~Prollas Sindhulia~
Translated by Mahesh Poudyal
We, the old couple, are alone in the village
Our kids are away
There are no grandchildren
That chirp like birds at daybreak
There are flowers
At the edge of the front yard
But we no longer have the juvenile eyes
To pick them;
Fruits hanging on this guava tree
Where, together with birds, the kids swung and grew
Have been for years
Ripening and falling aground on their own accords
The dusk sleeps
In all its emptiness
As does the dawn in utter vacuity
Leaving behind on the hills
The sun over the hilltops
Our children have become orphans in the city
They do come—
Show faces crushed by scarcity
And return;
They urge, “Come with us;
We will give you life
Like that of a prisoner.”
They dream of growing in vases
Those wildflowers
That bloom and send out fragrance
Reeking all over the woods;
To the birds that are never tired of awakening the village
They allure of cages
How could these hills and slopes
Flatlands and meadows
Forests and the resting mounds
And hearts that never exhaust on getting shared
All get adjusted in town
Where they own a piece of land
A tiny fraction of a hectare
There is no wanting of the basics here
We keep moving
Watching the birds’ nests in the shrubs
— They hatch nestlings
—Feed them from their own beaks
—Help them fly from bough to bough
And hang on the same bough
Their last breaths
But never expect anything
From their little nestlings
My wife nurtures a desire
To die while still dressed in red
At times, I am besieged by fear
Lest I should fly off, forsaking colours from her life
Concealing the sobbing knots of such terrors
I sometimes murmur:
“You led our entry into this home;
It’s my turn to lead the exit.”
No matter how old I am now
Same is the odour of sweat
Which are immune to drying
Same is the gush of tears
No matter how many winters they have withstood!
We still jest with each other’s petty plights
And get startled with the same
Yet, we shall never abandon this temple
And move elsewhere
As long as we are alive
I, her sole Pashupati*
Am still here;
She, my sole Guhyeshwari
Is here too.
*Pashupati is the other name for Lord Shiva, who carried the dead body of his wife Sati Devi, in spite of knowing that it would decay and fall. Guhyeshwari is a shrine in Kathmandu where a part of Sati Devi’s petrified body fell, and a deity emerged. At both Pashupati and Guhyeshwari, there are famous temples today.
(Source : Global Literature in Libraries Initiative (GLLI) website)
