Dr. Bhatta's books diagnose Nepali society

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, July 6: Noted surgeon Professor Dr Arjundev Bhatta is not a new name in Nepali literature. He set an example as to how a busy physician can spare time to produce oodles of creative works. He has penned more than 16 works, including fiction, anthologies of short stories and poems, memoirs and medical dissertations. 

At the age of 15, Dr Bhatta took a plunge into literature, penning Baitadika kehi local sabda (Some local words of Baitadi) - Part 1. He has recently come up with four books – three novels - Abhigyan Pratiksha, Dosro Jivanko Churo and Abichchhinnata -, and a collection of stories Kalpana ko Kshitizma. 

Abhigyan Pratiksha offers ample insight into mental health problems that have reached pandemic proportions across the world. In Nepal, too, it has become a serious health issue. He has brilliantly shed light on various mental problems such as personality disorder, depression, psychosis, bipolar disorder and dementia through a variety of characters. It contains a poignant sentence: 'Senior citizens are compelled to feel that they are living orphaned parents in the absence of support from their offspring.'

Abichchhinnata is about the story of a man who ditches an affluent life in Nepal and goes to the USA to settle there permanently. He succeeds in his career and earns a huge amount of money but he is entangled in the glitters of artificial life spiced by individual freedom, free sex and modernity. 

The novel has similar characters but it also touchingly portrays the political malfeasance, bureaucratic corruption, criminal tendency, pervasive sycophancy and favouritism ailing the contemporary Nepali society. 

 Kalpana ko Kshitizma contains 19 short stories that depict the woes and suffering of people with whom the author encounters in his medical profession. Inequality between sons/daughters, feudal attitude, abject poverty and rustic lifestyle have been artistically described in the stories. 

In Dosro Jivanko Churo, patients visiting his clinic inspire the novelist to write this book. It is about courageous characters who are living a second life. "I desire to bow down before the people who are moving in wheelchairs with a smile despite suffering from complex health ailments such as spinal injuries," says the novelist, adding that most of them come alone, signifying that physical disability and sickness no longer stop people from their life journey. 

Readers relish a variety of literary flavours in these books that artistically diagnose contemporary Nepali society. With these works, Dr Bhatta's literary journey reaches a new high, putting him in a solid position in the Nepali literary realm.