Background

I grew up listening to Karna Das. He was a household name within our family, and we owned several of his albums in cassettes and discs. Das has been a distinguished musician loved ubiquitously by the Nepalese. Millennials will have special sentiment with his song "Jindagi Ko Ke Bharosa" — a gem of a Nepali song. I revere Das not only for his soothing timbre, and his top-notch vocal finesse but also for his powerful songwriting. His lyrics, rare of its kind in the Nepali music industry are distinctly philosophical. Das does not dwell in the cliché romantic love-songs prevalent in Nepali pop music. Rather he pens poignant words reminding the listeners of grand existential questions while emanating hope to plow through life's ordeals, garnering beauty and meaning in the process.

Today, out of curiosity I queried him in Wikipedia. To my dismay, I discovered Karna Das had a malformed article only little more than a stub. The previous wiki page author skipped a large significant portion of Das's legacy and contribution to the Nepalese music scene. I took it upon my own hands to revise, edit, and expand the old wiki article. I watched several interviews with Karna Das and dug through the archives of Himalayan Times - a national Nepali daily, and Nepali Times - an English weekly. Taking careful notes, I probed into Das's musical journey from childhood through his heyday, unto his hiatus and the status quo. Then, I prepared a draft wiki article, and after negotiating "neutrality" in my tone with Ed6767, wiki's moderator, my article was published.

Contributions

The wiki user, 'Brudraksha' added most of the data in the tables under the sections 'Awards & Recognition', and under 'Concerts'. I wrote the remaining sections and also furnished the content in the artist infobox. Das's image, originally photographed by Sabin J. Thapa in Australia.

Introduction

Karna Das, is a Nepali musician, singer, songwriter, lyricist, composer, and record producer. Das was born on 24 November, 1974 in Pokhara, considered a beautiful city of lakes and home to three of the highest peaks in the world.

He completed high school in 1993, completed his Intermediate of Arts (IA) in Education, and studied economics in college. Das was also the lead vocalist of the band Madhyanha (translated - central point). He started his singing career in 1997 with the band's first song, entitled "Jindagi Ko Ke Bharosa". Das wrote the song himself, when he was 20 years old.

Das plays piano, guitar, and bass guitar. His musical inspirations include Elton John, Richard Michael, Scorpions, Michael Jackson, Gulam Ali of Pakistan, Lata Mangeshkar and the Ghazal singer Jagjit Singh of India, and Narayan Gopal of Nepal.

Das is regarded as the "living legend" in the Nepalese music landscape in Nepal. He is revered for his uniquely soothing and melodious timbre and also for his distinct songwriting attributed with immense depth and earnestness. His lyrics spans topics such as philosophical and existential issues of mankind, perseverance, overcoming ordeals, hope, anti-fatalism, and patriotism. Das makes rare appearances in commercial and popular media.

Early life

Das was born and raised in an art-loving, and musical Christian home. He is the only son and has an elder and a younger sister. His father played Tabla and was a singer, but could not continue the music after he joined the Indian Army. His mother Ratna Devi Das was a professional dancer . She was a chorus line dancer, and also performed alongside the Bollywood actress Mala Sinha, in the 1966 Nepali movie, Maitighar.

Das was educated in Sunday School in his Church in Pokhara from early childhood to adolescence where he garnered his moral and musical lessons. Growing up in a Christian home, music was intimately part of the family, as they sang and played along Christian hymns, gospels, and worship songs. Das learned the fundamentals of music in his church while singing in the choir. He recalls as a young 12-year-old, he was gifted by his mother, his first acoustic guitar, and was encouraged to pursue music. He was given guitar lessons by a guitar teacher named Manish Tamang in his village. Observing Das's incessant love for music and his promising talent, his mother nudged him into a disciplined musical learning path, grooming and guiding young Das.

In the milieu of Nepal's bucolic livelihood, raising and shepherding cattle and sheep was part of Das's regular chore. He recalls the only medium for music in his village was the radio. As a teenager, the first western music Das got antiquated to was Holiday by the German rock band Scorpions, which grabbed him in astonishment. He was soon into sentimental and melodious English tunes shared with him by his friend Arjun. Das was fascinated by Elton John songs, and hits of Michael Jackson such as Earth Song, and Heal The World.

