Manu Manjil
[Manu Manjil is a contemporary Nepali poet of high repute. Two collections of poems Aandhiko Aaveg (2004) and Lampostbata Khaseko Joon (2011) have been published to his credit. He is counted among indispensable representatives of Nepali poetry today. He has also presented himself occasionally in prose, limiting his authorial ken to poetic discourse though. A lecturer of English by profession, he is also equally well versed in English. He has also translated a number of Nepali poems into the English language. He is also a fine lyricist, though this personality is often shadowed by his poetic aura. He is a recipient of SAARC Literature Award, Jasraj Kirati Literature Award, and many of such awards and felicitations. Uday Adhikari had an exclusive interview with Mr. Manjil for The Gorkha Times. Presented herewith is an edited version of the conversation.]
1. Some time ago we had met in Chitwan, if you remember. You were at a literary programme there with one of V.S. Naipaul’s latest publication in hand, Writer’s at Work or something similar if not that. Naipaul is one of my favourite authors too. I am greatly influenced by his House for Mr. Biswas in particular. So, to start with, will you tell us a little about the foreign writers and poets who you feel have influenced you?
Oh, yes. I think I had Naipaul’s A Writer’s People. His language is magical. His words often sail toward the past in search of the beauty and the truth buried in history. Reflections of the lost glamour and precious memory keep flashing through his entire narrative. But he is a bit eccentric, who I think pays less attention to the matrix and its transformation than needed. His India: A Wounded Civilization is a colossal output. This book is a new window through which to look at the Indian civilization that is. I also read The Mimic Men by him. But his A Writer’s People killed my interest in him. Today he is not a writer I enjoy re-reading.
Shakespeare will be remembered and read even by the last man on earth. His language has a divine kind of creative fire in it. Read Othello. Where else is the miraculous mix of the extremities of human love and cruelty that the book has? It is a rainbow above the world of books. Macbeth is immensely forceful but terribly dark. No player has ever played the language game the way he did. He was a rare confluence of the two great streams of drama and poetry. I have read him with the curiosity and excitement of a lover who is after a lady whose beautiful face is only half-seen in a crowd. His English is not easily accessible to a modern reader. Next to him for me stands Walt Whitman- the immortal American bard who sang the famous Song of Myself. This poetry is perhaps the best human expression on the life and spirit of a free man. He was a great pathfinder of a cultural America and a dreamer the nation still follows. Eliot’s poems are like splinters of a big broken mirror reflecting the real world vividly in fragments. His language is ethereal— that abounds in myths, metaphor and music. I love reading Lhu Shun, Marquez, O’ Henry and the like. I am fond of Maya Angelou, too; her autobiography is the most visible Bible of the genre. Her poems are plain yet deeply moving. The non-white poets have come up with a different voice. When I read them, I feel being swept off by a cyclone that has its base in the cornered theatre of a great human tragedy.
2. Your collection of poems, Aandhiko Aaveg,is widely credited for contributing something fresh to Nepali poetry. Your style of presentation in particular offers a new ‘taste’ to the Nepali readership breaking away a bit from the influential Bhupi tradition. Was that idea of ‘drift’ in your conscious mind at the time you began to write? Or is it something that in the process of writing came to be this way?
Bhupi was not a common man. The mode of writing he created and established proved to be a standard model for a number of poets who appeared in the following decades. It is difficult to get such an outgoing and outstanding poetic genius. His metaphors are sharp and crystalline like sunlight. Nepali emotion got the best dress from none but him.
I know it is tremendously difficult to break away from the road once taken by a great genius. But if taken, that will both be a risk and an opportunity at the same time. It is no doubt easy to look towering when you are comfortably placed on the shoulder of a major figure like Bhupi. But a poet can only find himself existing on a road he travels alone. Literature basically is a language game. There are perils and there are possibilities. Experimenting counts a lot in the game. Poet Rimal did the same. The achievement was without parallel. Nepali poetry acquired a new form, a new life and a new ground to expand and flourish. There is no ground in literature until you create one. Your metaphor is your mirror. A proof that you exist!
Most of us are imitators of a careless kind. We harbor lofty dreams and want to communicate, speak or write the way a great author or poet does. Imitation bars your own being from shining through your words. And you lose the precious opportunity to exhibit yourself. It is embarrassing to say, yet true that many of us spend little time reading. Our language terribly lacks in the glamour that solely comes from serious reading and meditation. A writer without a background of a rich reading culture writes in a language that hardly appeals. Poet Robert Frost suggested us all to take ‘a road not taken’. For difference and distinction, that’s a must. This is my principal area of anxiety. I always try to touch the untouched reality through the creative use of my language. This, I believe, leads to innovation. And you know any innovative endeavor amounts to an invention.
3. I recently read your poem “”Whose City Is This?” in a collection. Reading you gives me an impression that you know a great deal about world poets and poetry. Will you share a bit with us about some poets you really admire?
I read poetry a lot. When a poem moves me deep down, I not only re-read and treasure it, I also try to read the poet’s history and cultural background. Reading the history of a good poet is always inspiring. Poet Devkota is beyond compare, to me. I adore Walt Whitman for his modus operandi, flow and art of transforming the matrix. Romantic poets were heroes. But they all tried to escape life to find perfection in the past, death, nature and flight of imagination. I find something new in the marginalized voices like that of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou and the like. I love Indian poet Jayanta Mahapatra for the precision and unique art of presentation. I have met many major poets active in South Asia today. I have read a great deal about them, too. But most of the poets I read do not impress. I have mostly read European, South Asian and American poets. I am dumb outside the Nepali and English speaking communities. This badly limits me from reading great verses in other languages. Reading them in English renderings is like getting the photograph of someone you love and really want to meet.
