Mahesh Paudyal
It becomes quite a task for readers and critics to sort out the allegorical, especially the political shred in a romance when it is modeled after a traditional fantasy, and the story moves around love, sex and amorous infatuations. Most often, the readers are likely to be carried away by the plot threaded to a legendary love story. The brilliant novelists often camouflage their political agenda so artistically that unless one reads the story between the lines with a barometrically critical sense, there is no likelihood that it would be revealed, and the story will, in most cases, continue to be a pure romance—the ‘once there was a king’ type of story.
The same happened with Yangsila ever since it was published in its Nepali version in 2017. Most of the critical acclaims it received got a notice of its story, the brilliance of language the author has used, his knowledge of the Eastern social and religious traditions, especially that of the Kirats and the Tibetans, but very few unearthed it allegorical edge. There are two obvious reasons for that. First, the setting of the novel is medieval—around fourteenth century to be precise—inspiring awe and admiration in the minds of the readers as done by fantasy tales with a lot of magical and surrealistic happenings, and second, the tip of the iceberg is dominated by multiple love relations among visiting Nepali artists and maidens in the Chinese soil hosting them. The bucolic setting, the hillside trails and river banks, the majestic mountains and the lovely gardens are grand enough to sweep the readers’ concentration on the romantic camouflage of the narrative.
The story is linear. Following an invitation by Chinese Emperor Timur Khan, a group of Nepali artisans, under the leadership of Panchashar, move toward the mainland China, via Tibet. The story echoes the visit of Nepali artist Araniko, together with his friends, at the invitation of Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan in the fourteenth century for a similar task.
With Panchashar are other artists of whom Mauni, a speechless but highly intelligent artist, is his confidant. They enter China through a trail in eastern hills of Nepal, walking past Baraha Region, bank of the Tamor and mountain passes near Olangchungola in Taplejung of Nepal. Before they enter China, the team is received by the Kirats living in this region, and they are introduced to their glorious history and rich art and culture. The Kirats also offer two of their daughters—Sanjhang and Teejhang—as wives to Panchashar. Panchashar promises to return, and moves into China making his newly-wed wives wait for him.
The mission in China is to construct luxury palaces for Timur. Panchashar and his team do it efficiently, erecting one palace after another, and extending their stay far longer than the stipulated time. In the meantime, Panchashar gets close to Melamchi, the official deputed by Timur administration to oversee the construction work. His friend Mauni gets close to Omu, and their affairs continue with occasional jerks here and there. Finally, Panchashar and Mauni get back to Nepal together with Melamchi and Omu as their respective wives. After getting his family settled, Panchashar moves east to meet Teejhang and Sanjhang and bring them home.
Apparently a simple, linear and straight narrative, the novel has deeper shades of meaning, which are far deeper than the traditional love-marriage-settlement romances. There are at least three discernable political allegories embedded in the apparently innocent narrative.
The first political commentary the novel makes is on the gradual decline of the ancient glory of the Kirat civilization, an issue internal to Nepal. The Kirats are people occupying the northern mountainous region in the eastern part of Nepal. They belong to the Mongolian race, and are believed to have descended from regions around the interface of Nepal and Tibet in the ancient times. Over the years, they developed their own culture, and earned fame as a brave, fearless, united and homogenous community, having its own religion, pantheon, deities and rituals. The novel depicts them as a community in the verge of disintegration, requiring people from external communities to come and rescue them. This is a political comment against the weakening internal solidarity, and the interference by external forces. The reference is to incessant proselytization of the Kirats these days, and the cultural disintegration therefore. It also is seemingly making an observation: Real welfare of the Kirats, and of all communities in Nepal for that matter, lies in the invention of their own glories, instead of letting external actors enter and interfere with the internal decorum of the community. This also is a comment on recent decision to make Nepal a secular state, which in spite of having many merits, has opened doors for religious missions to come and perform as they wish.
The second allegorical meaning lies in the way the author observes cultural and familiar relations in the trans-Himalayan region in eastern Nepal. By showing families connected by lineage, marriage and trade, he is foregrounding the polemic that boundaries of the modern national states make no difference when communities on both sides of the international border come from the same stock. Governments, guided by documented rules, often stay far away from the awareness that communities occupying international borders often form an interface far thicker than the brick walls and barbed wires that demarcate international borders. This is an appeal to revise the concept of modern nation states that stands on the grounds of border division and overlook the undercurrent cultural connections that are not only indelible, but also eternal. The relation between people in Tibet and the eastern hills of Nepal makes a unique example of an antithesis to the concept of a nation state.
The third allegorical aspect of the novel is the author’s proposition to review Sino-Nepal relation, which is most often eclipsed by non-issues. Instead of engaging in mere eulogies, the novelist has shown how the political community in China, at least in the medieval times, was a patron of lavish luxury and expensive life style. The unreasonable attack on the gardens of Tibet, and the forced migration of the people there, including the monks, has a strong political connotation. All these things force the readers to look at modern political relations in the new light.
There is one last thing to be critically viewed. One might wonder why the novelist Hari Raj Bhattarai, a seasoned professor and writer, gives his 2017 fiction such Arcadian hue and medieval touch, when there were so many contemporary and realistic issues at his disposal to pick and forge into stories. Having lived through a time when Nepal was passing through one major revolution to another, one constitution to another and one turmoil to another, the novelist seems kind of frustrated. Apparently a cavalier approach, this is also a strategy of escape. It has been evidenced in the world literary history that when reality becomes too mean to live with, writers tend to escape it by resorting to fantastic models, including extra-realistic fictions and romantic imaginations. Novelist Hari Raj did the same in Yangsila, but left enough rooms for the readers to see through the lines and discover the political subplots. In fact, novelist Bhattarai saw Nepal change from an oligarchy to democracy ushered by the fall of the Ranas, and the dawn of constitutional monarchy, which regressively evoked monolithic Panchayat, only to change into multiparty democracy headed by the king, and ultimately a republic without the king. At the major turns that underpin these changes, there were movements, and there were armed groups that launched war against the establishment. One of the longest of such conflicts was the one launched by the Maoist party, lasting through the 90s and early part of the first decade of the twenty-first century, making Nepal a secular, republican and federal state. But it is understandable that many of these changes came with a cost, and one of the most detrimental of them has been that, Nepal’s cultural sovereignty has become porous, and external elements are trying to weaken the internal strength of Nepal, socially and culturally. Bhattarai’s novel fundamentally is a criticism of this development in Nepal.
Whatever be the motifs, the novel is a wonderful read for international readership. It engages the readers in a trans-Himalayan voyage, through its hills, rivers, valleys and gorges, and exposes them to the hidden treasures of Tibet and China, which are in most of the cases unmentioned chapters in world literature. After Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s epic Muna Madan and Dor Bahadur Bista’s novel Sotala, Yangsila is yet another major creative work that connects Nepal with Tibet and China, and inspires newer studies in this line.
[Paudyal (b. 1982) is a noted critic, poet and fiction writer. He teaches at the Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University.]