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बैरागी काईंला – मातेको मान्छेको भाषण: मध्यरातपछिको सडकसित

आधारातपछि रक्सी दोकानबाट म के निस्किएको छु : प्रत्येक खोंगी र खोरभित्रबाट पखेटा फट्फटाउँदै विद्रोहको कुखुराका भाले बासेर मेरो स्वागत गर्दछन्, यहाँको बातावरणको निम्ति यहाँको निर्जीवताको निम्ति यहाँको व्यवस्थाको निम्ति मेरो रक्सीको गन्धले भिजेको निश्वास पनि आज, ठुलो आँधीसरह भइसकेको छ सडकका दुवैतिर लाम लागेका यी आलिशान भवनहरू आफ्नो जगसहित आफ्नो कमजोरि माटोमुनि गाडिदिनु अब, अब, अब लड्नलाई तयार छ,

आज मेरो प्रत्येक पाइलामा यौटा-यौटा भूकम्प छ आज मेरो प्रत्येक अनुभवमा यौटा-यौटा ज्वालामुखी पड्कन तैयार छ कसरी बसेछु यो उमेरसम्म यौटा पाइलासम्म पनि नअटाउने ढल्न लागेका यी साँगुरा घरहरूमा ? मलाई दुःख लाग्छ : अझै सुत्छन् गनाउलाझै गुजुल्टिएर आत्म-पराजित मानिसहरू धरतीको अस्वस्थ्यकर घरहरूमा, अनि यति अबेरसम्म ? आज मेरो विशाल्ता पृथ्वीमाथि अटाउदैन यो सडकभरिको देशमाथि सास थुन्छ अनि मैले सडकभरि आँदाखाँद गरेर हिड्दा मानिस भन्छन्- यो मातेको छ ।, छेउ लागेर बाँयापट्ट हिंड्नु पर्छ हो हामीले छेउ लागेर हिंडनु पर्छ धेरैले सडकमाथि अटाएर हिंड्नु पर्छ,

गगनचुम्बी भवन र धरहराका सिरान-सिरानका कोठाभित्र रात-रातभरि बल्दछन्…….नीलो-नीलो गुलुप : लाटकोकोसेराका आाखाहरू, यहाँ रातभरि लाटकोसेराले आँखा देख्दछन, यहाँ रातभरि लाटकोसेराले कसकसको बाटो ढुक्छ ? टाउकोभरि अफिसको कागजपत्रका अक्षर, छातिभरि अफिसको दिवाल घडीका काँटाहरू फेरिनै आटेका पूर्जाजस्ता जिन्दगी काँधमाथि टाउको लतारेर यो सडकमाथि हिंडदछन्, यिनलाई घिसारेर हिंडदछन् अनुहार नभएका मानिस, अँध्यारोका खुट्टाले टेकेर रात-रातभरि यो सडकमाथि ! फलतः आजकाल सडक घटेको छ,

कसले चोर्दछ सडकका छेउकुनाहरू ? किन घट्दछन यो सडक प्रत्येक रातको आगमनसित ? यो सडकलाई उधारेर फेरि ठुलो पार ………… जब म भन्छु, छेउको मुर्ख पुलिस मलाई पक्रन तयार छ किनकी म मातेको छु ! अनि रक्सीले छात्ति भरेपछि मलाई पनि लाग्छ कि मभित्र यत्ति विशालता आइसक्यो, कि यो सडकको संकीर्णतामा अब अब नअटाउने भइसकेको छु ! इन्जिनियरले सुनुन् नेता, प्रध्यापक र कविहरूले सुनुन् इतिहासको प्रत्येक आन्दोलनले सुनुन् यसर्थ, पोष्ट अफिसको पेटीबाट म वक्तव्य प्रसारित गर्दछु : ए सडक हो ! यौटा मानिस तिमीमाथि हिंडदै छ, म अटाइना तिम्रो फैलावटमा थसर्थ, म हुकुम गर्दछु ….. अझै तिमीहरू-फट्टिदेऊ, च्यात्तिदेऊ, फैलिदेऊ…… तिम्रो फैलावटको सीमामाथि अतिक्रमण गर्ने प्रतिक्षण इतिहास बनिरहेका क्षणसित यी ठूलठूला बिल्डिङका पेटीहरू मात्र कोतपर्वका विजेताका मात्र शासन गर्ने परिवारका प्रशस्ति र वंशावली लेखिएका इतिहासका इतिहास नाङ्गा पन्ना जस्ता यी पेटीहरूलाई मुटुदेखि मस्तिष्कसम्म चिरिने गरेर तिमीले च्यात्तिदेऊ……..फाट्टिदेउ…… कोलम्बसको पैतालाले यस सडकमाथि टेक्न पाउनु पर्छ । यौटा विद्रोहले यहाँ शिर उचालेर हिंड्न पाउनु पर्छ,

