Budhani: a Tharu fable refabulated ^{CEFR B2}

"Budhani" is a refabulated novella that returns an Indigenous Tharu fable to new literary form. The story follows a crow that forms human-like bonds, meets the male crow Korvin, and — after a rebirth as a girl — fights for her rights in a world dominated by men. The book pairs scenes of legal and social struggle with tender moments of love and intimate conversations between a mother and her children.

Prawin Adhikari based the novella on two folktales collected by Krishna Sarbahari. Those short tales later inspired a play by the Actors' Studio and together ran only six or seven pages. Adhikari says he used the word "refabulated" to show that authorship is part of a longer chain of collecting and retelling; he also wrote scenes from both the crow's and the girl's perspectives and described his writing process as mostly mechanical. Global Voices journalist Sanjib Chaudhary interviewed both creators; the interviews were abridged and edited for clarity.

Indu Tharu translated and rewrote the work into the Tharu language. Born in Ranamura Village of Kailali District, she grew up with family members who published the magazine Muktik Dagar and read writers such as Parijat and Devkota. Her activity in the Tharuhat Movement in the mid-2010s led her to document Tharu identity, language and culture. Writing Budhani required recovering many peculiar Tharu words; Chhabilal Kopila and her family helped her. The Tharu are an ethnic group of the Terai lowland in southern Nepal and northern India, and their language is spoken by approximately 2 million people between Nepal and India.

• Indu plans to write more about the experiences and contributions of Tharu women.