The City of Hong Kong

Chandra Maden ‘Aanchhan’

In this strange, artificial city
the porch is strewn with image of homeland
perhaps because, we came here as guests
leaving behind beloved and beautiful motherland, Nepal.

With bogus claims of peace, safety and democracy
this city called Hong Kong
keeps the world in deception

The capitalists swell in wealth
that multiplies every day
and rejoice in the pile of pelf
even though their kids go neglected.
In the midst of colourful nights
the half-naked belles
wait for sex-mongers.
This is the city of the worked-up, restless and the unfed
who have lost the dreams of victory
in dice or in horse-race

Slighted by their own families and kids
weak, helpless and sick mothers
carry old bundles of filth
from this corner of the city to that.
Porters pine for an additional bundle of sleep, everyday;
workers subdue a belch of hunger with their hands;
this is a city that surges in a race for sacrifice
neglecting others all for its selfish motifs.

The skyscrapers jutting towards the sky
monuments as beautiful as those
that were sketched by Arniko,
strew all over this concrete city;
eye-arresting roads for vehicles
arrayed like terraces in the field
magnificent and pretty bridges
as though they were in Indra’s realm
are all to me spurious and nauseating.
I assert it with authority—
it’s not, in any way
as attractive as the trails, streets and shades
canals and slopping stone
in my village

The man-made, gigantic trees and plants
bedecked with colour
for moments during the Christmas festival,
the adolescent junipers
embellished with multiple lights
by making indiscriminate expenses,
the shells worth millions and the fireworks
shot onto the sky in vain
are all but fake games;
and I claim, they are in no way
as attractive as the pines, chiretta
alders, chestnut and hog-plum
that grow in my village
though it’s only faintly populated

On seeing these tiring extravaganza
of this artificial city
a puff of wind emanates from ponds of hatred
the sprays of tears come and wash the face,
and cactuses of faithlessness
sprout in the minds.

[Chandra Maden ‘Aanchhan’ is a Nepali poet based in Hong Kong]