I wrote “Whose City Is This?” in response to a great poem by German poet Hans Ulrik Trikkel. Once at a literary gathering in Kathmandu, three German citizens recited his poem in a drama-like manner. Their act was something profoundly beautiful and moving. Mr. Trikkel’s poem deals with the deepening mystery, disillusionment and trouble underlying a city life. In the first-ever festival of SAARC young poets – 2008 I read the same poem of mine in Nepali as well as in English translation. Poets and authors present on the occasion favored and loved me and international media paid unexpected attention to me. I really felt good.
4. I take language to be the principal asset for any writer. To a poet, I think, his language is the body and soul both. As far as poetry goes, what is it for? Is it something for ‘itself’ or is it there to bear other responsibilities, too?
Yes, you are right, Mr Uday. A language has an access to the unknown and we can see it dealing with mysteries and abstractions. When a creative genius handles it, writing poetry, essay or narrative, life is vividly mirrored. An average dullard destroys portrayal of life often. His language is dead— excessive use by many making it a dull cliché. You can see language shining in new colors at the hand of a creative user. Words suddenly start vibrating, exhibiting power and meaning.
I remember an American diplomat once asking me why I write poetry. ‘Several things exist in the world and beyond’, I said, ‘How many of them are really beautiful? Do count them and tell me.’ He was a man with adequate sense of poetry. He beamed like an enlightened child and said, ‘There are innumerable, why?’ And instantly he was set to taking count of them. He first gave me a list of beautiful existences like the sky, the moon, the stars, flowers, trees, rivers, hills, seas, children, beautiful women … ‘. But he was soon exhausted, feeling that his list was quickly running out. He added one or two to the tiny list and sounded helpless, ‘Oh, God! What’s this? Why is a dozen count suddenly so hard really? How awfully a few…’ I stopped him right there and said, ‘Now you understand why I write poetry and songs. It’s to add beauty to the existences we are among’. It was a distinguished gathering. He was at a corner sitting with me and clapping his hands alone.
Dear Mr. Uday, art is a great friend of humanity, you see. When elated, people dance and act. In despair, they read poems and listen to songs. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a historic speech in the year 1963. You know the speech “I Have a Dream”. It is fully charged with poetic rhythm and metaphor. Yogis and saints use poetry in their serious deliberations. Lovers compose poems. Look, how much of life has to do with music. Even Hitler the monster is said to have written poems. In the east, we can see Osho and Zen masters using poetry for divine catechisms. Revolutionaries and warriors have used poems and songs to appeal the mass. There are countless examples. We are not unaware of the moments when a line of a verse is seen giving a different course to a man’s life. The Vedas and The Bible have cited verses and used them for divine rhetoric. From the great Greek tragedies to Shakespeare’s plays to Devkota’s Munamadan, it was poetry that was at the core. Poetry is there in prayers, mantras, and national anthems and everywhere. Poetry, thus, is, and has proved itself to be an indispensable friend of humanity. Those who are blind to this and speak aloud, advocating art only for art’s sake, are obviously not serious regarding art and the role it has played in human history.
5. A number of different literary ‘isms’ that exist today have definitely opened up different fields of vision for us to look at literature expansively. But at the same time they are blamed to have been used more to create narrow-minded ‘sects’ than schools that broadly look at literature. Your comments.
Most of our literary ‘isms’ are born not because there is historic necessity for them. These are rather the outcomes of certain like-minded literary enthusiasts desiring for an instant recognition and fame. No one questions the importance of a new literary movement. But usually, a new school of thought comes, and should come, into being when a preceding one fails to address time-borne issues adequately. The new thought system as a rule stands upon, and at the same time against, its predecessor and is expected to come up better equipped with a stronger philosophical foundation. In Britain we see all art and literary movements introduce new modes and methods of writing. In our world, the Aayameli movement will be valued for a long time, for its solid philosophical background, innovative writing techniques and some meaningful experiments with language and thought. The Sadak Kavita Andolan took poetry to a larger circle of people but in a way destroyed the dignity poetry once enjoyed, too. The recent endeavors are only an accumulation of the thoughts and methods already exhausted in history. They required a careful review and interpretation. But Nepali critics were too excited and spoke more than necessary with less care than was needed. Any ‘ism’ we know comes with certain claims and prejudices. But it should not allow narrow-mindedness of any sort to surround it. Regimentation of all kinds poses a serious threat to its make-up.
6. Will you tell us what a poet’s creative mood is like?
Poet Bairagi Kainla equates a poet’s mood to that of a raging witchdoctor’s. My experience is that moments before I come up with a new poem, something serious overcomes me seeking some sort of expression. Sometimes I sit down and start writing immediately. At other times I wait for a right moment to start. The first line of a verse always bears a great significance. The basic idea that haunts is called matrix and the latter act of expanding it is called transformation. The beginning line represents all that the rest poem is-including its emotion, music, metaphor and thought. Poet Nissim Ekeziel says, a good poet waits. Sometimes I find myself being ‘good’ waiting for hours and writing nothing! When poetry starts flowing, emotion is so strong and so well organized. Mental retardation just vanishes and all elements come up so clever and so sharp. But a hasty move is rare. When something nice gets written, soul celebrates it and brightness in the face stays on for days. Wise people say that a literary output is a memory recorded. Maybe, I don’t know. Probably the study we do, and our focus on a thought, together, remind us of a precious treasure deep down us. When I am writing, God, the creative force is so immense that I feel I can write on any subject or theme instantly generating poems after poems. But when the heart is vibrant and forceful, language wanes. The only thing I can do at the moment is use the language with love and care. I go slowly like a tight-rope walker. I usually do not force-end poetry. I know there are times when the end comes leaving even the creator utterly amazed. There are artistic gaps left in a creative process. I re-enter the process, later on, and try to fill those gaps.
