Mukul Dahal
‘Delay’ and ‘haste’ and the overlapping of ‘romanticism’, ‘modernism’ and ‘post-modernism’ can be perceived as unique features of Nepali literary development. The attributes ‘delay’ and ‘haste’ refer to the pace with which Nepali literary scene had to adjust to the pace of events of history within the country and also to the events of literary, sociological and philosophical innovation and development in the rest of the world. ‘Delay’ was instilled by 104 year-long insular polity, a family rule, that kept people away from education and intellectual exercise, ‘haste’ on the other hand was initiated by the realization that Nepalese literary consciousness needed to catch up with the international literary modes and movements in the post oligarchy freedom of the fifties.
The intervention of the history, thus, is loud and clear in that sense. The beginning of the 20th century registered the urgency of haste for change from the state of stagnation and insularity in the mind of the people. While the major bulk of population tottered in darkness of illiteracy imposed and desired by the Oligarchy, the few educated involved themselves in the preparation of the socio-political revolt. As the political machinery kept the doors of the intellectual and artistic progress shut, the sense of urgency and haste was felt.
The ‘delay’ was stringently perpetrated by politics, by the regime that relegated people to illiterate, ignorant mass for a century. It is worth taking into account how Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909-1959) appeared on the scene when in the west the modernist experimentations were well on their way, redefining the tradition and reforming the form. The education he received in India equipped him with a rare ability to master over the classical Sanskrit metrical forms and also to obtain knowledge of the poetic trends prevalent in the west.
In this essay I observe that Devkota’s period displayed a rare co-existence of classicism, romanticism and modernism which at the time of Mohan Koirala (1926 -2010) culminated into overlapping of Romanticism, Modernism and Post Modernism. Devkota’soeuvre embodies both romantic and modernistic modes of consciousness. Devkota’s contemporary poets were Lekhnath Paudyal (1885-1966), Siddhi Charan Shrestha (1912-1992), Balakrishna Sama (1903-1981), Kedarman Vyathit (1914-1998) and Madhav Ghimire (1919-2020) most of whom embraced romanticism in their poetic compositions. But within this broad generalization of romanticism, there were very many voices and modes that coexisted and overlapped.
The most striking example of such poets is Lekhnath Paudyal. He laid a solid foundation of 20th century Nepali poetry (Shreshtha) and marked a break away from the Shringarik (love and eroticism) age of medieval literature. His creative consciousness exhibited a unique blend of different modes of creativity. In his moralizing, his observance of the rules of classical Sanskrit forms, spiritual and philosophical ponderings as in ancient Vedic classics, he is viewed as a classicist; in his communion with nature, his criticism about the urban encroachment to the purity and sanity of the natural world, he is romanticist. He received a perennial ‘moral inspiration’ from nature; so he positioned nature in the center of all worldly activities. Lekhnath’s classicism was apparent in the poems he wrote in Vedic philosophical mode. He believed that the constantly degrading human society would find remedy only in Vedic moral philosophical precepts.
Lekhnath made a significant contribution in standardizing Nepali language through his unconventional use of diction and rejection of halanta. He showed extreme care in handling rhythm exploiting the potential offered by the form and inherent in the language.
Sānaidekhi chhucho hunchha dusta mānisko mati
Ghochane jangali kādā pahila nai tikhā kati
[A wicked man is mean when he is still young
How prickly the thorns are in their tender age!] (my translation)
An exquisite play of sound with repetition of words and alliteration is in the following quatrain from the poem SatyaSandesh (the message of truth). I provide here its transliteration and translation:
Kāloman dākiniko jala, jalanidhiko motiko jyoti kālo
Kālo saudāminiko chahak saba sharach chandrako kānti kālo
Kailāsha shreni kālo jhalamala garane suryako bimba kālo
Yo sārā sristi kālo mana bicha chha bhane dambha durbhāba kālo
[Black is the water of Mandākini and the shine of the pearl,
Black is the flash of lightning, and Autumn’s moon light
Black is the colour of Kailash, and the glittering image of the sun
Balck is the colour of entire world, if in the heart dwells conceit and ills] (my translation)
Lekhnath could speak in form with freedom because he discarded the orthodox notion about forms and simplified them wherever required. Although he conveyed moral messages, philosophical ponderings or sounded thoroughly didactic, he created special rhythmic effects to avoid dryness. Instead the rhythm lured the readers and the moral, didactic message seemed to illuminate the reader with realizations.