यसर्थ, म हुकुम गर्दछु : ए सडक हो ! अझै च्यात्तिदेऊ…….अझै फाट्टिऊ…. जति खाडल बन्दछ त्यत्ति नै रक्सीको तरलताले भिजाएर म, मेरो सद्भावनाले रसाइदिन्छु म मेरो विशाल्ताले ढाकिदिन्छु नत्र ता म यहाँ अटाउनै सकिनँ, नत्र ता बिहान नौ बजे स्कूलको बखत सानो बालकलाई उसको आमा र मैले कसरी स्कूल पुर्‍याउनु यहाँबाट जहाँ अटाउदैन यौटा खुट्टाको पनि पैतालाको फैलावट ! सयौ बूटले प्रतिक्षण किच्चिएर मोटरका चक्काले प्रतिक्षण पिल्सिएर लम्पसार र उत्तानो परिसकेका ए जिन्दागी हो ! निष्क्रियताको हुस्सुले थुनिएर साइनबोर्डका खम्बाले सीमित घुम्तिघुम्तिले टुक्राटुक्रा खण्डित चक्रवर्तीको चोइटिएका पराक्रमको सहस्र चोइटा…… ए सडक हो ! अश्वमेध यज्ञका घोडा खेदेर विश्वविजयमा बढेका सगरका ए शापित सहस्रदश पुत्र हो ! आकाशबाट बोतलको स्वर्गङ्गाको जल भगीरथको आस्थाले छर्किहेछु तिमीमाथि, तिम्रो निधारमाथि, आँखामाथि, छात्तिमाथि ! यो जो बगाइरहेछु बोतलका बोतल…. रक्सी सडकमाथि, थोपाथोपा पिएर उठ, उठ बौरिएर ए मेरा पिताहरू हो ! ए सगरका शापित सहस्रदश पुत्र हो ! अनि एस पल्ट हिमालजत्रो मुठीले क्षितिजका गहबाट कचेराको कुइरो पुछेर मसित हेरिदेऊ…….प्रथमपल्ट : आँखाले भ्याउञ्जेलसम्म हामी हाम्रो चारैतिर विजयका निम्ति युद्धभूमी र जिन्दगीका निम्ति उज्यालै उज्यालोमात्र देख्दछौं !

A Drunk Man's Speech to the Street After Midnight

When I emerge from the wine shop, long after midnight has passed, cockerels crow their welcome from every coop and perch, flapping their wings in rebellion. My very breath, drenched in alcohol fumes, is a great storm in this atmosphere, this lifelessness, this system. Grand mansions line the street, weakness hides in their foundations: now now now—they will soon collapse!

All my steps are earthquakes today, volcanoes erupt in each sensation; how have I lived to such an age in these cramped and crumbling houses, too small for a single stride? I am saddened: even now they sleep, self-defeated men, tangled together like worms in the pestilent houses of the earth, and do they sleep so late?

Today I am more immense than the world, my breath is shut in by the ground of this street, I stamp all over the road. People say I am drunk—"Keep left"— people say we should keep to the verge, but people should walk all over this street, as many as it can contain, the police pick up all who keep to the verge, saying, "This one's drunk, and that one, too!"

At the head of each bed in the rooms of sky-kissing mansion and tower, all through each night they burn: blue, blue bulbs, the eyes of owls. Here the owls' eyes watch through the night: who are they waiting for, who will be ambushed?

Faceless men drag by on legs of darkness, all night long they walk this street, their heads hanging low from their shoulders, their heads full of letters and papers, their hearts full of the office clock's hands, their lives machine parts, soon obsolete.

