SCHOOL OF LOVE

-BY GIRI BAHADUR SUNAR

Have you ever imaginedabout a school dedicated to love where students are offered courses on
different forms and natures of love? The opinion may vary. However, this has been made
possible by a creative thinker, journalist, short story writer and novelist Mr. Aswini Koirala.
Recently, the most awaited novel on the theme of love and compassion has been published in the
market with the title of "PREMALAYA" (School of Love). The novel has been published in
Nepali language for Nepali readers.

I got couple of opportunities to meet Aswini Koirala and discussed about love. The topic "Love"
seems very simple but as you start to dig it down you can't get into the depth of it. You may
losesomewhere; it is the matter of exploration. Mr. Koirala did research on this matter and try to
find a school of love around the world through secondary source of data but he did not find any
school dedicated to love. In contrary, he found hundreds of dedicated school on warfare.

He says, "If there will be a school of love than there will not be quarrel and war in the world".
Yes, I agree with his words. When we look back to the human history hundred and thousands of
war has been fought and million and billions of people were died, in same quantity people were
wounded, became homeless and loveless. Still, terrorist groups are terrorizing the world. Nearly
every day, we hear the news of attack, bombing and killing. Why? What went wrong with the
humanity? Is there anything wrong with our educational system? Are we able to plant the right
meaning of love in the mind of our children/student? Are they getting right education? Do they
understand the real meaning of love? So many questions are there to be answered.

For example, when we say, "I love Nepali cricket team", immediately we start to make strategy
against another team, when we say, "I love my country", right there, we start to dominate other
countries by praising our. When we say, "I love Hindu religion because it is the best", the word
"best" itself is referring that other religion are not good as Hindu. I love my girl friend, I love my
husband, I love my kids all these saying are unconscious saying. We are not aware of love
because we are not educated on the real meaning of love rather we preferred to educate warfare
to our children, we enjoy war, and we love war.

When we really understand the meaning of love, there will not be any comparison of superiority
and inferiority, no hatred among, no domination, no killing in the name of God and terrorism in
the name of nation. Love is the only solution of all those chaos.We love our partners, children,
parents, animals, nature, country, god and many more; each love has their own vibration. Love is
not simply about romance. From an evolutionary perspective, love can be viewed as a survival
tools which evolved to promote long-term relationships, mutual defense to promote the feeling of
safety and security. Healthy love is food for the soul as we need healthy food for healthy body.

Yes, this is what Mr. Koirala wants to educate people through his book "PREMALAYA". Apart
from this beautiful book, I read most of his published article in "KANTIPUR SAPTAHIK". His
writing on "LOVE" proved that heis a fact writer rather than fictional. He is a good
columnist/journalist having powerful vocabularies which empowered him to writes in
straightforward manner. I read his first published book "UNI" in 2012 which compiles interviews
with women from various walks of Nepalese life UNI is an inspiring book to read. This book
represent the life of those women who can inspired others to live life with full of hope and joy.
His second book "Zuckerberg Café" published on 2015 having collection of 24 short stories
targeting a wide cross-section of society like college youth, young professionals and even some
older folk. Once you go through the book, you will encounter with love, sex and hatred. His
second book is dealing with how social media is influencing romantic love in our time. In this
book, most of his characters meet in social medial platform "FACEBOOK" so he put the title as
Zuckerberg Café with the aim to match the title of his collected short stories.Koirala’s stories
explore the changing nature of romantic relationships and courting rituals in present Nepal. Now,
I am eagerly waiting for his upcoming sequel "UAA", this book will be about the "MAN" from
different walk of Nepalese life.

I would like to quote a beautiful saying, "wearer only knows where the shoe pinches", I agree
with the saying but it is the duty of a true readers to give feedback and suggestion to the concern
writer so he/she can do better in upcoming work. Most of the Koirala's writings style is like
reporting formatas journalist does. He used first and third person narrative techniqueswithout a
smooth flow, most of his stories finish without proper setting of climaxas expected by readers.
The skill of journalism must not be appearing while writing short stories and novel but it can be
felt in Korala's writings. Koirala's writing style is very simple and easy to comprehend; cleaver
reader can easily predict what will come next. He must be able to capture the suspense by using
vast knowledge of his vocabulary as the Dostoevsky, Chetan Bhagat, Subin Bhattarai, Dhurba
Chandra Gautam, Bed Prakash Sharma, Karnal Ranjit and many more writers did. It is good to
use interview techniques while reporting as journalist but not asshort story writer and novelist.

Once, I used to be a student of Major English in TU and got an opportunity to read hundreds of
short stories, poetry and novel in M.A. curriculum. With those reading and experience, I can say
that short story writing needs ability and talents on the part of author that novel do not. It is not
easy task to tell a complete story in 2000 words within tight plot having single climax, but it is
easy to tell it when you have more than 70,000 words to play. Even though a short story and a
novel have many similarities such as characters, dialogue, plot etc. There is some dissimilarity as
well between two, a noble is not simply a series of short stories strung together. It must have
cumulative effects to the readers and series of climaxes that all point to final climax in the book.
The novel must lead a reader down a path, taking them on ups and downs along the way. Each
scene should be inevitably tied to on that follows. Every climax is written to prepare the reader
for what happened next. It should build tension, curiosity, interest and anticipation. The readers
can visualized everything clearly as they observed in the move.

Mr. Koirala can have liberty to write a novel, he can be lazier and take his time building
suspense, reveling information about characters and so on but short story writer does not have
that much liberty and flexibility. Mr. Koiral has experience on it, because he had already
published collection such of short stories with the title of "Zuckerberg Café".If my suggestion
does have any meaning than I would like to suggest Mr. Koirala to play with more short stories
rather than just jumping to start novel writing, I found Mr. Koiral a bit hurry to debut his novel
with the lust to be literary celebrity, to gain additional prestige or a considerably income from the
work.

Anyway, no matter whether in the form of columnist, short story writer or novelist, Mr. Koirala
wrote about love that makes great sense. He did his best to educate people through different
dimensional love stories. Love is the only tools that can bring brotherhood, peace, progress and
prosperity among us, among the nation. It is the only antidotes to stop terrorism. Let us have love
related curriculum in our school and university where people can master on the matter of love.
Let us have school of love where love is taught as compulsory subject.

The author is sociologist by profession and women empowerment Self Defense trainer, can be
reached at: girithezorba@gmail.com