पृथ्वीराज चौहानमा मुना–मदनका श्रोता (टिप्पणी)

 पद्म देवकोटा

मुना–मदन छोडेर आफ्ना अरू सबै कृति जलाईदिए हुन्छ भन्ने महाकवि लक्ष्मीप्रसाद देवकोटाले पृथ्वीराज चौहान रचना गर्ने क्रममा उहाँ स्वयंलाई सबैभन्दा राम्रो लागेको आफ्नो कृतिको संझना गरेको उदाहरण सो महाकाव्यको नवम सर्गको तेर्‍हौं श्लोकमा पाइन्छ । अविबाहित अजमेरका राजा पृथ्वीराज चौहानलाई दरबारीया कवि चन्दाले कन्नौजका घमण्डी राजा जयचन्दकी छोरी शाहज्यादी संयोगीताको रूप, गुण, शील, स्वभावको प्रशंसा गर्दै ऊ यसरी राजकूलकालागि सुयोग्य कन्या बन्न सक्ने बताउँदै गएपछि पृथ्वीराजले हल्का र मिठो व्यङ्ग्य गर्दै भन्छन्, 

कविका कुरा गफीका छुरा

गाँजाका सुर, मिथ्याका पुरा

सबै हुन् पाथी भूस । (श्लोक ४ पृ. ८८)

तर उनको कौतुहल जागिसकेको छ र कन्नौजमा गएर कन्या हेर्न मान्छन् । यौटा जोगीको भेषमा र अर्को जोगीको चेलाको भेषमा कन्नौजको यात्रा थाल्छन् । बाटामा “अतिथि उदार भारतका किसान” (श्लोक ८ पृ. ९०) का झोपडीमा रात बिताउँदै जाँदा यौटा यस्तै झोपडीभित्रको चित्रण कविले यसरी गरेका छन्, 

चन्दाले यस्तै गर्दथे गाना

बराबर गिराई मोतीका दाना

किसान नजरका । 

ईश्वरको हाँसो पाएको फूल–

हरूको कथा सुगन्ध मूल

सुनेर दिलले भक्तको सच्चा

रातको पहरमा ।

किसान शिशु वरि र परि 

बस्दथे सुन्दै तिनलाई घेरी

सुन्नको रहरमा ।

यस्तो ली चाला ती दुई पुगे

कन्नौज शहरमा । (श्लोक १४ पृ. ९२) 

कविले यसरी आफ्नै सफल कृतिको साहित्यिक संकेत दिंदै नयाँ कृति रचना गर्नु आफैमा यौटा रोचक तथा विरल घटना हो ।  

मुना–मदनको “सज्जन वर्गप्रति”बाट कविले आफ्नो कृतिको सफलतालाई लिएर व्यक्त गरेका इच्छाका विभिन्न अभिव्यक्तिमध्ये हरफ १२ मा भनिएको छ, “झोपडीभित्र यसैले बालोस् मनको दियालो ।” नभन्दै पृथ्वीराज चौहानको उपर्युक्त श्लोकमा कथा सुन्ने र सुनाउने दुवै थरी झोपडीभित्र छन् । यो झोपडी किसानको हो र किसान भारतको जसले गर्दा मुना–मदन भारतका झोपडीमा समेत चर्चित भएको बुझिन्छ । यस झोपडीभित्र यौटा मात्र कथा हालिएको छैन । “–हरू”ले मुना–मदनबाहेक शायद लूनी, म्हेन्दू, सुलोचना, आदि सबैलाई इङ्गित गरिरहेको छ ।

जे होस्, माथिको श्लोकमा मार्मिक कथाहरू सुन्ने र सुनाउने दुवैका आँखामा आँसू छन् । मुना–मदनकै पंक्ति — “ईश्वरको हाँसो पाएका फूल” (हरफ २९६) — यस महाकाव्यमा उतारेर मुनाको याद दिलाउँदै ऊ जस्तै अन्य नारीको संस्मरण गर्न हामी निम्त्या–इएका छौं । श्रोताको दिल भक्तको जस्तो सफा छ । वास्तवमा झोपडीभित्रका श्रोता बालक र बालह्दय भएका किसान छन् । कथा सुनौसुनौ लागिरहने रोचक छ किनभने मार्मिक छ । हुन त यी सबै कुरा कविकै कथनभित्र पर्छन् तापनि पाठकको हैसियतले बोल्नुपर्दा यस कथनले पृथ्वीराज चौहानको यस सर्ग अझै रोचक बन्न गएको मेरो अनुभव छ । 

संन्दर्भ ग्रन्थ

देवकोटा, महाकवि लक्ष्मीप्रसाद । पृथ्वीराज चौहान । साझा प्रकाशन : ललितपुर, २०६३ । 

Devkota, Laxmi Prasad. Muna-Madan. Translation: Padma Devkota. Adarsh Books: New Delhi, 2018. 

दुई दन्त्यकथा बीच

कसै कसैले ‘हुनु’को विशेषता विचार गर्ने क्षमतासँग गाँस्छन्, कुनै कुनै क्षणमा मलाई त्यो त्यहि त्यसरी गाँस्नसक्ने क्षमतासँग जोडिएको छ भन्ने लाग्छ । त्यो क्षमता सचेत र चिन्तनशील जीवनले मात्र सम्भव तुल्याउँछ । अनि त्यही संभावनासँग ‘बन्नु’को अर्थ पनि गाँसिदै जान्छ । यस्तो सम्बन्ध गाँसिन सक्ने सम्भावनाको सन्दर्भमा ढुङ्गा ‘हुनु’ र मानिस ‘हुनु’मा खासै फरक छैन । कुनै व्याप्त तर अप्रत्यक्ष विश्व संचालकले सबै जड र अजडको समीकरण गरिरहेकै छ । जीवन त आखिर ढुङ्गाकै पनि छ । शिशुको कम जागृत चेतनाले अनुकरण गर्छ, युवाको बढी जागृत चेतनाले निर्णय लिन्छ । प्रत्येक निर्णयले स्वत्व व्युझाउँदै स्वतन्त्रताको मिठास चखाउँछ । तर निर्णय लिने क्रम भने अति नै कठीन हुन्छ किनभने दुईवटा कुन्यौ बीचको गधाले कुन कुन्यौको पराल मिठो होला भन्ने निर्णय लिनु अगाडि नै ज्यापू यमराजले उसलाई खेतैबाट लखेटिदिए पछि उसले न यताको पराल चाख्न पाउँछ न उताको । हामी मध्ये कसै कसैको आत्मकथाको सार संक्षेपमा यही हो । अरू त प्रमाणको आवश्यकता नदेख्ने वा प्रमाणविना केही नस्वीकार्ने दुई बेग्लाबेग्लै विश्वासका कुन्यौका वादी र प्रतिवादी बनेर आ–आफ्ना पक्षका सफल वकालती गर्न सक्षम छन् – कट्टरतापूर्वक वा विनम्रतापूर्वक ।

