Criticism is a Parasitic Plant

Govinda Raj Bhattarai

[Prof. Dr. Govinda Raj Bhattarai, a Nepalese novelist, essayist, literary critic, linguist, and translation consultant, is the author, translator, and editor of more than three dozen books. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Hyderabad, and he is a widely known personality in Nepalese literary field. Muglaan, Sukaraatkaa Pailaa, Uttaraadhunik Bimarsha are some of his popular books. Gopi Sapkota, who edits Cactus, recently had a conversation with him about Nepalese writing. Following are the excerpts. The Gorkha Times is publishing the same, duly acknowledging the credits of Cactus.]

Will you kindly give a glimpse of your publications to date?

Surely, I want to be remembered as a writer.  My first book came in 1974. It was a fiction. Since then I have four novels. Five collections of essays, six books of criticisms, seven in translated form, (English-Nepali) about a dozen edited ones. There are two anthologies of poems. Almost a dozen of them are awaiting publication. They are travel accounts and essays.

You are one of the active writers and literary critics. What are you doing nowadays?

Mostly I spend time reading or writing, sometimes correcting my works too. Four decades of my literary journey has taught me – this (your love for literature) is an obsession, and you are never happy. The more you work the less satisfied you are. You crave more beauty, perfection, ambition, and keep on struggling all the time. There are three centenarian writers of great fame, namely, Madhav Ghimire, Satyamohan Joshi, and Madanmani Dixit. They are struggling so hard at the moment; they are lost in creation. They are the pride of Nepali literature or this nation.  As I compare myself to them, there are about 40 years lying ahead of me. And think I too must work constantly and passionately. That I am doing it. Someone who is absorbed in art is like that. It is almost a disease, a psychological one.

Currently, I am finalizing a book, that is, My Travels of Great Britain. It’s a travelogue in Nepali and will be translated into English later. I wrote this during my visits. I had two opportunities to visit parts of the UK. I was first invited by Biswasdip Tigela, a literary enthusiast in 2008, and three years later, (in 2011), by Jaya Rai and her team of International Nepali Literary Society (INLS) branch of the UK. Both were literary and cultural visits, lasting around a month. That is enough for me to experience wonderment and satisfaction.

I was quite excited to visit the UK. Because a professor of English is teaching students in a reputed university without seeing the land which is the birthplace of the people and its language. From Chaucer to Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats—all the Romantics, Victorians, and Modernists—different authors and writers, historians, thinkers, and forerunners. I studied hundreds of them, thousands of their works, which formed part of our syllabus. I have also taught students about every period and trend without seeing the land.

In the first visit, I started from Dover Beach, saw Sandhurst, Central London to Edinburgh, Scotland. I attended many literary and cultural events organized by forerunners of the Nepali language and literature in a new diaspora of the UK. They were groping for a newer identity and the term diaspora was used to define a kind of betweenness. I met almost 500 friends and students altogether. I gave some interviews, too. I had a short glimpse of their life. But mostly that was through the eyes of the Nepali native speakers, friends, relations, acquaintances, British Gurkhas. It was a filtered impression.

I have remembered all of them. Have recorded them in my diaries, I met Ganesh Rai who showed me central London, Mijas Tembe, and Mulibir took me to Sandhurst and Stratford Upon Avon. Biswas to many places including Canterbury. There were Lekhnath, Gopi, and many… They are all parts of the book.

The second visit was more vivid and wonderful. Again from Folkestone, Canterbury to Northern Ireland. It was on the occasion of the second International Conference of the INLS (International Nepali Literary Society). During those visits I kept diaries. I always do so wherever I do go—especially new lands.  Diary writing is my hobby or say obsession. I can put up with hunger, sleep, and tiredness but must record things and events that I come across using pen and paper.

