I don´t know all this centimeter stuff, you tell me how much it comes to in fingers and elbows.. before you go, tell me how to get rid of those awful caterpillars in my tomato patch…. JTA babu, please walk back carefully, the path is slippery! Han Sharanam!"
Budi Ama is at it again, nagging and bullying the every tolerant JTA over Radio Nepal´s farm broadcast programme, Budi Ama ra JTA ("The old woman and the agricultural extension worker"), that is aired Friday evenings. Having run without a break for twenty years over Nepal´s only radio station, Budi Ama is probably the foremost media personality in the kingdom today. The targetted farmers and city slicks alike take to her whining, cajoling, nosey, cantankerous and altogether lovable image of the grandma next door.
Lovable grandma
The voice that has been backing Budi Ama through her fits of asthmatic coughing and between sighs of arthritic pain is that of Laxmi Bhusal, Who is incredibly only in her early thirties. Quiet and reticent, it is veiy difficult to connect Bhusal with her radio persona. And she began "doing" Budi Ama when she was eleven!
She has come along with her sister who was applying for a job," recalls Kiran Mani Dixit, Chief of HMG´s Agricultural Information Division, who was then looking for a person to play the village grandma. "It was her alertness that struck me when I first saw her. A few basic tips on how to speak and act like an old lady was all the little girl needed. Soon, she was coughing and wheezing like she had been born with asthma!" Dixit recalls.