~Bhupendra Khadka~
Translated by Jayant Sharma
One day while crossing the wooden bridge
I got a splinter on my infantile foot sole
Rubbing off the slime running down my nose
with the left sleeve of my shirt
I was about to hold the slipper in my right hand
when the right pair dropped down the river.
And in no time drifted away
along the monsoon torrent
gyrating in the gushing water mire.
I returned home from school
with only the left pair in my hand.
Barefooted passed—
my school days.
Coming of age,
I commuted to the college
through a long suspension bridge.
Once again, my youth dropped down the river
from the holes on the derelict footbridge plank
against the aging cable-laid
and the river similarly swept away —
my salad days.
One evening in my youth
while I was venturing into the urban,
from the steps of the city-bound bus
similarly dropped off my right pair of slippers
and, this time got devoured by the Kali river.
Dozens of years passed by—
That childhood slipper infested by bugs
must have been impaled with holes.
Sailing on that adolescent slipper,
earthworms must have set many journeys.
And who knows—
the youthful slipper
flowing down the Kaligandaki
might have turned into a Shaligram by now.
Today at the tail end of life
Standing I am—on the shore of a crowd.
And one after another—
the slippers from my childhood, adolescent and youth
wading a long journey
finally, come to meet me.
Like me—
those slippers after having survived for decades
are tattered and battered, and
are lean and thin.
But the day when the strap broke loose—
Shredding the edge of her dress,
my mother had fixed a rag to the slipper.
That rag-like strap—
carrying the same aroma from my mother
is shimmering like pearls today.
—————–
Kali, Kaligandaki – a steep river in the Mustang region of Nepal that flows down to Muktinath—a pilgrimage
Shaligram – fossilized seashell stones regarded as an iconic representation of Lord Vishnu among Hindus; a precious holy stone found mostly in Kaligandaki river
(Source : Global Literature in Libraries Initiative (GLLI) website)
