Renowned for his irresistible voice and unruly character on-air, Asish Syangden is now an inspiration to all the aspiring radio jockeys in the country. He believes that his going on-air was a fluke and

he  tasted popularity with his show—Music Jam with the Rhythm Brothers on Kantipur FM—along with his younger sibling, Prasan Syangden. The Post’s Alisha Sijapati caught up with Syandgen to glean glimpses of his two-decade-long journey in the media industry. Excerpts:

How did it all begin?

Honestly speaking, for me, radio happened by fluke. It all began in the late 90s: My first job was as a presenter in Kantipur FM. My brother and I were rowdy teenagers, with nothing particularly interesting happening in our lives. Radio back then was very different from what it is now. When I first joined Kantipur FM, we didn’t have our own dedicated bandwidth and every radio channel had to share time on the 100 megahertz bandwidth with Radio Nepal. Kantipur FM was allocated the time slot from 7 pm to 9 pm. When we first joined the station, our programme-Music Jam with the Rhythm Brothers-was held from 7 pm to 8 pm, five days a week.

Who approached you for the job?

It was Steve Cap, who used to work at Kantipur FM. He used to host a programme and he asked us to meet up. He asked Prasan, my brother, and I if we were siblings and said, “It would be interesting to have two siblings host a radio show.” I always had my doubts about whether we could be good radio presenters—we were just obnoxious young kids, after all. But Prasan said, “Why not?” A couple of weeks later, we met Steve again. “This might just be your lucky day: you guys are probably going on-air in the next 10 days,” he said. I hadn’t agreed to this preposterous idea then, you know.  We had no idea what to do. We visited Singha Darbar after this prep talk to meet the other presenters: Sabita Didi and Bimal Dai. Sabita Didi would knit while talking, while Bimal Dai used to do his other office work and talk live at the same time. Multitasking this way seemed like quite a crazy proposition.

How was your first day?

It was one of the craziest, scariest days of my life, because I wasn’t familiar with the headphone and the mic. Hearing my own voice was such an awkward experience. Even after 18 years, I am still very conscious of my nasal voice.

Did you enjoy the experience?

There weren’t many English presenters were on radio then, and most were not very interesting. We knew we had to do something different, something creative. Street slang was something new then and we thought of liberally mixing words from both the Nepali and English language to differentiate our programme from others. I can confidently say that we were the first ones to do very idiosyncratic stuff on-air. As crazy youngsters, having fun was our priority and we didn’t really care about repercussions. The radio is all about entertainment, we thought, and going the Radio Nepal way wasn’t our style.

When did Kantipur FM get its private channel and how was it different to working from Singha Durbar?

After a few years of our joining Kantipur, Radio Kantipur was licensed to a private channel and so it was way easy for us to host shows the way we wanted to. When we were working at the Singha Durbar, there were a lot of stringent rules—we couldn’t use slang, and we were often muzzled. Looking back at those days, I believe we are in way better position now.

How many shows have you done so far? And which is your favourite?

I have done so many shows that it’s difficult to remember, but the one show that was received very well was our first show, Music Jam with the Rhythm Brothers. This show actually taught us to be creative and taught us to be ourselves on-air. I would like to thank everybody involved then for making me what I am today. What was important then, and what is important now, is to be ourselves-and it has always worked out, being ourselves.

Back then, phone calls and letters were very popular. What’s your take on them?

We had to do some fun stuff. Initially, we were worried we would not be able to pull it off, so we made our cousins call us. It was much later that we started receiving real calls. We also had to prepare the scripts but we were too lazy to do so. On our tenth day, we decided to not use the script and then our real characters emerged. Everyone loved the real us. Also, in those days there were PO Box numbers. After a week of our show, we received about three letters that we were to read on-air. We were delighted to get those letters.

How challenging has the journey been?

We have been through the ups and downs, received a lot of criticism for using slang and for ruining the Nepali language. What got us through, however, was that we didn’t let things affect us.

If not for radio, what would you have ended up doing?

I was just done with college, and like any other kid, I was clueless about my future. I am glad radio happened.

Did you try your hand at hosting shows live and on TV?

People know me through my voice and I enjoy the radio thoroughly. TV is not my cup of tea. However, I enjoy hosting shows live. There was this particular incident that Prasan and I will never forget, when we went to Dharan for a show. The crowd was cheering for us, which was shocking. Later, when we were in the green room, more than 150 to 200 people came in to take photos and people were literally biting us. We actually had to visit the doctor, who gave us tetanus shots.

Did you have girls stalking you?

We did have our share of fans. I remember this one time when we received a hate letter from a guy—his girlfriend apparently listened to us and talked about us all the time.

Who’s your favourite presenter on radio today?

I really like Alok Thapa from Hits FM. He has the potential to draw people’s attention with his fluent Nepali and English speaking skills. Not many presenters are good in both languages.

What are you currently busy with?

I left Kantipur FM four years ago and joined Revolution Radio, to be an online radio broadcaster. We thought it was a good idea to try the online radio market. We have launched an app as well, which for now, has been taken offline. Other than that, I am busy with British Gurkha Radio and I am also involved with Ruslan FM, helping them categorise songs.