Harishchandra

("हरिश्चन्द्रसमो राजा न भूतो न भविष्यति")

1. Debate in Heaven

Great have been the trials of men at the hand

of gods who, themselves created to rule

over human souls and bring them to the path

of righteousness, of faith, and of the Lord,

often forgetful of divine purpose

presume supremacy an innate right.

Of these there never was another soul

that suffered more such unmerited pains

as gods and sages unscrupulously

dispense to men, like fodder to cattle

that knows not what it feeds upon, than one

Harishchandra called, king of great renown

for justice, charity and truthfulness.

Vast was his kingdom, and its populace

industrious, prosperous and happy

as any nation steered by selfless hands

of god-fearing ruler has to be.

He ruled with golden rods of compassion,

not just of boastful correction as now

the modern world with narrow vision sees

as best for all its democratic men

who think of crafty ways to heavy gain

and keep the rulers busy making plans

to outwit crooks that steer the social vans.

His fame so travelled without microchips

through ruby lips of distant travellers,

over evening fire-pots with rings

of happy housewives and their family,

over ploughs and oxen, in the bazaar,

across lands and frontiers that soon his name

was synonym for truth and charity.

'Twas this the talk of Indra's paradise

where hoary bearded sages sat with gods

in burnished chairs of liquid gold that seemed

suspended o'er a lucid starry floor

that twinkled argent nights and golden days.

The hall seemed boundless, yet the crystal walls

mothered plants and fragrant flowers that were

trimmed by Yakshya hands to great excellence

and vines and creepers travelled far and high

o'erarching both throne and ranks so that here

art and nature sprang in fine harmony.

And here Kubera, god of richest wealth,

had strewn his emerald, diamond, adamant,

jade, ruby, onyx, silver, precious gold

that seemed to bloom like stars on walls and throne

and crowns and chairs and ornaments of gods

who stood, changeless beings, amidst a flux

of changes in their celestial realm.

So sat the hoary sages with the gods,

conversant on all the mysteries of life

and death and deathless life and lifeless death;

for, after lengths of soul-seducing mirth

and amrit-induced bliss so reinforced

by Toomburu's quick fingers on the drum

and Rhamba's fluid movements so excelled

by Menaka that sense and soul dissolved

with dance and dancer, even in heaven

the best intellect needs an exercise.

So when the apsaras had danced their turn

and left the hall to gods and sages wise,

after a bout of rich applause they sought

to understand how truth and beauty were

wedded to the ultimate good of all.

And when in heaven it was given that

of all the creatures man alone was not

capable of honest conduct and speech

towards his fellow beings or the gods,

voices rose to claim or disclaim this stance.

"Can mortal soul uphold a truth like gods?"

This formed the topic of a hot debate

that drew a boundary line of strong discord

between the yes and no of wisest souls.

"Can mortal soul uphold a truth like gods?"

To some the answer was so obvious

they smiled confidently, and spoke with voice

soft and controlled, while others were not sure.

Each sought an answer churned in the soul's depths,

expressing only what they knew was true

for gods and sages can never lie.

Of these was one, Vishwamitra called,

a friend of all the people of this world,

great sage who with the power of virtue

earned through long meditation, discipline

and worship of the Lord had proved himself,

though of mortal descent, as great as gods.

He stood up in Indra's glorious hall

and spoke with a deep voice that carried well:

"'Can mortal soul uphold a truth like gods?'

you ask, great Indra! You, who know so well

that seed is tree, that atoms are not small,

that desire mothers human actions

and that the will is but a guide that leads

to tasks that are otherwise too big for men.

Man has only to want and he will be

whatever it is that he wants to be,

provided his will does not desert him

in glooms of despair with a sense of doom.

'Can mortal soul uphold a truth like gods?'

Why yes! He can and often does transcend

his corruptible fibres with a zeal

that sacrifices his own life for truth.

Yes, man can die for faith, for what he holds

as valuable in terms of human good.

And such a man is not a rarity.

In every age and every place there are

living examples, known, unknown, but still

bearers of the living torch of truth

such as Harishchandra, Ayodhya's king.

You know him well, this living example

of how a human soul upholds the truth."

Satisfied, the sage concluded and sat

as another rose in splendour to speak

like a thin silver rill that gushes down

the rough and rocky slopes on all that stand

in its unstoppable path to distant sea.

This was Varuna, Neptune styled in Rome,

gentle god of ocean, fiery grown

with memories sad of deceptions dark

which he now stood to unfold: "Harishchandra !

What sore example to good intentions

towards the human kind have you brought forth !

Do you not know then, Vishwamitra, you

who stopped Trishanku in his midway fall

from Indra's paradise and there created

another heaven wherein to dwell

with his physical body, that his son

once being sonless sought my needed aid?"

