An Ode to the Past

I witnessed success
afterall happiness is success for me
I saw friends around me
everyone had nothing than praises for me,
but suddenly all those flatters
turned into a lonely submission
no sooner the evil arrows of destiny stroked me
Deserted in the battle of living life,
I was left abandoned in the battle of conquering it again.
There were times when
I was in the umpteen level of frustration,
suicidal tendencies aroused me, and
everywhere I saw were black and darkness.
Those days are not worth remembering, but
life starts then and there for one
who wants to make it all over again.
Though I was physically handicapped and still,
my mental strength has grown to a phenomenal proportion,
and thus making me stable and more productive than before.
Life is full of ups and downs,
I never learnt from ups, but
these downs definitely have taught me to strive,
fight against every odd, and
have encouraged me to live life again
not same as before
but to my hope, much better.

- Saturday, Feb 13, 2010

FANATIC FANTASY

He was very attached to Madhavi… wherever he went, Madhavi would always be beside him… in his every happiness, Madhavi’s decision would be decisive…. Madhavi would be standing lively in his imagination… a friend of his joy, his intimacy and his ups and downs, he loved Madhavi dearly.

Madhavi was like a mother to him… no… like a friend… no… no… like a lover. Infact, he looked upon her in all these forms.

In solitudes, he used to run his fingers down her hair and embrace her… During illness, Madhavi used to sit beside him caressing his forehead with a gentle kiss… Whenever he stumbled upon failure, Madhavi used to raise his spirits urging him to rise from the washout and set his goal again with a greater deal of zeal and fortitude. Madhavi had transpired, in his melancholy and isolated life, a fresh vivacity.

Due to the infinite snags in life, Karun, however, must have been unilingual… he had turned into a soliloquy talking to himself more than the fate talking to his loneliness. He had stockpiled many experiences from the bitter sufferings of past.

Before Madhavi, Pallavi was in his life… Karun and Pallavi loved each other more than anything… they used to get lost in the flight of an affable life collecting the fancies of a beautiful future… in realising that reverie, they both seriously delved themselves in furthering their education and at the same time, devising ways to meet their financial needs too.

Like it was obvious, Pallavi’s parents, one day, came to know about their love scene… Her parents, the strict conformists, poured their rage over Pallavi’s behaviour… She was blessed with scarlet smudges on cheeks and a black-and-blue back… Pallavi couldn’t seek out for any other option than to shed brimming brook off her eyes… their departure was ultimately inevitable… Pallavi was banished away to one of her relatives’ home…

These timid lovers couldn’t afford to confront the social albatross or they hadn’t the courage either. Leaving rest in the hands of destiny, it should also have been the romanticism of their love that induced in them this decision of self-destruction.

Karun, however, appeared a lonesome person thence, studies became far beyond his reach… When he looked at words, letters started dancing for him and reacting with one another… as a result, examinations approached and departed but Karun’s education never raised its bars… he was least concerned of feeding himself… while at home, his quantity of meal intake, only because of his mother’s insistence, would be even less than that of a beggar’s measure… rest of the time, the thought of eating never bothered him… it was hard to distinguish whether his clothes were clean or dirty.. more the dirty, the fittest it looked… but he was satisfied in all that… it had been quite a time when clean clothes had started prickling him…

He saw no meaning in living life and no exception of death… but death also was very reluctant to him… the hardest of thing he found in the world was to die... hanging would invite fear of troubling the neck… burning down in fire would fear of scorching the body… devouring poison would fear of curdling the mouth… and even if he died, that would also fear of losing Pallavi forever… fear engrossed him from all sides and his disorientation proved to weaken him to some more extent.

How he peeped into his failure suddenly amid that fearful life was really strange! But he regarded his incomplete studies the base to his failure…. financial growth as the sign of success… swayed by a feeling that anyone would want their son-in-law to be well-educated and well-earning, he decided to change himself. He left his hometown and reached the capital city to broaden his horizon… accepting educational degree the qualification to marriage, he continued his studies seriously and financial income the guarantee-card of marriage, he devoted himself to work... when success came across, Pallavi was there on his mind… he still had a deep yearning of living a successful life with her… and the qualification and the guarantee-card were also under his arms now…

Suddenly on a fateful day, one of his friends spoke on phone, ‘Today is Pallavi’s wedding’…. his heart exploded at the top of his heartbeat… as if the world was ending the very next minute and that he was going to be buried under the debris… The reason, that he changed himself for, was drifting away along the waves of uncertainty… and he was sinking deep into the oblivion… putting all his achievements on stake, he started moving off at a tangent like a loser… he was like a machine-driven creature wandering around at the instructions of his own piece of code….

In course of this nomadic life, he, at one point, found a friend- Madhavi… Madhavi started directing him to the right course. The unsuccessful tint of Pallavi started fading out slowly and Madhavi’s propitious colour opened up brightly in his life.

All this started when he, one day, happened to get sight of a book put on sale at a footpath bookstall…. a Madan Mani Dikshit’s novel… he bought it against his interest but started reading it with concern… as an influencing upshot, he started regarding Vishwamitra his greatest enemy and began sharing love with the heroine of that novel… it was the same ‘Madhavi’, the novel’s heroine, the name of the novel itself and his newly found love.

