There are certain qualities that Khagendra Lamichhane infuses into everything he does. Simple but layered storytelling; straightforward dialogues imbued with vernacular nuances and tales that lucidly unpack the lives of the everyday Nepali. Lamichhane, who has been successfully plying his trade in the Nepali theatre and film industry, to critical acclaim, has now come up with an anthology of short stories—Fulani. Delightfully simple, yet surprisingly moving, the book is yet another plume on the author’s already illustrious hat. Pashupati Prasad is not a one-trick-pony.

Lamichhane’s prose is simple and lucid, without any ornamentation that often distract rather than inform the story arc. As you page through the stories, you find a strong connection to the author’s roots in western Nepal, which inform the colloquial tone and the quaint settings of his stories. In the book, Lamichhane picks his characters from diverse walks of life. They may not be your larger-than-life characters, but for that exact reason they are instantly relatable to the readers—like the pensioner Bude and the widow Naina Kumari.

In that particular story, Bude and Naina Kumari have both lost their spouses. After serendipitously crossing paths at a chautari, their innocent back-and-forth about life’s joys and troubles give seed to love. Yet the two ageing would-be lovers struggle to move past stigmas and convince the society that two lonely people in the dusk of their lives can conceive of seeking solace in each other.

Another story of unrequited desire, Bar Love, narrates the predicament of a naive boy who visits a shady dance restaurant for the first time; tries to woo a bar dancer and fails miserably. While, Bausaab ko Cycle lays bare the everyday realities of the crumbling feudal modalities the society once functioned under. The titular character, Bhuwaneswor, loses his “privileged” status, wealth and social esteem because of the sweeping political changes in the country. As they dwell in the slums of a city, Bhuwaneswor’s family is now mocked by the very society that once held them in such high esteem. Yet, the Bausaab is not ready to give up his cultural values or his moral high-ground.

Author Lamichhane’s theatrical aptitude comes to life in the story Atal Bahadur ko Aatanka, which had been previously staged as a play in the Capital to critical acclaim. The story presents not only the rowdy, chaotic character of Atal Bahadur, but also the ironic lifestyle of a village where people continue to live in their myth-like past rather than in the present—spending their time swapping stories of their youth and bygone days rather than confronting the real problems that plague them in the here-and-now.

With tales like these—of a society flirting with modernity but clogged up in its own past—the book is a mixed bag that touches upon a host of socio-political issues, crammed together with motifs of love and gender roles. The book also examines the fallout of the decade-long

Maoist insurgency and the effect it had on a wide cross-section of the Nepali society. The voices of myriad different characters have been weaved into the plots which make the author’s intentions apparent: he wants the book to resonate with all the voices of the society, muffled or otherwise.

That said; storytelling on paper is markedly different from performance arts. On stage or on screen, it is possible to convert lukewarm scripts into sizzling hours of entertainment based on performance alone. Short stories and novels, however, hinge on how the writer is able to execute the plot and make the character come to life. It comes as little surprise that in Lamichhane’s stories you find traces of his exploits as an actor and director.  Yet, without the bright lights and stoic performances, Fulani oftentimes falls flat—failing to capture the reader’s imagination as it perhaps would have on the silver screen.

At times the stories are in want of further exploration and the author’s simple prose could have been improved for the better. And owing to its sometimes drab prose and rigid storylines, the book is certainly not the pageturner that it could have been.

In the first story, Fulani, for instance, the titular, enigmatic character is introduced. Yet we are not offered a lot of information about her, and neither about the narrator Bibhor. The two fall in and out of love for the majority of the story without it really leading anywhere. Fulani supposedly represents a character vehemently against the age-old patriarchal domination. However, the reader is left grasping at straws as the author does not provide enough details to amply portray this rebellious quality.

In another story, Pradhyapak Ko Car Biyog, the character Nanda Prasad is a well-to-do educator. He owns a car but he can’t drive or afford to hire a driver. The writer’s satire of the opulent middle-class is obvious here and in the end, Nanda Prasad willingly wrecks his car into the Trishuli River before writing a self-deprecating poem to himself. Though it has ample shock value, the story hardly offers anything new in terms of storytelling and once again reminds the reader of the plot’s lost potential.

Infused with subtle humour, the anthology is no doubt a deft look at the society the writer is writing out of. Yet, the book could have been exponentially better had it boasted a tad more fluid prose and had the plots been thought-out more carefully. While it might not intrigue readers as much as his plays and movies have, Fulani is an important marker for Khagendra Lamichanne’s career. Having aptly conquered movies, theatre and now writing, there is no telling what surprise this talented artist will cook up next.