Mohan Koirala (b. 19:26)

As one of Nepali literature's most respected and enduring poets, Koirala has been writing for more than forty years, but his poetry continues to evolve and change, adopting new styles and addressing new themes. He has wielded considerable influence over poets contemporary with him and is revered by younger writers. Yet it is extremely difficult to identify him with any particular school of modern Nepali literature, be it romanticism, dimensionalism, or the "contemporary" movement. Although Koirala has made his own important contribution to each of these and has been influenced by them in turn, Subedi's comment remains true: "Koirala is of his own kind" (Subedi 1970, 68).

Mohan Koirala was born in 1926 into a comparatively prosperous Kathmandu family. His father fell on hard times, however, and because college fees could no longer be afforded, Koirala was obliged to break off his college education before it was complete. As a young man, he took up a variety of jobs in various areas of Nepal, working for some time as a schoolmaster in the town of Hetauda and latterly for the Transport Corporation in Kathmandu. In 1974, in recognition of his contribution to Nepali literature, he was made a member of the Royal Nepal Academy, a post that reached the end of its five-year term in 1979 and was not subsequently renewed. Since then, Koirala has lived with his family (he has five children) in their simple home in a quarter of Kathmandu known as Dilli Bazaar.

The first poem Mohan Koirala admits to having written^[1] is "Remembering as I Go" (Janda-Jandai Samjhera ), composed in 1946 when he was

[1] Koirala has hinted at the existence of a few early metrical poems. These are unpublished and are likely to remain so.

twenty years old and published in 1953. According to ÌIshwar Baral, the editor of Koirala's first volume of collected verse, Koirala was first persuaded to try his hand at writing by his younger brother, Shankar, now a well-known novelist. Mohan, however, preferred to compose poetry, considering himself a poor storyteller (M. Koirala 1973, i). It is generally accepted, and acknowledged by the poet himself, that his early compositions were inspired by the example set by Devkota and by contemporaries such as Siddhicharan Shreshtha, and Balkrishna Sama. Indeed, Koirala grew up at a time when these poets were household names, at least among the educated class of the capital. Inspired by men who are still regarded as monumental figures in the history of Nepali literature, Mohan Koirala began to write, and his poems appeared alongside theirs in journals such as Sharada, Indreni (Rainbow), and Pragati (Progress).

From the beginning, it was clear that his poetry possessed its own unique qualities. Although "Remembering as I Go" is quite obviously a nostalgic evocation of youth, an echo of Wordsworthian sentiments similar to Devkota's "Childhood," its theme is actually less personal than it seems. The poem's nostalgic sentiments seem to articulate the consciousness that many Kathmandu residents retain of their families' origins in the rural hill regions. Other early poems address similar themes in a tone that is essentially romantic, but many convey an additional message. "I Remember" (Ma Samjhanchu ) contains references to a desire for political change (which was an increasingly powerful force during Koirala's youth). Similarly, "An Introduction to the Land" (Deshko Parichaya ) describes Nepal on the eve of the Ranas' downfall. Baral (in M. Koirala 1973, i) also discerns the influence of Rimal's "A Mother's Dream" in "I Love Your Daughter" (Ma Timro Chorilai Prem Garchu ) because both poems share the theme of awaiting the arrival of a person who will in some way improve the quality of life.

All of Koirala's published works are written in free verse. He explained his preference for this genre, which has predominated in Nepali verse since the 1950s, to Uttam Kunwar:

Although it appears to be small, a cup of water can contain the whole of the sky. This is the capacity of prose poetry.... It can reflect the most subtle human feelings, People do not converse in meter, or in verse, so why should we make our literature artificial and contrived by introducing meter into it? (Kunwar, 1966, 110)

Comment on social or political issues, an important element of Koirala's poetry, is overt in his early poems but less so in his later works. "The Martyrs" (Shahid ) looks back in anger at the execution of three political agitators ordered by Prime Minister Juddha Shamsher in 1941. The poem also seems to urge the nation to look to its future and to the

problems of the present, however, and not to dwell for too long on the sad events of the past:

But they have died already.
I make the picture clear,
I wash the dusty ground with water ...
and 1 turn the page to another history.