Lekhnath’s metaphorical transformation of his ‘experiential truth’ is a remarkable feature of his most popular poem “Pinjarako Suga” [“A Parrot in a Cage”]. He took the evil of the time, the suffering caused by politics and harmonized this in a work of art. Here are a few quatrains of this poem:
A pitiful, twice-born child called parrot,
I have been trapped in a cage,
Even in my dreams, Lord Shiva,
I find not a grain of peace or rest.
My brothers, my mother and father,
Dwell in a far forest corner,
To whom can I pour out my anguish,
Lamenting from this cage?
Sometimes I weep and shed my tears,
Sometimes I am like a corpse,
Sometimes I leap about, insane,
Remembering forest joys.
This poor thing which wandered the glades
And ate wild fruits of daily delight
Has been thrust by Fate into a cage;
Destiny, Lord, is strange! (Trans: Micahel James Hutt)
Abhi Subedi brings two different interpretation of the poem.
“Some critics regard this poem as an example of rebellious tone of the poet. Dr. Prayag Raj Sharma says, ‘Poet Lekhnath Paudyal, though being a Pundit employed in the palace of the Prime Minister Bhim Shumsher, indirectly pictured the palace of the Prime Minister as cage into which he was placed like a parrot, and voiced his inner desire to fly away from it. ………..
Judging from the evidence of the poet’s other poems of the Vedantic trend; this poem can be interpreted as a philosophical poem also. The cage can be the symbol of the world. But the poet’s longing to escape from the monotony of his time also must have found expression in this poem. There is a blend of pathos, rebellion and asceticism in this poem.”
Whether the ‘cage’ be a symbol of the insularity of the Ranas rule and the ‘parrot’ be a symbol for the Nepalese people, or the poet himself placed in the palace, the poem’s sonorous rhythm and the form create an effect that enables the poem to settle in a reader’s memory. Lekhnath consciously created such effects throughout his poetic career. In the later period he also included subtle irony in his poems. Subedi claims:
“He was also against the British rule in India. He compares mosquitoes and panthers with the ‘white’ colonizers: The wicked came from afar/Prowling slowly/Like a panther/ To break the pen of goats…/Like the wicked whites”
It is interesting to see the poet’s transition from his rhapsodic poems such as Ritu Bichar (Reflections on Seasons), from his didacticism to the poem in which he includes irony and he criticizes lapses and foibles in human behavior.
Drawing the blood and bribe from the innocent
With items of worship and slaughtering of goats,
Some offered puja, praying the god to be happy
I cried at it, at the degrading state of humanity (Paudyal) (my translation)
His flights of imagination, his lyrical communion with nature changed to moralizing and the sense of irony. About change of poetic modes and language, it is worth looking at what Mutlu Konuk Blasing has said:
“Poetic language is a thoroughly historical and social medium. Words, grammar, poetic forms, and the modes of their dissemination and circulation; speech, sounds and their representations; and the shape and social status of emotions are all subject to constant change, and the function of poetry also changes in tandem with social change.” (Blasing)
The society of his time shared what Lekhnath thought the function of poetry was. He brought change in diction and applied it to his unorthodox use of Sanskrit forms. It was warmly hailed by the readers. Lekhnath became an instrument and vehicle of this change. His simplification of diction, his respect for syntactic and semantic potential of the language and his awareness about revising, refining and editing the verses before they were made public set an ideal for his contemporary poets. He influenced Laxmi Prasad Devkota and Bala Krishna Sama, two great figures of his time who led Nepali literature to a new height; Devkota with his copious creative outburst in various genres and Sama with his contribution in poetry, essay and plays.
