The play ‘Kalapatthar Mathi’ tries to depict the challenges and struggles of mountain life in Nepal. It is a a love story set in the Himalayas, where families continue to struggle to eke out a living.
The play revolves around a mother who doesn’t want her only living son to climb mountains, and her son who quests to earn enough money as a porter to summiteers to be able to afford to get married to his love. Despite his strong will to do so, the mother doesn’t allow him to go because her husband and elder son had died climbing mountains. Her son, however, insists that he has to climb mountains because it was a part of their communal identity and also because it was their only source of income.
Kalapatthar Mathi is one of the few Nepali plays of late being set entirely in the Himalayas. The play features a fixed set which serves as a metaphor for the mountains and has included costumes and tonalities of the region.