"The Fiddle" (Sarangi ) is probably Koirala's most famous poem, quoted in most analyses of his work. The minstrel (gaine ) is a well-known figure in rural Nepal, where he travels from village to village singing songs that often satirize contemporary political events (Macdonald 1975, 169-174). The sorry fate of Koirala's young minstrel reflects the lot of the poor and lowly majority of Nepal for whose sake, in the poet's view, the political revolution of 1950-1951 had taken place. The poem ends with a protest at the fact that none of the promised changes hart come to be. The minstrel quotes the mantras of social reformers ironically in Sanskrit:

Where are those rotten wise men who said,
"May all beings be happy"?
Where are the men who said,
"Truth, not Falsehood, shall triumph"?

Despite such statements, Koirala is extremely wary of political ideologies (vad). To Uttam Kunwar, he explained:

Is it not Man who writes? Poetry must benefit Man; it must exert an influence in language that is artistically pure. Although there are many "isms" or ideologies, I do not adhere to any of them. Once poetry has been infiltrated by an ideology, it is no longer literature, but simply sloganeering to support some partisan view or another. (Kunwar 1966, 109)

Koirala is even dubious of the relevance or validity of such concepts as modernity; when we first met in 1987, he told me, "Our modernity is the dust on our streets."

The Poems of Mohan Koirala (Mohan Koiralaka Kavita ) contains all of the poems published in various journals between 1953 and 1971 and thus represents the first half of Koirala's literary career. Two lengthy poems appended to the collection contain signs of the way in which his poetry was to develop in subsequent years. These are "Mountain" (Lek ) and "Gift of the Sun" (Surya Dan ). The first fills nearly sixty pages, the second thirty-four. Both poems make great use of abstract symbols, many of them personal and therefore difficult to comprehend. This tendency toward obscurity becomes more marked in Koirala's later poems, as should be evident from a reading of two of the poems translated here, "The Snow Peak's Blood-Red" (Himchuli Raktim Cha ) and "It's a Mineral,

the Mind" (Khanij Ho Man ). Nepali critics often claim that Koirala has been influenced by T. S. Eliot or even by Gertrude Stein.^[2] In view of the poet's limited knowledge of English, however, this seems unlikely in any immediate sense and is perhaps more true of the dimensionalist poets. Such influences are no doubt discernible in the works of Hindi poets such as Agyey, with whom Koirala is familiar, and so if any similarity truly exists between poems such as Koirala's "Toward the Last Day of Bhimsen Thapa" ('Bhimsenthapako Antim Dintira ') and Eliot's "Gerontion," as Baral has argued (M. Koirala 1973, xv), it may be something less than a total coincidence. Nevertheless, a trend toward modernist innovation in Nepali poetry that in some way resembles an earlier trend in English poetry does not automatically imply that one tradition is consciously emulating the other.

Koirala is a prolific writer. His six volumes of collected verse contain 121 poems, of which many are extremely long; quite a number of other poems remain uncollected. The first collection is considered by critics to be his most important, but Koirala continues to experiment. His Fishermen on the Riverbank (Nadikinaraka Majhi ) received the Madan Puraskar literary prize in 1981, and together with his most recent volumes, Invitation of the Seasons (Ritu-Nimantrana ) and Blue Honey (Nilo Maha ), it marks a return to a syntax and general style that are simpler than those in The Snow Peak's Blood-Red . But the poet still ranges widely over his immense vocabulary. Koirala himself admits quite frankly that his poetry is often difficult and that it is criticized for this, but he makes no apology: "I might claim to have served Nepali literature in some small way. I would venture to say that I have tried to elevate the style of modern poetry and to introduce a new flavor to the flow of old poetry. Only time will tell whether or not I have been successful" (Kunwar 1966, 114).

Since the publication of the 1978 collection, Koirala has made strenuous efforts to develop the genre of the long poem (lamo kavita ) in Nepali. Invitation of the Seasons and Blue Honey are both poems of considerable length, and Fishermen on the Riverbank contains six poems of between twenty-seven and ninety pages in length. For obvious reasons, it has not been possible to include translations of these later works in this book, which concentrates on Koirala's poetry prior to 1978. The long poems, which perhaps represent the third phase of Koirala's development, are equally worthy of translation.