7. Reading you most of the time gives me the impression that you go on working till things in your poems satisfy you. What is your work process like, really?
Yes, you are true there, Mr. Uday. In the art of poetry, flat expressions are detrimental, as they often tend to ‘say’ something. We try ‘not to say’, but symbolize. Poetry is not writing or recording your knowledge. It’s recording a fleeting vision you have at a certain moment. When you are in your meditative trance, a new horizon far away is open like windows in the morning. Sometimes your writing gives you a false contentment. You read it the next moment and that frustrates you. It is bitter. Good painting consumes time and energy. Often there are vacuums and gaps for the artist to take time refilling. Something, if not poetry, must be put in the ‘gaps’. You cannot run as in haste or fear. This kind of run even through a beautiful garden will leave your eyes empty. The art of writing poetry is very much like the art of gardening. You pour in water and love of your heart. You weed out the wild growth. You know what your labor does to a flower garden!
Next, what will be a poet achieving from the publication of his ‘trash’? He will kill his audience. Any celebrated poet is widely imitated, you know. Therefore, a bad art gets disseminated. This causes loss to all literature, indeed. A poet must not be tempted to work against the popularity that good poetry is enjoying. Sometimes, how bitter we feel when a well-known poet or writer comes in broadsheet papers talking nonsense! You feel so uncomfortable.
8. You are said to be involved more in translating Nepali poems into English these days than in creative engagements. What do you think made you feel the need for that?
Translation here is not a roaring business. It is somehow surviving. I trust Professor Abhi Subedi for his refined art of poetry translation. Tara Nath Sharma, too, deserves a note. But his language is too grammatical and formal to go well with poetry. Manjushree handles English masterfully but her prose translation is richer. Michael James Hut is there but the problem is that the Nepali sentiment, you know, is hardly his own. Yuyutsu RD is doing fine, too.
To foreigners, our poetry is still a rainbow far away in the horizon. I remember an incident at Revanshaw University. There an Indian writer and scholar of great repute hurt my feelings when he asked who our poet laureate was. I almost shouted, “I sadly know about the whole lot of school of your tiny fishes. And you don’t know about our giant whale! You people do not read and so don’t know about a heaven that is just beyond the wall! Later at valedictory session, poet Jayanta Mahapatra began his speech citing ‘God, Make Me a Sheep…’ by our poet laureate. This was so healing. The entire day was a fun to me.
The French and Russian literatures are outstanding and are best known in their English translations. We have world-class poets like Devkota, Ghimire, Rimal, Bhupi and few others who are still active. A successful translation of their writings could do a lot for our international recognition. Some British poets are known the world over despite their tiny output of a dozen or so of religious and love songs. We have giant laureates and none beyond the wall knows of them. Be it a writing or translated text or anything, it must go through an editor’s desk for at least a dozen times. We do not have this practice and trust in refinement. It is sad.
Putting a poetical or prose stuff into English is like putting a person in a far-reaching train that cuts across multiple frontiers. We have great poetical voices, no doubt. But our hills are there in the way to bar them. I don’t feel good when someone calls me a translator. I do it only sometimes. I have done very few indeed. People come and ask me to put their stuffs into English. I do it for them. But when the translated text gets published in a paper or magazine, it is often full of mistakes. God! My bad blood boils up and my temper blurs my vision when things such as this happen. Once in a telephone conversation Sharon Hudson Dean of the American Embassy in Kathmandu took interest in why I was translating. To her, it was a difficult and unrewarding business. I told her that I never learned the art at the University and yet did it because the capable ones were not doing. She burst into laughter and lovingly called me a nitwit. What I shared with her was certainly not untrue.
9. You, I think, are very comfortable using English. Except for Devkota, almost all other poets and writers are seen to have largely depended on others to be translated. How do you rate the poems that have appeared in English translation so far?
Devkota was a master in possession of a great translator’s skill, language and art. Look at his The Lunatic. It’s formidable and full of refinement and fire. Our anxiety must be about two things. The first is about the need of translating great poems and the next is translating them in a great way. At the hand of a bad translator, you know, ‘a hero turns into a pitiable loser’. Some Nepali poems in English translation are readably good. Many are destroyed by novices trying their luck at this art. There are some who are good as translators but are not valued for their carelessness about the selection of texts and their hasty attempts. People sometimes irritate me too, asking to translate their writings. But I know I can translate well when stuffs are refined. The translation of the stuff you love often turns out well. I have had some and they are published in acclaimed international journals.
We still don’t have a truly representative collection of poems for international audience to understand us through. Few available are awfully humiliating. The State is utterly indifferent to the art of translation. Now a few good young generation translators are active there. They are promising, and we can expect a lot from them.
10. You have long been involved in translating Nepalese writings into English. What problems are there to ‘choke’ a translator?
I truly enjoy translating poems. But the written texts must be something you really adore. A game played at someone’s request hardly brings a trophy home. A refined art always helps the translator. A diamond you know is a diamond in anyone’s hands.
But there are times when the trash of a translation buries the gem. A grammatically correct transfer is not all that is done in the act of translating. Let me put it in a metaphor. Suppose you are bringing down a temple with a plan to re-erect it in some other place. For it, the first and foremost thing would be a know-how of how a beautiful structure is brought down. You have to keep in mind the shape and size of everything, every ingredient, before you carefully separate them from each other. You have to be in communication with the God inside. Now things can be transported and shapes can be transferred to the new site. But the God inside rejects to go and change into ‘Jesus’! This is a translator’s crisis and this is his role! How one deals with the crisis is what proves his worth as a translator.
