Issue – 5/6

Layalama Online Magazine

Quarterly

Nepal Bhasa poetry & prose in English

Volume 2 – Issue 5/6

15^th.July/Octobr 2003

Editor:

Pushpa Ratna Tuladhar

(mailto:pushpatuladhar@hotmail.com}
 

Co-editer:

H.K. Kapali

(mailto:layalama@yahoo.com)

All rights reserved
 

In this issue

    1.       From the Epic “Sugat Saurav” by late Chittadhar ‘Hridaya’.
    2.       Poetry collections – Durga Lal Shrestha, Keshar Lal, Suresh Kiran, Momila Joshi, Rajani Mila, Pushpa Munankarmi and Sara Bajra.

3. Short Stories (Modern short stories in Nepal Bhasa) – A Fatiguing Future by Arahan Sthapit

4. Essays (Prose) – The Courtyard, Where I lost my God by Mangal Prasad Shrestha

5.              5.        Pahan Chwami (Guest Writers) – Poems by Leili Bisharat and Sneha Malhotra

 

LUMBINI

How various were the blossoms,

Surviving so many hardships

In this woodland park, where spring

Now reigned in Supreme harmony!

The peach blossoms gave the likeness

Of a damsel draped in sari;

The illusion was completed

By the texture of the mango blossoms.

Up above the birds of passage

Flew on, heedless of the earthly scene;

While the pied cuckoo looked up in awe,

Despite the pain of their unquenched thirst.

The parrots, fluent in human speech,

Were conspicuous by their absence;

Each of them was perhaps confined

In a case to show off its unique gift.

In pairs the finches perched on the trees

Like models in a fashion show;

The patterns they displayed made them

Bear a close resemblance to flowers.

Seeing the crests of some warblers,

Another flock of the same feather

Looked around to see where they had

Mislaid their own diadems of gold.

How lovely was the bya fruit

Like an aromatic orb of gold,

And its rinds were well-guaranteed

To resist the beaks of the crows.

The paw-paws handing down ripe

From the stalks, or hidden in forks,

Might have been mistaken for mangoes,

Had they been embellished with leaves.

Behold the palm craning its neck

To have an unimpeded view

Of the creeper, hugging the tree.

In a delirium of love.

The game of hide-and-seek, going on

Between the sun and the pine leaves,

Produced a constant change of patterns

On the moist, mossy forest floor.

To be Continued …

This is from “Sugat Saurava”, an epic on the Life and Teachings of the Buddha. It was written while he was imprisoned
(1941-1947) by the autocratic Rana regime for his Nepal Bhasa Literary Movement and activities aimed at keeping alive
 the Nepal Bhasa language and its literature. It was translated into English by Tirth Raj Tuladhar and published by
Nepal Bhasa Academy in 1998. This book is also translated into English by Mr. Todd T. Lewis of Holly Cross College in
USA in association with Suvarna Man Tuladhar and expected to publish soon from USA.

Feelings

Feelings

I derived from your shadow

Should grasp hold of 

The fatigued minds

Whirling like a gentle breeze for a moment.

***

In your face

Somewhere remains the beauty 

That will be more distinct 

Beholding me

At every glance slides me

Inner and innermost!

***

The language of dewdrop

Gleaming on top of the thorn is this glitter - 

The throne of love

My topmost penance.

***.

From your eyes

When I glance myself

Discern a spider’s web

Where a fly is stranded.

***

When alone,

The dusk of the eve

Attends for carnal desires with me.

Knowing not when she departed

By an aching romance I inebriated

***

The lone waterfalls

Occupied in singing.

Having the earful of its song,

The virginity of the grasses nearby

Set the forest side beauteous.

***

Beauty is beauty,

Yes, but tuns gray

That much beauteous is

Your curly hair

Hanging against your eyebrow.

Copyright 2003 Durgalal Shrestha

Durgalal Shrestha (Contact email: sumangrn@mos.com.np)

Shantytown Boulder

The other day as a friend walked me

Through a shantytown I had not been before

I was greeted by a great peepul tree

Entangled with an enormous stone.

Could it be a poem in nature.

Of unrestrained love? I asked myself

Or, was the stone stubborn as life.

To persist against all odds

And ingenious too to hold captive

A seed and let it grow into a lusty tree?

Or, was it something else

To make one ponder how life is linked

To the lifeless on earth?

I must return some day

And take a picture of the wondrous sight

That could as well illustrate

The constant struggle between life and death

To make us often cling to slender hope

Or drive to despair most of the time.