अन्नकोषभन्दा माथि उठ्ने क्षमता भएका प्राणी परालको कुन्यौ बीच जस्तै परापूर्वकालदेखि एकले अर्कोलाई विभिन्न पाराले हाल्दै आएका दुईवटा दन्त्यकथा बीच रुमल्लिएका हुन्छन् । दन्त्यकथा नै किन नहोस्, त्यो जीवनसँग गाँसिएकै हुन्छ नै । इतिहासकारको औपन्यासिक उत्प्रेक्षा र कविको काल्पनिक यथार्थ बीच जति दूरी देखिए तापनि दुवैमा तथ्यभन्दा वनावटी बुट्टाप्रतिको आकर्षण समान छ । यौटाले तथ्यको धाक दिंदै दृष्टिकोणको फूलजडी बिर्सिन्छ, अर्कोले कल्पनाको बुरुसले यथार्थका रेसामा रङ्ग भर्दै छ भन्ने कुरा भुल्छ । मापदण्डका सूक्ष्म अन्तरमा छड्केको भ्रम र यथार्थको खिचडी हरेक आत्मालाई चखाउँदै सांस्कृतिक मानिस हिंड्दै छ त्यस विजयपथमा जहाँ हिंड्न् पाउनु नै उसका लागि स्वतन्त्रता बोधको वर्तमान बनेको हुन्छ ।

यिनै क्रममा वेद, पुराण, महाभारत र रामायणहरू जस्ता आर्ष तेजका झिल्काहरू जन्मिए । कुनै पनि मानव–समूहका धर्मग्रन्थले झैं यिनीहरूले पनि ‘हुनु’का उद्देश्य र लक्ष त्यसको आदिम कारणको साथै व्याख्या र वयान गर्दै गए । यी व्याख्या र वयान कसैको अन्तस्करणले टिपेको सत्य थियो जसको प्रभावमा हजारौं वर्षसम्म पनि मानिसहरू यौटा सपना देख्दै छन् – आत्मा, परमात्मा, स्वर्ग, नरक, धर्म र मनुष्यत्वको । यस्तो सपना नदेख्न यसैले छुट पनि दिएको छ, स्वतन्त्र छाडिदिएको छ । त्यसैले यी सारा दन्त्यकथा हुन् भनेर यथार्थको खोजमा अन्यत्र लाग्नेहरूले आर्कै विश्व पाएका छन् जसमा इन्द्रियमा जँचेको यथार्थ र तथ्यका आधारमा निर्मित चमत्कारीला प्रविधि र यन्त्रहरूले मानिसको ठोस भौतिक सुविधा र सुखसामग्रीमा विविधता र परिष्कार ल्याएका छन् । सरल यथार्थवादी व्यक्तिहरू बहुसंख्यक भएको वास्तविकतामा धर्मको भन्दा विज्ञानको महिमा ताजा र तात्कालीक हुन्छ, उपलब्धि ठोस हुन्छ, उपयोगिता स्पष्ट हुन्छ । प्रोटोन र प्रार्थनाको अन्तर यहीँ प्रष्टिएको हुन्छ । विगतका उपलब्धि र तिनका उत्पादन प्रक्रियाका आधारमा विज्ञान उपर विश्वास सजिलै बस्छ । यसको संभावना अनन्त देखिन्छ र भौतिक जगत्का नियमविरोधी कुरा बाहेक सबै अनाविष्कृत कुरा भविष्यमा सम्भवत पैदा हुन सक्ने वस्तुको रूपमा हाम्रा विश्वस्त मस्तिष्कमा अंकित हुन्छन् । हामी शायद मेरी पपिन्सको जस्तो उडने साइकल कल्पना गथ्र्यौं, बेलायती जन फोडन र यानीक रीडले साइकल उडाएर देखाइदिए । हामी क्वान्टम कम्प्युटरको प्रतिक्षामा छौं जसरी कि भोलि गएर हाम्रा जीर्ण कलेजा र फोक्सो भित्रभित्रै पलाउन संभव पार्ने प्रविधिको प्रतिक्षामा छौं ।

अन्तस्करणले स्वीकारेको यथार्थ र इन्द्रियहरूले भोगेको यथार्थका दुई कुन्यौ बीचको गधाले अनिश्चितताको श्रापबाट मुक्त हुन इच्छाशक्तिको वरदान पनि पाएको छ । दुवै मिठा छन् । दुवैमा सत्यको मात्रा छ र दुवैमा असत्यको मात्रा पनि छ । कुनै पनि ज्ञानको पूर्णता सम्भव नभएको हुँदा सत्यको सापेक्षितताभित्र असत्यको अंश अन्तर्निहित छ नै । म यहाँ तत्थ्यको कुरा गरिरहेको छैन किन भने “पानी तल बग्छ” को पछाडि ‘तल’ र ‘माथि’का प्रश्नले पिरोलिरहेका हुन्छन् र हामी फेरि त्यही सापेक्षिततामा फर्किनु पर्छ जहाँ शाश्वत मानव मस्तिष्कका लागि प्रमाणहीन, काल्पनिक, आस्थाआश्रित दन्त्यकथाको रूपमा मात्र प्रस्तुत हुन्छ । यसै गरी मानव इन्द्रियका लागि ठोस भनी मानिआएको जगत् ठोस् होइन र यथार्थ भनी मानिआएको जगत् भ्रम मात्र हो भने भ्रम नै यथार्थ हो भनी स्वीकार्न हामी बाध्य छौं । यसैले हाम्रो भ्रम नै हाम्रो यथार्थ हो । शायद हाम्रो यथार्थ पनि हाम्रै भ्रम हुन सक्छ । यो पछिल्लो सम्भावनालाई सम्भावनाकै रूपमा रहन दिऊँ । त्यसैले हामीले बढी रोचक कथाले जीवनमा आनन्द भर्नु दुई कुन्यौ बीचको गधाभन्दा अलि फरक बन्नु हो । अरू सम्भावना के छ ? मलाई थाहा छैन ।

२० असार २०७०

Why I Suspended My Facebook for a Week

Last week, I suddenly decided to suspend my Facebook account for a week. I did this to examine myself and the changes in my lifestyle that this suspension would create. Recently, I had found myself spending increasingly more time on Facebook than on more useful activities. So, I just wanted to log out of my Facebook account; but, I ended up by deciding not to open it for a week. This in itself spoke of the degree of Facebook addiction I already suffered from.

