“I’ve done everything in the movie industry except for saying action and cut [directing]. I can’t do that as I don’t have an education. There was no one to take me to school when I was a child,” says 49-year-old Singe Lama, narrating his life story full of struggles in an easy and affable manner, as if no problem can wipe the incessant smile off his face. Lama, a successful art director turned film producer who’s given hits like “Jatra” (2016), “Hari” (2018) and the recent “Jatrai Jatra”, has a fiction-like story of his own. For his close ones, his truth is painful as well as inspiring.
Born into a small family in the Tamang settlement in Chilime, Rasuwa, Lama lost his mother when he was just three months and he has no recollection of her. He was then raised by his father who, as fate would have it, also departed when his was around 7. As an orphan, Lama had to start working from an early age for survival and quit school. “The only thing I got from school is my name,” he says, again with a bit of laughter mixed voice. “I had a different name back then which I can’t recall. My grade 2 teacher didn’t like it and changed my name to Singe. That was the year I had to quit school.”
An orphan in a rural village without roads, the only option for Lama was to work as a helper on the highway being built at a day’s walk from his village, and that was his home for a few years. He started with helping in the kitchen then gradually moved to carrying loads and as he grew up and discovered he could run fast, he took one of the most dangerous jobs around. Why? It paid him a little extra than his daily wage of Rs 25 and also earned him chicken for lunch. Lama became what he calls a “bomb blaster.” He was in charge of lighting the fuses of explosives that were fitted under huge rocks to shatter them. “It was dangerous, but the extra money and chicken were always welcome,” he says.
Then, at the age of 15 or 16, Lama decided to come to Kathmandu to try his luck here. He remembers it was 1986 and he paid Rs 18 to buy himself a bus ride here from Trishuli. With no education, no financial backing, no family and no trade skills whatsoever, the following years were filled with trials and tribulations as he switched from one job to another, trying to settle in this strange city. “There’s nothing I didn’t do back then. From peddling small things in the streets to laboring in construction sites, from putting up the Maoist posters in the beginning of the revolution to running a canteen, I’ve done it all. I’ve seen every inch of Kathmandu,” he says proudly, now seated as the center of attraction at a posh restaurant in the same city. “Life was fun back then. I lived for the day with no worries of the future. You know, I even managed to learn karate and became a coach in Jhapa for a couple of years.”
It was in Jhapa that Lama had his first tryst with the film industry. He worked part time as a projector operator and usher at a local theater. And when he came back to Kathmandu, an acquaintance introduced him to Nandu Adhikari, a popular art director at the time. “Nandu dai took me in as I was a skillful handyman by then and never said no to anything,” Lama says. “He taught me everything about set designing and art direction. Unfortunately, he got into an accident and died soon.”
But this time Lama stuck to his vocation and soon he was a sought after man, designing sets for dozens of films, videos, ad shoots and TV programs. He recalls doing his first film all by himself in 1999. And not only did he design beautiful sets, he also worked in the lighting department as well as dress-designing. There was just nothing he wouldn’t do.
In the course of working in the industry and getting to know many faces behind it, Lama grew close to Pradip Bhattarai, an assistant director for the MaHa studios. That’s when the idea of making a film got into him and Lama put together the theme of “Jatra”. With Bhattarai as the director, Lama raised enough money to finance the film with the help of three other partners.
“I didn’t have any cash savings but I had created a name for myself by then,” says Lama. “That worked and investors supported me in cash or even kind.” Jatra was a huge success in Nepal and overseas and made double the investment. So Lama’s career as a film producer took off in 2016 and with consecutive hits, he hasn’t had to look back.
“But the pressure now begins,” Lama points out. “Most of my life I have lived carefree without much commitment. I’d earn for the day, sleep at night, and then start earning for the next day again. I had no expectations from people. But now I have an identity and know people look up to me. This feeling is entirely new.”
Lama then reveals his plans for his upcoming feature film titled “Ke Ghar, Ke Dera?” with director Subrat Acharya. The final script is almost ready and most of the cast has been roped in, he informs. “It is an organic story based in Kathmandu. I hope people like it as much as they liked our previous movies.”
