Parijat (b. 1937)

Parijat , the Nepali name for a species of jasmine with a special religious significance, is the pen name adopted by Bishnukumari Waiba, a Tamang woman now resident in Kathmandu who has been hailed as one of the most innovative Nepali writers of recent years. The themes and philosophical outlook of her poems, novels, and stories are influenced by her Marxist and feminist views and her own personal circumstances: Parijat has suffered from a partial paralysis since her youth and has ventured from her home only rarely during the past twenty years. She is unmarried and childless, a status that is not usual for a woman in Nepalese society and that is due partly to her illness and partly, it seems, to personal preference. Despite her disability, Parijat is a formidable force in Nepali literature, and her flower-filled room in a house near Balaju has become a kind of shrine for progressive Nepali writers.

Parijat was born in Darjeeling in 1937, and her childhood was deeply unhappy. Her mother died while Parijat was still young, and an elder brother drowned shortly afterward. At the age of about thirteen, it seems that she became passionately involved in a love affair that ended in heartbreak and a period of intense depression. Parijat herself has described this as a "self-inflicted wound." In 1954, the family moved to Kathmandu, where Parijat completed a B.A. in 1958 and later completed an M.A. in English literature. Her father subsequently became mentally ill. Parijat's memoirs, which Subedi describes as "confessional and intimate" (1978, 213), were serialized in Ruprekha (Outline) and a volume of reminiscences have recently appeared (Parijat 1988). In view of this background of tragedy and hardship, it is not surprising that most of Parijat's writings evince an attitude of alienation, pessimism, and atheism.

Parijat's first poem, entitled "Aspirations" (Akanksha ), was published

in 1953; a collection of poems with this title appeared some years later. In 1970, she announced that she would no longer write poetry,^[1] and a second collection of poems from before 1970 appeared in 1987. During the 1970s, Parijat became better known as a novelist: her first novel, Shirishko Phul (The Mimosa Flower )^[2] had already won the Madan Puraskar prize for fiction in 1965 and was wholly without precedent in Nepali literature. It tells the story of a retired soldier in middle age whose life is empty and lacking in purpose. Gradually, he develops a desperate infatuation with the sister of a drinking companion. This woman is the complete antithesis of the traditional Nepali heroine: she is cynical and sometimes cruel, she wears her hair cropped short, and she smokes continually. The psychological background to the story is the soldier's memory of his sexual exploitation of Burmese women during his military service. On only one occasion does he attempt to reveal his feelings to the woman, and shortly afterward she dies. The novel caused great controversy: some thought it decadent and vulgar; others praised it for its modernity. Parijat has published five novels since The Mimosa Flower , and since 1980 she has also written several new poems. These differ from her earlier poetry in that they are less personal and address social issues.

Parijat's second collection of poems, the source of the selection translated here, is very highly regarded, although it does perhaps represent an earlier phase in her development as a writer. All these poems are written in the first person and are deeply subjective. Some of the earliest compositions, exemplified here by "Sweep Away" (Sohorera Jau ), are simple lyrics tinged with a mysticism similar to that of the chhayavad school of Hindi verse. Others, such as "To Gopalprasad Rimal's 'To—'", (Gopalprasad Rimalko "—Prati " Prati ), have political undertones (this particular poem should be read in conjunction with the poem referred to in its title, which also appears in this book). Parijat's political views are overtly leftist: in the early 1970s, she attempted (unsuccessfully, it turned out) to initiate a literary movement dubbed Ralpha (an apparently meaningless term) that would combine ideas drawn from existentialist thought with the values of Marxism.

About her role as a writer, however, she is self-effacing:

I consider literature to be the most important part of civilization. Without literary development there can be no national development because literature is an inalienable part of the nation.... No, I do not believe that

[1] Baral in Parijat (1987, 2). In 1966, however, she had declared that she preferred writing poetry to prose. Kunwar (1966, 237).