Madhavi had come into his life with a wide gamut of possibilities, a zenith of new hope… she was putting him on the right spoor of life spreading coolness over his past tribulations…

‘I love Madhavi dearly… I have spent many nights crying with her… and many times have had intercourse with her… Madhavi is the only love of my life.’ One day, Madan Mani Dikshit was explaining Karun about his relationship with Madhavi this way. Thud! The dais of his love collapsed before a hope had bloomed. The portrait of his unconditional love had already been painted on someone else’s canvas. He envied Madan Mani Dikshit. ‘If I hadn’t been so obsessed to Madhavi, I couldn’t have written this novel.’ Madan Mani continued speaking, drenched from tip to toe in the love of his own Madhavi.

But Karun was walking at random like a lost wayfarer, breaking up his infatuation with Madhavi… in hope of finding another Madhavi of his fanatic fantasy….

(Note: This story is published in The Kathmandu Post, Fiction Park dated October 9, 2011 Sunday)

Preface: In the Battle of Kirtipur

Though I was acquainted with the compositions of Hridaya Chandra Singh Pradhan many years before, I realized the real Hridaya Chandra just few months back. The former acquisition went in quest of literary study but latter was how I came to know his entire literary ability.

In process of searching articles for ‘SATHI’, an english literary-magazine (where I am presently working as an executive editor), our editorial board decided to include a drama of Hridaya Chandra called ‘Kirtipur Ko Yuddha Ma’. Since the original composition was in Nepali, the foremost task was to translate it. Inspite of every effort, we couldn’t get it translated and finally I had to do it myself. The job of translating a drama and that also a portrayal of many ages back wasn’t so easy but I accepting the challenge made myself fortunate. 

When I went through the drama, I, at one moment decided to quit it because I thought I may not be able to give such a beautiful creation its real shape but it took me much endeavours and I eventually got it done but literally unjudged. It was during this time that I came to know how Hridaya Chandra’s writing actually is!  Though it is simply a one-act play but the sketches of the then situation and atmosphere is so artistically done that I guarantee when one goes through it, he might get back to that era. The location seems to gets flashed-back real and the characters seem to come out of the book and speak with the readers then and there.  A revolutionary warrior inside him comes out to fight  and slaughters injustice with the sharpened weapon of pen, he speaks against autocracy on behalf of his protagonist, who is a virtual (fictional) Hridaya Chandra himself.  

The marvellous usage of vocabulary, those typical languages, how simple words thread up to give a beautiful and dense meaning and the dialogues tend to represent the character’s frame of mind vivid. He hasn’t missed to furnish this drama with philosophical restraints of life, the suffering undergone by the prisoners and the sumptuousness of the rulers. Literature is meaningful only if it bears some tint of feelings and actions of the general people and his compositions have touched those traces of progressism and realism. His compositions are the true stories of lives then. His works have thus become living.

Talking about the drama, the story-plot is about the time when Prithivi Narayan Shah, the Great King of Gorkha, set up to unify all smaller territories into a single Nepal and during the stab, he came across Kirtipur. Though Kirtipur is a small town but Prithivi Narayan Shah and his soldiers couldn’t face the brave warriors of Kirtipur and his attempts failed thrice. There are many stories hidden in the womb of history because the winning-rulers generally dominated the losers’ history and established a new history of themselves being all the time true. Same happened here in Kirtipur! Prithivi Narayan Shah’s attack to Kirtipur the fourth time was a deception though everything is fair in war. It was a big festive occasion and he attacked the Kirtipures when they were enjoying. Moreover, some Kirtipures themselves betrayed their country by revealing secrets to Prithivi Narayan Shah. The battle started. The unprepared Kirtipures couldn’t confront the enemies  and finally they had to surrender. Most of the men died and so all the children, women and elderly persons had to fight in disguise. The war-prisoners had to cut their noses. Many repressions undertook place, transgressions went through and autocracies flamed up, but the history is still quiet because the winners were the next rulers and they engraved the truth deep inside the tomb of history. 

But Hridaya Chandra had an innovative knowledge of how the real history was. His creative ability and thorough study of the location (which still exists) demonstrates the qualitative greatness of his compostions, how important and precious they are! There are many of us, even the literature students not knowing the name of Hridaya Chandra because the improper custom of fame and awards has lured our present writers so much that such a true serviceman of literature gets overshadowed. But the time has come to explore the works of such a great writer like Hridaya Chandra and as a result, his drama ‘Kirtipur Ko Yuddha Ma’ has come out in the form of ‘In the Battle of Kirtipur’ before the readers world-wide.

Translation is a hard task and it becomes even harder when question comes of such old hands. I have tried my best to be honest with the true feelings of the composition  and loyal towards the goal of Hridaya Chandra Singh but since human beings are prone to errors, some might have crept in inspite of my unfailing efforts. I apologise if such mistakes have made this great composition disgraceful but I always look forward to rectifying these glitches and it would be a great help if you notified me about it. 

Lastly, I am thankful to the publisher for having faith in me and doing a great task of promoting our veteran writers globally and I can’t remain showering my humble gratitude to Mr. Suprad Chandra Singh Pradhan for his support in every step, by providing either materials or his invaluable guidance. And lastly, I am thankful to our entire team members for their unswerving endeavours to cast such a great doyen of Nepali Literature into the global arena. 

Jayant Sharma 

(Executive Editor ‘SATHI’ Monthly)