Copyright 2003 Keshar Lall

Keshar Lal (Contact: Tel:+ 977 1 371922)

The Poetry of the Forest

I laid out a city

Destroying all the forest.

That was a mistake

For a place for me to live

I found was out a forest

Destroying all the towns.

*

Man,

Has come out of the forest, it is said.

Why won’t he?

There is no Bamiyan Buddha to destroy,

Nor the Twin Towers to smash,

No petroleum for an attack,

Nor are there multitude of men

To die in their bombardment.

How can he stay in a place like that?

*

There are only two countries in the world

One – the city

Another – the forest

But, what an irony,

The capital of the first lies in the forest;

And the capital of the second in the city.

Copyright 2003 Suresh Kiran Manandhar

Suresh Kiran Manandhar (mailto:sandhyatimes@mos.com.np)

(Translated by Keshar Lal)

New Century Human

Midnight!

Sound of a fallen flower!

He is startled…

While walking

Lining up in the eyes

In the memory of

Scary mountain heights

In the uphill trail of life

He sows sweat…

With eyes cut

By the spring’s blade

Beneath the earthly sky

On the desert surface where he is standing

He searches on his green kith and kin

***

It is confidence!

If you respect, it’s deity, if not a mere rock!

But stumbling along the same rock

Dashed himself hard lurching forward

Nietzsche’s Superman

In the century’s yards…

Even then,

As long as the conscious point of time remains

His empty gory hands

Raised for the worship of the Goddess of Wealth

Or burnt while performing a fire sacrifice

That is to say

Whether it is

An ambitious hand that wishes to screen the sun

Or a hand

Climbing on a tree cuts

The very trunk down

Spreading the same hands of confidence

For ages

He is asking man for his own life.

Momila Joshi

Momila Joshi, born on 1960, at Dhankuta,Nepal, is a poetess. She is a member of Nepal Literary Journalists
Association. Her publication i ncludes four  collections of her poetry in Nepali, Painyu Phulna Thalepachhi, Junkiriharu
Worlirahechha, Nilo Nilo Aakash ra Due Thopa Aansu and Durgam Uchaima  Phulko Aandhi. She is the recipient of 
Padma Kanya Award, Royal Nepal Academic award, Shatabdi Yuba Samman and Mohan Smriti Samman Puraskar.
Her poems, translated in Nepal Bhasa, Hindi and English, are published in several literary periodicals and

The Pendulum

When I try to stand

Firm and erect.

A seismic wave rattles the earth;

When I look around for support,

I find all the walls

Weak and shaky.

Indeed, I’ve often been to many places

Announcing that the only thing

That enables me to move to and fro

Is this terra firma.

But they being stone deaf,

I’ve to swing willy-nilly

Like a pendulum.

With nothing to hold on to,

I walk on wobbly knees.

Hoping that at least once

The whole sky will slip into my grasp,

I’m hanging on to his life,

Lurching sometimes to the right

And sometimes to the left,

Counting the years that have been peeled from my youth

That have been peeled from my youth

Like the slices of dead skin.

Those who can are moving to and fro

Behind me and before me,

While like a chunk of rock

I have to sit still and stare.

Smothered by layer upon layer of hopes

I’ve been calling and waiting

For every grief-stricken mother on earth

For years and years.

But here I remain till now just a pendulum.

Perhaps here there are

No grief-stricken mothers left.

Or they should have come here running

With their hears melting like snow,

With tears cascading down from their eyes

Like cataracts,

And thus providing me with a chance

To swim up and down

Along the stream of life

Copyright 2000 Rajani Mila

Rajani Mila Maharjan <mailto:rajani_mila@hotmail.com>

Rajani Mila Maharjan, born on 1971 in Kirtipur, Nepal, M.A. in English, is a young and versatile poetess. 
She has contributed her poems  to several periodicals and literary magazines and also as a translator of 
Nepal Bhasa poems into English. She is also a contributing editor (translation) of Layalama Online Magazine. 
Contact: Rajani Mila (mailto:rajani_mila@hotmail.com

The Fighting Cock

The scoundral of a cock

Like a dinosaur attacks

When his desire is not fulfilled.

He is about to fight again

To breed dreadful chicken.

Chase him away.

Across the seas he makes his way

To prepare for his figt

To breed quarrelsome chicken.

When he gets mad

Throughout the night he crows

And brings trouble for everyone.

