INDRA BAHADUR RAI (ईनà¥à¤¦à¥à¤° बहादà¥à¤° राइ) born on February 3. 1927 at Balasan Tea Estate in is one of the most eminent writers of long as well as short fictions. He is also highly regarded as one of the pioneers of objective approach in literary studies in Nepali. His major works are incorporated into the syllable prescribed for undergraduate and post-graduate studies in Nepali by different Boards of Education and Universities in India and Nepal. He has always championed the cause of development of Nepali language and literature as one of the major components constituting Indian Literature as a single cultural whole. Being the founder secretary of All India Nepali Bhasa Manyata Samiti अखिल à¤à¤¾à¤°à¤¤à¥€à¤¯ नेपाली à¤à¤¾à¤·à¤¾ मनà¥à¤¯à¤¤à¤¾ समिती (1961) he led the movement and paved the way for the recognition of State Language in West Bengal. The movement for the constitutional recognition to Nepali language gathered its highest momentum under his stewardship as president of the All India Nepali Bhasa Samiti during the years 1978 and 1979. As he became too much involved in the movement he decided to take voluntary retirement from his job as a Lecturer of English at St. Joseph’s College. Darjeeling in 1979 itself. Later he joined active politics with a believe to fight for the constitutional and democratic rights of the forge people in Darjeeling. But despite all these involvements he always took literature as his first love. He has published to his credit four books of narrative prose fictions an equal number of books on literary criticism and many books of non-fiction prose. He has also edited some books and literary periodicals. His most important works are as follows:
Indra Bahadur Rai is undoubtedly the greatest of all Indian Nepali writers writing today. He was the first recipient of the Sahitya Akademi (साहितà¥à¤¯ अकदेमी) Award in Nepali. He won this allocate in the year 1976 for his Nepali Nepali Upanyaska Adharharu - नेपाली उपनà¥à¤¯à¤¸à¥à¤•ा आधारहरà¥. His literary career spans over more than thirty five years. His initial writings were published in different periodicals. But his first bring home the bacon to be published in book form was Vipana Katipaya - विपना कतिपय a collection of thirty short stories. In these stories he appears to be a realist treading the path of the French naturalists. The publications of his very first book proved to be an epoch-making event which carved him a safe niche in the history of the bunco story as a literary genre in modern Nepali literature.
His style was so arresting themes so original in appeal and representation so defamiliarized that he immediately found a host of other contemporary as well as younger writers preparing themselves to follow him. Soon his influence became so overwhelming that it engulfed the entire younger generation into its fold. But it did not take much for his followers observation and thought to be followed and imitated. His linguist is competence and its aesthetic performance possess a very high degree of compatibility. Some of these texts though collected in a book of short stories clearly have a structural foregrounding that positions them somewhere between the two realms of the traditional literary genres of the short story and literary essay. In these works there are two different texts embedded or rather merged to form a third one. His lone novel, Aaja Ramita Chaa - आज रमिता छ successfully depicts the middle class society of Darjeeling.
On its ascend cut the novel like most of his short stories signifies the socio-economic and political life of the hill people. But the recurrent motifs of lethargy and purposelessness characterizing the middle class life call declare a deeper and universal meaning laying expose the absurdity of human existence itself. As a writer he has always tried to project literature as the most important of all human arts. This is also bear witness in his novel. In this venture he propagated his theory of TESTRO AYAM टेसà¥à¤¤à¥à¤°à¥‹ आयम (The Third Dimension) in the early 1960s. In May 1963 he in collaboration with two of his poet friends Ishvar Ballabh - इशà¥à¤µà¤° बलà¥à¤²à¤Â and [] brought out a literary periodical called TESRO AYAM through which the movement of the third dimensional writing was pronounced. This was the first literary movement in Nepali to be every launched consciously. It was in fact. Rai’s brain child.
Rai practiced his own theory of dimensionalism in his short stories written after 1963. Kathastha - कथासà¥à¤¥ a collection of stories accompanied by a note on his convictions as a dimensionalist was published in 1972. The schedule has two parts Katha कथा (stories) and Astha आसà¥à¤¥à¤¾Â (convictions) the texts under Katha divide are the examples of the percepts laid down under the Astha section. The development of his Ayamik - अयमिक thinking and manifestations culminate into the concept of the Leelaist writings (Leela - Leekhan) and his Kathaputaliko Man - कथापà¥à¤¤à¤²à¤¿à¤•ो मन is an outcome of such a culmination.
