Nepathya- I remember

First time I heard of Nepathya must have been with “छेक्यो छेक्यो” ,” जाँउ भने जाँउ‘तनि”. I should have been listening to Ba ba black sheep and things but radio Nepal made it inevitable. I exactly don’t remember remembering the word Nepathya back then but with “जोमसोमै बजारमा” and “गण्डकीको तिरैमा”, Nepathya shifted from Hippocampal centers to permanent memory centers of brain.

Next thing I remember is reading about Nepathya in Kantipur daily. That Saturdays special paper, along with general introduction to the band, also had given me a bad news that the band will dismantle later, for personal careers of the members.

Next thing I remember is reading Kantipur(again but after almost 3-4 years). But this time it was “Nepathya back”. With ‘Resham’ Nepathya was back, back with a bang rather. Only later I came to realize what Nepathya went through in between ‘Sringaar’ and ‘Resham’ (To know read this). But anyway they were back. How much didn’t I try to get their album?

But living 10 km away from the nearest music shop didn’t help either.. then I Saturdays special, comes another article “the new Rersham virus” (Brajesh Khanal had written that). This told me how much the people liked them. And also did it told I wasn’t among them.

Myself going to buy the album wasn’t practical as it was far from home and tight schedules at school meant I left home at 8 in the morning to come back by 5 in the dusk. So I just kept yearning for it.

Next thing I remember is Ganesh Parajuli dai (now Dr. Ganesh Parajuli) giving me the audio cassette. And I remember many things; playing it all the times possible to singing the songs at odd hours and odd instants, making people dance in “मै नाचे छमछम्ती” to spending hours trying to discern the meaning of song ‘Ghatana’ in relation to The Royal massacre.

After this Nepathya has become am important part of my music and will definitely remain for the rest of my time in this planet.

And the most important thing I remember is Meeting Amrit Gurung and I remember it vividly. Post-concert in BICC Kathamndu, I and one of my friend wen t him and talked to him. We thanked him, congratulated him and requested him to keep it up. For about 10 minutes we talked of his collecting songs and our experiences listening to them. Unfortunately by then I had no camera to physically capture that moment (mentally its still clear and bright). That night I was so happy that I just kept on playing his songs in my old cassette player. I played all the night repeating the sides.

The next thing I remember is In the morning next day, smoke was coming from my old cassetteplayer.