Her fascinating career includes speaking in the first Nepali radio advertisement that was not merely the reading out of a notice and being the Nepali voice in All India Radio.  Sharma’s voice is instantly recognisable in the advertisements for Maggi and Cerelac that aired on All India Radio, and her name is familiar to a generation that grew up on radio.

But the person behind the voice remains a mystery even after 50 years of public life.

She got her break thanks to Kiran Kharel, one of the pioneers of radio in Nepal, who had spotted Sharma at a college programme and invited her to audition for Radio Nepal. As the only radio station in the country, Radio Nepal, then, was an exciting place to be in. Presenters became household names. At her audition, Kharel gave her a book and told her to read from whatever page she opened to. The contents of that page detailed a romantic scene. “I felt strange, since I knew nothing about romance in real life,” she remembers. But Kharel was satisfied with her reading. Later, he gave her some questions meant for the programme Prashnottari. Sharma was asked to read out some questions and Kharel answered them. At one point she read out a question related to women, and Kharel said, “You would be a better person to answer it.” Surprised, Sharma laughed out loud and said she did not know the answer. “That’s ok then. I will answer it. You go ahead and laugh,” said Kharel.

Only after the programme had ended did Sharma find out that the whole segment had aired live. But that gaffe notwithstanding, Sharma had clinched the job: her warm voice, presence of mind and natural delivery won the day, and she has relied on those qualities to remain in radio ever since.

Sharma’s family had come to Nepal from Bihar when she was just two years old, as the daughter of an Indian military doctor. “I am Indian by birth, but Nepali by heart,” she says. And through the arc of her career, she has worked the seams that line those two identities.

In many ways, the salient points in Sharma’s career arc can almost be superimposed on the points when changes occurred in Nepali radio. Around the time she started, Radio Nepal aired only news and programmes like Prashnottari. By 1968, the government wanted announcements inserted—and they were to be read out like notices. Sharma was a part of the team that worked on these first advertisements.

 “I would read out that a certain movie was being screened at so-and-so hall, or that some programme was being held at a certain place,” Sharma recounts.

In 1969, when reading a public service announcement about smallpox awareness, she decided to decided to get in character when voicing her memorable line, “Chhi, yo aina le katti tarsayeko”; she did it with such conviction that the producers realised that radio personnel could add life to flatly rendered notices and that advertisements could be pitched to win over the heart and not just cater to the head.

Although her work in advertisements was iconic, it was her work in drama and musical stories that made Sharma famous. Senior writers like Kharel and others wrote original dramas for the radio, stories based on contemporary social life. Once in a while they also worked in literary or religious classics. Mostly, says Sharma, the stories had to do with the eternal verities of “love and life.” Airing at 1 pm every Saturday, the dramas were very popular. People used to give up everything else to listen to the radio and while away their Saturdays—this was when radio was the only media source for entertainment—and people of that generation still have fond memories of the dramas.

Sharma and Kharel also continued to work on Prashnottari, which was hugely popular then. The listeners sent in questions about radio programmes, but also about their lives, asking for advice. A precursor to modern radio programmes like Sathi Sanga Manka Kura or the ‘agony aunt’ columns in newspapers, the programme got voluminous response. It was Kharel’s job to select the questions and prepare the answers, while Sharma mostly read out the questions.

Sharma also ran a programme in which she played music from places such as India, Pakistan and Russia, and introduced Russian folk songs and Ghulam Ali ghazals to the larger Nepali audience.

In 1971, Sharma returned to India. There, her brother-in-law suggested that she try to work in All India Radio’s Nepali service, considering her experience with Nepali radio programming. The Nepali Service was part of All India Radio’s External Services, which aired programmes in more than 20 languages in over a dozen countries. While the External Services presented content pertaining to Indian realities in different languages—for the Indian Diaspora—the case with the Nepali Services programme was slightly different, because a large number of Nepali speakers also reside in India. The Nepali service was a way for Nepalis to understand India, but also, since it prioritised news from Nepal, a way for Nepali speakers in India to learn about Nepal.

Sharma started out by working in dramas, news, and request programmes for All India Radio’s foreign transmission. In 1976, Sharma became a newsreader. Working in news meant that she could not work in other formats. Sharma, who thrives on being creative—she is a writer and poet with five published novels—felt straitjacketed behind the news desk.

“News is flat. You just read what is in front of you. Dramas provide much more scope for expression,” she says.

Sharma found a creative outlet by working in advertisements for private companies. Since there were no recording studios in Nepal at the time, commercials to be aired in Radio Nepal would be recorded in Delhi and sent back to Nepal. Her iconic voice rang in the advertisements for most of the big-name brands of the day, from Maggi to Nescafe to Cerelac.

This year is Sharma’s fiftieth year in radio. In her long career, she has seen every phase of technology in radio’s growth—from the age of spools to cassettes to CDS to digital formatting. The advent of new media like television and the Internet meant that in the urban areas radio would not remain as huge as it used to be in the past. However, because a radio is portable, it is still used to source information by those living in the many villages of Nepal—you can listen to it when working in the fields or you can multitask as you go about your chores, unlike with TV. “The technology has changed, but the radio will not die out,” says Sharma.

Sharma retired in 2010 from All India Radio, from the position of Nepali news in-charge, but the organisation decided to keep her on as a consultant in deferenceto her 26 years of service. She guides newcomers at All India Radio, aids them with translations, provides voice coaching, etc, and suggests ways to improve the Nepali Service. She also continues to coordinate and provide the voice for government programmes.

“Radio is not becoming obsolete any time soon. Likewise, my association with radio is not going to end any time soon,” she concludes, in a voice that has as much conviction to it as it did when she wowed her audiences with her natural delivery in 1965.