Koirala is clearly unique in the field of Nepali poetry, and his personal charm and simplicity ensure that he is greatly respected by other writers. In early 1987 he fell ill with what appeared to be a kidney complaint,

[2] Subedi (1978, 72) comments, "It has become a cliché to compare Mohan Koirala with T. S. Eliot."

and poets, publishers, and students pooled their resources to defray his medical expenses, just as they had done for Devkota when he was dying in 1959. Many feel that Koirala has not received the credit from the authorities that he deserves and question the nonrenewal of his academy membership. Between 1960 and 1990, Koirala was perhaps less than wholehearted in his support for the prevailing political order in his land, and there are suspicions that this may have been a factor in the decision. He is, however, an essentially apolitical man, and his tremendous contribution to the literature of Nepal deserves greater recognition both in his homeland and in the world outside.

Earlier drafts of the translations of "An Introduction to the Land," "I Love Your Daughter," "The Martyrs," and "I Remember" appeared in the Himalayan Research Bulletin (Hutt 1988b).

Koirala's poems are collected in Mohan Koiralaka Kavita (The Poems of Mohan Koirala, 1973), Sarangi Bokeko Samudra (An Ocean Bearing a Violin, 1977), Himchuli Raktim Cha (The Snow Peak's Blood-Red, 1978), Nadikinaraka Majhi (The Fishermen on the Riverbank, 1981), Ritu-Nimantrana (Invitation of the Seasons, 1983), and Nilo Maha (Blue Honey, 1984).

Postscript . After the political changes of spring 1990, almost all of the members of the Royal Nepal Academy offered their resignations. The academy was subsequently reconstituted under a new vice-chancellor, Ishwar Baral. As this book went to press, I learned that Mohan Koirala had been reinstated in the academy, along with Bairagi Kainla and several other poets translated here.

Remembering As I Go (Janda-Jandai Samjhera)

To the meadows which spread their laps
by our villages in the high hills,
where our children were given their place
in love and affection: my kiss of love.

The great old rock where we laugh and mock
is wrinkled with moss, white with flowering grass;
it digested our forefathers,
stood firm through flood and storm,
and responds with a roar to even an echo;
to those grinning white jaws: my kiss of love.

And to the unchecked song of the free-falling stream
which flows nearby, mocking our love,
(beloved, you are mine!)
to your modest smile which laughs and brings cheer

at every moment of pain or sorrow:
my kiss of love.

To the budlike eyes of cheap little girls,
dragged down by tears,
by seasons which fled before their time:
my kiss of love.

The sweet wind whispers,
unobstructed, trouble-free,
in the place where I drew warm breath,
and a child was filled with laughter.
In this corner of the world
is the courtyard where I once crawled,
here are the cold stones, the warm graves
of my loved ones who have died.

So, numbed by the chill gusts and white frosts,
by the cold, the sorrow, the shame, death and famine,
to this hearth that warms me
I offer my kiss of love.
(1946; from M. Koirala 1973; also included in Adhunik Nepali Kavita 1971 )

An Introduction to the Land (Deshko Parichaya)

This is the first bell, and this the first voice,
to our duties we are called
as the orchids flower on the precipice;
once the kumari has shared out the garlands,
every day will be the auspicious time:^[3] very soon the light will come
on a golden morning.

When the sun has rubbed vermilion^[4] into the blessed mountains' hair,
Springtime hills delight in their scent;
eyes drink in the scene to the music of bird song,
every day there is a wedding:

[3] "Auspicious time" is my translation of the Nepali word sait . Strictly, sait is the time fixed by astrologers for a bride to leave her parents' home on the day of her wedding. Here, sait also represents the auspicious time for democracy to be established in Nepal. The kumari is the so-called living goddess of Kathmandu, who presents a garland of flowers to the king during the annual festival of Indrajatra. In 1950, this festival presaged the series of events that toppled the Rana regime.

[4] Vermilion (sindur, abir ) is worn in the parting of the hair by married Hindu women. It symbolizes the happy state of a woman who enjoys a husband's protection.

very soon the light will come
on a golden morning.

