Bhupal Rai
The dark and overused pot
which my mother had continuously used in the kitchen
For the post for years
broke suddenly.
No rumpus was created
Even my father didn’t give any eye.
Just a splash…
That created hardly a ripple in the ocean
Spitting on her work-worn hands
As she cursed herself loudly
And the shrill wailing of a child nearby
Besides this, there was no other uproar.
Only my father was saying…
“Pots are not as expensive these days.”
It had been instrumental in boiling the hotchpotch
and keeping alive
four generations under the same roof.
I had grown up drinking the soup of red lentil
which was cooked in this pot
Imagining it was a festive feast of fresh
pepper and pork soup
When my brother wrote a letter home,
Just as my father who didn’t give us the eye…
My brother made no mention of the pot.
The pot simply broke
And became history.
Forty years ago when my mother met my father
they would meet under the cover of the night
and it was but a relationship that was a taboo
This four decades of relationship
was bound together as a disciplinary measure
by this very pot.
Each morning as my mother entered the kitchen
she was greeted with love
The soot on the pot would
Sometimes kiss her hands,
Sometimes her nose
Sometimes her cheeks
And sometimes as she pushed her hair back
the kiss on the hands would transfer itself to the temple
The mossy shiny green on the pot turned a dark black
And this blackness had become an integral part
of her life.
Unexpectedly the pot broke
None of the family members present expressed
any sorrow
with the exception of my mother.
Sadly, ever so sadly
She was picking up the shattered pieces
Like she was threading a bead necklace
And counting her days on fingertips.
Tell me,
What after forty years of continuity
Was brought to a sudden halt
With the pot breaking suddenly?
Was it just a pot worth a few coins that broke?
Poet and lyricist Bhupal Rai asserts a potential presence in the field of modern Nepali poetry too. We can find a beautiful confluence of aesthetic consciousness, consciousness of life, and the spirit of contemporariness. Poet Rai was born in December 1960 in Bhojpur District of Nepal. He started writing around 1976. His first work, “Aamako Samjhanama” (In Memory of Mother) was published in 1977 in Chhahara. Sumnimako Tasbir (Sumnima’s Picture, poems), Dajai Kavita Gaumai Chha (Brother, Poems are Found in the Countryside, poems) Pailo Haraf Sirbandi (First Line of the Headwear, a collection of songs) and Aagole Janmadin Manaudaina (Fire Doesn’t Celebrate Birthday, poems) are his published works. Poet Rai lives in Bhaktapur.