Sometimes the original text stifles you. The music of poetry stays put and rejects to be translated. Many a time, equivalent metaphors must be created out of a target language for the transfer of an emotion. What happens if the poem in translation is not a poem at all? The trouble taken brings nothing. If the translated text fails to reflect the original myth, culture and geography of the poet, the train will leave without passengers in it. You can see the difficulties. There are many people for whom translators become traitors. So the translator carries a traitor’s identity card, you know. And there are so many lazy critics in literature as can fill a major city. The business is damn hard.
11. You have represented Nepal into international literary events and festivals for quite a few times. The truth still is that our poets and writers are among the least read internationally. There are some heartening claims made at times that Nepalese poets are not behind others at least in terms of poetic art, theme and style. What have you experienced during the moments when you find yourself among internationally read poets and writers abroad?
We had Devkota in the past. We had Rimal, Bhupi, Shankar Lamichhane and B.P. Their writings met international standards in terms of quality output. But they failed to get a wide world of audience they deserved for the medium they used. In our days too there are giants like Krishnachandra Singh Pradhan, Madhav Ghimire, Taranath Sharma, Abhi Subedi, Bairagi Kainla and the like. But things are like what W.B. Yeats said about history repeating itself. The crisis of medium that marred our past is still there blocking our roads of progress. We have fine poets like Basu Sashi, Avinash Shrestha, Manjul, Shyamal, Bimal Nibha, KB Bal, Hari Adhikari, Bishnubhibhu Ghimire, Bikram Subba, Dinesh Adhikari etc. They can shine in a larger world. But the medium is still a handicap. You know it.
To the international literary circles, Abhi Subedi is quite a familiar name. He is read widely as he is published in international media time and again. Journalist and author Kanak Mani Dixit also enjoys international fame. As valued is our professor and author Lok Raj Baral who is number one in foreign libraries’ Nepal Reference Indexes. When I go abroad, many people inquire after him. It’s all because of their medium working wonders. The trio got a larger ground than others because of their acclaimed publications in English.
We have brilliant young poets too. Talents like Biplav Dhakal, Shrawan Mukarung, Ramesh Kshitiz, Upendra Subba are rare everywhere. A few female poets like Banira Giri, Sharada Sharma, Kunta Sharma etc also write tremendously well. There are other bright people like Buddhisagar, Yuma, Bhupeen, Samba Dhakal, Nimesh Nikhil, Swopnil Smriti and others. Their problem is once again the same. Go beyond the wall and no one knows of them. A bitter identity crisis haunts you. French people call it ‘crises de identite’. See how a weak medium limits the reach of a genius. It’s terrible.
I don’t know if it’s fair to say that I’ve met and enjoyed the company of a number of celebrity poets from across South Asia. There are times when we meet and share poems, messages and madness. These people value your humanitarian contributions and the human and special artistic quality you possess. They work together and accomplish colossal tasks of cultural significance. They work together and publish books and journals of international standard. They respect and promote each other. They love the earth and the humanity at large. Their States also pay attention to and assist in their activities. But here we are playing a different game. We are like competing exhibitionists. Average lots develop networks and regimentation to stifle geniuses. The only thing we do is write about others and make others write about us. We organize ‘mobs’ and hatch out rumors. Mediocrity has ruled over us. We have lost a creative force we had once.
12. Is it that our writing itself is below the mark or it appears so for lack of efforts to translate them well?
No, no. Not that. Europe, you know, has undergone ideological revolutions time and again. French philosophers and authors mostly lead those movements. Suddenly a new mode of writing comes into being. The fresh techniques in writing and forceful ideas gradually affect the world writing. In our sub-continent, even a major genius is bound to fall apart and disappear on an endless old road. Arbind Adiga in his Booker winning book The White Tiger calls us ‘first gear-type.’ This is another name given to the abortive attempts we try to make at all new games.
You will see new horizons when you stand to view things from a heightened consciousness. But to us every old idea is still new. The university makes feeble attempts at times to interpret ideological inventions. But much before we understand a thing, westerners explore several new horizons for us dullards to hanker after. Innovation is the foremost quality of leadership. We lack in this and, so, fail to appeal. Most of the literary movements we launch here are the old clothes ‘worn out’ by the westerners. Our backwardness stems from our lack of inventiveness.
But this should not humiliate our wonderful writers. For example, Abhi Subedi has used the dreamy language of pure literature in his innumerable newspaper columns. That’s a beautiful thing. His kind of language is immensely powerful. Narayan Wagle’s famous Palpasa Cafe has a dreamer’s language in its first eleven chapters. The latter part of the book has faltered into a kind of report. There is Narayan Dhakal writing seriously and well. Loose expressions are rare in his writings. Antarmanko Yatra is an account of a very proud speaker (the writer) but things are so powerfully written. Most of our poets and authors fail to leave footmarks for their ‘rush’. Literature is not the right area for hasty people. The arrival of new writers is often like huge raindrops over a tin roof. They are heard coming and seen going almost at the same time. Many writers here live with an appearance waning and pale for want of study. Translating them alone will not help. A poor guy leaves an adobe house to get shelter in another house somewhere. You understand.
13. I feel that you are under an immense pressure for a third collection especially after your second collection, Lamppost Bata Khaseko Joon, was able to draw a great deal of public attention. It’s natural, if you are. But you have made us wait long enough already. Why?
I’ve had dozens of poems published, all written after my second collection. You read a lot and you must know of these. A writer’s major anxiety is no doubt himself. He should be competing all the while with himself. The arrival of a new book is not that important to me. The curiosity it excites with its innovative qualities, refined language and thought is. To me, an empty stage is more beautiful than a lifeless performance. In due course of time, my new collection will come out.
14 You know well how poet Walt Whitman influenced the entire making of America as a young nation. In the context of the Republic of Nepal, how do you assess the position and roles of poets like Gopal Prasad Rimal, Bhupi Sherchan, Shrawan Mukarung etc.