Rather than being a tool-based utility such as a computer, which for me is a typewriter cum storage system, digital apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on are instances of addiction-based technologies. For the last week, I have spent an average of thirty-one minutes a day or three hours and thirty seven minutes a week on Facebook from my cell phone alone. Were I to spend that much time per week in writing an essay, for instance, I would be able to produce four essays a month. It is quite obvious that the creative act of writing an essay engages better human possibilities than passive likes and responses on somebody’s post. This is, of course, a matter of personal priority. Yet, I am very much in the vice-like grip of technology that has waved its magic wand over my head and has turned me into an unthinking commodity of its market for the total amount of time I have spent passively clicking its ready-made likes and emojis. And that is a story of human will-power against Magician Technology.

Magician Technology need not be present “in person” to perform the trick. The eyes of the audience is on the magic wand that circles in the air. That’s what Facebook has done to us. It has charmed us with a virtual reality where iconic likes and loves flatter the naked emperor in us with confirmation of that which is not there. For where is the inviolable criteria with which to judge the sincerity of these likes and loves? And how do I or anyone else know just how sincere or honest the worded comments are? If there is no way to come up with truth, it is also true that manipulation of the user’s psyche along with a storm of misinformation has resulted in the obscurity of our perception of truths and facts. In a face-to-face conversation with a friend, not only his spoken words but his voice, tone, volume, rhythm, tilt of the head, turn of the nose, twinkle of the eyes or even a mere movement of the index would confirm the sincerity of his expressed sentiment. This brings friends closer together. But, we are addicted enough to dismiss one’s life-partner’s query to complete a comment on a virtual screen. Such is the tragedy of modern digital life.

The digital media has also fed us milk diluted with water and most of us are not even in a position to tell the two liquids apart. A couple of days ago, I met a friend of mine during my morning walk. He stopped me, ironically reminded me to keep social distance and vociferated the most recent conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19. His argument boiled down to this: The government is corrupt, he said. Does it have the right to treat people like this? To take away their fundamental right of free movement for so long? The well-placed ones are making money by mistreating people, by locking them inside their houses, and pretending that the corona virus is a big threat to life, whereas it is nothing but just another common cold or flu. Just a bit stronger, he admitted. I tried to explain to him that corruption issues and the corona pandemic issues should be kept apart and understood separately if we wanted to stay safe and healthy. I told him not to forget that this new virus is a reality we all will have to live with. He gave up on my understanding of the situation and bid me good-bye. I could not help recalling the number of Facebook posts that sounded like this friend of mine.

Misinformation is often more appealing to our thirst for stories than information, which lacks the touch of magic. Reality is ever so boring! Something that helps us point an accusatory index at someone else also satisfies our own sense of incompleteness through the discovery of another who is even less complete than we are and also seems to promise something better for the future. But hurled accusations are no seeds of improvement of the human situation. Just how misguided we can become when social media satisfies our soul with downy balls of narratives floating in the air is difficult to say. Perhaps I wanted to get away from all that too.

I feel better after a week of abstinence from Facebook. If I am sufficiently inspired, I may even log out of it and start scribbling thoughts in a copybook in search of a new career. But I also admit that it has been a long week.

 

September 19, 2020.

That Radiant Glow!

         That which once looked radiant in the distance still shines bright. I do not want it to fade into an afterglow for it is the lived discoveries of the world, the felt spell of further possibilities, and the yet unknown which must gradually manifest itself to me that excites me and fills me with a sense of brimming life. It is this almost measurable distance between me and the bright promise of fulfillment that inspires me to continue enjoying my present in the presence of continued hopes for the future. Life is live in the senses, vibrant in expectations, joyous in contacts and communications, agile in the flexibility of dreams, supple in choice and taste, sturdy in desire, fruitful in socialization and celebratory in mood. Free from the rigid ideologies that prosperous ladies and gentlemen of my nation seem to passionately uphold, I have found life unbound by any chains other than those of personal responsibilities which define the tasks I am committed to. At least this is the way I would like to understand my attitude to life.

              However, after an early retirement from the university, the radiance in the distance diminished perceptibly into something of an afterglow that is ever reminiscent of the glorious day. With a few added years of teaching experience in a private college that would not change or grow, I began perceiving the futility of all action that I had read earlier as responsible and committed work for the enhancement of the Humanities through English education in this nation. Unable to buffet against political currents and other malpractices within the academia, I isolated myself from the practice of the crowd that survived better and longer than I did in the educational arena. This was a milestone I had crossed, but to what destination?

              There is a time in most people’s life when opportunities abound. Future is not just tomorrow, it is also next month, next year, next decade and after. The radiance in the distance is full of promise and possibilities. Between the here and the there in time lies a continuum which offers an adventure where treasures are discovered, hearts are lost and found, dreams are fulfilled, conquests are celebrated, friendships are built and sacrifices are made for the common good. And there comes a time in the lives of some people when opportunities diminish and become scarce, when the heart’s rhythm changes, when the physical world moves too fast for the weary limbs and dreams are more frequent than they are fulfilled. It is a time when gradually hair is shed, sight is shed, hearing is shed, strength is shed and friends and members of the family are shed from the tree of life.

              Despite all these shedding, faith in oneself remains constant if one has learned to believe in oneself during the long decades of life. The self-image continues with a happy illusion in its own everlastingness. The world has not ended, it has only changed. Sadly, tight and robust skin tends to perceive all loose and wrinkled skin as traditionally conservative and incapable of progressive and avant-gardist attitudes and behavior. Such perception, by sheer strength of uncomprehending majority, sidelines mellow thought to the rank of vegetative years. This is one tragedy induced on age by an eternally younger society which youthfully gushes along its course necessitated by the contours of renewed wants and needs. However, the tight and robust skin is not free from a similar condition: there is no possibility of real understanding between two individuals; there are only compromises through words and silences. We understand only our own opinion of what another person might be like; understanding the person himself is nothing more than our understanding of our own perception of that person with all our subjective angles and bias. So, the loose-skin circles in a side-pool beside the main current and needs nothing more than an identity of its own, untroubled by the swift, young current. Here it will capture the flashing sun, breathe the forest-filtered air and dream under the starlit sky. To be what one is is the greatest bliss of life.

              This is why retirement has come as a bonus. Each day has an added twelve hours of life’s leisure whence to observe the distant radiance and to smile with contentment at the fact that one is now closer to and, at the same time, approaching such Beauty. To those who think that life is a dream within a dream, the emptiness of the beautiful is like afternoon dew. To those who can appreciate the simple reality of sensual experiences, life remains as rich as ever.

              The future does not shrink like shriveled skin. It dilates instead with decreased distance in relation to the individual who either looks behind with fear or enjoys the huge splashes of approaching time by adventurously looking at it like a mountain river rafter. What is there to lose after all except the fear of loss? If there is nothing to gain either, there is still the satisfaction of having arrived there where life finally bursts into a flame of beauty having used up all its possibilities, having won the goalpost, having shared a game with millions of others who too will one day arrive exactly there. For the time being some are climbing arduous slopes, others are crossing torrents and yet others are preparing for the journey without the faintest idea as to what it will cost them. But then, this is life!