[2] Blue Mimosa was the title given to a translation of this novel by Tanka Vilas Varya and Sondra Zeidenstein, published in 1972.

the development of literature depends in any way upon my own writing. I write; the readers read: that is the only constraint I put upon my compositions. (Kunwar 1966, 234)

The majority of Parijat's poems spring from her physical condition and from a profound atheism and moral despair. "In the Arms of Death" (Mrityuka Angalama ) expresses a hope that the doctrine of reincarnation is not true and that death will be a final release:

How eager this flower is to fall,
how it longs to cut short the winter day,
to pass in a half-conscious night;
Death returns, defeated,
from the hands of Life—
alas, Man does not die.

Parijat's most famous poem, "A Sick Lover's Letter to Her Soldier" (Lahurelai Ek Rogi Premikako Patra ), contains the line "Love does not die, you have to kill it," which sums up very well the antisentimental view she holds of human life.

Parijat's poems from the years before 1970 are collected in Akanksha (Aspirations, 1960) and in Parijatka Kavita (The Poems of Parijat, 1987).

Sweep Away (Sohorera Jau)

Sweep away, red glow of evening,
dawn may not come here again,
my sky may not redden again,
sweep down, oh red glow of evening.

This Ganga, this Jamuna, may not flow again,
Nature may no longer weep
on the leaves of this sungabha ³ flower;
come today and bring me
beauty to soak my eyes;
sweep away, red glow of evening.

Go, and ignore the paths which have passed,
no traveler may ever come there again,
do not disturb those nights of sleep past,
that dream may never recur.

If you cannot leave, come, recalling
the lament which is played on a flute,
remembering the song that I sing,

[3] The sungabha is a yellow orchid.

remembering the widow who burns
in the eyes of desire and attraction;
sweep down, oh red glow of evening.
(1959; from Parijat 1987)

To Gopalprasad Rimal's "To—"^[4] (Gopalprasad Rimalko "—Prati" Prati)

Truly, love is not nearly enough,
the statement "I love you" is vague;
surely Truth should be plainly seen
in the culmination of love.
It is I who must truly conceive
the tangible fruits of love:
in my sons I must see
the face of my soul.

Yes, it is I who must bear them,
the effigies of reality:
Buddha, Lenin, Gandhi,
but to actual love I cannot give
the ideal of motherhood;
I cannot pour out peace of heart
to the old man born in a cellar
who fights for stale rice with the scurvy dogs.

My aged son, gutter born;
you may spew out hope for his salvation;
my love, you make conception
the manifestation of Truth,
my Lenin, even as you are born,
you anoint the sick and the stained.
I see only the face of self-reproach,
I cannot console anything which is mine;
it is over! I save Truth's fragments,
poor Lenin, Buddha, Gandhi,
I save them from calumny,
these I cannot sacrifice
in gutters of filthy water.

And so I formulate vague ideals
instead of love's clear reality.
(1960; from Parijat 1987)

[4] See page 81 for a translation of Rimal's poem "To—."

A Sick Lover's Letter to Her Soldier (Lahurelai Ek Rogi Premikako Patra)

Life companion, much, much love;
I feel I might send you a heart,
I feel I might send you a love letter,
tied round the necks of these free-flying pigeons,
repeating the sentiment of last century's love,
but what free bird could fly
across today's lines and borders,
with what sighs could this withered existence
lay down to rest in the winds of this world?

My love, I cannot raise you in my mind,
you are far away and hidden from me,
I cannot speak to you, I cannot see you,
I do not even try to cross the seven seas to you,
and so I simply watch for you
as I sit here all alone,
my brain as limited as my body,
Gautami turned to stone.^[5]

Love,
love is a mirage,
love is the greed of a goose,
love is a lifeless truth,
the thirst of a kakakul bird^[6] which loves the sun and blocks its setting;
an ephemeral body, an endless desire,
but love is the union of bodies,
me in your arms, each night,
a row of desires set out to block death—
I am dreaming and burning my sweet dreams.