During my second visit, the number of friends increased more and visits extended. I was able to have a glimpse of France, spend a week there because of Harihar Aryal, the kind brother there. I have recorded everything that I could see, hear and feel with the hope that the coming generation will read the ecstasy, ignorance, and wonder that these visits created in the minds of a Nepali writer. I have made records of how I spent my time with them. Though it was a short glimpse, only a flash. But that’s good. We cannot write about our parents or close friends or lovely village environs, anything we are too close to or always with them. There is an appropriate idiom that gives meaning to this sense– “Familiarity breeds contempt”.

In the intervening years, I remained too occupied by travels and writings, conferences, and teaching or supervising students. So I could not produce these travel accounts in book form. There are almost a dozen awaiting publication. Now I have retired and am a bit free from the obligation of daily routine, but then it is difficult to find a smooth road to life, it is always rugged, craggy, and harsh; a smooth road remains almost imaginary.

I hope in two years from now I will be able to get all my works published. There is no impediment. My family is so favorable, my little ones so understanding and good, the problem is my TIME.

There are ten books of travel, of the USA, UK, Greece, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Russia, Africa, China, India. These are the lands I traveled to. One book on travels of Assam, Shillong, Tejpur of North Eastern India is also underway. Their translations will appear later on.

I thought of the UK first as there were two visits and my literary friends are waiting for this.

Your novel Muglaan is quite popular. Why do you think that this novel caught the attention of readers?

I need to dig a bit into history to answer. It was a long time ago that I wrote it at the age of 21, in 1974, the following year got it published in Kathmandu. It has been almost 40 years now. It is the first book, a fiction detailing the road construction works in Bhutan and the harsh life of the innocent people of Nepali origin that were suppressed, exploited, and terrorized there.

After my Matriculation from Nepal (in 1970) I had an opportunity to visit Bhutan, a small dragon kingdom in the east. My uncle used to live there. I spent about two years there with his family. I had cousins of school-going age, and there were illiterate villagers around, within the district of Dorokha. I was also hired as a private teacher by villagers to teach the Nepali language to their children. My father had lived there long back and as their guru his name was still remembered with reverence so they loved me as guruputra (son of a guru). My uncle was also a popular pundit in the district.

In those days I came across many dipaaites(laborers who work for the Departments of Roads etc, or maybe a reported person, a corrupt word) there, they were runaways. They were Nepalis from Nepal or Bhutanese citizens of Nepali origin, a mixed lot. The people in the first category were mostly hired by contractors, builders, and were imprisoned like bonded laborers and exploited extremely. They had to walk through forests, cross rivers or climb and descend snowy mountains in the wilderness for ten or fifteen days to escape the atrocity. They were again caught or returned to the labor camps. I came across many such absconders in the village. Most of my characters in the novel are these people. Later I returned to Nepal with that story in mind and wrote these experiences, got it published.

Famed writers Parijat and Chandraeswar Dubey had written the introduction to my novel. The genre of Nepali novels was just growing—a realistic description was still the popular method.

The hill people of Nepal are wanderers. They have been doing this for ages. Their spread throughout the northern part of India dates back to ancient days. So leaving their native place for earning has been a long-held tradition—be it to Lhasa (Tibet) during Mahakavi Devkota’s time as described in his epic Muna-Madan, or be it  Assam during Lil Bahadur  Chhetri’s time as  described in his novel Basain, or be it Hong Kong, Qatar, Malaysia (any labor diaspora) as in Devendra Bhattarai’s Registan Diary.

So Lil Bahadur’s Basain and Muglan are often compared to see the Nepalese people’s psyche. Ignorant and uneducated, their lives were harrowed by poverty and hardship, the dictatorial rulers’ cruelty and discrimination in the kingdom. So they left the native soil in search of livelihood or some kind of employment. These plus people’s desire for financial relief forced our people to migrate permanently, or temporarily to find some seasonal jobs as laborers. Michael Hutt has translated the story of Basain as Mountains Painted with Turmeric.

Many readers find an image of their grandparents or parents or their own fate in Muglan— cheated, exploited, oppressed and unable to return. I guess that is why it’s become popular.