The time when Walt Whitman wrote, America was a nation without anything taking shape. The truly American philosophy, thought, politics and society were almost absent. What later he wrote in his celebrated Song of Myself gave the young nation something its own. This acclaimed poem is an expansive expression of a free man. The three great ideals of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ in the American Constitution are the gifts of the great poet to his land. He was a great American dreamer and bard who dreamed and sang for his nation and his people. The American society by and by progressed with the poet’s dream guiding it. The American culture, science, art and politics all focused on creating a Whitmanian humanity that was safe, happy and free. There is a lovely conversation with a child at a point in the poem where the child comes with a leaf of grass asking the poet what that was. The speaker calls it the child itself and also says that it was a little green handkerchief of God which, according to him, God had dropped while going somewhere. His poem celebrates everything that is American and presents all objects, smells, feelings, thoughts, and scenes in shining colors and shapes. This poem celebrates even the most ordinary. The implication was so great, you see. He wanted America to be a heaven on earth and, for America to be a heaven everything there had to be beautiful. You must have read Daisy Miller. And you must have found a little boy in the novelette. He is with his mother visiting a foreign country. How he compares everything available there with their American equivalents. He keeps telling his mother that American sugar was sweeter, American toys were better and American girls were prettier. The Song of Myself is still at the centre of American thought and action. You can understand a poet’s contribution to the life and longevity of a nation.
Poet Rimal is incomparable in Nepal. His acclaimed poem “Mother’s Dream” is a great dream of this Himalayan nation taking shape. The man the poet calls in the poem is still to come. There is mighty Bhupi who is immortal for his profound depiction of the Nepalese mind and character. He did great confessional, introspective writings in a great flow. He tried to destroy the disillusionment of the Nepalese existence. Shravan gave voice to a marginalized character in history. His “Bise Nagarchiko Bayan” is a powerful output of a critical moment in history. But if you look through the poem seriously, you will come across flawed lines which, without any reason, interfere with and attack on the glories this nation is proud of. Poet Bhanubhakta is there, for example. The first shadow of a poet on this land was his. He never exhibited the cruelty of a king or tyrant. He was full of human milk and tenderness and loved all humanity without bias. But the position the poem offers to him is not tempting and is in a way humiliating to all who love him. Next, the rebellious Bise is mad with anger but is empty of any dream. Despite all these, the poem addresses history in an unprecedented style and manner. The writing is refined and the art is enviable.
So I told you where the greatness of Whitman lies. Place our poets beside this great American. Ideas about our poets start shaping themselves.
15. One fine day at a distinguished gathering, you pointed at Abhi Subedi telling us that his prose was very rich. Could you please let us know a bit about some writers who have influenced you anyway?
The language Abhi Subedi created for his expression is terrific. His words shine because you know the kind of books he has read and the type of experience he has had. I love essayist Shankar Lamichhane for similar discovery and treasure his language presents. I have already said little about every good writer I admire. I shall tell you little about what influences me.
Any writing that fires my imagination is dear to me. Good writings have the power to carry you. I also love the writings, which come with ‘extra graces’. I’m overwhelmed by Devkota’s profoundly poetical essays. I appreciate poet Mohan Koirala for his Sarangi and Nadi Kinaraka Majhi. But his widely acclaimed Farsiko Jara has never been my favorite. I find poet Bairagi Kainla’s “Mateko Mancheko Bhasan” and “Astitwako Dabi Ma Sabbatko Baila Utsav” to be impressive and deeply moving. But his celebrated poem “Ganga Nilo Bagchhu” is something I find quite ordinary. I rather would love his poem “27 May 1964” which no one talks about. I find different poets and authors influencing differently at different stages and moments of life. Now too I find some poets or authors good in certain mood and others good in other kind of moments or moods. I am, you know, an ordinary being. I have been impressed many times by many writers of the past as well as of the present. But, just another moment, and I forget several of them.
16. Poets are also valued prose-writers everywhere, you know. But your prose writings are very rare. Is it due to your conviction to be limited to a single area of activity or is it that you write prose but hesitate publishing them?
Please do read the precious prose pieces by poet Madhav Psd Ghimire. How profoundly charged and dear they are. Read essays by poets John Keats or T.S. Eliot. You will understand the power of a poet. RN Tagore’s stories and essays are truly world-class. Our fiction writers like Narayan Dhakal and Dharabasi were poets once. Poets often do great prose writings. There are examples.
My prose writing is almost nil. A few prefatory notes for books and written interviews are what I’ve done. I don’t find anything mentionable and bright in them. I am terribly afraid of the possibility of speaking loose in prose write-ups. I’m scared lest I might make an ugly mess of my words. Yet, few though, I’ve done.
17. Do you take writings to be instruments of social change or want them to be something for readers’ private and quiet kind of joy?
This, you see, is not the time when writers and readers stay quiet. A writer is often active on two disparate fronts: writing and participating in vibrant social contexts. Look at Anuradhati Roy. She is sharing her rich ideas with the audience through international media as well as shouting slogans and hoisting large banners in the Narvada Valley of India. B.P. Koirala did both equally well but never let the two collide. He sailed two boats at the same time. Gandhi was a writer and a great leader and an advocate of non-violent political movements. You must know the way Gorky the writer was associated with the then Russian society. Still we as writers and poets can’t forget the readers’ right to joy. If we fail to appeal, readers will turn their backs to us. If this happens, how shall we be able to take part in vital social upheavals as a poet or a writer? I don’t admire the writers who destroy a writer’s grace by teaching and informing. I have pet aversion for those poets or writers who try to push one or two political slogans even through their love poems. I find them to be dishonest and, therefore, bark at their treachery when occasion allows. I blatantly disagree with those who turn their writings into ‘donkeys carrying the bulk’ of their stale thoughts. Allow poetry to enjoy the dignity it deserves. Fill it with love and art and see how it works. You can’t brandish canes and order it to go and work as a social instrument. This is an injustice to art.