And so the street is shrunken today: who steals its corners and verges? Who tears life in chunks from its sides? Why is the street more narrow each night? "Tear up this road and widen it!..." The witless policeman stands on the curb, prepared to arrest me for these words, for I am drunk! But when the wine pervades my heart, I feel I am full of such vastness, the street is too narrow for me. 

May the engineers hear me, the leaders, the teachers, the poets, may each second of history attend to my speech, broadcast from the pavement beside the main post office: Streets! A man walks upon you, he is too great for you, he commands you: crack and split and widen yourselves, rupture and tear down those buildings which encroach upon your borders, further, further with each historic moment, rend and crack the pavements: they are like history's naked pages, inscribed with flattering lineages of the Kotparva's victors and the ruling family; split them from head to heart. We should be allowed to stand here on the feet of Columbus, a revolution should walk here, its head held high. So I order you: Streets! Crack and tear yourselves apart, if potholes appear, I will fill them with goodwill soaked in wine, I will cover them with my immensity. For otherwise I will not fit in, otherwise, at nine 'o'clock, when it's time for school, how will the little boy's mother and I send him to school from this place if the road cannot hold the sole of one foot?

Oh life, already flat on your back, constantly trampled by hundreds of boots, continually tortured by the wheels of cars, oh streets, confined by the mists of inertia, bounded by signboards and poles, fragmented and fractured by turnings and bends —a thousand splinters of the valor of the universal emperor. 

Oh sixty thousand cursed sons of Sagar, advancing to conquer the world, driving a horse to sacrifice, I pour the heavenly Ganga's waters from the firmament of a bottle, down over you with the faith of Bhagirath, onto your foreheads, eyes and chests. Drink this wine which I pour on the street, bottle by bottle, drop after drop, revive and arise, my fathers, you sixty thousand cursed sons of Sagar!

And now wipe the mist with a Himalayan fist, from the horizon's gummy eyes, and look with me for the first time: as far as we can see, all around, there is a battleground for victory and a radiant light for life. 

c. 1963; from Kainla 1974; also included in Sajha Kavita 1967, Adhunik Nepali Kavita 1971, and Nepali Kavita Sangraha [1973] 1988, vol. 2

Translation: Hutt, Michael James. Himalayan Voices: An Introduction to Modern Nepali Literature. Berkeley: University of California Press,  c1991 1991. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft729007x1/)

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Illustration by Yelena Bryksenkova

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Alexa, flush with red wine, her eyes red below her scarlet hair, changed the subject. “Blunkett must be sensible and make sure this country remains a refuge. People who have survived frightful wars must absolutely be allowed in!” She turned to Obinze. “Don’t you agree?”

"Yes," he said, and felt alienation run through him like a shiver. 

Alexa, and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him, who were raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real life happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty.”

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Americanah” (2013)

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Arundhati Roy in a still from In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones (1989).

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“...some years ago, in the limbo of your endless exile, you thought that homesickness was the worst of punishments: a mental compensation, a classic neurosis: a difficult, arduous process of sublimation: and then a feeling of alienation, disaffection, indifference: separation was not enough for you if you were unable to measure it: nor fuzzy-minded awakenings in an anonymous city not knowing where you were: inside, outside?” 

-Juan Goytisolo from Count Julian (1970). Translated by Helen Lane.

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“if I leave I’m afraid I can’t come back I tremble at packing a suitcase —how much does the essential weigh— Sometimes I would prefer not to go anywhere Sometimes I’d prefer to just leave Space makes me as nervous as a cat To depart is always to split apart.”

-Cristina Peri Rossi from “State of Exile.” Translated by Marilyn Buck.

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"Two Studies for a Self Portrait" Francis Bacon, 1970

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"I am speaking now of those of us who emigrated… and I suspect that there are times when the move seems wrong to us all, when we seem, to ourselves, post lapsarian men and women. We are Hindus who have crossed the black water; we are Muslims who eat pork. And as a result – as my use of the Christian notion of the Fall indicates – we are now partly of the West. Our identity is at once plural and partial. Sometimes we feel that we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools. But however ambiguous and shifting this ground may be, it is not an infertile territory for a writer to occupy. If literature is in part the business of finding new angles at which to enter reality, then once again our distance, our long geographical perspective, may provide us with such angles. Or it may be that that is simply what we must think in order to do our work."