Oh night-extinguishing light!
In night's dark obscurity
birds have pecked up their food
from the pavements of Asan market,^[5] and now dawn's sun is rising
from a new day's wings,
washing the dirty streets clean:
very soon the light will come
on a golden morning.

Rising from the northern sea,
the moon swells over a crooked hill,
dressed in her widow's attire;^[6] bushes and trees sway in the wind,
light anti shade are playing, dancing,
river shores glisten, the whole night is still:
very soon the light will come
on a golden morning.

An owl is weeping with open wings
from its roost behind the cremation ground,
another adds its song in fragments:
"In what soil grows the lotus now?
From which bough sings the nightingale?
In which forest do the peacocks dance?
On what. green plain will those eyes open,
which sleep now in deep emotion?"

Twisting its body, night attacks me,
black fangs glistening, it readies itself,
its arms are outstretched: I beat a drum,
to declare that the world still meditates
and has yet to wake from its trance.
I picked up a firefly, held it up to the stars:
"It fears no one, it glows and dims,
it dims and glows, of its own accord,
Light, oh Light!" I cried,
and the eastern sky reddens:
very soon the light will come
on a golden morning.

[5] Asan is the central marketplace of old Kathmandu.

[6] In Hindu tradition, white is the color of mourning, and for this reason women who are widowed, and may therefore not remarry, often dress in white for the rest of their lives.

The moonbird calls out to make me restless,^[7] I stride out—the sound of voices is far away,
and the river sleeps between us;
it has rushed and roared,
washing vermilion from the Himalaya's hair.
Without the human hustle and bustle
which drag me along with this country's dreams
or knock me up with its awakened martyrs,
my country grows cold
in a shroud of clouds.

The sun hides under my pillow
and appears around midday,
when sunshine melts into the snow,
warming the hillsides, reopening every door:
very soon the light will come
on a golden morning.
(19517; from M. Koirala 1973)

I Love Your Daughter (Ma Timro Chorilai Prem Garchu)

Oh blue reflection on an unstained rock,
you do not know how I love your daughter,
who darts behind green shrubs when she sees you,
who is startled when you find her alone.

When I love your daughter,
it is a sweat stain, a smile, that I love,
and cheeks that are colored by toil,
I love the girl weary from breaking clods,
tired from working on the soil,
who stands now in the neem tree's shade,
coming into the first shadows of youth;
I love your budding flower,
I love that girl.

I am setting out with ax and sickle,
seeking wood for a boat,
with hammer and chisel to look for a millstone,
with a bough and some pegs to divert a stream,
you will see me nearby, scraping a plough,
carving an image,

[7] The chakor bird plays an important role in the poetic tradition of northern India and Nepal. Fabled to subsist on moonbeams, its longing for the moon is a metaphor for the separation of human lovers or of the soul from God.

digging a channel;
I am proud, I stroke my mustache.

Oh Man, the first to plough the deserts,
the first to adorn its furrows with green;
if shoots should wither, we revive them with sweat,
if stones block soft roots, we remove them with hoes,
if wounds strike our crops, we heal them with kisses,
if pests eat soft buds, we crush them with tongs;
with one ear of corn we will build the whole field,
then we will embrace this world!

We have a boon for our untiring souls,
before us the seasons bow their heads,
and we are fortunate:
the clods of our soil are safer
than a soul wrapped in cotton-wool.
Oh Man, I am he
who makes Fate himself with his ax,
then cleans and carves and paints it,
who creates his own fortune himself:
how we long for sturdy arms,
a pure, sweet manner,
and sweet, fat bread,
how fervently we desire
dominion over free soil.

Is it a sin to love?
We love each other,
we sow love in the soil,
and make it grow in our hearts,
we raise up our children from the ground,
we dust them down and kiss them;
I love your daughter.
(1954; from M. Koirala 1973)

The Martyrs (Shahid)

A January night—
footprints deserted on an empty street,
a vulture is perched on top of a tree,
tightly folding its wings,
and a demoness opens the gates of the jail.
The Bishnumati^[8] waits, its bosom swells,
a fainting engine disturbs the air,

[8] The Bishnumati River flows through the western quarter of Kathmandu.

jackals dig into the earth,
and at Pachali Bhairava^[9] a corpse is burning.

