Kathmandu :

These writer-composer duo of Mani Kamal Chettri and Man Bahadur Mukhia had together written and composed a number of famous Nepali Adhunik songs during 1960s. And on July 28 at nepalaya’s r-sala, the duo were seen together once again walking down the old music paths they had done so many years ago.

For an artist perhaps nothing can be more satisfying than the feeling of freedom of expression. So, when he got the opportunity to sing Biswa Byatha, a song banned in India for its profound lyrics, Chettri could not help but start his Paleti Shrinkhala with this song written by Mukhia.

This was the very song that introduced Chettri as a composer during 1960s.

Most of numbers selected for this Paleti were sad songs, but as tragedy is a huge part of life, the members of audience were seen swaying to Chettri’s voice and music with eyes closed lost in the bliss of the evening.

When Chettri finished singing Bipanama, another sad song by Mukhia, he recalled stories of boys, betrayed in love, who used to come to him asking for the lyrics of the song to send it to their beloveds.

Timro jasto mutu mero pani — all of us are familiar with this beautiful song by Narayan Gopal. But Chettri had actually already sung this song at a number of stage shows in Darjeeling way before it was recorded in Narayan Gopal’s voice later in Nepal.

When Chettri sang this song, social worker Anuradha Koirala could not stop herself from singing along with the singer.

Diaspora Nepali musicians have contributed a lot in enriching the music industry in Nepal. And Chettri won the heart of Nepali audience at Paleti with his rendition of Surya ra chandra, a song that has a theme that Nepali diaspora share.

Kamal started his career as a singer. Many new singers with promising potentiality were coming up in Darjeeling during his time, but there were comparatively less composers then and as some of the prominent composers like Gopal Yonzon and Narayan Gopal were based in Nepal, Chettri decided to fill in the gap and shifted to composing.

Chettri has composed songs for many outstanding singers, among them Aruna Lama has sung around four dozen of those.