Ishwor P. Kadel
In Nepal, the culture of writing started much later. Though there were some great writers before Bhanubhakta, we mainly count the first writer in Nepali from Bhanubhakta Acharya who was himself from Pundit family. What he did was translation of Ramayana from Sanskrit to Nepali language of his time. Simultaneously, he composed poems (moralistic).
Lekhnath Paudyal was the other good poet in Nepali language and had good command in Sanskrit and Nepali language. He wrote poems, epics, long poems in Nepali and left good books for us. Some of his writings can be compared with “the Age of Reason” in Europe because they are highly loaded with knowledge and that demand the reference of holy books of Hindus. To understand the writings of the period, one must be educated and have knowledge of many short moralistic stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Puranas. Some of the other writings were allegorical writings that the readers can understand the way they like. For example- “Pinjadako Suga” (The Parrot of the Cage).
Likewise, the other very important figure in Nepali literature is Laxmi Prasad Devkot. He was a voracious reader too. After reading him, we can imagine how voracious he was in the period when book reading was not common to the middle class. He read books from Europe and mainly influenced by English Romanticism that was led by William Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge.
His poems and the poems composed by Lekhnath Paudyal are different in nature. To read and understand Lekhnath is more difficult than to understand Devkota. As the romanticist, he used common images and symbols that a common man can easily understand. Yet, some of his poems have multi layers of meanings like ‘Paagal’.
Some of his creations are close to late romantic era, not as easy as the early romantic period. If we read Devkota, we find the fragrance of European literature. His poems remind us Wordsworthian period and the poems.
He was a fresh fountain of poetry. He could write poetry on any topics at any time. He had composed a short epic in 10 days, which is beyond imagination. He was highly imaginative and could think of beautiful lines without the second thought in poems. In this regard, we can compare him with Sanskrit great poet Kalidas.
If we read his essays, we find that his essays are highly subjective, few of his essays in the collection seem as if the essayist had written light-heartedly. The language used in the essays is not much matured. For example, in the first essay of Laxmi Nibandha Sangraha, “Sri Ganeshaya Namah” the essayist says that he does not write for any styles and he writes what comes in his mind. He says he does not rework on his works. He adds that art becomes worse if you try to make it better. This also proves that he writes for writing’s sake. In Nepali language, Devkota has given different name for essay and he prefers to call his essays “ Prabandha” and in the same essay he says “Prabandha is a writing that is funny, romantic and humorous conversation. Prabandha is not well-structured like those English essays written early in Europe. Montaigne, Francis Beckon and many modern English essayists wrote on specific topic, with high persuasion, examples to support the points made by the essayists, managing the sequence of the chain of writing, focusing on main idea with the help of supporting ideas. Devkota’s most of the essays starts abruptly, walks on straight line and ends unexpectedly with too personal kind of language and it seems he is not worrying much on convincing his readers. In the other essay “Pahadi Jiban” ( Life in the Mountains) he sees some children and he describes those children using the adjectives that are not much positive these days and are not regarded as good phrases. He shows much kindness to those children and wishes he could rescue them from the region, which he explains very poorly. This kind of language and his attitude in his essays are highly praised in Nepal because he is regarded as the Great poet. When I read some of his essays, I doubt humanity in his essays like in his poems. Somewhere in the same essay he writes, “ I love to donate my all properties to a poor man if not three or four hundred at a time to see how he looks like.” In the same essay, the essayist says, Sherpa women are beautiful but they do not take bath and are very dirty either. These are few examples of how marginals are dominated in his essay. Except these examples, his essay is beautifully crafted with the beauty of nature. Everywhere nature appears in different forms in his essay that makes him a romanticist.
He developed essays in such a way that they have quite different taste and format than English essays. His essays have Nepali flavour in the use of words and structures. In essay writing, he did not bother with French and English essays. I personally think that this difference in his essays made him name his essays “Prabandha” where subjectivity is higher than any other elements of essay. Some of his essays are much didactic and he seems like a Guru.
His other essay “Meri Sisu” (My Child) is a wonderful essay though it is shorter than his other essays. He is lover of children and he says that the world seems beautiful all because of the children we have in this earth.
His essays are not interrelated to one another. The meaning and the sense of his essays are different from one to the other. One thing that binds all his essays together is nature, god, heaven and hell; the essayist makes confessional statements in his essay “Lekhne Baani” (writing habit). This is good part of any writer. The essayist is very honest.
In the essay “Five essential things” in the collection Laxmi Nibandha Sangraha, the essay is full of symbols and images of nature, praise of god, his power, surrender to god, the immortality of soul, the existence of heaven and hell. He seems more philanthropist through theo-centric.