He puts to flight the eagle

And rings the alarm bell.

Wherever he arrives

There he creates havoc

More terrifying he is than the hawk

A mere glance of his, like a vulture’s,

Makes the chicken burn alive.

A mere glance of his, like a vulture’s,

Makes the chicken burns alive.

A mere flapping of his wings

Lifts the roof off the coop.

As he wings in the air

He burns the earth like hell.

The cock springs in delight

Seeing the partridges in the forest

And the chicken lying dead

Like broken sticks.

Copyright 2003 Pushpa Munankarmi

Pushpa Munankarmi (Contact Tel: + 977 1 6612307)

(Translated by Keshar Lal)

Pushpa Munankarmi, is an emerging young Poet. Has published his poems and writings in different 
literary and news magazines Contact: Pushpa Munankarmi (Tel: + 977 1 6612307)

I Couldn‘t Sleep

No, I could not sleep

When I closed my eyes

I saw the other day in the dark

The reason was

The sweat I saw shed to live

The swollen hands, the back arched like the sky

I saw the day that brought

Sleep during a break

Being tired.

When I suddenly opened my eyes

I saw the lights in the street

Trying to clear away the darkness;

I saw the shrinking face,

Upstanding hair and bleeding broken heart.

When I tried hard to close my eyes

I woke up alarmed by own breathing

Such was the night I saw.

No, I couldn’t sleep.

. 

Copyright 2003 Sara Bajra

Sara Bajra (mailto:sarabajra@yahoo.com)

Short Stories in Nepal Bhasa

A Fatiguing Future

By Arahan Sthapit

I feel myself sentimental today, I don't know why. Very much sentimental and emotional, as if I am flowing with the current in a gushing stream, and I make a beginning by writing "Suddenly a dusty hurricane hits the earth".I try to get myself immersed for some moments into these words and to imbibe them. I hear a vigorous sound of a real hurricane. My room is in the first floor, overlooking an alley.  The windows are open. The rushing storm shakes me. I cling to the window frame, and I try to focus my eyes to a faint silhouette against a dim light in the alley. As usual, the alley looks desolate and empty. The light from the street lamp is dim, and it appears like a hazy evening in springtime. Thick dust blown by the storm made the night more melancholic and dreadful. The silhouette at the distance…I recognize it …poor girl …. I recall the time some two years ago.
 

***               

Two years ago. Yes, I was in this very room, the room I had rented. On the opposite side of my room, there is a dilapidated house,
- with a local restaurant underneath. The shop has only one gate.  Its doors are ratty and shabby. There are four steps down to the
shop  from the street level. The gate is quite low and one has to stoop to get into the restaurant. A Tibetan family owns the restaurant. A family of three, an old lady, her son aged about 25 years and a daughter, about 10 years old. Right next to the entrance, there is a makeshift front desk made of a rack with a broken glass panel. At an arm’s distance from it lie two tables in the front and two tables at the right side. Chairs are squeezed into around these four tables, as if as if struggling to show their existence in the restaurant.
 

I have been living in this rented room for some years. But, usually I used to take my meals in the office itself. So, the only time
I was in my room was for a sleep at night.  All day long, I was out. Therefore, I was hardly familiar with my neighbours. …. And that
was the first time that I had stepped into this dingy restaurant. I heard the words, "Tashi Dhele", or Welcome, as I got into it. I took a seat by a table on the left (or right ?) side. It was quite hot inside. Perhaps, it was mid-July. I felt sweltry soon after I sat there. Some kind of suffocation.The door was the only way to get fresh air into the shop. And, the shop was crowded too. Two middle-aged men were enjoying their 'Tongba", a kind of local brew of millet. There was a vacuum jar with hot water by their side,

to go along with the Tongba. On a table at the right, by the wall, three Tibetans, a man, an old lady and a young boy were eating their 'Thokpa', a noodle soup. Two young men were sitting on the other table. Their appearance shows that they are rowdies, or brats.

One of them, wearing a leather boot, has his foots on the table. The other guy was playing with the zipper of his leather jacket.

His complexion was coal black, and he had one frontal tooth broken. There were two plates with marinated meat on their table.

And two half-filled glasses of liquor by the side. They were staring at each and every person in the shop. And they were drinking and

eating. I felt very uncomfortable in this situation. I remembered a script by a well-known writer, … “Young people’s every gulp of liquor takes my motherland down”.  I was taken by surprise.  I was confronted by a bowl of noodle in front of me. A young girl of about 10, silently put the bowl on my table. She gave a sort of contrived smile. Her name was Doma. She went awkwardly inside, straight into the kitchen.
 

