Ramsharan Darnal, researching and writing on music

One of the popular senior Nepali musicians Ramsharan Darnal was born in 1937 in Kathmandu. He completed his schooling from Durbar High School and then enrolled in Robert High School for his higher education. Over the decades, he has contributed a lot to the research and publishing articles on music and musical instruments. He had also introduced some of the western instruments into Kathmandu after he learned to play them during his time in Calcutta.



He has performed at various hotels and has actively contributing to the music, traditional activities and musical personalities. His life took a new turn after a tragedy hit him in 1968. The monsoon rain had destroyed his house and killed his mother along with destroying the musical instruments worth Rs 2,500,000 at his house. He, however, did not even receive small amount of loan from the Nepal Academy for rebuilding his house. He was forced to take a new path of researching and publishing reports on music and musical instruments with no instruments to play with.

ramsharan darnal

He has visited many places inquiring about the folk songs, music and the instruments of different places in Nepal and published his first article in a newsletter which was published in Banaras. It was only after few years that his works were published in local newspapers based in Kathmandu. During his travel and research on the music, musical instruments and tradition around the whole nation (except Humla and Jumla districts), he came to know that Nepal and Nepalese are slowly losing many traditional objects of great importance.

He served as the member of Royal Nepal Academy since 1959 and of other looming organizations related with music. He has the idea that the country can benefit in many ways by exhibiting the different musical instruments collected by the Royal Nepal Academy and also demands the research and training of different tunes and instruments used by the traditional musical society of Gandharva, Damai and Badi communities of Nepal.

Ramsharan Darnal has been awarded with Dr. Ambedkar Fellowship and Gorkha Dakshin Bahu, one of the most prestigious awards in Nepal. He has also visited other countries like Thailand and Japan and has published eight books on music, musical instruments and tradition among which four are highly acclaimed and others are left to be published.