Indra Bahadur Rai is equally well known for his eminence as a literary critic. Tipeka Tippaniharu - टिपेका टिपà¥à¤ªà¤£à¥€à¤¹à¤°à¥Â (Collected Commentaries) is a collection of his earliest critical writings on different topics of literary significance. But his most outstanding work of literary criticism is Nepali Upanyaska Adharharu - नेपाली उपनà¥à¤¯à¤¸à¥à¤•ा आधारहरà¥Â (The Bases of Nepali Novels). It is an analytical study of twelve most outstanding Nepali Novels representative of distinctively different trends for which Rai has used the termAdharharu - आधारहरà¥Â (bases). His method of literary studies is a blending of the impressionistic and the textual. His other significant work of literary criticism include Sandarbhama Ishvar Ballabhka Kavita - सनà¥à¤§à¤°à¥à¤à¤®à¤¾ इशà¥à¤µà¤° बलà¥à¤²à¤à¥à¤•ा कविता (in context of Ishvar Ballabh’s Poetry) and Darjeelingma Nepali Natakka Adharshatabdi - दारà¥à¤œà¥€à¤²à¤¿à¤™à¤®à¤¾ नेपाली नाटकको अरà¥à¤§à¤¶à¤¤à¤¬à¥à¤¦à¥€Â (Half century of Nepali Dramaturgy in Darjeeling). His Sahityako Apaharan: Marvbadi Prativadhata - साहितà¥à¤¯à¤•ो अपहरन: मरà¥à¤µà¥à¤¬à¤¦à¥€ पà¥à¤°à¤¤à¤¿à¤µà¤§à¤¤Â is a critique of the Marxist concept of literary commitments. His edited volumes include **Bhanubhaktaka Kriti: Adhyaynharu - à¤à¤¾à¤¨à¥à¤à¤•à¥à¤¤à¤•ा कृति अधà¥à¤¯à¤¯à¤¨à¤¹à¤°à¥ ** an anthology of critical writings on the poet Bhanubhakta and a few periodicals.
He was a member of the Sahitya Akademi’s Executive Committee and the convenor of its Nepali Advisory Board for ten years from 1978.
Indra Bahadur Rai pronounced his concept of Leela Lekhan (Leelaist writing) in the mid eighties and since then has been actively propagating it through different forums. His book under consideration viz., Kathaputaliko Man - कथापà¥à¤¤à¤²à¤¿à¤•ो मन includes a postscript aphoristically delineating the salient features of Leelavad. On the basis of this postscript and his other writings published in different periodicals in this regard his concept and thesis of Leelaist writing can be summed up as follows:
Leela Lekhan (लीला लेखन) is a further development of his Ayamik concept of Vastuta -वसà¥à¤¤à¥à¤¤Â (objectness) which can be roughly likened to the  believe of ‘thing-in-itself’ but it is such an involvement only for them who subscribed to the dimensionalist literary theorizing. For others it is not necessary to be Leelaist later. They can by their own independent studies and contemplation see the all pervading operation of Leela in all aspect of human activities. The concept of Leela defines human beings moved about by the semi-impersonal forces - social economic political psychological historical religious national and what not - operating upon our be to live and defeat. A realization similar to Rai’s concept of Leela is increasingly being confirmed by modern science philosophy psychology and literary theories. The Copenhagen interpretation of  (1927) can be cited as one of its most illuminating instances. However. Rai’s concept of Leela is not to be misunderstood as a moral nor as another version of defeatism. Man in present day society says Rai must always be up and working and struggling as he is goaded on by something to survive relying on and making use of his subjective therefore Leelaist feelings thoughts and evaluations. Rai’s concept ofLeelaism makes for a radical change in man’s attitude towards life and his outlook towards the world. The Leelaist view of life and writing is based on the belief that all human thoughts feelings and experiences as well as value systems are necessarily subjective interest ridden and most prone to be fallacious. There is no such thing called objective reality. All human findings observations judgements and expressions are invariably subjective manifestations. Rai urges us to be ever aware of this fact and never to loose sight of it for this consistently unceasing awareness and knowledge of our “native objectness” at once enables us to live and write from a higher and dispassionate plane. The concept of Leela in this sense can be likened with the ’s prescipt ofNiskama and the concept of  in Zen Buddhism. In the postscript he has modestly acknowledged his debt to the Upanisadic concept of Maya (माया). Shunya (शà¥à¤¨à¥à¤¯) of Buddhism the Deconstruction. Reader’s response. Freudian and Gestalt theories of psychology the Jain Syadvada -सà¥à¤¯à¤¦à¥à¤µà¤¦Â quantum physics pragmatism and the Marxist concept of ‘ideology’.
