Shiva Shankar

Who was Shiva Shankar?

Shiva Shankar Manandhar was a singer, music composer of Nepali songs and the chief actor in the first Nepali movie, Aama. For nearly a half century beginning from 1950 to late 1990, his name has probably been mentioned more often in books, journals, lectures and conversations about Nepalese music than any other musicians.

Singing and composing music for songs of love, tragedy, devotion and patriotism, he pioneered many of the genres of the modern Nepali songs. He has composed music for around 1,200 Nepalese songs. He himself sang about three hundred songs. For these contributions Shankar was bestowed with dozens of prestigious national awards.

Shankar was recruited to the service of the state-owned Radio Nepal in 1951 by Bal Krishna Sama, the pre-eminent playwright of Nepal. Soon he was assigned with duty to explore and mentor new musical talents, supervise, and quality control the songs being recorded in the studio for radio broadcast. Together with his colleague Nati Kaji, he made Radio Nepal an institution for breeding modern Nepalese music and songs. All Nepalese singers and musicians of the later half of the twentieth century came into prominence through this institution. Radio Nepal fostered not only the in-country musical talents, but also motivated several prodigious musicians of Darjeeling, to blossom in Nepal. They included Ambar Gurung, Gopal Yonzan, Aruna Lama and several others.