Mahesh Bikram Shah is a Nepali writer and a retired policeman who has authored several short story collections. Some of his notable works are ‘Sataha’, ‘Kathmandu ma Camrade’, ‘African Amigo’, ‘Bhuinkhat’ and ‘Sipahiki Swasni’. Among them, his short stories collection called ‘Chhapamar ko Chhoro’ was awarded the ‘Madan Puraskar’ in 2007. Anushka Nepal from ApEx talked to Shah about his dedication to continuing writing despite having a full-time job. From being a police officer to an award-winning author, what was the journey like? I worked as a police officer for 30 years and I carried my career in writing. I have been interested in literature since I was a child, and have previously published a few of my works in Nepali newspapers too. I stopped writing while I was in high school since studying science didn’t give me a lot of time to focus on it. But deep down I knew I would definitely become a writer someday. I think it’s that dream that made me get back to writing again. I loved writing so much that I didn’t mind doing two things at the same time. My attachment to writing and literature never waned.

How did you manage to juggle writing with a full-time job?

I was lucky enough to get posted at Bharatpur Police Training Center in Chitwan where I was surrounded by an academic environment. And the job wasn’t as hectic as it would be if I were posted somewhere else, like in a department where I would have to be on site a lot. That gave me some leisure time to start writing again. I wrote stories and poems that reflected on the lives of the people from Tikapur, Kailali, my hometown in the western part of Nepal. That’s how it started. And I never discontinued writing after that. How did you feel when your writing first got published?  It was a poem I wrote that got published in one of the newspapers. I was quite young at that time. The amount of joy I had cannot be described in words. I was proud of myself and every time I saw my name in print, I would have a smile on my face. When I published my first book, I realized that I had finally achieved the dream of becoming a published author. Not just that, I knew I could do so much more and write many other books with the recognition I had received. It was a surreal experience. What’s the inspiration behind the books you write? It’s the things I have seen, experienced, read, and heard about that inspire me to continue my work. I also like to listen to other’s experiences and understand their pain, and suffering, as well as their happiness, which can be incorporated into my writings. So, in short, it’s the small things that happen in our society that inspire me. I’m someone who can never come up with a storyline if I sit down and start thinking. It’s the things that I see, hear, or experience that gives me the idea of what I can write about next. How do you come up with the plots and characters? Whenever I get an idea for a story, I already have an outline in my head of how I can start and conclude my story. I’m also aware of the behavior and personality traits I would like my characters to have. So basically, I just write down whatever I have on my mind. Yes, there will be some changes in between and I might come up with some new ideas. But the framework remains the same. I think the most important thing about planning your story is to know exactly what the moral of your writing is going to be. A writer must be clear on what he wants to say through his stories. Only then can you frame it well. Any authors/books that have inspired you? I grew up reading the works of BP Koirala, Parijat, Govinda Bahadur Malla, Ramesh Bikal, Laxmi Prasad Devkota, Rabindranath Tagore. and Premchand. So I would have to say these are the writers who have inspired me to become a writer myself, especially when it comes to writing stories and poems. Shah’s picks Madhabi by Madan Mani Dixit ‘Madhabi’ by Madan Mani Dixit is a Nepali mythological novel published in 1983 by Sajha Prakashan. The book won the Madan Puraskar in the same year. Sumnima by BP Koirala ‘Sumnima’ is a novel written by BP Koirala. The book was published in 1969 by Sajha Prakashan and it tells the story of a Kirat woman and a Brahmin boy. Koirala wrote the book in eight days during his imprisonment at the Sundarijal jail. Shakuntala by Laxmi Prasad Devkota This is one of the greatest works of Laxmi Prasad Devkota, published in 1945.