There are three important points connected with the popularity of this novel.  First, Professor  Michael Hutt wrote in an article (and later included in his book Eloquent Hills: Essays on Nepali Literature 2013) that Muglan is the story of the Nepali diaspora in Bhutan. He showed how innocent Nepalese people are exploited cruelly, leading even to death. This opened up a way to describe Muglan as a diasporic novel.

Second, like many novels, Muglan was also aired in RJ Achyut Ghimire’s captivating voice in a hugely popular program, Shruti Sambeg about a decade ago. It is available online. Many people living abroad unfailingly tuned into Achyut’s program and identified with the narration of Muglan, which contains the story of the characters’ trouble in exile, their hopelessness, helplessness, and death in a distant land. It is a tragic story. I was influenced by Thomas Hardy back then. Those Nepalis who desert home are reminded of their plight while reading Muglan. Today I receive calls, texts, and Facebook messages in which the audience sob or cry or howl in some distant middle-eastern, European and American countries while listening to Muglan.

Finally, its credit goes to Lekhnath Sharma Pathak, Lecturer of Linguistics (now a Ph.D. scholar in India). He translated Muglan into very appropriate English. Now it has been prescribed for the Bachelor level course as well. It has been translated into Hindi by Krishna Bahadur Nepali of Hyderabad college. Moreover, it is also being rendered into Assamese and Bengali.

In a small book, one finds tons of grief and misfortunes one after another and life still struggling for survival. Everything is quite real. The cruel destiny is unforeseeable but one has to undergo unremitting ordeals. Its language is too simple, unrefined and almost in rustic tones, it brings out the dialects of Bhutanese Nepalis, their culture.

Out of all the books, you have written, which one do you like the most?

It is difficult to say, dear bhaai. As a writer, you too must have experienced such a dilemma. But I never expected someone would put such a question before. You might have expected me to reply Muglan, but I cannot. It means injustice upon the rest. In a way, I think my best is yet to appear for which I am struggling—in the genre of novel or essay or poetry, not anything like criticism. Criticism is a parasitic plant, a bloodsucking thing which does not have its own roots, flowers, and fruits. It sucks other’s blood. You know, I always hate a bloodsucker. I spent quite a large portion of my life in this genre so I often repent too.  Had I invested all my time in the creation of novels!

Initially, you started as a creative writer, but later you moved to criticism. What motivated you to be a literary critic?

You attacked me with the same question that I wanted to shun. Now I must reply. In fact, the writer in me was born out of whims. There was no one to guide me, to show me a path or give suggestions. Now I sometimes provide suggestions to my daughters, give them ideas to polish their language. But there was no one to tell me. I came to a village emerging out of a jungle, now I am in a town. Metaphorically like that. A writer should craft his or her route personally. You grope in the dark for publication. Moreover, mine was a difficult time. It was represented by letterpress technology. Getting published was great, unlike today.

After the publication of my first novel Muglan in 1974, I left Kathmandu and returned to my village in the East, which lacked literary activities. I was too occupied by my job of teaching, so writing became almost secondary for a decade or almost two decades. This barren period tempted me towards critical writings.

By the time I got transferred to Kathmandu, my fresh novelist and young poet was half dampened and almost rusted in the villages. I did many critical writings there; however, the creative writer must have gone into hibernation. The budding writer within me was quite discontented but I kept it suppressed for long. In the meanwhile, I got a stipend for writing Kavyik Aandolanko Parichya (Introduction to Literary Trends and Movements) which meant most western literary movements like Cubism, Modernism, Expressionism, Impressionism, Naturalism, Experimentalism, Stream of Consciousness, Imagism, Dadaism, war poetry and many more had laid the foundation of modern thought. The book was published by the Royal Nepal Academy in 1982. This work introduced me as a modern critic (and thinker) in the Nepali academia so I was encouraged more to go deeper.

Then the desire for higher education took me to India, I spent five years around the great academic atmosphere of the University of Hyderabad. I delved deep in Translation Studies and my creative writer got buried deeper. See, how different situations mold one’s fate.