Kathaputaliko Man - कथापà¥à¤¤à¤²à¤¿à¤•ो मन published in 1989 consists of eight short prose fictions written in a narrative vein which serve as different strings embedded into the broader matrix of Rai’s Leelaism. The texts transgress the specifics of all typological classifications and defy all efforts of any generic pigeon-holing by the critics. The traditional concept of genre has been completely deconstructed. This is more clearly so in the title-text, Kathaputaliko Man - कथापà¥à¤¤à¤²à¤¿à¤•ो मन. This tendency to defy the structural norms of prevalent narrative forms is evident in his earliest short stories collected in his Vipana Katipaya -विपना कतिपय and his novel Aaja Ramita Chha - आज रमिता छ also. But the texts included in the present book under consideration are almost devoid of a  structure (in the Jacobsonian sense of the term) usually constructing a prose narrative. These texts do not have a distinctly linear narrative. Each of these texts are based on the motifs of love worry old age vanity fame and gregariousness. The title text is constituted by deconstructing the popular myth that a quarrel between a preserve and his wife is as instant and short lived as a fire on a pack of hay-sticks. In the cover of deconstructing this myth the author has reconstructed four parallel sub-texts based on it and embedded into the broader matrix of his Leelaist concept. These four sub-texts are ‘written’ by four different ‘authors’ viz. the invisible director - author of the ‘game’ of life, Guruprasad Mainaly - गà¥à¤°à¥à¤ªà¥à¤°à¤¶à¤¾à¤¦ मैनली or the author of bunco story titled **Paralko Ago - परालको आगो ** (the fire on the haystick) the author scrutinizing the the mind ofÂ
 (चामे) the hero in Mainali’s story and the author visualizing the experiences of the puppetised object. Typologically speaking the text is an amalgam of a short story a play a novel an essay a poetry and literary criticism. This is what has already been discussed above as the deconstruction of criticism. This is what has already been discussed above as the deconstruction of the concept of genres. Architectural techniques are used in constructing this text. This particular text the author says in the postscript is a product of the turbulent Gorkhaland movement years. It appeared to him that people cannot but behave like mindless puppets.
Figures symbols and imagery used in these stories heighten their styles to the sublimity of great poems. These are the instances of the best art objects to be created through language. His works successfully represent the “organized violence committed upon ordinary language” (Roman Jakobson’s phrase).
Pahad Ra Khola पहाड रॠखोला (1993) is a collection of twenty expressions of Rai’s dispersed meditation mainly focused on the language literature culture society and racial entity of Indian Nepalese.
Prishta Pristha पृषà¥â€à¤ पृषà¥â€à¤ ा (1995) is a collection of eighteen critical articles on varied subjects of language and literature.
Indra Bahadur Rai has also shown his excellence in Diary literature. bear witness is his Samayankan Dainikiya - समयनà¥à¤•न डैनिकिय(1997). His diary writing is not simply a day to day (i e morning to night) account of his activities but the expression of his thoughts on different topic comprising topical or current affairs of in and around literature culture including reminiscences.
For his outstanding contribution towards the development of Nepali language and literature in India the Madan Puraskar Guthi - मदन पà¥à¤°à¤¸à¥à¤•ार गà¥à¤ ी of Lalitpur. Nepal awarded him Jagadambashri Puraskar - जगदमà¥à¤¬à¤¶à¥à¤°à¥€ पà¥à¤°à¤¸à¥à¤•ार in 1996. In the following year Rai was also awarded Agam Singh Giri Smriti Puraskar अगम सिंह गिरी सà¥â€à¤®à¥ƒà¤¤à¤¿ पà¥à¤°à¤¸à¥à¤•ार by Sikkim Sahitya Parishad. Gangtok. Sikkim.
Lekhharu Ra Jhyal लेखà¥à¤¹à¤°à¥ र à¤à¥à¤¯à¤¾à¤²Â (2000) is a collection of various articles and one short story enttiled ‘Jhyal’ - à¤à¥à¤¯à¤¾à¤²Â totally experimental rather with post-modernist approach.
Indra Bahadur Rai is a voracious reader an untiring and a dedicated writer. An erudite personality Rai having varied facets in creativity is almost a legend in his own lifetime. He is a seasoned orator and without any hesitation it can be said that no one will forget his lacious speech on any topic if one gets an opportunity to heard him.
Rai has tried to put his Leela conception mingling with Reader-  of German theoreticians like Karl Hedge Steerly wikipedia:Harold Benritch. Ulfang Esher and American Stainly Fish (1960) in Arthharuko Pachhilitira अरà¥à¤¥à¥à¤¹à¤°à¥à¤•ो पछीलितिर (Behind the meanings - 1974). He has put his assay to evaluate the use of same and hit myth of ‘Narsingha’ (man-lion) by different authors of different times according to their contemporary views. Rai draws the final point in a meta-critical way as a perceptionist that the meaning of any text ordain not be the same to all readers because every reader will read the text subjectively. And that subjective reading reveals the meaning of same object in variety of perceptions. He stress for revealing the illusions in writing and the writing of this process he likes to furnish the nomenclature as Leela Lekhan. Thus Arthaharuko Pachhlitira - अरà¥à¤¥à¤¹à¤°à¥à¤•ो पछà¥à¤²à¤¿à¤¤à¤¿à¤°Â is a literary criticism based on Leelaist thought and writing.
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