              It is only when the radiant glow begins to dilate over life’s horizon that the slow and lonely fields of leisure comfort the traveler with their vastness and their variety, for the observation of which one did not as yet have time. Go where you will, do what you want to do, cull any flower along the roadside, drink from any fount, and you will always see that radiant glow grow larger, more brilliant and more beautiful than ever. It is what you were actually looking for throughout your life. it is what will ease your weary limbs. It is what will lull you to a final rest from which the puny attitudes of a megalomaniac world will not gnaw your heart awake to undesirable passions and pain. Having now fueled the future with your own life, you may rest in peace beneath that radiant glow which continues drawing others like you with its brilliance.

 

Padma Devkota

March 28, 2012

 

 

The Numerical Rhizome

Padma Devkota

    After I once scored a hundred marks in a math test in class three, my mathematical ability has constantly declined to the extent that, like many other people today, I rely heavily on the calculator for easy additions and subtractions. I certainly made an early discovery that numbers beyond hundred do not exist for some people. Some early and later civilizations did not find it necessary to count beyond ten or twenty and were therefore not able conceive the words for million or thousand or even five hundred until well after the barter system was replaced by functional bank notes. Others such as the Greek civilization were able to build the four-sided Great Pyramids at Giza that were as tall as 481 feet and had a large base that covered 755 sq. ft. Pythagoras (580?-500 B.C.), the Greek mathematician, assigned mystical properties to numbers. He was a philosopher of immortality and a believer in the reincarnation of the human soul.

    Numerical relation may not be everyone's meat. However, for the Greeks and Hebrews, and also for the Egyptians, Druids, and Hindus, it was real venison. They delighted in number symbolism to the extent that numbers were charged with mystical and magical powers, which were the privilege of the high priests and the shamans. Unlike me who find numbers generally boring, these mystics and magicians found the mysteries of life and death encoded in numbers that spoke directly to their heart in a very spiritual way. Thus, numerology, the study of the influence of numbers on human life, developed as a special branch of knowledge. China, the Hindu's chart of life, exemplifies how the date and time of birth can generate astrological calculations that claim the power to forecast all the major events of human life. Numbers have penetrated rites, ceremonies, astrology, occultism, spiritualism and many other practices of numerous societies. I even dare to presume that numbers spread around the world because of the significance that they accumulated in terms of their mystical and magical properties. Zero, for instance, was not part of the Greek or the Roman numbers. The Arabs learned it from the Hindus and taught it to the others.

    And this is really what literature has drawn from mathematics: the mystery and the magic of numbers applied to social and religious ways of living and thinking. Numbers have gained special symbolical meanings in various cultures. Zero is a circle that represents Nought or Void. It is like a mythic serpent that bites its own tail. Creation begins from zero and dissolution ends in zero. One is the Absolute, the unmatched, the unique. Two recalls the creative dualism of the Samkhya and that of the dualistic Vedanta. All reproductive coupling is a function of two. Three is the trinity in religion: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost or the Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwor of the symbolic letter Om. Where the West sees only four basic elements that compose all life, the East sees five. In this way, each number attaches itself to some fundamental concept of life and the world. Thus, the numerical rhizome sprouts quantitative values in mathematics but mystical values in religion and symbolical values in literature.

    Let me provide a few examples of what I mean from the poetry of Laxmi Prasad Devkota. In "To a Dark Clouded Night," he calls night a "dissolver of the light of day" and sees in it the "visible outline of vast, vast Nought." It's almost as if the nocturnal sky were a round and empty circle, a zero in quantitative terms. This Nought, also called Void, billows and dashes against the individual human consciousness, symbolized by each of the innumerable nocturnal stars. The poet's consciousness is startled by the presence of this Void and chokes with fear of extinction. This is the fear of death and of losing one's identity in the levelling zero. Yet, at the fag end of his life, the poet was capable of reconciling with the onslaught of this Void. He wrote: "Like Void, I dissolve into the Void."

    Devkota had opted for mathematics too at the Intermediate of Science level. That is probably why he even included the algebraic formula a²+b² = c² in an earlier version of the poem titled "The Lunatic." Later, he edited this portion of the text probably because it sounded more pedantic than poetic. The text he left behind reads as follows:

        Clever and eloquent you are!

        Your formulas are ever running correct.

        But in my calculations one minus one is always one.

No mathematician will agree with such calculations because quantitative values do not function in this way. In this poem, one is symbolic of the Absolute from which nothing can be subtracted. The lunatic persona operates with the sixth sense, which is the heart. And the heart is capable of reading symbols in natural objects:

To you a rose is but a rose,

It embodies Helen and Padmini for me.

    Another instance of the failure of quantitative calculation is found in "We Are Seven" by William Wordsworth who tells of how a young female child fails to understand that the death of her brothers and sisters has resulted in a quantitative decrease of the members of the family. She insists that they are seven children although some of them are already in the grave.

    Other poets too have made use of the magical, mystical, or symbolical use of numbers. In "Kubla Khan," which is a dream fragment, S.T. Coleridge has a vision of an Abyssinian maid who is playing on her dulcimer. He says that if only he could revive within himself the girl's "symphony and song," he would be so ecstatic with the artist's inspiration that he would, with the help of music,

              build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Divine inspiration has rendered him into something like an ancient magician or a holy sage with unearthly powers. This is why common men are asked to weave carefully a magic circle thrice around him.

    Any discussion of literary symbolism of numbers would be incomplete without a brief discussion of William Butler Yeats. In his book titled A Vision (1926), Yeats develops his theories on human personality, on history, culture and civilization. He bases the symbolic system on the lunar calendar and counts the twenty-eight phases of the moon, which form a complete cycle or circle. There is a bright half and a dark half of this circle. The individual soul begins its journey out of primal darkness in a state of natural innocence. It grows intellectually. The fourteenth phase corresponds to the full moon. This phase symbolizes the victory of wisdom over brute power. This is also the height of the individual's personality, which imposes itself upon the external reality. After this, the external reality begins to regain its primacy until, in the twenty-sixth phase, the soul loses its distinguishing personality. In the twenty-seventh phase, the soul stops longing for the lost personality, and in the twenty-eighth phase, the soul is like the mythic Fool who wanders aimlessly into dangerous places. This forms a complete cycle.

    Cultures and civilizations too undergo a complete cycle. In a 1924 sonnet titled "Leda and the Swan," W. B. Yeats dramatizes the historical point where the Babylonian Heroic Age was replaced by the Classical civilization, which in turn was later replaced by western Christian civilization. Zeus, in the form of a swan descends to the earth to violate the chastity of Leda, wife of Tyndareus. Out of this rape are born two twins: Helen and Pollux and Clytemnestra and Castor. Hellen, married to Menalaus, eloped with Paris. Troy fought a very long war to bring her back. Similarly, Clytemnestra murdered her husband Agamemnon, a hero of the Trojan War. Recalling this story, Yeats asks whether human beings are ever aware of the consequences of their own actions, for such awareness would be prophetic.