But I saw that Indian scholars presented, discussed and debated Postmodernism passionately. Then, I returned to my University in Kathmandu to find the nation ravaged by conflict and war, brutal killings, and extortion. Villages were being vacated, they were youthless, all young people had joined the revolutionary forces or deserted the country. There were no human rights and the Maoists’ wing was trying to establish dictatorial rule by overthrowing kingship and destroying the very roots of democracy at the cost of everything. In the meanwhile, some writers (supporters of extremism) had already published books denouncing Postmodernism criticizing this as an instrument of the West, the Capitalists (they mean to say Democratic) countries especially. They were promising pluralism for the new society while attacking Postmodernism at the same time. This was contradictory.

Then I studied the modern form of democracy, which is based on humanism, guarantees human rights, is all-inclusive, ensuring freedom of speech, is based extensively on cyber-culture, which is reverting many old values. As a result, cultural values are taking global forms. So I wrote in favor of postmodernism not to establish high theories of France of England or America but to teach our people a new kind of freedom, suitable to our environment so that they could be enabled to stand against dictatorial hegemony, that is communism or to oppose all kinds of authoritarianism. I wrote Uttaradhunik Aina, that is, The Postmodern Mirror, which won me Best Award of INLS Books in 2006. I was then invited by my literary friends to the USA in order to attend its first international conference where I received the award. Two years later another work titled Uttaradhunik Bimarsha (The Postmodern Discourse) got published. A large volume of 1000 pages that pleaded for plurality, multiplicity, new standpoint, and above all a great, worldwide paradigm shift we experienced in our society. It pleaded that no authoritarian rule will be a solution to such imminent danger. I wanted to strengthen my belief and claim. I wrote two more critical works during the subsequent years.

My purpose was to assist the new democratic spirit. My purpose was to help people know about the new trends of thought and freedom. My purpose was to familiarize them with a great paradigm shift whether in politics or religion or teaching methods or reading writing eating travel or anything in the current civilization. The pattern of life was changing, philosophy was changing, and no outdated principles explained for this. This purpose became more important than creative writing. If the educated people don’t understand the paradigm shift and if they are swayed by the advocates of an authoritarian rule then that is sure to destroy all.

Therefore much of my reading and so writing was theory-based, however, people came to me with their new creations and wanted me to analyze them from new angles —feminist perspectives, diasporic viewpoints, marginal angles, all new paradigms from the Nepali world came to me. And I did. I did, not for money nor for the promotion of Nepali criticism but for introducing these and many other novel trends of thought applicable to new society now looking for a total change, a post-structural paradigm. Each led to the freedom of thought and the newness of life, the alternative ways.

So people began to address me as a literary critic mistakenly, however. I disclaim every time. Whatever I did was to stand against the dictatorial dismissal of a free society.

As a literary critic, could you please name the best five books ever written in Nepalese language?

It’s difficult. But I must.

i. First poet Bhanubhakta Acharya’s Ramayana (the first Nepali epic whose English translation I have accomplished recently, now awaiting publication)

ii. Mahakavi Devkota’s epic Prometheus, based on Greek mythology but is adapted to the Nepali political history of Rana Regime.

iii. BP Koirala’s novel Hitler Ra Yahudee  (translated as  Hitler and the Jews by Nagendra Sharma recently)

iv. Parijat’s novel Shirisko Phool (translated as Blue Mimosa by Sondra Zeidstein and Tanka Vilas Varya

v. Krishnachandra Singh Pradhan’s recently published collection of essays Krishchandraka Nobandhaharu

There had not been much discussion about the post-modern literature in Nepal until you brought it to the limelight. Why do you choose the post-modernism as your favorite area of interest for literary criticism?