"It may be argued that the past is a country from which we all have emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity. Which seems to me self-evidently true; but I suggest that the writer who is out-of-country and even out-of-language may experience this loss in an intensified form. It is made more concrete for him by the physical fact of discontinuity, of his present being in a different place from his past, of his being 'elsewhere'." - "Imaginary Homelands," Salman Rushdie. 1982. Complete essay here.

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Reflection by Lain Singh Bangdel, 2000 Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches. Image courtesy Dina Bangdel via Asia Network Exchange.

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"Indigenous Modernities" by Ashmina Ranjit, 2010. Installation of woven straw from the Planet Nepal Festival at the Patan Museum in Kathmandu. via Asia Network Exchange

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Three Images of Nepal: From Mary Des Chene's "Is Nepal in South Asia? The Condition of Non-Postcoloniality"

"Three images conditioned early research on Nepal. I will call them 1) the fossil, 2) the interface and 3) Shangri-la. The fossil image is found in its most florid form in travel writing: the land that time forgot, the medieval kingdom, and so on. But its effects on scholarly work were also strong. The main premise was that the Rana family autocracy that governed Nepal from 1846 to 1951 had so thoroughly resisted Western incursions and so successfully exploited the country for its own profit that therefore nothing had changed during the near century of its rule. Very easily then, Nepal as it could be observed in 1951 was Nepal as it had been for a century, or even centuries. It is a peculiar view for social scientists to hold, even in an era not known for attention to history, that just because an oppressive government ruled nothing was changing. It is an extraordinary assumption to hold about a period in which several hundred thousand Nepalis fought in two world wars. One might expect the opposite assumption, and I cannot help but think that a deep-seated presumption that if Westerners were not present and active in a place then history could not really be occurring was at work. In this we find perhaps the most thoroughly colonialist aspect of early anthropology of Nepal. While anthropologists no longer actively put this image forward, neither have we done much to dislodge it. The image of the fossilized kingdom is not now itself old history. I take the term “fossil” from a 1993 introductory text on South Asia, which faithfully reports what has become received wisdom and circulates, when images of Nepal circulate at all, in South Asian studies:

its buffer-state function and almost complete isolation in the days of the Raj preserved its fossil status, an exaggeration of that of some princely states within the Indian Empire (Farmer 1993:36; emphasis added).

The second image is that of an interface. Nepal becomes a place betwixt-and-between a meeting ground, neither here nor there as between Central Asia and South Asia; Risley’s “debatable land.” This image has also heavily influenced anthropological thinking about Nepal. The geographical division of Tarai (plains), hills and mountains became also a cultural mapping: most Indian in the south, most Tibetan in the north.There are some good reasons for this: linguistic evidence, cultural affinities and trade patterns of those who live in the mountains and of those who inhabited the Tarai prior to massive migration from the hills (a migration I should note that began in earnest just about the same time that foreign anthropologists entered the country). But an unintended result has been to set up the hills, the in-between region as the really Nepali part of the country. It has been the Tibeto-Burman peoples of the mid-hills –Rais, Limbus, Tamangs, Gurungs, Magars, Thakali – and to a lesser extent the caste Hindus of this region that represent true Nepali culture as presented by anthropologists. The third image: Shangri-la. As with the fossil state, the medieval kingdom, this image appears overtly in travel literature not serious scholarship, but its conditioning influence is undeniable. When anthropologists first entered Nepal they went to the mountains, site of the unknown, the exotic, the pristine. The peoples of this region have been studied quite intensively, but until recently they were seen as people who happen to be encompassed by Nepal, not as Nepalis. Research in the Tarai region has until recently, been notable for its relative absence. Shangri-la was not to be found at sea-level or among Hindi-speakers, and neither was Nepali-ness.

