~Prabodh Devkota~
Experiment, lab, test-tuberefugee, blood, deaththe roaring of the bombthe upheaval of human lamentations and cries. Hello! Welcome to the world of modernity. I heard the sounds. I saw the people, but when I touched them, they turned out to be robots. A robot was searching for somethingwhen I asked what, its response was”Im searching for my lost soul.”
Selected Nepali Poems, published privately by businessman Jiba Lamichhane, is a collection of seventy-five poems by fifteen Nepali poets, beginning with Laxmi Prasad Devcota and including Kedar Man Vyathit, Gopal Prasad Rimal, Mohan Koirala, Hari Bhakta Katuwal, Bhupi Sherchan, Vasu Shashi, Vairagi Kainla, Krishna Bhakta Shrestha, Vaneera Giri, Manjul, Krishna Bhushan Bal, Vishnu Vibhu Ghimire, Ashesh Malla, and Dinesh Adhiari. Reading the poems in the collection, readers can gain insight into the psychological make-up of the Nepali people, their socio-economic conditions, their love of freedom, their anxiety for the loss of humanity, and at the very core,their invocation for universal peace.
A person can exchange him/herself with a robot, but how can a soul compromise? The soul is the soulit cannot be made of metal. Though at the extreme heights of civilization, humanity tried to vanquish the universe, the soul defeated people. Humanity is now crying for peace; with lost souls, people have realized the mistake of their Faustian bargains, and they are searching.
I have not found my own way out of the image
I am a man who does not believe in the skys expanse
(I am a man absolutely unable to enjoy this robot life)
tell me with which mind,Shall I enjoy to be your companion?
(Dinesh Adhikari)
Treaties are made to be brokenbombs are produced to control the soul. Suppressed silences are more powerful than voices. The distant cries of refugees, the moaning of widows, when coming through concrete walls, become voices of revolt:
They say a soldier wins a battle
You great fools! Who says a soldier wins a battle
The soldier only wins the widows
The soldier only wins the orphans
The soldier only wins the lame human
and this soldier has always lost within his country.(Bishnu Vibhu Ghimire)
Dreams of making a single dream is fragmented. In the grip of modern technology, human existence is questioned. Humanity is fraught with melancholy. Though Vaneera Giri urges human beings not to be sad, KB Shrestha again and again finds man living in death, says, “Life stinks like a rotten egg.” While Bhupi Sherchan, using a metaphorical expostulation, makes a pungent satire:
as in the past the earth where I live is revolving
I am the only one unfamiliar
with the changes all around
with the landscapes/with joys
like the blind man forced to sit/on a revolving chair in the exhibition.
Poet Hari Bhakta Katuwal cant bear all this panic, and so he says:
Better to have a mind made of iron
neither does it cry in blows and counter blows.In the intoxication of power, humanity has become a merciless ruler.
Voices have started to rebel against tyranny.
There are tumults of revolutionary thoughts:
Is he really coming mother?
Yes my son he is surely coming
spreading his flashing light
like the morning dews
with which he will fight against injustice.(Gopal Prasad Rimal)
Yet there is hope. Human dignity can be reestablished, the earth can be a paradise. Kedar Man Vyathit writes:
If levels are uneven
let us employ a plane
and turning this very land into an earthly paradise
why shouldnt we ourselves become divine humans?
Humanity can destroy civilization but it cannot defeat nature. For modern people caught in the tangles of their problems, the great literary giant of Nepal, Laxmi Prasad Devcota, shows a way to escape. Nature, he writes, is the ultimate savior of human dignity:
Oh God! I am overwearied
please make me a sheep.
This trap over my head, which is
my house
this accursed thought/this sin of
knowing
this measure of inner heart
this curse of having
accountabilityLet me fight with horns/though not
in the spiritual battlesLet my death be easy/not as
burning by an atomic blastMy Lord let me have divine animal
Please come to me
and make me right now a sheep.
What is clear from Selected Nepali Poems is that Nepali literature shares many characteristics with modern global literature. The experiences of our poets are common experiences. They too are pursued by the ghost of modernity. They are anxious about the world and the decay of humanity. While reading the poems in this book, the reader can find his or her feelings and experiences expressed, no matter whether he is from Asia, Africa, or Europe.
Words are power. They can console the panicked heart, celebrate joys, and many times in history, words have defeated great Sikandars and Alexanders. Art transcends borders, states, and ages. Poetry can do for us what religion, philosophy, and technology can no longer do. The value of literature is beyond measurement. By publishing this collection of Nepali poems in English translation, publisher Jiba Lamichane and translator/editor Tara Nath Sharma have contributed much to the field of literature. This book gives foreign readers great access to Nepali literature. The only lack is that the book should have included more female voices.
(P Devkota is a student at TUs Department of English)
(Source : The Kathmandu Post – May 9th 1999)