As Das's father joined the Indian Army, the family moved to New Delhi where Das was introduced to Indian songs. He craved for lyrically strong music and that was beyond merely psychologically pleasure-inducing. His inspiration met with Pakistani singer Gulam Ali, and the Indian Ghazal giant Jagdish Singh. Das was particularly touched by the Urdu lexicon and poetry, which was distinctly soaked with sentiment and meaning, and had a wide gamut of diverse and subtle connotations. Das wanted to emulate this aspect of Eastern language through the Nepali songwriting and vocabulary.

By the time Das was a young adult, he had already garnered a holistic taste for western, Indian, and Nepali songs that especially packed meaningful depth and sentiment. Moreover, he also attributes his study of the Bible and philosophical books which gave him the perspective for life's reality that would influence his writings. At the age of 19, he began percolating his experience into carving and drafting original words and melodies simultaneously. He would soon take the Nepali musical scene with storm, through his beautiful, soul-stirring, and powerful music

Personal life

He is married to Sima Das. He has 3 sons, of which the eldest Markus Das works in a recording studio in Pokhara. During, the thick of the civil war in Nepal waged under the Maoist insurgency, Das in early 2000s, released a couple of albums targeting the listeners of the war-stuck nation. Through his music, he asked his listeners to persist their hope, and bolster their perseverance until everyone meets the impending light at the end of the tunnel. To the then bastions of power through his songs, he urged that the struggle of Nepalese was not merely for the radical changes in power structures, but for the grassroot upliftment of people's life and livelihoods. An example is evinced in the song "Thula Thula Mahal" which among others, voices Nepalese preference for tiny huts that imparts vocation and education rather than tall indifferent urban complexes. Other imperatives in the same song includes statements with contrasting negations, such as, "give me a field of crops, over a battlefield; a pen that draws ink, over a sword that draws blood; a pair of hands that gives, over a pair of talkative lips; and a sage that imparts wisdom, over a jogi that begs."

In 2005, Das took a decade-long hiatus from the musical activity in Nepal, during which he resided in Baltimore city, in the U.S. state of Maryland. The aftermath of April 2015 Nepal earthquake, invoked the urgency for ensuring the well-being of his family, thus he made the repatriate. Assessing in retrospect, Das considers his life's journey including the hiatus as carefully planned and worked out by God. He considers the almighty pulled him through the highs and lows with a purpose — to teach Das life lessons of immense significance, and to seep in him deeper perspective into reality, which he would not have garnered otherwise. As of now, he is glad to be reunited and to cherish love, with his family and grown children. In 2016, he resumed his music in Nepal, and catering to his life-long fans, released the album "Euta Naya Asha" (A New Hope).

Das is a devoted Christian and believes Jesus Christ of Nazareth as his lord and savior, and the hope for the world.

Awards

During the pre-90s, virtually all artists of Nepal made their debut through the state-owned radio station - Radio Nepal. The in-house music department screened the candidates, validated their technical abilities, and supported them with record production and broadcast. With the advent of private stations in the 90s, budding artists gained broader options to garner appraisal of their work. Awards from Hits FM and Image FM were considered premium accolades for Nepali musicians. Nepali Times, an English weekly stated "...[these awards] are widely regarded as the most representative Nepali awards: the people decide on the nominees, and an independent panel of judges culled from the pillars of Nepali music make the final selection".

Das has won over two dozen awards since 1997. He has bagged consecutive awards in the categories such as 'best composition', 'best performance', and 'best male voice'. A list of awards which I've skipped in this article are tabulated in the published wiki article.

Discography

Das has 9 studio albumsnad myriad compilations, singles, and features.

Future Work for Wiki

I have left out a part on how Karna Das composed his debut song "Jindagi Ko Ke Bharosa" with the band. I believe, it requires a separate section and I put it in the backlog to be fulfilled in the future.

Originally published in Wikipedia with citations and referencing under the article entry - Karna Das