Prakash Poudel: Of many calibers...... By Kanchan

- What should one call him? Creative, funny, weird, crazy, cool? Summing them all, one can aptly put it that there has been no one so far who has been able to match the calibers of this man. Well, who could it be than Prakash Poudel?

Hailing from Shyam Chowk of Dharan, Prakash occasionally comes to the capital city to catch up on his musical career. The last time he was here, he slipped out of our hands. But in his most recent visit, we did make it a point to catch up with him. Here's a rendezvous of City Post with the Nai Malai Tyehi Keti Chahinchha guy.

Which place do you prefer more - Kathmandu or Dharan?

Obviously Dharan! Life there is much cooler. Kathmandu, I feel, has a very busy commercial life and it's crowded too. It's so difficult to even meet my friends here.

Well, home is where the heart is for everyone, we guess. So what do you do when you're in your hometown and away from the busy schedules of the capital city?

Apart from having a musical career for nearly four years now, I work at the B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Science of Dharan as a counter clerk. That takes eight hours of my time daily. I also enjoy playing basketball, which I do often.

[For your information, Prakash used to play for "Bajhagara", a pretty famous basketball team in Dharan.]

What else do you do?

I'm also taking vocal classes and am a second year student at the Indian Fine Arts, Biratnagar. On top of that, I'm also working hard on improving my guitar skills from Dambar Limbu.

When we met Prakash, Kathmandu was running high on wedding fever. We asked him if he'd thought of getting married too.

Well, I'll get married but sometime later. I haven't thought of it at the moment. And well, I always consult an astrologer before doing anything and he has advised me to get married in the year with the number seven at the end; for example, 2067 BS.

In what other things have you followed astrology in your life?

The astrologer I go to is actually a friend's father. Well, he also advised me to keep the number three in the name of my albums because they would bring me luck. My first album was Three Much and the third is entitled Race 3.

Three Much sure did do great and proved lucky for the debutant Prakash back then. Race 3 was only released in early 2005. How is it different from your previous albums? Any of your crying and whisper songs?

My past two albums were more commercially based. But in Race 3, I've tried to focus on more social issues and have tried to give a sort of message to people. It contains songs about alcoholism, girl trafficking and the like. I've also tried to merge the guitars, the madal and rap to give it a more reggae, Jamaican and ragamuffin touch.

The cover of Race 3 is pretty interesting. Can you tell us something about it?

Well, I've tried to depict the evolution on human beings and their entry into music. I believe that music has always been a part of our civilization for ages.

How many songs have you composed so far?

All my albums contain 10 songs each, so that makes it 30 compositions till date. Amongst them, 25 have been written by me.

Lastly, who're your inspirations?

I've been especially inspired by Dharma Raj Thapa, whom I believe to be the pioneer rapper of our country. I also listen to a lot to Afroman's works. Other artistes I adore and idolize are Santana, A.R. Rahman and Eminem.

source: http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=4165