I saw them there,
pointing a gun at the martyrs,
pulling them round with a rope
on the orders of demoness Darkness
who has shaken the hearts of this land and its mothers;
I watch from eyes like two imminent bullets.

We cried out: "Stop, you butchers!
They have not stolen your shame and servitude,
they have not taken your malice and envy,
they have not robbed you of hunger and hate,
they have tried to fill your eyes with joy;
such great men of the future
must not set like the sun tonight,
stop, you butchers, stop!"

The martyrs were speaking
to beloved friends, who had forgotten
their pleasant words and noble ways.

The martyrs were speaking.
But they have died already.
I make the picture clear,
I wash the dusty ground with water,
with pain in my heart I show you a picture
drawn with the blood of the sun's red light:
a picture of leaves kissing the sun's rays,
and eyes kissing the moon,
and I turn the page to another history.

Bloodied martyrs are still in that cell:
the picture has an ancient frame,
made from the soft bones of Jang Bahadur's massacres;^[10] the horse received a lovely statue,
the warrior a well-trained horse;
when he spurred it on and tightened its reins,
he crushed the heart of many a woman,
trampled the playground of many a child,
he washed the vermilion from their hair.^[11]

[9] This is a temple in Kathmandu.

[10] Jang Bahadur, the thunder of the Rana regime, achieved his preeminent position in the famous massacre of 1846. The two final verses of this poem refer to a statue of Jang Bahadur on the Tundikhel parade ground in Kathmandu: he is shown mounted on a rearing horse and looking back in an imperious manner. Koirala compares Jang Bahadur's steed to the people of Nepal.

[11] That is, he made them widows or robbed them of their loved ones.

He who turned hack to look down
made the whips fly through the air;
he crossed both rivers and flames
and now fills the land with corpses
and the stench of dead memories.
There we find the rising walls of a funeral ground,
a pyre burning down to its ashes,
someone killing,
someone dying.
(1955; from M. Koirala 1973)

I Remember (Ma Samjhanchu)

Spring wakes up in secret
to kiss the malodorous soil
on the sturdy hills of this land
and on its strong, white islands;
winter had just undone their belts,
winter had just laid bare their bodices;
and on the ochre cliffs
and the rush of blue rivers
it seems a snail is trying to climb
up into another hemisphere;
as a caterpillar lopes down a bough,
I remember, I was born just now.

The sky was always vast and fearsome,
the horizon always grand and broad;
I peered out from my mother's breast,
travelers whistled from the near river shore,
travelers whistled from the far river shore;
fishermen came out with their oars,
fisherwomen came out with their oars;
travelers whistled from this side and that
and in the middle a boulder
was toppling in the waves:
I feel I was born just now.

As gifts on the day of my birth,
my loving mother gave out (and all to me)
teeth to the toothless, claws to the weak,
bones to the maimed, limbs to the crippled,
fingers to duty and roads to my legs.
There I clenched my fists and made my choice,
there I clenched my fists and made my resolution,
I feel I was born just now.

My mother's eyes lustrous and brightened by love,
her puckered lips, her kisses and smiles,
cheeks wrinkled by health and the rush of her love;
I gamboled in rags like a small unwise lord
on the soil of the serpent's coils.^[12] My delicate bud of desire was drenched
by the sweet sherbet of an ocean of milk,
my breast by the sweat of unfathomed love.
When I cried out, striking and rocking
the earth which was my cradle,
my mother came rushing with wings,
like the sky swooping down with eagles,
and I feel I was born just now.
(1956; from M. Koirala 1973; also included in Adhunik Nepali Kavita 1971)

A Flower Amid the Mountain Rocks (Paharako Phul)

Untroubled by dust and its location,
unborne, unsapped by tenderness, harshness,
a bud bursts open unseen,
unseen in a lonely place.

The smile on its soft, silken skin
is stolen away by the emptiness,
its beauty is lost before it arrives,
unknown hands rip out
the season's joy:
a bud bursts open unseen,
unseen in a lonely place.
(1956; from M. Koirala 1973; also included in Adhunik Nepali Kavita 1971)

The Fiddle (Sarangi)

Now brother minstrel is utterly cold:
he's had no chance to play his fiddle^[13] and so his hands are numb.

