Prachanda Malla obituary: Born for the stage

Birth: 2 July 1929, Bara
Death: 17 December 2021, Kathmandu

Playwright Prachanda Malla, who recently passed away at the age of 92, was one of the pioneers of theater in Nepal, who dedicated his life to boosting the local theater scene.

Growing up in Barewa, Bara, Malla always had a little theater artist in him. He used to spend hours in front of the mirror repeating dialogues to later showcase before his friends and family. A part of him knew that this was his calling even if, at that time, there were not many viable ‘jobs’ in this sector.

The artist in him started to truly blossom when in 1952, the 23-year-old Malla found himself performing in front of the great dramatist Bal Krishna Sama. He got to play three characters in Sama’s ‘Amar Singh’. Sama inspired him to keep moving forward; perhaps that was the reason he held Sama’s handwritten notebooks close to his heart all his life.

The same year, under Sama’s influence, Malla’s journey as a playwright also began. His first play was a simplified version of Sama’s ‘Amar Singh’ for a yearly program for the Royal Nepal Army headquarters. Sama soon became his first audience and a father figure in the literary world.

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His pen then started writing what have since become some of the greatest historical plays. In 1961, his play ‘Nitriyabhinaya’ was first published in Gorkhapatra, followed by other works in different newspapers and literary magazines. Recognizing his contribution to Nepali drama, in 1964 he was appointed drama and music specialist at the department of drama and music, Royal Nepal Academy.

His work took him to Moscow where he trained on scholarship at the State Institute of Theater, Moscow, in 1966. When he returned, he infused Nepali theater with new enthusiasm. He was soon promoted as chief drama and music manager in the academy’s department of drama and music.

His first book on the history of Nepali theater ‘Nepali Rangmanch’ was published in 1980. Some of his other well-known works are ‘Tilganga’ (a collection of historical short plays), ‘Tathanga’, ‘Balbhadra Kunwar', ‘Kantipur ko Rangmanch', ‘Bhatriprem’ and ‘Paschatap’. In 2010, Malla resigned from the academy and was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Nepal Academy of Music and Drama.

In his life dedicated to acting, writing, and directing, Malla found his niche in direction, which he considered the most challenging among the three. So he directed over 300 plays in his lifetime for programs for the army, police, schools, colleges, and other organizations.

Malla had been suffering from respiratory problems when he passed away on 17 December 2021 at Civil Hospital, New Baneshwor. He is survived by his wife and a daughter.

Awards:

‘Indra Rajyalaxmi Pragya Puraskar’ (1991)
Aarohan Samman (1990) 
Sarwanaam Samman (1991)
Bal Krishna Sama Samman (2001)