Laxmi Prasad Devkota swam in diverse poetic currents significantly enriching Nepali poetic experience. Moreover, my attention is to see how romanticism existed with modernistic approach in his writings. When Eliot was in his prominence in Britain, Devkota’s attention was on the romanticists. He was graduated with degrees BA and BL in the Indian city, Banaras, where he gained exposure to English literature. The means of communication was not as swift and all pervasive as it is today, and he might not have sufficient information and reading texts of the contemporary modernist poets from the west. He read and appreciated Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats instead.
The energy and liveliness of Devkota’s copious imagination play a vital role for the success of his epics. He embraces discordant aspects of language such as a sophisticated, Sanskritized diction as in Shakuntala and very simple language of everyday speech as in MunaMadan and Mhendu. The whole of Devkota’s works fall into three categories: poems composed in traditional forms, lyrical poems composed in folk meter and unmetered poems. The range of sources that the poet draws on is highly diverse. These sources include Hindu mythology he applied in Shakuntala, Ravan Jatayu Yuddha, Greek legends he used to frame narratives of Mayabini Sharsi and Prometheus and native folk tradition he used in MunaMadan and Mhendu.
Devkota’s reading of English romanticists gave a fine creative exposure to him. He adored the commonplace and simplicity, displayed empathy for the suffering poor but his range was very wide and creative energy was intense. He had mastered the Sanskrit metrical forms which he employed in the epics. He completed Sulochana in ten days and Shakuntala in three months. He adopted the tune and melody of folk ballads in MunaMadan which is known not only for the realistic narrative but also for the melody of the folk meter. The narrative is steeped in the experience of many Nepalese people.
This work is a supreme example of romanticism in Nepali poetry as it is marked by the dominance of pastoral setting and celebration of folk life. Devkota’s love for and closeness with the life of the common people must have made him pick up their rhythm which dictated the lines of the most popular MunaMadan. Donald Davie said,
“T.S. Eliot has remarked, ‘I know…that a poem or a section of a poem tends to appear first in the shape of a rhythm before developing into words, and that this rhythm is capable of giving birth to the idea and the image”.
And Schiller says,
“When I sit down to write a poem, what I most frequently see before me is its musical element and not a clear idea of the subject, about which I am often not entirely clear myself.”
The folk meter Devkota has used in MunaMadan is based on the syllable count and arrangement of the caesuras. Each line has 16 syllables with the caesura placed in this way: 3/2, 3/2, 3/3. The poet has used some variation at places. But this formal arrangement is not retained in the translation of the following extract. Madan’s experience in an alien land and the description of the city renders it into a special reading experience.
Here are four lines in transliteration to see the movement of the rhythm in the poem:
Dādā ra kādā ukālā thādā janghāra hajāra
Bhotako bāto, dhungā ra māto, nangāra ujāra
Madan Goes to Tibet
Hills and mountains, steep and sheer,
rivers to ford by the thousand:
the road to Tibet, deserted and bare,
rocks and earth and poison drizzle,
full of mists and laden with rain,
the wandering wind as cold as ice.
Monks with heads round and shaven,
temples and cremation pillars,
hands and feet grow numb on the road
and are later revived by the fire,
wet leafy boughs make the finest quilts
when the teeth are ringing with cold,
even when boiled, it’s inedible:
the rawest, roughest rice.
At last, roofs of gold
grace the evening view:
at the Potala’s foot, on the valley’s edge,
Lhasa herself was smiling,
like a mounta in the Potala touched the sky,
a filigreed mountain of copper and gold.