18. In Chitwan you joined us when writers Narayan Dhakal, Shyamal, Nimesh Nikhil and I were in a noisy conversation. I guess that was your first encounter with poet Shyamal. Shyamal raised a few grave issues related to poetry then. He told us that nothing interests him as a poet until it dealt with, or was somehow associated with, the common man. He also said that the biggest reason to blame the Nepalese poetry was for its lack, or even absence, of ideas. I wanted to seek your intervention right then, really, but did not do so for fear of checking a poet’s spontaneity. Do you think idea is necessary for a poem? Also, please tell us why there is a diminutive readership of a genre that is probably the most written one, everywhere. You know English is a second language to many of us. Still, frankly enough, we feel we understand The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot and other poems in English. But there are a few so called ‘intellectual poems’ in Nepali which we feel we do not understand at all. Do you think the native poets at times come up with something too distant and, therefore, despicable?
Oh, yes. At the moment, we listened to poet Shyamal without show of disagreement or reaction. He is a fine poet. He has contributed a great deal to Nepali poetry. I personally favor the idea of writing about man. However, it’s not only idea that man is associated with. A poem has all sorts of elements like symbols, metaphors, music, drama, and emotion. They are all associated with man.
We did not discuss any bad poetry, then, did we? The ones we talked about were all good and famous. When a poem is well written and good, why question its idea or ideology? A good poem is full of thoughts often, but readers hardly know it is. An idea gets a lot from a poem- music, metaphor, symbol, drama. When an idea comes through poetry, it’s very rich and effective, you know. Shyamal’s poems, I think, have come along this line. If you are only looking for ideas or thoughts, then there are political sciences, philosophies and television interviews or debates. Poetry doesn’t just mean a coat of paint on a thought. Shyamal understands it better than we do.
A poet should not deserve a curse just because his verse is tough. Where in the world will you find a poet easy to read like a piece of news? Professors of poetry across the world still sweat hard interpreting Shakespearean verses. We have only just started deciphering the 17th century metaphysical poetry by John Donne after full 300 years, that, too, after Eliot’s efforts to explain. Poems of John Keats are rich in dream, myth and classical allusions. Many great poems of poet Devkota swallow you; you get lost in them as in a labyrinth.
Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” is so widely loved and celebrated. But I know no ordinary man’s eye can see the great flow, its tidal rise and the rolling galaxy of brilliant symbols and metaphors. Is The Waste Land easy to read? Readers have to connect multiple fragments of myths, metaphors and rare classical references before they are able to see the real make of the poem. Why curse poet Mohan Koirala for his being a hard-nut-to-crack? Complex though, he contributed to poetry the diverse possibilities never known before.
Poetry goes through multiple reviews and re-assessments in history. Readers are not the same in all ages. We can’t write verses in a simpleton’s language just because it’s this that readers comprehend best. This underestimates our readers. I think, even if you take poetry as a distant valley beyond hills, lovers of it will take the pain for a climb of the hill to see it. They won’t be cursing the hill in the way. What are universities for, what are the critics for if they do not help the ordinary readership grasp knowledge of great worth like science or poetry? The language of poetry is dreamy and ethereal; it has to be. It was so centuries ago in Bhanubhaktiya Ramayana.
Two of its popular lines sung by unlettered folks across the nation should not mean that poetry was within commoners’ reach before. Not all poetry can be expected to be plain and direct like Lekhnath’s “Balaka Baburo.” Nepali poetry has diverse dimensions to it and is expansively influential on that ground. Our poets are not the thoughtless creatures ‘cultivated in cowsheds’. I don’t think Shyamal favors the idea that ‘deep seas need to be made shallow for every duckling to swim across’. He only abhors the poets who without reason seek to be difficult.
19. We call you ‘eastern’ for your location, you see. And the eastern region has a dominating presence in the literary realms. Of late, the coveted Padmashree Award has gone to your region for three consecutive years. And this is certainly an indicator of something important happening there. In the past also, there were times when the ‘East’ dominated with innovative entrepreneurship, ideas and even ideologies. For example, there is IB Rai who, after a successful Aayameli literary movement, came up with Leela writings. Krishna Dharabasi and his companions have already contributed a lot giving Leela philosophy a visible shape. But let me be frank that I as a reader love IB Rai’s plain literary writings like Aaja Ramita Chha, Kathastha etc more. His latter writings which to me are too shady, too intricately interwoven and codified. I don’t enjoy them and there are many who feel the way I do. What is more unfortunate than that is that no one talks about Leela with necessary openness. There are a few who only ‘mumble’. I’m sorry to say. But you are a creative artist with certain ‘links’ to the people behind the Leela. I think you are interested in sharing little about Leela as an idea and Leela as a literary writing?
Take it from me that the eastern region has no such magic wand. The Padmashree Award might have gone to the region. But the sun you know does not shine only in our courtyards here. Literary and cultural activity wise, our region is vibrant no doubt. We have a kind of environment’ here. This excites imagination and energy. But there are other ‘active zones’, too. We can see.
IB Rai’s philosophical gift is rare. He is a genius equipped with a razor-sharp theorist’s vision and a great interpreter’s oration, language and wit. There are reasons why we appreciate him. He created waves contributing to Nepali literature two great movements. He gave highly convincing justifications. He introduced innovative writing techniques, gave us a ‘different’ literary language; introduced new thoughts and new forms of literary genres. He founded philosophical backgrounds for the monumental rise of the movements. Anyone who recognizes quality in literature will naturally bow to a man of his stature.
