Indu Tharu, an author, artist and activist, with a reader of her newly published book ‘Budhani’. Photo from Indu's Facebook page. 
Used with permission.

“Budhani,” a Nepali novel based on an Indigenous Tharu fable, tells the story of a crow and a girl. In her life as a crow, “Budhani” faces injustice; however, reborn as a girl, she fights against the rule of law favouring males. It’s not only a story of struggle against injustice but also a tale of love, emotions and intimate conversations between a mother and her children.

The Tharu are an ethnic group located in the Terai lowland region of southern Nepal and northern India.

Prawin Adhikari, a known name in literary circles in Nepal, refabulated the story of “Budhani” into a novella. Indu Tharu, a writer, artist and activist, then translated and rewrote it into the Tharu language, an Indigenous language spoken by approximately 2 million people between Nepal and India.

Sanjib Chaudhary from Global Voices caught up with Adhikari and Tharu to talk about the book and their experiences writing it. The interviews have been abridged and edited for clarity.

Sanjib Chaudhary (SC): Instead of using the word “retold by”, you have chosen “refabulated by” for your newest book, “Budhani”. Can you tell us why you opted to use the word refabulation?

Prawin Adhikari (PA): I am assuming you’re referring to my previous collection of folktales, “Folk Gods”, when you allude to the phrase “retold by” to indicate my part in the authorship of a book.

The process of writing “Budhani” was radically different. Two folktales collected by Krishna Sarbahari formed the basis for a play performed by the Actors’ Studio. Together, the stories are only six or seven pages long.

When I saw the play, I was drawn to the story of a mother and daughter. I wanted to write about their pain and suffering. But it wouldn’t be enough to just stretch the source material by a little and retell the story — it was necessary to take an old fable and develop it into a new fable entirely.

Therefore, I took the seed of an idea from Sarbahari’s folktales and the performance by Actors’ Studio, but wrote something which is also very much an original work.

However, I can’t claim authorship of “Budhani” — it is one node in a long strand of collecting and retelling, remaking and refabulating. This is the reason why I chose the phrase “refabulated by”, as a way of dispersing authorship.

SC: “Budhani” is a story of a female crow and a girl. What was your experience of pouring out a woman’s feelings in the pages of your book?

PA: I have been asked this question often since the publication of “Budhani”. I didn’t — and indeed, couldn’t have — poured out a woman’s feelings into the pages of the book, as you have put it. I have only written from the perspective of a crow and a girl. They are characters in a story I wrote. If you felt moved by the curiosity of a young girl child exploring the world around her, or the grief of a mother, or the love a woman feels for an infant whom she has scooped up from the earth to claim as her own daughter, then you felt the emotions of the characters, not mine as the writer.

My experience was that of sitting down to type the scenes as I had prepared plans for — a few lines to decide the action, a few lines indicating the idea that needs to come through, maybe a couple of words to keep everything disciplined toward the main thrust of the section in the book. My experience is mostly mechanical, in that sense.

SC: Indu, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you started writing?

Indu Tharu (IT): I was born in Ranamura Village of Kailali District in Western Nepal. My father and uncle used to write stories, poems, ghazals and also used to publish a magazine Muktik Dagar – path to freedom. I grew up reading them, followed by stories and poems penned by Parijat and Devkota, to name a few. All these motivated me to write.

I never thought of becoming a writer during my childhood, but I used to think about how it would feel to be an author. That’s why, after I sided with the Tharuhat Movement in the mid-2010s, I felt the need to write about and document the movement. It taught me to write.

Later, I started writing about Tharu identity, history, language, tradition, and culture.

SC: Can you share your experience writing “Budhani” in the Tharu language?

IT: Writing “Budhani” taught me a lot. My earlier publications, “Nilambit Nibandha” – censored essay, and “Muktik Dagar” are in Nepali. From early childhood, we were made to read and write in Nepali. That’s why we never felt the need to read and write in the Tharu language.

While writing “Budhani”, I came to know how weak I am in the Tharu language. While speaking, we use many Nepali and English words. While writing “Budhani” I had to pick peculiar Tharu words, to make the writing palatable as it is a work of literature. It taught me how to add pleasantness to the writing. For this, Tharu litterateur and writer Chhabilal Kopila helped me a lot. I gleaned some typical Tharu words from my mother, grandmother, and friends — like the names of birds, trees, plants, gods and goddesses, and insects.

SC: “Budhani” is a story about a crow and a girl. How does the story transition between the lives of a crow and a girl? What does the story want to convey?

IT: “Budhani” is inspired by a Tharu folktale. Based on the fable, “Budhani”, after turning into a girl from a crow, fights for her rights.

“Budhani” is shown as a crow. However, what I felt is although being a crow, the conversation of “Budhani” with her mother, the bond between the mother and daughter, her feelings after she meets with male crow “Korvin”, the conversation between them when they start living together, the attachment with her children — in spite of being a crow — all show the human emotions and affection. The injustice meted out to her during her crowhood doesn’t end there.

Although I don’t believe in reincarnation, in the folktale, it is shown that even as a girl, she fights against the injustice she had to go through during her crowhood. The way she gets justice has been presented in a very nice way.

SC: You are a fierce advocate of women's issues. How is Budhani’s story different from other stories that highlight the male members of society rather than the women?

IT: We read so many stories of girls and women described on the basis of their beautiful eyes, hair, and bodies. They portray girls and women as weak and timid characters, subdued to men. Most of the writings are like that. But in this story, a girl emerges as a strong character.

One of the lines in this book, when the father tiger tells Budhani that you’re a strong girl, she asks herself which girl is weak then. It wants to say not only Budhani is strong, but all girls are strong. Nobody is weak. This sentence touched me. We are living in a society that always thinks girls are weak.

SC: What are you writing currently? What are your future plans?

IT: After writing “Budhani”, I have been motivated to write more. I have been thinking of writing something, particularly about the experiences, struggles, skills, arts, and contributions of Tharu women to society. Many of these stories need to be written.

The author first published this story in Global Voices on 31 July 2025