning is: “Nisha, wake up. Get ready, we are already late for Gurukul.”

Their journey has been a struggle, she says, and she is not afraid of hard work. “I am never afraid of the hard work. But I feel we don’t have a family life as such. Everything revolves around Gurukul. Our son Nishu is in a boarding school. I am unable to keep him with us because we are busy from early morning to late night. This guilt of keeping my son away from me will always remain with me,” she expresses.

Perhaps this is the rule of the world — that one has to make sacrifices to achieve something in life.