But while literary scholars in Nepal made tall claims of ‘understanding’ what his Aayam was, and gave elaborate explanations, IB Rai himself was self-loathing for not understanding his own creation and was heard saying ‘hell to my slow intelligence’, ‘don’t know what we had in our mind then’, etc. His new departure to Leela writings obviously mean that he wanted to put aside his ‘old shoes’ for new ones and leap to a road not taken. He seems to have had a consciousness that Aayam as a tradition was not living long. His wakefulness must have come after he realized its limits. But his new departure is not that easy. Poets Kainla and Ballav wrote tremendously well then promoting his theories. No one of their kind is on his side now. Dharabasi, Krishna Baral, Ratnamani etc. have got the Leela sense. They are writing fine things, too. But Leela writing is an ‘embattled empire’ now that none but IB Rai alone can steer. Then comes Dharabasi – a little too frail. If IB gets to write for ten more years from now, Leela writing can develop into a colossal tradition. Up until now, we do not know of a single good poem born to the ‘hyped’ Leela philosophy. There are few stories and moderate fiction. A few collections of Leela-related writings also have come into being. But there are multiple limitations which have choked the philosophy from gaining wider and wider grounds. Any literary theory, until it comes through literary writings, has probability to dry up and evaporate into the thin air.
Mr. Rai’s language is complex – overloaded with too serious ideas. He must have experimented with a new form of language to keep his language from possible redundancy. This has surely added fresh dimensions to literature and its language. But you know there are other problems.
An error was made right at the beginning. When Aayam came to be in place, they should have looked around at all writings in existence to see if any of them served or supported the philosophy. Aayameli pioneers should have moved beyond their coterie into poetry, stories, fiction and essays by ‘other’ writers, looking for Aayameli elements in them, and explained what they were and what they were not. That same error, you see, is repeated at present too. A search for already written texts serving or supporting a new school of thought could have been immensely benefiting. I am curious to know if it is enough when you ‘trumpet your own belly’ just by citing a few sentences or examples from other writers. Isolating a movement can pose serious threats to it and to literature. Achievement just evaporates.
20. Writer Narayan Dhakal—I think it was him—brought Marquez’s writings into discussion then. This Columbian Nobel laureate is truly a towering presence today. I began to admire him as a gifted artist after I read two books by him: One Hundred Years of Solitude and No One Writes to the Colonel. I was happy to learn that even you esteemed him highly. Any writer talking about him interests me immensely. It’s been a kind of passion for me. Will you, too, tell us a bit about him?
Marquez’s is an unprecedented presence. His language is like that beautiful half-light that falls at early dawn. He is nearly a single presence in the unique space between dream and reality. Just read him and you will experience something like day and night, earth and heaven, morning and evening existing together. Even his short stories are awfully interesting. There are only very few people in the history of writing who have been as innovative and influential as he has been. He is a rare arrival.
21. The links between politics and society are obvious. How closely do you think is literature linked to society? Can a writer stand aloof from the ongoing politics? Or is it something like what poet Bhupi once said— that none is going to sleep when trapped in ‘conflagration’?
Even those who abhor politics are not free from it. Good or not good, politics affects all including the society, its behavior systems, its management, lifestyle, mind and psychology. I feel it that if great poet Devkota had been born in England, he probably would not write “Bhikhari,” the beggar. The great genius probably would not have to cry for his meagre salary at a time when he was bed-ridden for a terminal cancer. He would probably not be screaming on deathbed demanding potassium cyanide to kill himself for a relief. Poet Mohan Koirala perhaps would not write a poem like “Sarangi” if he had not seen starving artists here. If Coleridge had been a Nepali and had written “The Ancient Mariner” or “The Kubla Khan” in Nepal, maybe the society here could crush them underfoot taking these great stuffs to be some sort of garbage! Let’s not forget possibilities.
All good and great poems of Seamus Heaney are full of a darkness that came from the contemporary Ireland in great crisis. P.B. Shelley, you know, called himself a rebel and an opposition of his government in England. We all know that in the centuries that preceded ours, a State meant almost nothing more than the kings or emperors. The effect was that a rare genius like Shakespeare failed to give us a book on the life of a common man. See how, and to what extent, politics or time affects writers. The significance of the Ralfa movement and the Sadak Kavita Andolan in Nepal lie in political crisis. We, too, took to streets during the movements of the years 2046 B.S. and 2063 B.S. We poets read out poems to the mass while wrestling with the murderous policemen and spies at our heels. Sounds like a fun that we poets were giving political speeches. Ha ha. We lent a force to a raging storm. Poet Bhupi was every inch true.
Art gets a great value in free and developed societies. Art and culture gain the central space. When society rises above basics then it comes forward to see the ‘rule’ of human merit and talent established for its own good. But we must be working to save poetry and art from possible abuse and ignominy. Literature and art should be allowed to stay from being swept off into the flood of political changes. There must be ‘banks’ kept safe for art to work in the political flood for a while and return richer to. We have at times abused poetry and drama to the degree of shame. That’s a violence. A murder.
22. Are our writings there addressing the issues of social injustices adequately? Do poets and authors in Nepal display enough sensitivity, courage and conviction in times when the State comes crushing social justice etc?
You are using the language of a diehard political activist. But I agree with you because as a citizen my ideal is the society where justice prevails. I think it won’t be fair if I speak about what or how my poems speak. When you ask me to speak about my own work, I may refrain from criticizing where necessary and may exhibit personal ego or excess when it is unnecessary. In a poem, I more appreciate invention of images than expression. In the Nepalese market, it’s satire or a rebel’s slogan that sells most. The press rates them highly and calls them best literary outputs. A satire, they think, is all that literature is for. The rebellious tone of your poem or story is considered to be quite a contribution to social justice. That’s true but inadequate, you see. A civilized society requires other things too, such as refined language, cultural decency, humanely good communication, etc. Society gets language and a host of other things from literature.
