Rajan Mukarung
It makes circles incessantly…
Goes up;
Swirls down;
That’s all for an onlooker.
It takes up;
Swirls down;
That’s all for the swinger.
An abrupt rise to a height is pleasure for a while
An appalling pain is a sudden fall from a height
This sequence continues;
It goes round and round
While at the top, one feels—I am quite high
And feels of dreaming even in dreams
But reckons, would die with the fall;
That’s what shakes us and we wake up
Round and round it goes
And sets us in motion—round and round
Makes circle, one after another.
Think once—
About the man who sets the wheel going;
Is he anything less than a government?
Else, why are we besieged by vertigo
Once we are out of the wheel?
Why we nauseate?
[Trans: Mahesh Paudyal]
[Rajan Mukarung is a formidable poet, novelist and critical thinker of the present time in Nepal. Writer of Madan Puraskar winning novel Damini Bhir, he also has other works to his credit, including Hechchakuppa, Pherido Saundarya and Haata Jane Aghillo Raat.]