Jureli chari sings the blues

When it came to chronicling Nepal’s enormously rich folk cultures, historian and culture expert Satya Mohan Joshi was without parallel.

In 1944, as he lay on the deathbed in a rural village away from home, Satya Mohan Joshi wondered if he would ever see his wife, his infant daughter and his parents again. The then 24-year old Joshi, a raithane of Lalitpur, had been commissioned to conduct a socio-economic survey of Tanahun district. He had contracted malaria when he was in Rishing-Ghiring and was left with nothing but an endless wait for death. A junior colleague who accompanied him and was infected by the same disease had been left for dead on the banks of a rivulet next to the village, and as he battled high fever, Joshi was certain he was next.