    And, such changes in civilization occur every two thousand years, according to the calculations of the poet. So, against the background of the First World War and many other civil wars, Yeats sees the dark forces of the pre-Christian age return as Anti-Christ in "The Second Coming." His own death in 1939, the year in which the Second World War begun, is symbolic in terms of this prophecy, which also promises the rebirth of Christ in the year 4000. We are today, according to Yeats, in the dark phase of the Christian era.

    Prophets, poets, sages, highpriests, magicians, and mystics (and I might add mathematicians too) all have something in common. The poet, however, often displays a greater love for natural beauty than the mystic who gazes at the unseen or the highpriest for whom beauty can lie only in moral conduct. Some poets, it is true, are prophets too. Their prophecies may or may not make use of mathematics. They may not be able to say like scientists, "Give me a place to stand in space to use my lever. I will move the earth to the spot you desire." They will say, "What's in a name? / A rose by any other name will smell as sweet." This is common sense expressed in the best possible way in a language that cannot be rewritten to excel what it already is. And common sense is the best logic I have come across thus far. Logic and mathematics are intimately interwoven into each other's fabric.

    However, poets have other functions to fulfill besides that of prophecy alone. They are artists, too, with a sense of proportion, of harmony, of symmetry. Mathematics mothers symmetry. Aestheticians have calculated ratios of physical beauty: the ratio of the length of the nose to the height of the forehead; the ratio of the length of the metacarpus to the length of the fingers; the ratio of the length of the thigh to the length of the leg. There is always some mathematical ratio between parts wherever there is symmetry. Poets and artists do not need to walk around with rulers and verniers. They walk around with an innate sense of proportion and harmony that most people are born with.

    Poets and artists of the Medieval Age were more attuned to the requirements of proportion, symmetry, and harmony than people are today. The divine, the natural, and the human coexisted in their world in a mutually beneficial harmony. Balance and order were the keys to survival. Cosmic vibrations reverberated in microcosms. People lived in a harmonious age dominated by a natural hierarchy in a nexus of ascending order from inanimate to vegetative to animal to human to angelic to divine. God resided in the apex of the triangle, the base of which was the inanimate world. The clock-like mechanical efficiency of the world was both a matter of great appreciation and a proof of infallible intelligence that must envision the minutest details of a very complex universe. The harmony of the clock-like universe pervaded ethics, morals, science, religion, politics and all other aspects of medieval life. Poetry was not untouched.

    Classical poetry gave much emphasis to both internal and external forms and structures. The poet's desire for precision, accuracy, and a strict observation of rules of composition spoke of how mathematical proportions pervaded both art and nature of the Medieval and Classical Ages. This pervasion of mathematical proportions expressed itself in many ways in literature: in the linearity of the oral story-telling tradition; in the rise towards the climax, the crisis in the apex, and the descent of the anticlimax towards the denouement in Shakespearean and other dramatic works that were artistically woven into the five-act structure; in the sonnet form with its fourteen lines divided either into an octave and a sestet (8+6) or three quatrains and a couplet (4+4+4+2), or two quatrains and two tercets (4+4+3+3), and so on. Even the length of poetic lines in each stanza had to be proportionate for the sake of visual aesthetics, which disproportionate lengths would destroy. Poetic lines were measured in terms of the number of meter they contained. Each meter had a foot, which was either two or three stressed and unstressed syllables. Equal number of feet provided a sense of balance and harmony, which was enhanced by end rhymes.

    The adherence to and practice of strict classical requirements of poetic compositions were to shatter only with the dawn of a modern sensibility that stirred with the eighteenth century Romantic revolt against Classical literary practices. The age of literary modernism, however, does not coincide with the age of mathematical or philosophical modernism. It was another mathematician, René Descartes (1596-1650), also known as the Father of Modern Philosophy, who decided to rebuild the western philosophic foundation from scratch by simply doubting the validity of existing knowledge. His law of probability, combined with other intellectual forces that contributed to inductive logic, is in keeping with the philosophic skepticism for which the Roman Inquisition tried Galileo. Descartes too believed in the heliocentric hypothesis propounded by Galileo, but had to cower down before the supremacy of the Bible. He did not shout out his observation that matter throughout the universe was essentially the same type.

    The only thing that really went wrong in the development of knowledge was a rift that grew between the humanities and the sciences. Disciplinary practices grew into specializations that lacked the necessary tolerance towards other disciplines. Scientists looked down upon the humanists even as scholars in the humanities regarded the scientists' cold and impersonal calculations with some contempt. C. P. Snow makes a special case of this in his essay on these two cultures. I prefer to cite examples from Book Three of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels to show how scientists and mathematicians have been satirized in literature. Gulliver is dining with the King of Laputa. This is how he describes the food:

We had two Courses, of three Dishes each. In the first Course, there was a Shoulder of Mutton, cut into an Aequilateral Triangle; a Piece of Beef into a Rhomboides; and a Pudding into a Cycloid. The second Course was two Ducks, trussed up into the Form of Fiddles; Sausages and Puddings resembling Flutes and Haut-boys, and a Breast of Veal in the Shape of a Harp. The Servants cut our Bread into Cones, Cylinders, Parallelograms, and with several other Mathematical Figures.

    And this is how he describes the scientists' appreciation of female beauty:

Their Ideas are perpetually conversant in Lines and Figures. If they would, for Example, praise the Beauty of a Woman, or any other Animal, they describe it by Rhombs, Circles, Parallelograms, Ellipses, and other Geometrical Terms; or else by Words of Art drawn from Musick, needleses here to repeat.

              Shall we look at just one more example? In the passage below, Swift comes down heavily on the scientists' lack of imagination because of their obsession with specialization.

And although they [the Intellectuals of their Workmen] are dextrous enough upon a Piece of Paper, in the Management of the Rule, the Pencil, and the Divider, yet in the common Actions and Behaviour of Life, I have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy People, nor so slow and perplexed in their Conceptions upon all other Subjects, except those of Mathematicks and Musick. They are very bad Reasoners, and vehemently given to Opposition, unless when thy happen to be of the right Opinion, which is seldom their Case. Imagination, Fancy, and Invention, they are wholly Strangers to, nor have any Words in their Language by which those Ideas can be expressed; the whole Compass of their Thoughts and Mind, being shut up within the two forementioned Sciences.

I am pretty sure that this is not the case today because interdisciplinary and crossdisciplinary practices abound in the university departments all over the world. The Central Department of English has already adjusted interdisciplinary studies in its curriculum. The TU Academic Council has already accepted the proposed American Interdisciplinary Studies program, which will soon be offered to students.

