Laxmi Prasad Devkota
Nepal!
Beautiful, peaceful and ‘vast’!
I myself has written one day, I don’t know how the feeling of ‘vastness’ occurred to me.
Turn the pages of the world atlas and see how large the area of Nepal is. A small drop seems to disappear in the ocean; just like that, this small piece looks like a small box along the line of the Himalayan mountain. There must be many countries and people that may not have heard even its name. This tiny, cute piece of the earth, which is like the green capital of peace, is more interested in concealing itself than in revealing before others. She loves solitude. She prefers the banks of the Ganges for meditation and wisdom, and the snowy peaks to take part in the clamour and bustle of the world.
Although she is curious about modernity, she is a worshipper of antiquity. She loves to play hide-and-seek till today and wants to dream of the golden dawn of yesterday. It is small but is heaven; it is a miniature but is an eye. It is aloof but is a universe in itself; it is distant but possesses an alluring magic of remoteness. There are very few who can discover this very heart of Mother India, because it is hidden inside the depth of the mountain-breasts.
A diamond crystal is small, a pearl bead is small; a gem is small; a sweet spoken innocent child is small too; small is the pupil of the eye. The glimpse of the core of the heart is the smallest of all. Let it be a small shirbindu, that is the crown of this earth, but like the bindu of Omkara, it is dense with the supreme felicity. If we call a grain of sand small, the microscope and science are showing illuminating magic of the universe in a single particle.
There are two differences of outlook concerning big and small — one physical and the other spiritual. If someone tells me that China is bigger than Nepal, I feel like laughing on hearing that elephant is bigger than man. A field is counted as large not on the basis of the quantity of its soil, rather on the basis of its quality, condition, fertility, and emotional effect. I feel, Kalidasa’s Shankuntal is vaster than the volumes of all the books in the British Museum that Lord Macaulay had swallowed.
‘Pooh, should one study Nepali, too? Our young authors create fake writings with great difficulty’ says the snobbish Angrezibaz with spectacles. Although I have no time to cry, I feel pity on them and would like to see their hypocrisy instead. Let the sun over the English accent not set; however, I find such a magic in Nepali words which one experiences when returning home from a hot foreing land in the first ascent of the mountain forest full of cool spring extending the first welcome with the gust of cool breeze ‘Coo! Coo!’ in the beauteous world of newly awakened question that comes mixed up with fragrance emanating from Nepali forest. I prefer the natural poetry of the Nepalese mountains that carry simple feeling, that is against all grammar, that echoes from the heart, to the imagination and epics of Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe etc. I don’t want to listen to the ‘Waltz’, but I want to listen to the rãni-banaimã of the gãine who gets a little hut made in a small cover of the mountain and very often, like a cuckoo, in the spring, appearing from nowhere with a three-stringed sarangi. How much has foreignness gripped us, we want to show off in the Cockney dialect imitating others by twisting the worlds of mother tongue, although nature has given us much musical mouth and nose, which can never be imitated by the flawed snobbery of others, in the foreign sound, which doesn’t concord with the string that produces discordant note. Because of our trends of showing pride in the unnaturalness and artificiality, it is obvious that we are supporting the feeling of ‘I am weak’ in tune with other schoolboys. Some say Hindi; others claim for Bengali, but I say the natural languages of the blue mountains, sweet language, waterfall-filled sweet accent, flashes of the Himalayas, the baimatras of reclining amarballari, the alphabets that fly and talk with the birds! My language is more awake; let it be not expanded, but this is the fountain of my rainbow.
Small, sweet, peaceful, fragrant and matchless — that’s all! This is Nepal for me! Wagner is digging with a spade here; Shakespeare might be tilling the land, Tycian and Turner might be tending sheep, Socrates must be meditating in the cave, Kalidas must be singing uninterrupted in the mid Ashãdh, Sando carries loads of firewood to my place, Helen Keller sings songs in my forest, there are so many Sabitris whose stories the world has never heard of; there is such a vast treasure of literature which is not yet written, neither will it ever be. How many souls might there be that understand the natural Vedas of springs! Don’t they know about the golden sights of sunrise in Kantipuri? Don’t the little birds chirp in the groves of the immortal creepers of the heart-sky? Are those particles of love which are densely packed within me and are like the pearly beads of dew drops gathered during the dark nights shining on the bosom of the roses small?
