Naba Raj Lamsal
The box flowed on
With the baby boy packed inside.
Flowing is a river’s lot
Also a part of its dharma;
It flowed on without a stop.
Silent is the place
Mute are the villages
People are constantly on the move—
They are living; they are drinking their own sweats
Gullible is the hamlet
For, it is itself a confluence of the guiltless
They would never know the black tales of the dark night.
The people have no information
River that knows has no voice, as people do
Man cannot decipher the river’s voice — its melodious croon
He doesn’t understand the soft petitions of natural truth
Nor does he understand orders or prayers
And that is why he is comparable to stone.
The nights constantly conceal crimes
For doing the same
They have turned dark
Too dark for bright eyes and hearts to see!
When consciences bundle up
A day results
And at times the night bites this day
In the guise of yet another day.
How can a mother’s heart
Ever become stone-like?
Why does someone make her so?
Such a mother, by some mistake,
Appears like a mother but she is not!
Mother and ruthlessness are different!
How can day and night coexist?
As the moist heart drips
The human melody emanates
And man bumps against words, or spills over them.
How the beautiful saplings of tender dreams
Get wiped, like lines of a cloud?
Who will seek definitions?
Who will look for colours of dreams?
The consciousness of the age
In all its manifestations
Is trying to awaken the village—
But a village doesn’t wake up
Unless the people do.
For want of consciousness that peels the nights
The nights tend to commit a series of crimes
The days keep enduring them
And nature breaks into tears—
To mourn the tragedy of eternal truth.
Kunti left her Karna alone
To conceal her wanton wrong
Mopped her eyes with her shawl
Could not but cry; nor could moan.
Kunti’s burnished heart was ripped
Like a garment that is stripped
And the earth was, the same day,
Ripped in gashes—what to say!
[Trans: Mahesh Paudyal]
Nabaraj Lamsal (b. 1969) is a Nepali poet, lyricist and media personnel. A PhD in songs, he has written songs for several films and albums, besides poetry. His published works include Pailaipichhe Sagarmatha (Everest on Every Step, poems), Aago Chhopera Katinjel (How Long Could Fire be Covered, poems), Dhoonbhitra Dhoonbahira (Inside and Outside the Tune, songs) Kramasha Eklai Eklai (Gradually, All Alone, poems), Karna (epic), Dhara (epic), etc. He presently lives in Kathmnadu, and is the Deputy Director of Radio Nepal.