Beloved, you wrote to ask me
if I smiled in your billet picture,
you said you did not want to lose me,
you said my letter woke you up like a phoenix.
This is all just history now,
how I have survived I do not know,
I have waited long, you will surely come
to this phoenix in her ashes,
not rising to health once more,

[5] In the Ramayana, Rama releases the wife of the sage Gautam from a curse that had turned her to stone as a punishment for her infidelity.

[6] The kakakul bird is a symbol of thirst because it is fated to drink only the water that falls from the sky and therefore spends its life crying to heaven for rain.

but deep in eternal sleep
leaving unspoken the things in her mind.

My love, I have already died,
your love burned with me on my pyre.
I am buried, I sleep the endless sleep,
you must live on, waking tomorrow
to new sunshine: do not cry,
do not make a mockery of conflict.

Do you know the power of my ending?
A part of finality was smashed;
do you know that my death was strong?
It left immortality itself half-dead.

Love does not die, you have to kill it,
you must begin with the strength of my end.
Now here is the rest of my letter,
now here is the rest of your phoenix,
life companion, here for you
is the remnant of all my love.
(1964; from Parijat 1987; also included in Sajha Kavita 1967)

In the Arms of Death (Mrityuka Angalama)

At midnight the moonlight comes in by a window,
it melts all over the quilt on my bed;
I am already wrapped in my shroud,
my bed is already my tomb.

Something within me is trying to vanish,
someone inside me is trying to leave,
but these are not my remains,
night after night I am living and dying;
I set my own corpse before me.

I lie on my back and I weep,
I mourn at my own funeral rite,
I am my own undying ghost,
I have roamed through half the graveyard,
each night I return from the pointless journey,
feet soaked by stygian waters.

But Death does not speak like this
from the pages of the Upanishads,^[7] there, Death is a mother's welcome
to a child returning from play.

[7] The Upanishads are commentorial texts on the Vedas dating from the sixth century B.C. onward; they contain many of the most important writings of Hindu philosophy.

The end is no intermission,
let me leave it once and for all,
I will play for so long before I return,
I will be so tired when I set down my load,
come, let us not regard this world
so darkly, just for a moment,
I have endured this life quietly,
suffering like a dumb beast.

How eager this flower is to fall,
how it longs to cut short the winter day,
to pass in a half-conscious night;
Death returns, defeated,
from the hands of Life—
alas, Man does not die.

This is the twentieth century,
death is not easy or hard,
and so my eyes are eager
to open in pale morning light,
to crawl through life's listless day,
a day where no hope has its home.

The new age is lost on its way,
Time comes but makes all newness a void
before it can reach my door,
so Time passes through me as before,
it saddens all those who are happy,
it cheers all those who are sad,
but my indifference is a full stop
to the desires of life:
it strikes all changes dumb.

It is laughable:
as if governed by regular rules,
lizards continue to run to and fro
with regiments of ants
on the four walls of this room;
each plank of the floor is wondering why
this burden upon it never gets up or goes,
it lives, but it is lifeless,
it hardly moves;
this irritation should be thrown out.

A snail can feed without reaching its goal,
but I cannot; so when I am gone,
do not think that anything great is lost:
the warmth of the small space I filled
will simply cool as I grow cold.

A part of my blanket, the edge of my quilt,
will know that a lightweight existence,
a living helplessness, have fled away;
I shall come to my end before dying,
so many have died, but not ended:
but I wish for no preservation:
although the Himal ever melts at Gangotri,^[8] and never ceases to be,
I must die, and see myself ended.

What claim can I make to be human?
A fistful of weary flesh,
a little bundle of tired bones:
that is all, and what of it?
(1964; from Parijat 1987)

[8] Gangotri is the source of the holy Ganges River (Ganga) in the Himalaya mountains of India.