Without men all around to abuse him
he is desolate now, for their taunts had warmed him,

[12] Serpent's coils are a reference to the famous image of Vishnu at Budhanilkantha near Kathmandu, where the god rests on the coils of the cosmic serpent Shesha Naga after completing the creation of the universe.

[13] A sarangi is a simple stringed instrument played with a bow that is commonly used by Nepalese folk musicians.

made his ears as hot as if wrapped in a scarf,
now his bow has withered like his veins.

His fiddle's as hollow as his smooth, greasy skull,
and all his body pains him,
because no one is throwing stones,
so he carries on, singing from time to time,
why would anyone not think him mad?

He does not beg,
in case it is said that he cries out in hunger;
if he goes about with an earthen pot,
people he knows call him minstrel,
but still if he goes out with his fiddle,
people will call him a beggar.
Songs fill his heart to its brim
like layers of dark, fertile soil;
they have spilled out, burning,
and layers of age-old convention
have been rubbed by the bow in his hand.

His lips twitch, uneasy on the asphalt road,
like fragments of gramophone records,
spurned by our ears, cast out by our hands.
In this breeze, neither warm nor chill,
brother minstrel is utterly cold.

His songs are famous,
thundering like the laughter of Chandra Shamsher,^[14] his songs are young and winsome
like the girls at the Hotel Royal,
his songs are boozy and jealous,
like a kirata woman deprived of her beer,^[15] his songs are hunched up and bent,
like a harem matron who has retired;
songs unwritten by pencil on paper,
songs stored away in an unlocked heart,
but he'll be the prey of these songs undigested,
he'll die here like this, a helpless criminal,
a broken-down gramophone
in a mechanic's workshop.

If he survives he will be just a leaky canister,
badly repaired by an unskilled blacksmith.
So now brother minstrel is utterly cold,

[14] Chandra Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana was prime minister of Nepal from 1901 to 1929.

[15] Kirata is a general ethnic designation applied to the varied groups of eastern Nepal who speak Tibeto-Burman languages and is applied particularly to the Rai tribes and the Limbu. Many caste Hindus take a rather dim view of kirata social customs.

perhaps his life will pass in coldness
until the day he dies.

Arriving home, he lies awake until midnight,
then in his dream his dead wife appears,
bringing the child he once had.
The child comes wailing to its father's lap,
like a hopeless glimpse of money
changing hands in Indrachowk square.^[16] Briefly, a lovely lamp brightens his hovel,
and it becomes a palace.

When he awakes, for brother minstrel it's hard
to distinguish dreams from reality;
he plucks the fiddle of his heart alone,
as if to decide if he's mad or he's sane;
those who hear him think it's a song,
but brother minstrel has never called it that;
he broods, merely recalling a heart
cooked in the oil of his tears;
he never unleashes that song for money,
it is deep inside the folds of his soul.

There it stays, crammed inside,
if you seek his purpose,
you will find he is mad,
if you look for his knowledge,
he is a renunciant,
if it's power that you search for,
his songs are Creation,
but if you seek wisdom,
brother minstrel is merely a wooden butterpot
compared to the common man.
Surrounded by landslides on every side,
men can live lives without purpose:
he has become their metaphor.

I wake with a start: he is moving on,
planting his feet on the street,
those feet of his are naked and cold,
unfettered by shoes since they left the womb,
thus he walks heavily down a road without end,
from bright sunlight to dusk.