What we call a ‘just society’ is a purely political ideal. We imagine a lot about its outlines and shapes. Let us look back through a procession of years, decades and centuries. All along, we were seeking, seeking it. Our history underwent a good many wars and movements for the same, you see. We have come a long way. But the ideal remains as far now as it was centuries before. We have been a bit like perfectionists in this regard. We want perfect everything. We don’t get that and start locking up our horns. We should have set a course toward the ideal. We should have imagined a relatively happier and freer citizen like Americans did. In addition, we should have had all our actions and efforts concentrated on attaining his kind of happiness and freedom for everybody in this nation.
Our science, literature, music, painting, culture, industry, trade, security system, judiciary, our imagination, thought, action and determination etc. are in a muddled state now and strewn everywhere. We have badly failed to be creative and to cherish a collective dream. Writers and poets in Nepal have time and again voiced their concern. But you understand the kind of State management we have. And result has been like the famous Yeatsian anxiety when he says, Things fall apart, the centre can’t hold …” A thousand things are scattered in a thousand ways. The ‘happy man’ is missing altogether.
But understand that the ship caught in a storm has very little chance to sink. The crews are awake and will do the most they can. It will be sufficient for now if we take a correct course to realize a great dream one day. The beginning of a good thing really means much for now.
23. Nepal Academy has all the while been ‘wedged’ deep in controversies. A writer’s link to power does more for an academician’s selection here than his/her talent and contribution, you know. Don’t you think this is infra dig for a valued institution like Nepal Academy? Will you tell us briefly what you and your friends are doing at the hour to discourage these misdemeanors?
Nepal Academy has not found a ‘bull’ of its own size to wrestle with. Endless little entanglements have dogged its history. Our anxiety is not that political cadres have found a place at Academy. It is that they have due to their links to power. People in power don’t understand that Academy is not a ‘stable’. It’s not a place for their ‘horses’ to shelter.
There are some good and talented people involved in party politics, no doubt. What is deplorable is just that they see talent and ‘academic’ things only in their bags with party tags on. The bad party politics has so blurred our vision that we’re no longer capable of seeing Mount Everest today. We sang songs of freedom all along and fought terrible battles. But you see a free man’s position, contribution and gift have always been rejected in this country. We are living in a terrifying ghost empire of multiple paradoxes. But again, we do not rise against this institution – this Academy. For light, we won’t set fire to our own house. We have rather chosen to stay alive and active in some other more creative ways. We have a cellular body of a few talented poets and writers. We sit together at least once a month to share ideas or discuss books and writings. We try to translate good poems and stories. We attach a great deal of importance to reading and refinement. We promote promising writers and quality outputs. We stage plays, etc. We are working at corners of the society where the State is doing nothing. We publish magazines and organize poetry readings.
We try to fill the void left by the State. We want to culturally vibrate our society that indirectly benefits the Academy and the State. We don’t do anything that weakens the position of the Academy. But we feel that this institution must be holding all the bigger responsibilities more seriously than now. It should not be a place for writers to hide, as they get senile. This institution should be working all over the country in partnership with local institutions. It has to work for broad international connectivity. It should be working vigorously in the area of quality translation for the dignity of the writers and, through that, of the nation. We all must be doing the best we can to rescue and earn our academy an international dignity and value. Let’s trust in love, honesty and labor together as a force that truly helps build an institution, a society or a nation. Our dignity will have a monumental rise if we prove to be moral.
24. I have no compunction at all when I am to value you for your conscience and free and undaunted speeches and writings, which, I know, cause nightmare for a writer in a too traditional world like ours. But we are tempted to see how a celebrated author of your stature makes his choice of reading materials. I mean … I have a request for you to give us two lists of top ten novels and ten best poems written in our language. I know it will cause controversy of sorts. But I don’t think you are opposed to this idea of selection altogether. Readers, you know, expect damn clear ideas from a poet and a writer like you?
One thing I know, Mr. Uday, I’ve not read all that is good. Among the works of fiction I’ve read, Sumnima, Shirishko Phool, Madhavi, Seto Bagh, Ghamka Pailaharu, Kattel Sirko Chotpatak, Pretkalpa, Pagal Basti, Palpasa Cafe, Radha and a few others appeal. In poetry, Devkota and Rimal shine in both the areas of lyrical poetry and free verse. Rimal’s two lyrical poems we know are acclaimed masterpieces. Many by Devkota are truly world class.
Hatching out an order of great poems in our language is pretty difficult. And escaping your ‘trap’ is even more so. I will give you two lists of ten long poems and ten short if they serve your purpose. Among the long Nepalese poems “Pagal”, “Aamako Sapana”, “Mateko Manchheko Bhasan”, “Sarangi”, “Hami”, “Kathmandu Eklaile…”, “Euta Bahula Nabhayako Bushart”, “Bise Nagarchiko Bayan”, “Yo Man Nafarkane Bhaisako”, “Sala Pahadme Kya Hai”, etc. really deserve mention and honour. Among the short ones, “Heeley”, “Manjul Timro Gitar….”, “Luto”, “Natoka Malai Jathabhabi”, “Putaliko Suhagrat”, “Dui Sahar”, “Jungle Euto Soliloquy”, “Jasto Kunai Din”, “Krur ko Saundarya Prem”, “Bainilai Samjhen” etc. are what I find attractive. I love around 80 poems in my language for their language and craft. I’m trying to put them into English by and by.
A list such as this is tough and limiting because poets like Rimal, Bhupi, Mohan Koirala, Kainla, etc have each written several good poems. So in terms of quality standards, the list of 10 poems is like a thin strip of a shadow a miser tends to unroll for his bulky beloved. Anyway, let it be so, come what may.