Yes, not surprisingly people regard me as one of its forerunners. I regard other thinkers like Abhi Subedi who have played a crucial role in introducing people to the call of a new time. There are Dr. Krishna Gautam, Jagadish Shumaher Rana, and some young generation critics too. Now things are easier. The Universities have prescribed postmodernism for different syllabi. And many books have appeared and the harsh left-wing has realized that it is foolish to stand against the call of time. Even the concept of Marxism has changed. Pluralism destroyed all hegemonies and the cyber world distributed all information throughout the world.

I was afraid. The way people attacked democracy with sound and fury could have been resulted in dictatorial rule, making it impossible to revert to a free life. Thank God that did not happen. I didn’t go to politics. Nor did the politicians know me. But I kept on shouting in loud voices teaching university students and writers and everyone about the importance of inclusiveness and variety, multiple thoughts, and coexistence. This was an investment on the stronger intellectual ground.

Presently Prachanda took a very bold decision and declared that there is no way out, we must choose a multiparty system and free competition. This is an age of democracy.

I think no democracy will win a greater victory than this and that there will be no greater democratic system than this. Likewise, Prof Chaitanya Mishra, a towering scholar, and sociologist repented recently— We taught Marxism, which exists nowhere, for thirty years.That’s true, many were duped and trained to live in illusion for years. Now they have accepted reality, now they have realized. That’s very good. There is no alternative to democracy. No alternative to freedom. Let writers live and die in freedom, do not force them to sing a false song that you are good and great.

But I am afraid, the people are still innocent and naive. They tried to sell Marxism like an antique worth possessing. Utopia also sells well in an uneducated mass. They sold it like an antique thing in the corner of history. Now all are disillusioned have realized nothing is final and human society is always in the making. Nepal’s politics has taken a great turn. This is a true paradigm shift in people’s thoughts. This is based on reality, open society, and globalization.

How does a literary critic play a constructive role to develop a creative writer?

Great critics have stood at great junctures of history. John Dryden, for instance, was an awe-inspiring writer and critic, he dominated Restoration England. People got a new vision from Ezra Pound, for instance. The way he defined Imagism is the foundation of modernism, Sartre’s view of existentialism marks the greatest departure in the history of literature/ philosophy, T S Eliot’s observation of social criticism brought a big change among the critics. They are great writers, not merely critics.

But Nepali literature has a very short history so the number of outstanding literary critics is small, far, and few. They fall within one hundred years. Of the most remarkable are Ramkrishna Sharma, Yadunath Khanal, I B Rai, Iswar Baral, Taranath Sharma, Abhi Subedi—all came with English literature background and so they gave models of criticism as well. There are others too equally great as Krishnachandra Singh Pradhan, BasudevTripathi, Kumar Bahadur Joshi, Mohanraj Sharma. But all of them are creative writers first, and then critics. One cannot be a great critic unless gifted with creative genius. One may be regarded purely a theorist as I A Richards, or Edward Said or Homi K Bhabha or Stuart Hill claims some new literary theory or philosophy only. 

In my case, I am always reminded of the words of Jean Sibelius, a most noted symphonic composer of Scandinavia (1865-1957), “Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.”Since I heard this, a strong dislike of critics grew in me. And this apathy is growing stronger. I will stand for creative works.

Of course, a literary critic must hold the ideal or standpoint of Edgar Allen Poe. “In criticism, I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose, nothing shall turn me.” That’s true but many just spit venom and kill the spirit and possibility in the creative artist.

I don’t like this genre, I don’t like to waste my time that I can use for creative writing but then people coax and wheedle and persuade and cajole and entice and force or compel and sometimes even charm me to put my pen onto paper for their sake. In a matter of three decades, I must have written more than five thousand pages—you can just imagine how many books I read. Isn’t it a sheer waste? I don’t have another life and much of this is wasted for them, not for me. I was compelled to spend on this thankless investment. If one is happy with my criticism, they won’t appear again if one is unhappy they will never appear again.

Most people blame you for praising any writer even if they don’t deserve the praise. How do you defend?