    Let me conclude with the assurance that there is more to be said in this area. There are other instances of the use of mathematics in literature. Geometric shapes describe structures of literary compositions. Time in its physical, grammatical, philosophical and psychological aspects plays a very important role in the creation of literature. Children's literature too makes use of mathematics. Often children are taught to count with the help of some nursery rhymes such as "One, two, buckle my shoe."

    Rather than go into all these details, I have pointed out only two important facts: first, that the relationship between math and literature is established by the mystical and magical properties of numbers; and, second, that the sense of symmetry, harmony and balance which give rise to aesthetic beauty is basically a matter of mathematical proportion.

 Of Nepalese Clay 4 (October 2002)

Reinventing Jhiltung

- Padma Devkota

    Gopinath Nepal, known to the inhabitants of Jhiltung as Baburam, must have been a very handsome lad once upon a time. His genial and robust face stared at me with incredulity when Ramesh Prasad Nepal, my companion to Jhiltung, told him that our children were wedded to each other. He was delighted and scrutinized my face in the dwindling light of the evening. I was new to him, but he recognized and greeted my companion immediately. We had just arrived on motorbikes with our young escorts to a point from where we now had to descend down a raised, narrow path that zigzagged through the paddy field to the house below.

    Midway upon a southern, sequestered slope of the mountain, Baburam’s house offered us the most unanticipated warmth, comfort and hospitality. Like a living history, Baburam himself walked slowly around his clean front yard with a grey, metal walking stick with a curved handle because he had probably torn a tendon of his knee by falling from the raised path in the terraced fields. In the shed below the front yard, goats, cows and buffaloes chewed on their fodder. A fresh, white lamb frolicked and gamboled near our feet with two others. A calf had newly arrived and the beestings were shared. Rich milk, skimmed milk and home-made ghee were the major attractions of a vegetarian dinner in the large ground-floor kitchen. At the farthest end of the room, flames leapt above the two holes of a mud-stove upon which soot-blackened utensils sat cozily. From the opposite end, a dark, wooden staircase led to the upper story where we would retire for the night. A man sat on a wooden bedstead on one side of the room as we sat cross-legged on wooden boards on the mud floor to devour with gusto the sumptuous dinner while the women kept goading us to try just some more food “even though it may not be that good!” Baburam was the only person who sat with one leg stretched out before him because he could not fold it.

     After the meal was over he told us that we had come to Jhiltung some two or three years too late. “Gore is gone and nobody in this region knew the poet like he did. I was very young at that time and somebody told me later on that he had been asked to follow the poet wherever he went and to make sure that no harm befell him. O, he used to walk all over the place and Gore used to follow him at a distance, trying not to intrude upon his privacy. They had asked Gore to take care of him because they thought he wasn’t mentally stable, perhaps even suicidal. I think they even called the shamans and witch-doctors to treat him. But, O, he was so cheerful all the time. Gore used to say that he had never seen a face that was so radiant, so full of smile, so bright whenever you looked at it. Once, the poet had walked towards the northern slope of the mountain and over a very narrow path from which, if one fell down, one would fall directly into the torrential Trishuli below. Gore told him to be careful and asked him why he wanted to take that risk. He wanted to see the snow-capped mountains along the northern horizon, he had said. And when he was looking at the mountains, was he looking at the mountains? What was he looking at? As he was returning by the same path, at one point Gore instinctively held the poet by the arm for fear that he would fall down. The poet, instead of being angry with Gore, smiled sweetly at him and freed himself.”

    “Where was he staying then?” I ventured. My mother had told me that one of her elder uncles had treated father with some mantra and sacred ash, and also tied an amulet around his arm to protect him against evil. His health had improved perhaps also because of the fresh air of the hills, the good vegetarian diet and the exercise one gets walking up and down the slopes. Back at home in Kathmandu, his brothers had ridiculed such superstition and torn the amulet out of his arm.

     I was told that Baburam had moved to this new abode from his ancestral home higher up the hill. Again, the reason being he could not walk like he used to and living up there was more difficult. That was several years ago. The deserted house stood with silent dignity amidst the dilapidations of time, showing off its deftly carved wooden door frames and windows to the sugarcane fields below. The boys who had so generously taken us there on their motorbikes over the rough and dangerous mountain road told us they were planning to rent the place for the office of a literary society of Jhiltung, which had been functioning informally for the last two years but was yet to be registered. They had decided upon this place because Mahakavi Devkota had once lived in this house. They too were bent on recapturing the glorious past of a mountain abode sanctified by the brief sojourn there of a beloved national poet. Baburam’s grandson, Achyut, was especially enthusiastic about this project. This was only the second time, I think, that they were commemorating the birth anniversary of Laxmi Prasad Devkota, this time the 105^th, and we were the invited guests. The event took place in the sunny yard of Shree Kamarudevi Higher Secondary School, which showed off its modern architecture in the middle of humbler traditional abodes. And, indeed, this was modern Jhiltung living its influence, trying to establish its worth and planning to project a culturally rich Nepal into the times to come. Probably the literary society of Jhiltung would be called “Kunjini Literary Society.” After all that was a right thing to do because Devkota wrote Kunjani (1945) a long narrative poem about the love affair between Gore and Kunjini who faced a tragic end because the traditional society of the hills was antagonistic to such individual freedom, especially of a woman. In these hills, a girl was still the property of the father legally and ritualistically transferred to the husband without giving her a right to choose. Such practice in these hills did not mean that the same society did not have a long and rich social and traditional culture guided by rich Hindu ethics. Nevertheless, Gore, the poet’s guardian in the Jhiltung hills, and Gore, the principal male character of the long narrative poem, had now merged in an image of love and sacrifice. This was probably the poet’s way of expressing his gratitude to one who followed him everywhere to make sure that no harm befell him. The poet may have appeared mentally unstable to some who did not understand the poetic fire that burned inside him. But he was not. He had studied both the nature and society of Jhiltung sufficiently to write significantly about it during his sojourn with the family of his wife’s maternal uncle.

     Baburam is my maternal grandmother’s nephew. Even though he was one generation higher up, we had met for the first time after I too had developed sufficient wrinkles that spoke of our long and separate past. For him, the poet was a legend. For me, he was a father too. For Baburam, the Jhiltung he was born in had a new name: Dui Pipal, also called Pipalay. For me, the whole region including the low, green paddy fields, the thicker habitation of the Dui Pipal heights and even all the distant blue mountains I could see with my naked eyes was just Jhiltung. Had the clouds on the horizon been transparent, the white peaks beyond, too, would have been Jhiltung. Wherever my father had walked in this region, whatever he had seen near and far, was all Jhiltung for me. I guess I really wanted to see it through his eyes, which was actually quite impossible! His presence there almost seventy-three years ago in 1940 gave the place an aura that continued beckoning to me to look and to look for a Jhiltung from which I have now returned with the satisfaction that I, too, have visited that sacred region of earth. The only thing left for me to do now was to re-read Kunjini again to appreciate how the landscape of the place I had visited had been imaginatively reinvented in the poet’s mind.