If there is any land on this earth that can produce such feelings as are called the true Aryan feelings and arouse divine culture in one’s heart, where clean snowy water flows in the Bagamati making tender ripples with splashes, creating beautiful vibrations like beautiful buds in the heart, reminding one of the beautiful and pure peaceful feelings of one’s childhood days, it is only Nepal. Because tangles like civilized webs of spider cannot fly here in the atmosphere polluted with the factory smoke. One can find here enough childhood, novel exploration and its magic, Nepali heart, pulsating with Aryan feelings as a consequences of Nepali air and food habit and alive with Aryan dreams. In no land could I ever find the emotional purity and simplicity. The people here treat other people as human beings; in countries that are considered civilized, they look upon each other like aggressive an animal looking at another aggressive animal. He, who is not a Nepali and wants artificiality, does not like simplicity; the children of the mountain feel contented, the heated minds of the plains are always boiling in discontentment. Where the Nepali eyes see gods, other people’s eyes see mere stones; the native heart is elated with joy to see the God’s leela, this is, His sport, in nature; but a foreigner’s heart enters merely into the dark maze of science. God’s glimpses are scattered everywhere here; this cannot be found at a place where the darkness of intellectual knowledge and wisdom prevails. Knowledge is more precious than science; man does not take pride in discovering shallow laws filled by putting blind machines or ignorance. He who calls it superstition is blind to his own superstition; but ah! Nepali heart! What else on earth could be more beautiful, peaceful and alive!
I find there everything, where I find this life. My soul rose opens the eyes, becoming aware of the magic of human life. I see there the perfection of human world; I see no object of beauty that is not found in the world of Nepal. I am the pure magic of this Himalayas, an image of the Nepali soil, which was ignited by the sparks of heaven and was alive with the light called life. This man has infinity in Nepal. It is teeming with the microscopic image of the objects that are possible to be, and have existed in this planet.
In winter scene, one can see the samples of the polar regions; in the scene of the rainy summer days the samples of the characteristic here. One can find here the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; here are the three hundred Niagara Falls. It is a blindness on the part of the a non-Nepali to count the Great Wall of China among the seven wonders of the world but never to see the wonder in the great walls along the lines of Nepal. Gauri Shankar mansion of radiant silver is shining before us. What is not available here? I feel amazed, what is not found here? Heaven is right above it, hell right below. Aren’t gods dancing around this place the whole day and amidst the human souls? In the infinity of the sky aren’t the greatest constellations revolving around it like the fireflies? Then I repeat, what is not available here? The wonders of heaven are the completeness of the earth?
The plains are desolate places; we don’t get any coolness to the eyes. It is same everywhere. One cannot find in the plains these artistic views, linear sketches, colours and shades, tint and glimmering shine of the mountain peaks, the earth overflowing in great happiness rising higher and higher up, touching heaven, and laughing with a golden smile on the peak, its landscape, its light and shade, the soft, glimmering bluishness of the forest, this sweetness and this charm. The plain is blunt, and monotonous like a dumb; the plain cannot be photogenic. It is like the background of a picture, from which the true picture has been removed but in the sight of the hilly region there is a sweetness of diversity. The colours here are deep and lustrous. This is enlightening; it’s the heart of poetry and music. Life here doesn’t look like a monotonous, dark pitch road. This is full of novelty—somewhere elevation, somewhere depth, the magic of ascent, the charm of the look, the sweetness of hearing. The Indian plain boasts of the crop grown on the fertile soil from the mountains, but it is like a canvas spread all empty, whereas here, each canvas is full of real artistry. Just sitting at the corner of a mountain and glancing sideways, one can see three or four worlds from the same spot. Now I can see four different pictures in the same mountain: shadow, sunlight, drizzle and fog.
The earth which is so abounding in greenery, where varieties of beauty are so colourful, where very mountain is a living world, the world full of birds, deer, and tigers, to see which human heart swells strange with fear, where there are silver lips in the stones, where dew drops are scattered on the moss, where there is divine sermon in the streams that flow, where the leaves are always talking like the commotion of the living world, where nature, creating the visual sights of different colours is exhibiting skill in perfect combination of colour and light, where creepers are flying like the national flags on the natural walls, the highest mountain is ruling the world decorated with different flowers, won’t there be sketches and activities in the imagination of men?