Newars of the Kathmandu valley have also received much attention,but as a culture apart, and a site where archaic forms of Hinduism, effaced from India by colonialism could be studied. Or the syncretism of Buddhism and Hinduism. They were the first urban population to receive serious anthropological attention, but less as urbanites than, as possible residents-of-Shangri-la: after all, no one really knows its locale. The Kathmandu Valley (Nepal mandala) with its Newer temples and bàhàlswas as good a candidate as any. The study of Newars has encompassed all three images: a timeless culture, a syncretic one, a mystical one. Certainly there are exceptions, but I have never met a Newar who recognized more than a sliver of his or her social world in the anthropological literature." Extract from: Des Chene, Mary (2007) Is Nepal in South Asia? The Condition of Non-Postcoloniality. Studies in Nepali History and Society, 12(2): 207-223. Find the full pdf on Martin Chautari's website here. #YesYesYes

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"Passage: Migration" Performance art by Ashmina Ranjit

"...explor[ing] the narratives of transition and assimilation, the experiences in living in the liminal space of belonging, and the idea of prabas and prabasi, one who has left home to settle in a new land."

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I’m obsessed with failure because I think of it as our common fate and material. Every time he puts a sheet in the typewriter, Naipaul’s Mr. Biswas types out the following: “At the age of thirty-three, when he was already the father of four children….” The half-finished sentence lights up a whole dark universe of desire and futility. I want to write about failure the way others write about sex or death.

Amitava Kumar in an interview with PEN

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जान्दिन म कहाँ बाधिएको छु, कहाँ साशित छु | येत्रो भएंकर स्वतन्त्रता पाएर पनि थाहा छैन म कहाँ अल्झिएको छु |

पारिजात (महत्ताहीन)

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Parijat via Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya

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Writers, Readers, and the Sharing of Consciousness

Extracts from Michael Hutt's paper on five most commercially successful Nepali novels of the period 2005-2010: "Writers, Readers, and the Sharing of Consciousness: Five Nepali Novels" (Narayan Wagle’s Palpasa Café, Narayan Dhakal’s Pretkalpa, Krishna Dharabasi’s Radha, Yug Pathak’s Urgenko Ghoda and Buddhisagar Chapain’s Karnali Blues)

"Despite the ending of the ten-year conflict between the Maoists and the state, Nepali society does not yet have a coherent base from which the social evils of the past can simply be relegated to history (see Green 1997: 5). The authors of these novels could be said to be addressing the present from points of difference in the past, disclosing “the solidarity of [the past’s] polemics and passions, its forms, structures, experiences, and struggles, with those of the present day” (Jameson 1981: 18). As descriptions of the social conditions of past eras, all three novels (Urgenko Ghoda, Pretkalpa, Radha) allow the past to exercise a “rigorous judgement” on the present, reminding us of “what we are not yet” (Green 1997: 249) and warning that any disregard of the past may result in continued oppression." "It is important to note that despite the prevalence of a discourse of inclusion in Nepali civil society during the period in question, none of these novels was written by a woman, or by a member of a marginalized or minority group. A number of important novels were published by female and Adivasi Janajati authors during the period (Prabha Kaini’s Anaabrit (BS 2067 (2010-2011)) and Rajan Mukarung’s Hetchakuppa (BS 2065 (2008-2009)) are two examples) but they have not achieved the commercial success of those discussed here. This suggests that male authors from what Mahendra Lawoti characterizes as the ‘Caste Hill Hindu Elite’ (Lawoti 2005) still dominate Nepali literary production,which has remained the bastion of male Bahuns and high-caste Newars for generations."

"At a time of massively expanded print and broadcast media production, it is also significant that...these authors are reputed journalists. As already noted, Wagle was editor of Kantipur at the time he wrote Palpasa Café, while Yug Pathak, Narayan Dhakal, and Buddhisagar all contribute opinion and editorial columns to broadsheet dailies. For some, the increasing porosity of the boundary between ‘journalism’ and ‘literature’ in Kathmandu is symptomatic of a new literary populism..." "For the central protagonist of Karnali Blues...it is Kathmandu that is foreign territory, and the novel charts a journey towards the centre from a geographical and cultural location that a Kathmandu perspective constructs as marginal. To put it simply: Buddhisagar’s hero ‘comes in’ while Wagle’s ‘goes out.’" Citation: Hutt, Michael (2014) "Writers, Readers, and the Sharing of Consciousness: Five Nepali Novels," Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies: Vol. 34: No. 2, Article 6. Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol34/iss2/6

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Devkota via Madan Puraskar.