Bengaluru: Balendra Shah, who is Kathmandu’s youngest mayor and now a frontrunner for the top job in strife-torn Nepal, is simply ‘Mayor Saab’ to his teachers in Bengaluru where he did MTech in structural engineering from 2016 to 2018. Now, seven years later, all eyes are on Balen — as he’s fondly called — to bring about a structural reset in Nepal politics, with Gen Z betting big on the rapper-turned-politician to chart a way forward. “He was in the first autonomous batch in our institute. He did well academically and secured good marks. We never knew Balen, who’s very humble, would be interested in politics,” said Shreyas AV, assistant professor in the civil engineering department of Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology (NMIT) in Yelahanka, north Bengaluru, and deputy registrar of the institute. Lecturers recall Balen as a quiet and hardworking student, who struck a fine balance between academics and a growing reputation as a YouTube rapper. Despite dabbling in music, Balen attended classes and remained focused. “Even after completing studies, he would message faculty members. I congratulated him in 2022 on becoming Kathmandu’s mayor. I playfully called him ‘Mayor Saab’,” Shreyas said. Peers at NMIT remember him as part of a close-knit group of three Nepalese students. “His batch had just 24 students. He stayed in the hostel with two friends — Praveen Shreshta and Sunil Lansal,” he added. Balen’s final-year project — an earthquake-dynamic analysis — was poignant as it came just three years after the 2015 Nepal earthquake that left nearly 9,000 people dead. “That project showed how connected he was to the issues back home. While students are going to the US (for higher studies and jobs), Balen remained committed to his country and motherland,” Shreyas recalled. Bengaluru recalls Balen not as a firebrand leader, but a diligent student with a career in rap music. The nickname — Mayor Saab — born in these very classrooms has travelled all the way to Kathmandu’s power corridors.