The travelers saw the golden roof
of the Dalai Lama’s vast palace,
where golden Buddha hid behind yak-hair awnings,
graven rocks of every color, embroidered like fairy dresses,
snowcapped peaks, waters cool,
the leaves so green, mimosa flowers
blooming white on budding trees.
(Trans: Michael James Hutt)
MunaMadan not only unfolds a realistic narrative, it explores the depth of emotional truth of a common Nepali. Natural set up, brought alive by his charming verses, is a source of inspiration and delight; a suffering human soul finds solace in it. This work also entails Devkota’s progressive attitude in regard to the caste system imposed by orthodox Hindus. He rejects this trite mechanism by violating its norms. On the way back home, when Madan falls ill and is taken care by a Bhote, supposedly untouchable by a Hindu, Madan touches his feet and says:
This son of a Chhetri touches your feet,
but he touches them not with contempt,
A man must be judged by the size of his heart,
not by his name or his caste. (Trans: Michael James Hutt)
Devkota employed jhyaure meter for an aesthetic purpose of a serious work. Prof. Hutt says: ‘Devkota broke new ground by becoming the first Nepali poet to employ the jhyaure meter of the folk song, despised by earlier poets as vulgar and unfitting’. (M. J. Hutt) The effect of the form is skillfully handled in MunaMadan so that Madan the protagonist and other characters including his sister, beloved wife and mother are more than the ‘textual constructs’. Nepalese readers take them as somebody they know.
When the form makes language audible through rhythm, the emotional truth comes across. Readers are moved to tears when Madan finds that his beloved wife and his mother are no more. His life full of inconsistency caused by penury and unemployment led Devkota to the point of lunacy. His ideals of romanticism, the power of imagination, his source of delight in the beauty of nature, his empathy for the suffering poor eventually gave way to experimentation with language and form in his later days. He was also dogged by the repression of the political system which compelled him to flee to India for freedom of expression.
When Devkota arrived at “Pagal” (“Lunatic”) he arrived at the other end of his poetic trajectory. At this point he came under influence of his contemporary poet Gopal Prasad Rimal (1918-1973) who is known as the first successful free verse poet of modern Nepali poetry. The question of gadhyakabita (free/unmetered verse) has been dubiously linked to the modernist trend of Nepali poetry. But it will be worthwhile to see how the modernism showed itself up in the entire national consciousness. Obviously the doors to modernism were flung open after the repressive regime of family rule was overthrown by the people’s movement in the fifties.
Late arrival of democratic system of governance, lateness in availability of educational facility to the common people, wide spread poverty and feudal system of the distribution of land, agrarian mode of occupation of the majority of people delayed the artistic and cultural consciousness of the people.
Devkota’s poem Pagal unfolds the conflict between rigidity of the orthodox rational of the people and the artistic consciousness. Devekota’s sense of temporality, consciousness about change and his engagement into poetic achievement was at odds with the society. He was regarded to have lost his mental balance and was sent to the lunatic asylum. To this charge he replies:
Surely, my friend, insane am I
Such is my plight.
I visualize sound.
I hear the visible.
And fragrance I taste.
And the ethereal is palpable to me.
Those things I touch–
Whose existence the world denies,
Of whose shape the world is unaware.
I see a flower in the stone–
when wavelet-softened pebbles on the water’s edge,
In the moonlight,
While the enchantress of heaven is smiling unto me.
They exfoliating, mollifying,
Glistening and palpitating,
Rise before my eyes like tongueless things insane,
Like flowers,
A variety of moonbirds,
I commune with them as they do with me,
In such a language, friend,
As is never written, nor ever printed, nor ever spoken,
Unintelligible, ineffable all.
Their language laps the moonlit Ganges shore,
Ripple by ripple,
Surely, my friend, am I insane,
Such is my plight.
