Nepathya was in the last leg of their Australia tour when the April 25 quake hit the country. The band was scheduled to perform on April 26 at the Melbourne Town Hall. After the news of the disaster, the band was unsure whether to do the show or not.

“Initially, we thought of cancelling the show, but later we decided to move on,” said Nepathya frontman, Amrit Gurung. “We thought we could use this as an

opportunity to generate awareness about earthquakes and raise funds to help victims of the natural disaster,” he added.

According to Raj Sharma of Yeti FC, the organisers of the Melbourne show, a concert, which was “supposed to be a celebration of joy turned into a tribute to the lost souls, and hope for the ones who survived”.

“When Amrit Gurung sang, we could feel the pain in his voice and there was not a person in the audience who was not in tears. It was a somber evening, an evening of grieving and contemplation,” said Sharma. “We immediately decided to dedicate this event for relief effort and collected 4,000 Australian dollars. Later we extended the fundraising and managed to collect Aus$ 20,000, which we transferred into NRN Australia’s account,” he added.

Upon returning from Austrlia, Nepathya had deposited Rs 500,000 to The PM’s Disaster Relief Fund. Another sum of Rs 500,000 was added after the Dubai show.

“Though the concert was supposed be a commercial venture, after the disaster struck, we felt like it was our duty to help and so we decided on contributing,” said Jus Paija, a member of the organising team of the Dubai show, which was held on May 21 at The Al Nasr Leisure Land. “We decided to hand over the money to Nepathya, which they deposited to the PM fund,” he added. Before Dubai, Nepathya had performed at Kamata Hall of Tokyo on May 5. The organisers of the show, Tamu Dhin, had announced to use the proceedings from the event for earthquake relief.

“We started our by contributing Rs 100,000 to the NRN Japan fund. We then sent Rs 200,000 for rebuilding Dhuseni Primary School school in Dhading, and Rs 100,000 for Sheetal Danda Primary School in Hansapur, Gorkha,” said Amar Gurung of Tamu Dhin. “The remaining fund of Rs 1,100,000 will be used as seed money to support and sponsor children orphaned by the earthquake. We will be working with an agency with expertise in the field,” he added.

“With this, our formal commitment towards earthquake relief comes to an end. We will however remain open for the cause when opportunities arise,” said Kiran Krishna Shrestha of Nepa-Laya, Nepathya’s promoters. “Nepathya has completed recording its 10th album and we are in the mood of starting afresh with its release,” he added.