Devkota is a romanticist in his poems and essays. In his essays, he has talked about nature, god, children, freedom in expression, poetry, poets and common man. In his next essay “Man-magic” he talks from heart, he talks like Krishna does in Bhagwat Geeta. The “I” in this essay is not Devkota himself but through him speaks some kind of natural energy and finally says that the “I” is more powerful and different from the magician. The “I” says that it is very difficult to understand him. His expressions towards doctors are much sarcastic. He was the person whom the world could not recognise at all.
“Haai Haai Angreji” is one of the very famous essays that shows the essayist’s love and hate for the English language, the power of English that makes someone able to earn for his living and the social prestige that someone who uses English has in the society. In the time of the essayist, English was accessible to the limited people in the capital city. He equally satires the university education and says that knowledge does not lie in university certificates but in the proper use of the knowledge one has learnt in a practical life. He also satires the then education system and the popularity of tuition culture.
His other essays – “Birharu’ (Brave People), “Bhalaadmi” (Gentleman), “Ful” (Flower) are the other essays from the anthology that are aphoristic in some ways and more poetic. His ‘Prabandas’ are more like poems than essays.
I think, he searched for further liberation in writing and expressed him in words. He used the help of prose and wrote his poems in different forms. He is highly emotional than rational. He is a true poet than essayist.
Mind reads essays and heart feels poetry. One cannot read Devkota’s essay just with mind only. A reader should read Devkota’s essays with both mind and heart. A reader should use his mind sometimes when he talks being more rational and use heart when he becomes bodiless and spreads in the nature. Sometimes, he talks the vastness in him and readers get puzzled somewhere in his essays, and stop and think again if they are reading his poetry or essay.
In his essays, he fixes satires and irony in between and becomes able to touch the whole human beings addressing his own weaknesses.
Devkota was the first person to write such subjective essays in Nepal. The trend of writing essays was not there in Nepal before him. Poetry was highly praised and the strict use of meters was so common.
‘Art and life’ is his other essay where he defines life and art. For him, art is always beautiful but life is not. He quotes Keats and says -Truth is beauty and beauty is truth and adds his opinion that only imaginative truth is what he believes the most. Philosophy and wisdom both are blind for him. In most of his essays, readers find him a mystic. He confesses that the imaginative truth has given him the blurred image of lord almighty. Photography is not art for him. Devkota has made a lot of powerful statements in his essays but most of them are left without any supporting ideas and examples. In this essay, he confesses that his writings are mostly influenced with Hinduism and this has made him more imaginative and mystic too.
His other essays like – On the process of being a poet, Excuse for smoking, and the essays of the similar time all help the readers to know Devkota and his ‘Wordsworthian attitude’ in his own words.
During his period, Nepali literature grew its height with his own writings on different genres. He became the pioneer in writing few of them.
His writings are always read and evaluated with praise and utmost respect to the creator. People have understood his texts standing on a single perspective and the meanings in his texts are always the same. And reading any piece of texts invites multiple meanings from time to time. I have met and talked with the scholars who have completed their PhD on Devkota’s poems, essays and epics. They always see the bright side of the texts and do not even dare to express their personal experiences on the texts. The commonest phrase almost all of the scholars use for his texts is ‘texts that have won the time’.
The scholars have acquired strong tools of theories to evaluate any piece of texts from their university education. And most of the tools of such scholars have already been stained as they have not been used yet since the time they had.
Devkota has been a perfect idol for almost all the poets, essayists and writers. They have to glorify Devkota to save themselves from being criticized. But the time comes very soon and the time will chair every writer on the chair of time and the time will ask questions on his authority. At the moment, they cannot keep quiet and answer every question.
The literary figures either in a nation or the world create the government of their own. And the readers on the other hand always fight against them. Literary governments are also as many as the political governments.
In our country, writing has always been defined comparing someone who writes with the classical or established writers. Till the time new writers are not heartily welcomed by the readers and the critics with fair evaluation of the books they have written, the country has to wait for ages to have abundant writers out of which very few would compete with the writers from other parts of the world and our literature would be addressed by readers from abroad.
I am not lucky enough to see Devkota and have a cup of tea and a cigarette with him. But I have met him many times in his writings as a romanticist, naturalist, conservationist, a common man with fairly common ideas and philosophy, a lover of children, patriot and a yogi. He, for me, is a man of multiple dimensions. If we start reading him, interpreting him, create discuss and discourse in his writings, we can make our literature stand between South Asian and even European and American literature. Devkota has given a lot of areas to write and work on in the field of literature. Let’s use them, learn from him and apply, evaluate and analyse what we have learnt by now for wonderful creations ahead.
[Ishwor Kadel is a poet, teacher’s trainer and educator. His published works include Baya, a collection of poems, and Echoes, a novel. He is also a reputed translator.]