I say, "Why does the blind man sing
when he sees the world as nothing

[16] Indrachowk is the main intersection at the center of Asan market in Kathmandu. When Koirala was young, shoppers could exchange large denomination notes or coins for small change at a dais in this crossroad (personal communication, 1987).

but the ashes of burned meadows?"
And he asks me, "Where are the trees?
Where are the bushes, green shade for the traveler?
Where is the high land, the low land,
rent-free for the hoe?
The rivers and streams for my thirst,
the glass of water for my labors?
Where are those rotten wise men who said,
'May all beings be happy'?
Where are the men who said,
'Truth, not Falsehood, shall triumph'"?^[17] (1961; from M. Koirala 1973; also included in Sajha Kavita 1967, Adhunik Nepali Kavita 1971, and Nepali Kavita Sangraha [1973] 1988, vol. 2)

The Snow Peak's Blood-Red (Himchuli Raktim Cha)

The earth is sturdy, I am young,
my face is eager, the snow peak's blood-red,
my strong arms are holy juniper,
replete with strength and wealth,
I hope my midday smile
will not grow stale or doze
in rhododendron boughs.
I hope the river gorge
will not fail or be slow
to quote my summons.

Thus my desires are joy and sorrow;
from the mocking laughter of a national peak
comes the people's misty song, just begun,
perplexed and startled
in the eaves of an atrophied barn.
Thus there is one word
which turns me back in despair each moment
and pours forth distress:
it is Truth.

Another word which often tempts and beguiles
is Untruth,
and this perplexity, from the throat of hill and valley,
is now me:
I ponder the future's writing board,^[18]

[17] These two mantras are quoted in their original Sanskrit in the Nepali poem.

[18] The writing board (dhulauto ) is a board sprinkled with powder on which children learn to write in remote regions of Nepal.

I remember and write,
forget and erase.

An epic play was staged in that theater
where Kalidasa wrote without success;^[19] the great music of that stage
where Shakespeare sang despairing,
joyous stories amid a sea of sorrow,
the stage where Vedavyasa aimlessly^[20] laid a foundation stone,
and where a novice now sings
with busy, fresh desire,
playing the violin of Gandak and Koshi.^[21]

Now I am beneath some arena of that future,
writing, erasing, pondering my board.
Oh Himalaya, King of Mountains,
hiding in a fringe of clouds,
oh frost-singing lands, abode of snow,
where our emotions and pleas are numbed
by cold love in the musk deer chase,
where we have consumed the useless with relish,
and found the tasteless delicious.

For hours the debate can be heard:
casting meaning on meaning,
dividing reason from reason,
they have pondered the cause.
(1966; from M. Koirala 1978a)

It's A Mineral, the Mind (Khanij Ho Man)

Velvet the Himalayan poinsettia in bloom,
silver the scabbard of thrusting power,
the mind is a clear scent,
the pen a new ridge of hills.

I am a tree with countless boughs,
a flower which hides a thousand petals,
a juniper, a pointed branch of the scented fig,
its rough, misshapen fruit.

[19] Kalidasa lived around A.D. 400 and was the author of Shakuntala Mahakavya (The Epic of Shakuntala) and Meghaduta (Cloud Messenger). He is regarded as the most outstanding writer of classical Sanskrit.

[20] Vyasa was the author of the great Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata. This is either a reference to him or to "the Vyasa of the Vedas," the unknown author or authors of the most ancient Hindu scriptures.

[21] The Gandak (or Gandaki) and the Koshi are two of Nepal's greatest rivers.

In my belief I am Nepali,
my faith the highest Himalaya,
my favorite season is the one
when leather jackets are donned,
my clothes are only freedom.

The Himalayan lights my touching place,^[22] equality spread on the ground where I stand.
(1974; from M. Koirala 1978a)

You Who Remember (Samjhaneharu)

Oh you who remember, remember,
remember me in a thousand years,
I shall he fossils by then,
I shall not even be in the air,
you will not see me in melted water,
nor seek me out in the moss.

For those who try to know me then,
wandering away from Man,
I shall be some tea leaves,
a few sugar grains,
flakes of calcium in a laboratory,
some dust in a coffee shop,
some ice cream licked from plates by children.

Believers, aesthetes of poetry,
if you seek me in poetic styles,
you will find me in coffee and juniper roots,
not in any face,
ploughed-up, dust-blown soil,
all joy and sorrow in the form
of earth dug up in past and future,
those who address one, those who do not.

Who knows, after a thousand years,
these poems may be pastures of grass,
and I a clod of earth,
sprouting roots of gourd, and pumpkins.
(1975; from M. Koirala 1978a)

[22] Ajju is a children's game similar to tag or musical chairs; "my touching place" is a reference to ajju.