Getting Started: A Literary Journey

It is not long before when I realised the truth that writing has an immense strength, a power to hold thousand hearts at a time like an apostle addressing a congregation, such a crave that no hungry belly gets relinquished even by foods, an apex of satisfaction that one gets only once in a life-time, an immortal sense of freedom though grinded hard in the everyday factory of life. A regression in quest of knowledge, a movement started within me the day I was not really prepared for what  I afterwards figured out, preparations were never needed. It was instant and natural like the sparkling of a thunderbolt, so much feelings encircled me that I came to know how Laxmi Prasad Devkota could have written Kunjani in a whole-night, a thunderbolt of mind-set. I could have written even more but the only difference was, those feelings were very raw, not even suitable to have been poured in a scrap with dirty inks. They were teasers, exciters to encourage the sleeping ‘next-me’ inside me and my mind was asking for food, a food of thoughts, a food of matured conscience to fill the so far empty brain dying of a never-ending hunger.

            Ten years have slipped by but the quest going through many ups and downs is still meandering around, the writing though looking bit matured comparatively in certain groups is still crude. I remember my first attempt, a literary-beginning when I used to read the English verses and translate them into Nepali and vice-versa. The instigation was whatever, but it helped an ample in learning rather than in writing. Many might have felt the complex of when they get started, I also underwent but it was late before I accepted the reality that shaping feelings in a paper was a very hard task.

            There was a time when my Nepali was very poor though I am not still good with it and this proved to be the greatest boon for me to enter into the world of literature. If I’d been an average going in Nepali, I would have never dealt the massive books but luckily, my weakness at this moment of life turned out to be the greatest help for me. Our Nepali Sir often used to tell me practise reading and writing, there were many times I got humiliated, demoralized in class only because of my ill-knowledge in Nepali. The course for me was so tough to be dealt with and I used to feel very helpless. It was that time I really took Nepali studying seriously, as a challenge and started a thorough reading and writing of Nepali language and literature. Within a short span of six months, improvement in the ignorant me could be clearly seen, as faint traces of maturity had sprouted in the writing. And about a year after, I must have started writing nicely that in the last days of my school, I got a big inspiring compliment from the same Sir and it was that he wanted to keep my note-copy with him for reference to the junior students.

            Incidently, ‘SATHI’ itself was the first magazine to publish my article, nearly eight years ago.

The gesture though was a small leap, was so inspring that it made me devote even more into the literature. My first days of learning comprised reading novels and stories. I used to borrow those books from school library and some of them, I used to buy myself sparing my pocket money. It was a passion that I never wanted to come out of. Then after, I could comment somehow on those compositions myself and so afterwards, I enjoyed reading critics, how the evaluation of someone’s composition is done! I here learnt that one should go with every aspects of literature even though being a special sect writer, they need to know how feelings wind up in other forms and what can be other means to deduce them! Poetry was the sect I never liked until I started with Devkota, Bhupi, Rimal, etc. I, at this time, coming out of the translation phase had started writing my own compositions. Proper evaluation was required and then I found that my family members all were into literature. Then I needn’t go anywhere, I found a whole lot of books in my own home and as the evaluators, my family members themselves. I used to write and show them, the response used to hurt me. I thought I couldn’t be a good writer but I didn’t know then, those comments were merely for my improvement. Still I write and I know I don’t write good! The only change now and then is that now, I can judge my own compositions and this has helped me judge other’s compositions also irrespective of unpolished verdict then.

            Along the quest, what I think I missed was philosophy, the backbone of literature. Then came the involvement of philosophy in my learning phase. A small pond of enlightment what I, at beginning, used to think literature actually was, ultimately turned into a huge ocean of infinite and unlike erudition. The entire tree of literature was based on the roots of philosophy and still I find many so-called good writers missing the philosophical intercepts and regarding their works a model of realism, progressism and many more not knowing the fact that these “isms” are all the tints of philosophy itself.

            Knowledge is infinite and the more you study, the more you want to study. Writing is not so easy as it appears easy to the non-writers. There lie lots of dedication and determination, however good feelings can’t be expressed nicely and whatever nice expressions don’t possess good feelings. This is where expressions and feelings though seeking one another have a propensity of inconsistency and it is the point where one should be very vigilant, the presentation of ideas should be done so artistically that it requires a thorough and indepth knowledge and a good understanding of literature, a powerful grip of and inclination towards social life as well as a subtle creative fictional power and a sound presence of mind. Literature is present in everyone’s life, the life we undergo everyday and the life we dream of undergoing. Infact every literature is a story of one of those lives. We only need to carve those lives into words artisitically with a perfect blend of feelings and expressions. The tragedy here is those who can understand life better and have keen interpretation of their own existence can present it more efficaciously and they are those who have so far been able to write true stories of our lives successfully unlike those who don’t write are missing the presentation though their everyday lives are the inputs to literature, they are the artists who play almost every episodes of life but never improve acting, they possess all those true stories of life but never script them out! And it is only because they are unknown to it.

To the novices of literature (what I am also), I think learning is necessary and the most important factor is learning for betterment. Whom are you writing for and what are its consequences? Literature without knowledge and a definite objective is worthless. Language is no barrier in writing, it is the expansion of expressions to the understandable masses. Devkota and Sama had high influences of English Literature and our great story writer Guru Prasad Mainali had influences of Indian Literature. Reading world-literature, in different languages and of different situations, helps to reveal the life and literary styles of those provinces.

Then after what we need is to practise writing, writing in a sense that it appears to be rectitude, hints are there to be taken from the learnt literatures. And then finally come out with a gist that should contain the various intercepts of philosophy, it should be useful to the readers as well as to the masses all over and also to the writers. Literature is a mirror of society, it should reflect the smiles and tears of humanly emotions. A good literature then exists when it reveals the feelings from the very low dominant life to the highly dignified life and with not only the whim of happiness but also a warm fragrance of their sweat, it should contain the story of everyday life of the general populace, as pure, as true as the lullaby of a mother. So read and practise writing literature. It has an immense strength, a power to hold thousand hearts at a time like an apostle addressing a congregation, such a crave that no hungry belly gets relinquished even by foods, an apex of  satisfaction that one gets only once in a life-time, an immortal sense of freedom though grinded hard in the everyday factory of life.