The danger of the poet who so thoroughly worked on the traditional forms and folk meters could be to fall onto ‘the syntax of prose’ which Donald Davie calls ‘a part of formal grammar’ (Davie). But Devkota has consciously avoided that danger. His line units are skillfully worked out and timed by the ideas, the articulation and building up of emotional response. So discarding one kind of form, he has invented the other although the new form is not bound by the rules of long and short vowels, number of letters and progression of caesuras.
Clever and eloquent you are!
Your formulas are ever running correct.
But in my calculations one minus one is always one.
You work with your senses five,
With the sixth I operate.
Brains you have, my friend,
But the heart is mine.
To you a rose is but a rose,
It embodies Helen and Padmini for me.
You are strong prose,
But I am liquid poetry.
You freeze, I melt,
You decant when I go muddy.
When I am muddled, you are clear.
And just the other way about.
You have a world of solids,
Mine is one of vapor
Yours’ is thick and mine is thin.
You take a stone for hard reality,
I seek to catch a dream,
Just as you try to grab that cold sweet, minted coin’s round reality.
Mine is a badge of thorns,
But yours is one of gold and adamant.
You call the mountains mute,
But orators do I call them.
Surely, my friend, a vein is loose in my brain.
I am insane,
Such is my plight. ……….
The poem is built upon a sequence of theses and anti-theses. The theses represent the lethargy and dullness of mundane life he is opposed to. His sensibility makes him to rise above them, to refresh them and enable people to see in different light, as higher truth. He seems to argue, as Davie’s quote of Mrs. Langer, that ‘poetic reflections… are not essentially trains of logical reasoning…’ (Davie) Devekota’s opposition is against the prosaicness, flatness or ‘the stability of the quotidian’ (Blasing). His critique of the existing social order embodies his emphasis on the need of change in the existing social consciousness. The word ‘Insane’ is an antiphrasis which implicitly means ‘saner’ than those who erroneously see him as ‘insane’. Marian Aguair’s argument of the modernism’s inherent urge for change and orientation to ‘now’ is insightful here to see Devkota in this light:
“Modernity’s allure lies in its distinct temporality, for it conceives of the “now” as a moment of possibility. This is modernity’s promise, its beguiling narrative of transformation. The imminent temporality is closely related to the project of modernization. Modernity’s time of “now” is both prophetic and anticipatory of change not yet realized, providing a mode for social transformation within global contexts that include development, colonization, and nationalism. The imperative to change is the conceptual core of modernity, placing it always at odds with the present as well as the past.”
Devkota’s lyrical ‘I’ conceives of the ‘now’ as a prophetic moment. He signals towards something viable beyond tangible world. Even in Devkota’s epic Shakuntala, which draws upon Hindu mythological story, Devkota reveals his awareness of the temporal depth. Bal Krishna Sharma says:
“This temporal depth is pervasive throughout the text. The conclave of Indra and his entourage to distract Vishwamitra’s penance camouflages the Rana’s sinister design to foil the potential Nepalese stirring to revolt against the oppressive regime.”
In the poem ‘Lunatic’, further on, he dismisses ‘the man-made aggrandizements, be it the kings, gods or political leaders’:
I have called the Nawab’s wine all blood,
And the courtesans all corpses.
And the king a pauper.
I have denounced Alexander the great.
And I have deprecated the so-called high-souled ones.
Devkota departs from all the prosodic culture he followed and established himself in this poem and in some other poems such as ‘Baghle Bachha Kina Khanchha?’ (Why does a Tiger Eats a Baby?) and Prabhuji Malai Bhedo Banaideu (God, Make me a Sheep). This departure is a clear indication of an arrival of modernism in Nepali poetry. During his time romanticism coexisted with modernism.
***
[Born and brought up in Nepal, Dr. Mukul Dahal has had a collection of his poems, Beyond the Last Frontier (Seemaater Seemanta), published in Nepali. He edits PEN HIMALAYA, a quarterly e-zine of poetry, book reviews and interviews. Having completed an MA in Creative Writing at Swansea University, he currently lives in Aberdeen. He has been published both at home and abroad.]