 January 7, 2014

जुरेलीका आमाबाबु

    आज बिहान म पैदल हिंड्न निस्किन लाग्दा एक जोडी जुरेली विजुलीको तारमा बसेको देखेर खल्तिबाट फोन निकालिहालेँ । तिनीहरूलाई नतर्साउन शतर्कता अपनाउँदै विस्तार क्यामरा खोलेर माथि फर्काउँदा नफर्काउँदै ती दुवै चरा खतराको आ–आफ्नै सहज ज्ञानले भुर्र उडे तापनि मैले यौटालाई उडदै गरेको क्षणमा समात्न सफल भएँ । मेरो खुसी उनीहरूको त्रास थियो ।

    म बाहिरबाट हिंडेर फर्किंदा चोकमा ठुलो खल्बल थियो । पहिले त के भएछ भनेर बुझ्न सकिन । अनि देखें मेरी श्रीमतिको हातमा यौटा काठको कचौरा जस्तो वस्तु जुन उसले कतै लुकाएर राखिदिने प्रयासमा थिइन् । त्यो रहेछ जुरेलीको गुँड जसलाई कागले चोकको अम्बाको बोटबाट तानेर भुईंमा खसालिदिएको रहेछ । सुधाले त्यसलाई दुईवटा गमलाको अन्तरमा लुकाइदिन खोज्दा तर्सिएर हात तान्दै एक पाईला पछाडि हटेपछि देखेँ कि त्यसमा त बच्चा पनि रहेछ ! त्यो उड्न सकिरहेको थिएन र पनि गुँडबाट भुईंमा झरेर फूलको झ्याङ्गभित्र लुक्न सफल भयो । सिधैमाथि तार र फलामे बारमा बसेर जुरेलीका आमाबाबु संतापले चिर्बिराइरहेका थिए । सुधाले गुँडलाई दाखको झ्याङ्गभित्र पर्खालमाथि लुकाइन् । बच्चो पहेँलो फूलको हरियो डाँठ समातेर बसिरहेको थियो । त्यसको मुटुको धड्कन हामीले नसुने पनि बुझिरहेका थियौं । माथि छाना र रुखबाट कागहरू बसेर दाउ हेर्दै थिए । पाएको खण्डमा कुनै क्षणमा पनि झम्टिएर त्यस बच्चोलाई एक मिठो छाक बनाउने उनिहरूको मनसाय थियो ।
    मृत्युको तत्कालिन् संभावना उपर हामी कसैले पनि केही गर्न सक्ने कुरा छैन । कोरोना जस्ता काला कागहरूबाट बच्न त्यो बच्चो आफैं सक्षम नभएको खण्डमा न हामी जस्ता हितैषीले न त्यसका आमाबाबुले गर्ने नै केही थियो । केही बेर त्यसलाई कागबाट बचाउन भनेर हामी शतर्कताकासाथ चोकमै उभिइरह्यौं । तर कति बेर उभिने ? अनि हाम्रो उपस्थिति जुरेलीका आमाबाबुका निम्ति थप खतराका संकेत थिए । उनिहरू यौटा अन्योलको छट्पट्मा रुँदै र कराउँदै छिनमा बच्चा हेर्थे, छिनमा गुँड खोज्थे । आफूले लालनपालन गरेर यतिसम्म हुर्काएको बचरोको बेहालले संतप्त पक्षीह्दयको ध्वनिमा मिठासभन्दा बेसुरा चित्कार मात्र थियो । उनिहरूको ईश्वर हुँदो हो त प्रकट हुने बेला यही थियो । शायद थिएन होला ! तिनीहरूको पीडामा हाम्रो व्यर्थको उपस्थिति अझ नमिठो हुने बुझेर हामी पनि घरभित्र छिर्ने निर्णय गर्यौं । हाम्रो अनुपस्थितिमा हल्लाखल्ला केही शान्त भयो ।
    माया कुन आमाबाबुलाई हुँदैन ? प्रकृतिको नियम हो – बालबच्चा हुर्काएपछि विश्व तिनीहरूलाई छोडेर आफूहरू क्षितिजपारी लाग्ने काम हो । हुर्काउने क्रमको चिन्ता र पीडामा प्रेमको मलमले शीतल गरिरहन्छ । यिनै प्रेमका नजरले विश्वतिर फर्किएर हेरेका जोडीको इतिहास यसरी काव्य बन्छ –
        "बच्चा काढी यस गुँडमा जब
        तिनको पखेटा उम्रन्छ !
        वनमा लगीकन तिनलाई उडाउन,
        हाम्रो मीठो मनसूब छ !
        त्यसपछि प्यारा, प्यारी हामी
        ... ... ...
        सागर–किनार पुग्छौं, फ्यारफ्यार
        एक बार फर्की,
        आँसुले हेर्न,
        मानिसहरूको जङ्गल जुन छ !"
        (“गौंथली र देवकोटा”)
तर आजका जुरेलीका बाबुआमाले जति दु:ख र नैराश्यका गीत गाए पनि तिनीहरूलाई दैवले हेर्यो । मेरी श्रीमतिले पछिबाट गएर त्यस बच्चोलाई समातेर दाखको झ्याङ्गमा काग, न्याउरीमुसा र बिरालाहरूका आँखाबाट लुकाइदिइछन् र त्यसका आमाबाबु आएर पालैपालो चारा खुवाउँदै उड्दै गएछन् । आज बिहानको यौटा कोरोनारूपी कागको कहरबाट त्यो उम्कियो । भोलि जे होला !

जेठ १७, २०७७ शनिबार

Harishchandra (7)

7. Epilogue

Except on days I teach, I stay at home

and read or write or grade papers alone

for everyone else has school or office

in daylight hours. In this solitude

I hate to have the carpet-monger's shout,

the vegetable peddler's ill-timed call,

or the late hermit's cymbals or his conch

disturb my profound reveries or thoughts.

Since such things happen every now and then,

though somewhat irked by a dark man's presence

at my gate, I was more surprised when he

instead of stretching out a begging bowl,

gazed at me like a visitor and sought

permission to take up a few moments

out of my busy hours. How could I

under the spell of deep, dark eyes and face

writ all over with serious intent

not comply to such a stranger's request?

I offered him a chair under the eave

beside the chrysanthemum bed and said,

"I did not catch your name." He smiled and said,

"Harishchandra." Amused, I studied him.

Wrapped in a single piece of cloth he sat

composed and calm, his sturdy wooden staff

against the arm of the chair, his long hair

cascading down upon his straight shoulders.

"Harishchandra?" I asked. "Harishchandra,"

he replied, but offered no surname yet

as if that name alone was proof enough

of his entire being here on earth.