I pried inside the kitchen as I ate my noodle soup. The kitchen had no ventilation. Perhaps it was extremely hot inside. On a narrow platform on the left, there were all kinds of stuffs, in disarray, and there was a small wash area underneath, with used plates and utensils scattered all over. At the right, there were two stoves on a platform, roaring with flame. Doma was chopping swiftly the onions, dried meat and the like. She was preparing the dishes for her customers. "Doma, fetch us two plates of meat", one of the brats yelled. He emptied his glass. And banged his glass on the table. The glass quavered for some time. "Doma, come here. Listen to us. We are going to Solu* for a month this year on a pleasure trip. Would you like to join us? We shall have fun. Come
with us", said the other guy, smacking his tongue. "Doma just looked down. Her face was all sweat. Poor girl, Working non-stop in that suffocating room. She had lost the innocence found in an adolescent girl. Rather her face clearly showed scars of the hardship she had been undergoing …..   the signs of untimely adulthood. The other guy ogled at Doma. Gulping his drink, he grabbed her and said, "Doma, I am telling you again,  you are still young. But, accompany us just a few days, you will grow into a beautiful lady. Do you know how ……?" That man swore many times and barked  many filthy words as well. But, Doma's old mother and her brother kept silent. The two men were laughing. I felt disgusted in that circumstance. I left the place abruptly. "hee …  hee …..  hee ….. haa …haa… haa",  their disdainful laugh followed me right through the door.  I could hear the sound of their scorning laugh from far away ……I went back to my room. I was totally exhausted. I went to bed with the reflection of Doma's perspiring face in my mind. Soon after that incident, I was transferred to Pokhara some time. When I came back to Kathmandu a year later, I came to know that Doma's elder brother, Chhiring, had got married. Their old mother had died five months after their wedding. Apparently, life gets worse for Doma. Her sister-in-law is not kind to her. Doma has to begin her day very early in the morning. But, at late nights, Chhiring starts shouting and yelling at Doma, every day.  As her sister-in-law mutters in Tibetan language to Chhiring, his voice gets louder and louder. Then there is the loud noise of Chhiring beating Doma.

***

The past fades away. And, I am back to the present.Yesterday, I did see Doma.  She was squatting at the gate of her shop.  She had a tired look,  must be due to sleepless nights. Her hair was undone. Her clothes were dirty. She looked older than her real age. Helplessness was what her appearance was telling. “You bitch ….. get out of this place. I cannot feed you anymore, go away ….” Chhiring’s yelling voice is reverberating in the otherwise serene night. Now there is total silence, a lull, after a long time, ……. no sound of any kind. A matured  night. The only sound is the occasional barking of stray dogs. Tranquil night ….  as if time has stood still. I am not getting into sleep. Suddenly, there is storm. Street and the alley dusted. My window overlooking the alley. Empty alley, … dim light, … and dusty storm made visibility even low. I can see only the same silhouette. Doma has been  beaten and has been kicked out of the shop, it is obvious. The night is scary.  The lonely Doma is crouching at one corner of the alley. Storm gets violent now. It is dusty.  Power goes off. It is pitch dark. The sound of Doma crying slowly subsides. Street dogs are weeping far away.It is a frighteningly calm night. A chaotic “Present”.  Exhausted and downtrodden future.
 

Finally, I scribed on the paper –

A Fatiguing future.

A chapter in a life ends here.

