Ravicharan Shrestha
‘A poet is neither a father to someone, nor a son. He belongs to no one, like a creeper in the forest. He is of no one – not even of a nation, or of law, or of piety or of welfare. Beside a common productivity, he has no other relation with his countrymen.’ — Siddhicharan Shrestha
This was how my father behaved, lifelong. Today, I recall all these lines, and do recall every single moment I passed with him – those moments, that make up the pages of my memory today. He wrote–
‘The tree is a caste, and so is a beast!
How come, man and man have different castes?’
In one occasion he said, ‘Ravi, I married off your sister Shanta with pomp and splendor. I am not a religious dogmatic.’
According to the marriage registration law, my sister had an inter-caste marriage. Later, when my father got my third brother married to a girl of another caste, it was evident that father was as honest in deed as he was in words.
I can recall every fine instance of our past life. I don’t know what I can write, for I passed more than three decades under the guidance of my father.
There perhaps was no such day when he did not write something. These files and pages, scattered all over, are the proof. They are so many, and as I look up one after another, I can hardly reckon how he wrote them all – introductions to books, opinions, expressions and so on.
He wrote essays; tried his hands at plays. There are many memoirs. There are many works still unpublished.
I recall an incidence as fresh as anything. One day, when rain was still quite torrential, a man was seen walking along New Road in Kathmandu with a folded umbrella caught under his armpit. The fact did not occur to him, who was all drenched from top to toes. Those who sheltered on the roadside said, ‘He must be a lunatic.’ When he reached near the onlookers, everyone recognized him. He was none other than poet Siddhicharan Shrestha.
One from among the onlookers asked, ‘Kaviji, you are all drenched. Why don’t you unfold your umbrella?’ The poet got startled, as if he was awaking from a deep sleep. He then took up his umbrella, unfolded it, and walked along. He was such a man, always deeply contemplative.
As far as I knew my father, he had a single ambition in life, and a single meaning of living: poetic pursuit. He always remained busily absorbed, sailing the boat of poesy, like a man deep in search of a lost treasure. Even in sleep, he cherished poetic contemplations, and as he ate, walked or sat, he kept himself aloof from the surrounding, and transcended into a poetic world of his own making.
Probably for this, even at the last minute of his life, he always said, he was going along with his Ramayan, and his ‘Mero Bishwa Byatha’ – his treatise on universal suffering.
The simplicity of life he lived was amazing. I can see this coat – hanging in front of me; I have been looking at it for last thirty years. He had no concern about what to eat and what to wear. He was always attached to creation, to contemplation.
The month of Ashad—mid June to mid July—has always been an important month in my life. I might forget other months, but I cannot snap my ties with Ashad. The month, every year, comes with a new message for me. Like trees that get new life with new foliage in spring, I derive rejuvenation from this month. This is the month in which I looked at the world from my mother’s womb. The excitement and pleasure it brings along escort me through various layers of happiness, and as the month wanes, I am thrown back to the labyrinth of life, left to move along.
On the tenth of Ashad, 2024, on the eve of the anniversary of my birth, my father wrote verses on a piece of paper for me, and ever since, the moment has had a special and historic connotation in my life. I take the liberty to disclose the content of the piece of paper that turned to be a priceless treasure for me.
That creation, which flowed out of my poet father in spite of a rain-drenched evening, metamorphosed into a property of unfathomable worth, and even today, its memory makes my heart leap up with pride, stirs my mind, makes me lose into fancy, and gets me startled. The memory of the moment makes me feel highly dignified. It was an unforgettable moment, a moment of historic worth for me.
With pen and paper in hand, he came out on the veranda. I was passing time with my mom, eating something. In a while, we started looking for him, to join us in eating. We saw that like on other days, he was drooping over the paper in one corner of the veranda, writing something. Giving a damn to the torrential rain whose drifted spray was incessantly falling upon him, he displayed a spectacle that I cherished in my mind for ever. Seeing him drenched, mother shouted at him beseeching him to wake and move to safety, but he asked her to wait for a while and continued with his writing.
As the rain continued, father was soaked, all through. After a while, he came for the meal. After the meal we went to bed. Early next morning, he came calling, ‘Ravi! Ravi!’ and asked me where the paper he wrote on the previous evening was. I rummaged every place to look for the chit. After a while, I found it inserted inside a small crevice on the veranda wall, all wet with rain water. The piece, all wet with rain, and letters turned almost ineligible, happened to me among the loveliest treasures of my life.
After I found the paper, father made me recite the verses, and made me add at places where the letters had been washed out. That was my birthday gift from my father–
Ravi, what shall I gift you on your birthday?
Fill your juvenile mind with which light of maturity?
My son, who came as the fruition of my dream
let life kiss victory in piety every second!
Our life is a struggle, be victorious in it
for sake of innumerable, you become a shield
tear apart the weaknesses I had ever worn
let your knowledge work to profit everyone
these are in-depth feelings mine; accept as they come!
(1967)
I have been able to treasure this priceless gift of my father just in paper till date; I don’t know whether I can concretize it in action. The question still remains in me. Such historic and rare reminiscence of time I spent with my father keep haunting and tickling me. Whenever I revere back to memory, innumerable events come alive inside me. With time and contexts, I shall be revealing them one after another.
[Mr. Shrestha is the son of late poet Siddhicharan Shrestha]