In Nepal, this popular singer is also a geophysicist
The British magazine Nature profiles Shiba Subedi, a geophysicist who teaches schoolchildren how to protect themselves during an earthquake. As gifted in science as he is in music, he turned it into a song whose music video became very popular.
A brilliant student who also enjoyed a wide range of extracurricular activities, Shiba Subedi grew up in Jaljala, a remote village in western Nepal. While he excelled in debates, writing competitions, and poetry, his greatest passion was Nepalese folk music.
After high school, he pursued a two-year Bachelor of Science degree at the Prithvi Narayan Campus in Pokhara, a bustling city in the west of the country. While studying, he discovered the vibrant world of popular music in local bars.
But his father feared that pursuing music would ruin his chances of a successful career. So, determined to change his son's mind, he took a five-hour bus ride to Pokhara: “He spent four days trying to convince me to quit music, but I was determined,” Shiba Subedi recalls today.
Overcoming his father's concerns, Shiba Subedi pursued his musical journey alongside his studies. In 2009, he achieved national fame thanks to his songs, which earned him nearly 200,000 Nepalese rupees [equivalent to about 2,500 euros at the time], more than the annual income of the middle class in Nepal. “After that, my father never questioned my passion for music again.”
It was after the devastating earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015 that Shiba Subedi finally reconciled his two careers. While pursuing a master's degree in physics at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, the aftermath of the disaster led him to refocus on geophysics.
Now a geophysicist at the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology in Lalitpur, he combines his love of music with his expertise in seismic risk analysis. He speaks in schools to raise awareness about earthquakes among students and teachers and uses his songs to reach an even wider audience.
In November, he received a special commendation from the jury for the John Maddox Prize , a joint initiative of the London-based charity Sense About Science and the scientific journal Nature [which annually rewards one or two people who have shown courage and integrity in defending science].
In April 2015, when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Gorkha district [west of Kathmandu], Shiba Subedi was on the Tribhuvan University campus and saw a person die, crushed when the university gate collapsed onto his car. “It was an unbearable scene,” he says.
Nearly 9,000 people died. The young man heard stories of tragic deaths that could have been avoided. In Melamchi, for example, a teenage girl who was in a garden was injured.
Courrier International
