Krishna Dharabasi

Krishna Dharabasi Bhattarai is a novelist of Nepal and a winner of the Madan Puraskar award with his book Radha (2005).^[1][2][3][4] His novel Jhola has been adapted into a film by the same title.

Early life and education

Krishna Dharabasi (born in 1960) in Panchthar, Nepal is an award-winning Nepali writer and a literary critic. Dharabasi won Madan Puraskar, Nepal’s most popular literary prize, in 2005 for his bestselling novel Radha. Krishna Dharabasi moved to the United States in 2012 with his family and is said to be working on an upcoming literary project, a novel.

Krishna Dharabasi was born in 1960 AD in Amarpur village of the Pachthar district in Nepal. Though named Krishna Prasad Bhattarai as a child, he later decided to change his surname to Dharabasi. Krishna Dharabasi was born into a relatively well-off family. His father Tikaram Bhattarai was an astrologer and a teacher of Amarpur Dhule school and his mother Ambika Bhattarai was a housewife.

After his partially disabled father had a serious misunderstanding with his grandfather, Dharabasi’s parents moved to Jhapa in 1967 in search of better opportunities. After his grandparents neglected his family, Dharabasi experienced severe poverty and scarcity in his childhood.

Amidst financial hardships, Krishna Dharabasi continue his education and passed the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examinations in 1977 in second division. He continued his education after SLC and later went on to complete a bachelor's degree in business studies.

Literary Career & Genre

Krishna Dharabasi worked as a teacher and as a journalist for many years. Later he joined the Agricultural Development Bank and after 24 years of service, Dharabasi decided to leave his job at ADB to become a full-time writer.

Dharabasi’s literary career started with a poem published in Suryodaya Weekly in 1976. Since then he has published several novels, story collections and poems. As of 2015, he has published 24 books of different genres. One of his short stories, Jhola (which literally means a bag or a sack), has been adapted into a successful Nepali feature film with the same title.

Krishna Dharabasi’s literary work often focuses on sentiments of women and children. His tone against gender violence can be found in a subtle, but powerful language in many of his works. He also draws extensively from traditional Hindu religious texts, comparing and contrasting them to modern day Hindu society in Nepal and India.

Personal Life & Second Marriage

Krishna Dharabasi’s wife Sita Pokhrel died of health complications in 2010. In the wake of the tragedy, Dharabasi wrote Pandulipi as a dedication to his wife. Dharabasi remarried Manju Bimali, an NRN dentist and a writer, in 2012. A few months after the wedding, the couple moved to the United States with their family members and have been living there. Dharabasi has two sons and Bimali has one son from their previous marriages.

Dharabasi has rejected the claims that he moved to the US because of a DV lottery won by his wife.

Books

Some of Krishna Dharabasi’s most popular works include:

• Radha
• Balak Harayeko Suchana
• Saranarthi
• Pandulipi
• Aadhi Naaune Ghar
• Adha Bato
• Tundal
• Gestapo
• Jhola.

Bibliography

• Radha
• Jhola

References