Copyright 1999 Arhan Sthapit

Arhan Sthapit<mail to:arhan_sthapit@hotmail.com>

The Essay

THE COURTYARD, WHERE I LOST MY GOD

By Mangal Prasad Shrestha

My courtyard is a common passage for the neighbours and others, a dumping site for garbage and also a sacred place of worship of different gods and goddesses. You will find sculptures of various Hindu deities like Mahadev, Narayan, Ganesh, Kumari, Hanuman, Bhagwati and many others in stone in the courtyard. Also there are three stone historic WANGHA, (shaped like large water vessels called GHA) the name of my locality that is popularly known as Indra Chowk. Another pecularity of the courtyard is the Ganesh established by my late father. We, Hindus worship Ganesh first before performing any religious acts. I was born on the year when our “Sthan Ganesh” was established by my father. Hence, my parents named me Mangal (Mangal is another term of Ganesh). In that sense, I am younger brother of that Ganesh. So I am proud of my courtyard with so many gods and goddesses and the remarkable religious spirit of my neighbours. But we Nepalese have a prestigious record of cultural heritage on one hand and the shameful trend of loosing such heritage due to destruction, non-preservation and theft on the other hand. Some of my friends used to ask me – “You have well preserved so many gods in your courtyard, don’t you have a record of loosing these (in a sense of stone craftsmanship). Perhaps, you have a guard to look after these.” In reply, I express my proud sentiments – “We have been protected by so many gods. How can the gods disappear from our courtyard?” My sentiments come with the fact that we have seen so many fights and quarrels between the neighbours with so many gods as witness. All the gods were neutral, be not is favour of either the right or the wrong. In the Newar community, we have peculiar psychological character that preceeds is from seeing the progress or the development of others. Due to that, my courtyard has had quarrels without rhythm or reason. And I feel that all the gods have witnessed such fights, fueling a moral boost to mischievous neighbours. It’s because human beings feel they are supreme, they are gods. Man and god, god and man – the co-existence are like that of the nail and the finger. Human beings worship gods, gods protect human beings. God is what a man thinks; a man is what the god wants. Man created god out of his craftsmanship, believed on it and worshiped it. Also, a man who is pricing it his ancestral heritage, he has helped it disappearing, stealing and selling it.

          

  It’s an age of supremacy; man wants to be a god not in a sense of construction but destruction. He wants to do anything he desires. He in himself a Brahma (creator), Bishnu (preserver) and Maheshwor (destroyer). Also, he is a Rahu, Ketu and Sani (all the evil spirits). One fine morning, giving a blow to my pride, Mahadeva disappeared from the assembly of the gods in my courtyard in spite of so many people protected and worshipped the gods. The other gods who witnessed disappearance of Mahadeva didn’t speak a single word. Perhaps they were threatened by those who helped in the disappearance of Mahadeva. One day they also might have to face the same fate as Mahadeva. We, the people of the courtyard naturally had black face  due to that unhappy incident. So, we nailed the stone image of Narayan with the help of iron rods and cement nearly making it impossible to move. As God protects human beings we preserve Narayan in this way by nailing his image. If we had not taken timely action Narayan would have also disappeared like Mahadeva without notice. So we nailed down Narayan against our spiritual and religious thinking. We were helpless to take  action against those who helped in the disappearance of the image of Mahadeva. We are just like the scarecrows unable to protect the gods. God-worshipping has been turned into impotency of human beings. Even then, we have done something to protect the stone image of Narayan by nailing it and putting a barrier. To protect gods, to preserve religion, what more can we do than that. With this little effort, we can’t say whether gods and other were happy or not. It has been proved that this age is not a time to expect gods to protect human beings but man can protect the gods, preserve religion and spirituality. In reality, the gods have been stolen from the mind of human beings, who have been protecting God. Actually speaking, God stays nowhere, it has already disappeared.

Pahan Chwami (The Guest Writer):

Pi Toe

In Siem Riep

children crawled through

glass doorways

charred and begging to be held

While hours away

in a high-rise in Bangkok

lay Pi Toe

awkward and mid- flight

Not knowing that he was a butter knife

being slowly surmounted by grease

His air-brushed rock-star grin spent

Wiped on the night table next to

the cell phone

Vocal chords hibernating

between parted lips that took on

the shape of a

faintly quivering brow.

His privileged tongue an errant missile

Whether soldered to her mouth or set free

Forcing every subject  to his own

foregone conclusion

For thirty days, she was blind

folded among these conclusions

No shallow inlets of light

Fed foxglove til her heart smacked

against itself

All she could conjure during that time

Was the smell of dead leaves and camphor

He, a suzerain in his own imaginary feudal state

She, the bone- jewels in her own imaginary stupa

When he knew nothing of stupas and she knew nothing

of suzerains

Still, she’ll  find herself sometimes

sucking her breath in through her teeth

The sensation of him blanketing her

with the dense, coarse wool of his broken English

Smothering her insensate until she pled ready pilgrim

To everything she found most fatuous, most deliciously,

most terribly false.

Leili Besharat leili_b@hotmail.com

Full moon

yellow gloomy hue
tides turn high with each deep breath
starless full moon night

Eclipse

dark mourning heavens
sun swallowed by the demon.
A solar eclipse.

Pirouette

whirling and rising
amber and white pirouette
tea and milk mingle