I don’t know why I feel that whatever remains close to the height of the mountains, is inwardly connected with their height and glory; in the minds of those sons of the fertile land abounding in green fields, there is fertile genius, and they have abundant sylvan pictures in their imagination; most of the poets are born near the flower garden, great people near the mountains. On seeing faces of suckling fawns, most people turn saints, Mother Nature keeps on swinging the cradles of the heroes close to the forest that rears tigers. I see the relationship of poetry with the country where many birds chirp. In the grave dusk of the forest my sentiment in the borderline of the darkness of wisdom and the full enlightenment of knowledge gets expressed. While in Nepal, I can get the pleasure of Bankali, but in Calcutta, I forget everything about it. There is a close relationship between the mountain and songs, like the one between speech and meaning. Heaven descends there, through the music of the continuous flow of the mountain springs; one’s impure feelings get absolved, because one can find the effects of harmonizing the primary tunes of human hearts corrupted with struggles. All these leaves are turning into lush green feelings; these are gently flowing within my heart.
Then, why shouldn’t I write ‘vast’? the feeling of ‘vastness’ was in the breath of the Himalayas, in the blue colour of the mountains, in the abundant generosity of nature, in the chirping of many divine forests in this land of love. In the happiness this soul has sought for, and my own universe of exploration, where I am evolving into a perfect man out of a man of brutality, which my childhood considered absolute infinity, I was woken up as its vital part, its red, rosy, tender consciousness. When I sit under the peepal tree full of sweet songs, the consciousness of greatness springs up in me; when I go to and brood in silent pleasure for some time, then I tell my friend, ‘Ah! What a great feeling occurrs to me, wherever you see, there is nothing more distinct than ‘vast’ in Nepal.’
Whatever may the size be, there is nothing greater than one’s motherland on this earth. The affection, which has the nature of the sun, grows intense within our heart albeit in a small scale. The nature of love is, it seems, the more one expands the area, the thinner it grows. I learn the love for the universe in my motherland, not the other way. Every tissue of my mind is aware of the significance of the love for the motherland Nepal; Nepal, radiates again and again in my heart! If I had been in a furthest corner of the world at this moment, I could have replied ‘Nepali’ to any tour-loving gandarbha’s question: ‘Who are you?’ Even to the question of ‘What do you want descending from heaven?’ I would counter-reply, ‘The welfare of Nepal’. Let others seek for salvation, and run after heaven; I want continuous best-wishes and unending service to Nepal. Be it heaven or Raurab, that is hell, don’t tell me the glories of other countries; my heart knows where my pearl lies and how its glow is! Those who mock at me will do so; but I say in my motherland is that Aryan civilization which nurtures the world with spiritual strength until a great age. Let others’ crown rest on their heads; the crown of my country lies in my heart.
A foreign land is a dream, a tale of an unknown land, an unseen glimmer, a vague, unacceptable artificial thing. What does it concern my eyes to pine for something that does not fall within my horizon! A very few Nepali people might have understood that there is a world outside the dome of starts visible above the Nepali sky. In fact, for an ordinary person, there is nothing greater than the dome above his head, and he doesn’t care if this is merely a fragment of the vast structure. In the lines of the phrase ‘completeness out of complete’, what is the use for me of understanding the fact that another horizon lies outside this? The eyes that can see the whole universe might regard the sun merely as a small speck; however, for the dwellers of the earth, the sun is considered a white, warm, life-giving god. My native land is my entire world; it is my reality, my truth, and only one solid existence.
When I am in a foreign land, I am watching cinema or a drama; when I am in my native land, I keep on experiencing life. Those writers who claim that love for one’s motherland is narrow-mindedness have started writing as they grew tired of narrowness these days. But all those amateur universalist writers and poets that are imitating Thakurbaba forget that philanthropy develops in one’s own native country, and to say that one who doesn’t know how to love one’s own people and country loves the world is like claiming that one knows how to run before he has learnt how to toddle. This is what we call constructing a house upon the sand. If my dreams also tried to fly away from the acceptable virtue of being a Nepali, they will become more worthless than the clouds that never rain. If the artistic expressions of living experience is literature, he who is not a true Nepali cannot write Nepali literature. Every scene of Nepal and the objects experienced here are deeply entrenched within me, and in the form of my thought, feeling and memory, they are taking the form of self-expression through various interactions. I don’t write on the basis of the relationship among the elements that embody the welfare of a particular race filled with the truth of the whole world, what I write is Nepal. I don’t speak; what I speak is Nepal. These are not my thoughts; these are the effects of the perceptible materials of sights and sounds, the only immortality within me. Receiving ever-new glimpses and messages, I keep moving on my path of service, which is the only immortality within me. Obtaining new glimpses and messages through these materials, I keep moving on my path of duty.
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Translated by Prof. Dr. Govinda Raj Bhattarai