Whatever the consequence of my work, I have always worked bearing in my mind a singular motto that Frank A Clark, an American politician, and lawyer (1860-1936) has put forth. He says, “Criticism, like rain, should begentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots.” No wonder you get nothing by wasting your time in a fruitless activity like this. Why don’t you create your own?

You have expertise in translation. How do you see the present status of translating Nepalese literature into other languages?

I feel well compensated. There is no sense of loss when I consider that I happened to be the first candidate from Nepal to earn a degree in Translation Studies. It has been more than twenty years that I returned from the University of Hyderabad, India which has established a sophisticated Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies. Thanks to my Pathfinder guru Prof. Jai Raj Awasthi who chose this area for me and thanks to my supervisor guru Professor U N Singh, himself a great translation theorist and practitioner in India, guided me.

Back in Nepal, we (under C M Bandhu) designed the first syllabus in Translation Studies in for the Department of Linguistics in 1997, for Department of English Education in 1998, then for other Humanities Departments M Phil. TU has produced two more Ph.D. degree holders in Translation Studies and two more are underway. Some are doing M Phil, many opt for this Master’s level course and thesis writing every year.

I translated profusely (between English and Nepali), encouraged many, promoted this discipline and craft. Above all, I raised voice continually for setting up a Department of Translation at Nepal Academy. Ultimately, they established one eight years ago, a new Department after 50 years of the Academy’s foundation. Isn’t it great? The Department is doing commendable activities of translation— firstly by publishing translations (books), and also by publishing Rupantaran, a multilingual translation journal. These are the most commendable works. Thanks to Mr. Ganga Uprety, the Chancellor of Nepal Academy today.

Moreover, we are involved in a novel task of compiling the first Dictionary of Translators, which will include any translator who has contributed towards the translation of from or into the Nepali language. That will be great. Thanks to Professor Usha Thakur, is now heading the Department. They have entrusted me as a coordinator of a team of five experts. We are final editing this.

These are technical parts. But our translation tradition is wrong founded. Either publisher or the sponsor robs the translator, keep their identity a secret, get a work translated and published without permission, regard this as a second hand, less prestigious job. We need to bring improvements by enforcing international laws and raise the standard of a translator on par with that of the source writer. Because we are living in an age of translation and if we do not respect this discipline properly, we may die

It seems to me that Nepalese literature has not been able to influence the international literary sector to the expected level. What do you think we should do to improve it?

This is the most serious question every interviewer asks me. They think I know the position of Nepali literature that should have occupied internationally.

Nepali is young literature. We recently observed the bicentenary anniversary of the first Nepali poet Bhanubhakta. So our translational activities had to wait for the growth of language, literature, and the interest or level of the reader/ writer. Nepali is built mostly on the translation of Sanskrit classical texts. The translation of Western literature into Nepali is a recent phenomenon of about 100 years. The first English novel to be translated was Rider Haggards’ She in 1931 (by Pushkar Shumsher Rana).

Since then almost one thousand titles have undergone translation between Nepali and different languages. But most people consider that translation stands only for English-Nepali activity.

Translation is an unaccepted and illegal activity in Nepal. So translators too don’t feel much prestige in this job. We have a growing need for the translation of Nepali literature into other languages. In an interview 2015, Nobel Laureate Svetlana said her books were translated into dozens of European languages before she went to English. In our case translation means English, no other languages. Because we have no contact with people of German, French, Russian, Spanish, and Scandinavian languages. And one severe hurdle that has ever unsolved is India does not allow Nepalese books to supply as commodities to India but more than ten trucks of Indian books enter Nepal every week. I don’t know why Nepalese books are not allowed in the custom. Therefore so long as this hegemonic disparity has its solution our aim of translation also remains discouraged. We do some into English but we have no market no passage and we don’t have access to Europe or other languages. So long as Nepal does not have access to books in the Indian market, translation into a foreign language will be a sheer waste.

So far we have more than one thousand titles in translation. Nepal can never expect to grow in translation unless this bilateral impediment is removed on the democratic principle of equality.