Amused, rather than seek to understand

the purpose of his visit, I displayed

my sense of humour by telling him

that it was indeed a coincidence

that I too had written under a whim

an account of Harishchandra and his wife

in Devkotian blank verse. Here he smiled.

"I know," he said, "and that is why I came."

"None but a few intimate friends know that

I have scribbled off this ancient tale

for lack of fresher imagination

to concoct a new one. How would you know

what I have done? You, whom I hardly know?'

"You know me well," replied the sober man,

"but not well enough to put together

the real me and the me you wrote of.

I am Harishchandra, the king, whom fate

turned into a cremator at Kashi's ghat

now named after me. Though gone long ago,

I visit all who praise my truthfulness."

Astounded, I looked with disbelieving eyes

at one who claimed to be almost as ancient

as earth itself. I felt an awe suffuse

through all my limbs, up every strand of hair

that stood erect. My heart galloped away.

A lump of silence choked my throat and I

would have frozen in my seat had not the sun

and broad daylight given me confidence.

"Do not fear me," said Harishchandra.

"I come as friend, a visitor who seeks

the soul of truth in a false and corrupt world.

I seek to know if truth lives in your heart."

Comforted by these words, I dared utter

though in a subdued schoolboy tone,

"I only wrote to wipe my boredom off.

Neither a seer nor a poet, I,

having enjoyed my father's Shakuntala,

imitated his style in secrecy,

without the least intent to publicize

your perverse fate or the arrogance of gods.

But, oh! I am so fortunate to meet

an honest person like you in this age

and putrid times. Tell me, truthful king,

have you ever lied to anyone?"

Grave and silent he sat for a moment,

recalling, I guess, long lost days of yore,

and, in a voice as profound as the sea,

he measured all his words out to me:

"I am as human as a man can be.

To say that I never lied would not be true.

Yet, there were others who lived before me

and were called by the same name that I have.

This is why you have confused the liar

with me who was born ages afterwards."

"Writers lie," I said, "for fun or impact.

Since I am not a scholar of ancient texts,

I thought I'd insist on human potentials

rather than on historical precision."

"That's fine," he said, "as long as you convey

the power of truth as potent remedy

for a corrupt age. All lies are not lies:

some seek to deceive, some to enhance mind."

"True, but unversed writing speaks of laziness

which doubly deceives both reader and he

who pretends at greatness through poetry.

Yet even those who seek to know the facts

find themselves at loss for lack of record

of incidents such as when, in "Exile,"

you return to the palace wearily

to take your wife and child to Benaras.

I wrote a second version of the script

to see if by injecting conflict there—

because superior intelligence

found Harishchandra devoid of conflict

and way short of great poetry—silent,

unvoiced conflict in unrebellious heart,

I could ratify art. This is what I wrote:

'Twas late afternoon when Harishchandra

arrived at the palace and in he went

straight to the queen's cozy chamber scented

with rich perfumes. The marble floor glistened

where the bright carpet felt inadequate

to cover up its variegated design.

Below the arch of corrugated pillars

on pedestals stood statuettes of gods

and goddesses all finely carved and touched;

and against the cream-white walls in vases

bloomed flowers of finest hues. In the cage,

the maina spoke and sang her instant whims.

In through large windows poured the southern sun

in pools beside the double-bed covered

with red velvet on which the queen drooped low

like a withering stalk unable to bear

the weight of her own miserable soul.

Without her crown and queenly glittergold,

she sat with knees upraised, attired now

not in regal splendour and ornaments

as befitted her, but, alas, in plain,

meagre length of as course a cotton cloth

as can humbly guard human decency.

So like a blotch of perverse fate she stained

the sumptuous perfection all around

that only held back human tears could sound

the sorrow of a joyous nightingale

cruelly forced to grovel on the ground.

Without the strength to lift her head to look

at the crownless king she glanced but once

and closed her eyes to bar these questions in:

"So, what is love when decisions are made

without consulting spouse? What dignity

can woman claim when she has just no say

in matters that affect family life?

What does marriage mean if two lives once joined

by nuptial vows of sharing and caring

share not decisions that chart out their lives

and care not how it might affect the spouse?

And child too! A budling that required

all possible support and nourishment

to bloom into an upright, able soul,

now severed from all such possibilities

by parental folly. To give is fine.

Yet, all life requires a minimum

sustenance of material things

without which the soul simply flies away.

What next? How sustain our lives?

Poor, poor child! Sweet Rohitashwa! Alas!

What a princely pauper have you become!"

Even as she thus pondered wearily,

the king addressed his wife: "I have given

the crown, the sceptre and the kingdom too

to sage Vishwamitra who now commands

that we leave his country. So, let us go."

"Yes, I know, my lord!" she might have replied,

if answering back was the practice then

as it is today between a husband

and his wife. "Yes, I know! You have given

more than what you own: the kingdom's not yours;

it is the people's rightful property.

My life is my own too; so is our son's.

We have a right to choose the course it takes.

Yet you have chosen to give all away

including your own hard-earned happiness.

And I, your spouse, can only look but not

express the nettled soul or rebel thought."

Thinking thus, she played her womanly role;

up she rose like a vague vapour that lingers

against the cliffs for lack of distinct goal;

down she stept from queenly bed like a cloud

that, charged with liquid burden, does not pour;

and when the king moved slow towards the gate,

taking hold of her dear son she followed

him like a leaf that flies the howling storm.

Now comment, truthful king, upon the art

of such intentional lying and supply

that which you alone can supply with truth."

"Padma," he said, "you are not far from truth.

Shaibya and Rohitashwa were ready

and waiting in the inner courtyard where

I found them. My wife shed two large drops

of silent tears that drowned me for a while.

She did not speak a word but followed me

like a lamb unconscious of its destiny.

But what of it? The thoughts you put into

her heavy heart may well have sprouted there.

And, though her actions did not taint my deeds,

I cannot paint the storms that raged inside

the woman's heart if rage it did indeed."

"And I know nothing of heaven," I said.

"Yet I pretend to have been there, seen all.

Would you endorse such nonsense and permit

me to tell the public absolute lies?

I'd rather not! I'd prefer to be wise

than to be a poet, liar in disguise."

"Publish your work," said the honest king,

hoping that upholding truth and honesty

even by such pretentious upholders

as me would help inseminate some hearts

with it. "Publish it," his deep voice rang clear

even as he stood up with staff in hand

and bid me sweet adieu with smiling face.

I held his robe and begged that he withhold

a moment more to clarify my doubt;

but, when he knew what raced inside my head,

he softly replied, "I cannot speak of that."

And, before I could rephrase my question

or beseech him to make an exception,

he left. A mere hallucination now

vanished into thin air, real no more.

Only Harishchandras enter heaven

with their physical bodies. Only poets

enter heaven in their imagination.

Only men like me create their heaven

with all its imperfections. Only you,

dear reader, Trishankhu, hang in mid-sky

until you awaken with a crash to earth.