Indra beamed with glorious dignity

and goaded Varuna to tell of how

the liar Harishchandra, sonless then,

sought the sea-god's sorely needed help,

of how he prayed and sacrificed and vowed

that should the sea-god his prayers answer

and let him see the face of his own son

for even the briefest moment, just for once,

he then would himself offer up his child

to Varuna of his own accord, of how

the gentle sea-god pity took

on him and blessed him with an infant child;

but then, the fire in the father's eyes

burnt his sacred vows to darkest cinder

of deceit by mortal practiced on a god.

The son grew up into a handsome lad

in kingly palace despite frequent calls

by patient Varuna who reminded

the crafty, liar king of promise stale

until one fine day when he punished him

for all his lies with severe ascitis.

"I filled his belly with painful water

as punishment for not keeping his vow

solemnly made to me when in distress,

but soon forgotten in happier times.

Yes, such is human nature, all of it,

full of contradictions within itself,

prone to gratification, unstable

in the nobler spiritual realm,

a slave to moods of joys and agonies

that flicker will like wind the candle's flame."

"Not all ! Not all !" The vexèd sage, he cried,

"There is a golden glow in the soul's depth

that burns with purging flames impurities

of baser nature and thus leaves behind

the purest essence noble and divine.

Gods need fear no corruption of nature,

they remain what they are, these beings pure,

there is no challenge, so, no gain, no loss;

but only humans may choose to become

what they are not by birth or nature made,

create for themselves their own destiny.

Human grandeur in such transformations

rests like a robin in its cozy nest.

What Harishchandra was, no longer is,

and, since he has become a different soul,

he will not yield to falsehood though he should

suffer immensely for upholding truth;

though mortal clay uphold his fragile frame,

upholding truth he shall create his fame."

"Then let him suffer," god Varuna cried,

"for what is true is also what is tried."

"Then let him suffer," Vishwamitra said,

"and rise in greater glory through his deed.

Let much unearned suffering save his kind

and elevate through example human mind."

"Then let him suffer," the great Indra spoke,

"and we shall see which one of us is right.

'Tis only test that proves the metal's worth,

not speculations nor hot arguments.

Let the trial begin ! Let us descend

to earth disguised in mortal garb and strike

with force to see how long his virtue's shield

will stand the test or bend and break and yield."

Poetry and Medicine

            After attending the Poetry Competition organized by students of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on Friday December 22, 2006, I developed a strong urge to propose to the concerned authorities of Tribhuvan University that they consider including poetry somewhere in the medical curricula. To some grey hairs, such a proposal might sound preposterous. However, to me this notion carried the weight of personal conviction because I had witnessed the zeal of medical students for poetic expressions, their capacity to relish poetry as pleasing and meaningful sound, and, above all, their ability to express their noble sentiments in a richly original and personal poetic language. This opened my eyes to the relationship between poetry and medicine.

            Earlier, I had explored the use of mathematics in literature in “The Numerical Rhizome” and noted the balance and symmetry of equations in both these fields that yielded aesthetic delights to the human mind. Now, I had begun to sense some sort of moral and humane relationship between medicine and poetry. Here was an area to explore.

            My mind went back to the year 1959 when my father, a terminally ill cancer patient, lay on a wooden bed in a small shed inside the precinct of Hare Ram Kunja. It was around this time that Dom Moraes wanted to meet him. We have a recollection of this meeting in Gone Away: An Indian Journal written by this poet of Indian origin. Devkota wanted to listen to the young man’s poetry even as he suffered the conflagration within his bowels. To some extent, poetry, which was his passion, helped him take his mind away from pain.

            I am sure that there are many other instances where a ward patient has found at least momentary relief from pain or depression through poetry. Poetry is not a mere luxury for those who can afford it; it is a sharing of joys and sorrows, of visions and fears, of life-truths that imagination fishes out of existence. Poetry makes a very powerful use of language. The impact of its brevity, its suggestion and its felt truth upon the heart leaves a lasting impression that is capable of changing attitudes and behaviour. Its rhythm can change a mood, its chanted repetitions can alleviate if not actually heal ailments of psychosomatic origin, its coded truth, acting as precedent, can ease the burden of a terminally ill patient or a chronic sufferer of some malaise who shares a similar condition.

Often, it is not only the terminally ill patient but also the disabled, the sick or the depressed that benefits from other people’s experience. It is easy to imagine the relief experienced by people who have just learned of their metabolic disorder when other diabetic patients, for example, tell them how they have learned to live with it for the last five or ten years. Such sharing can quite naturally strike a friendly relationship between such people on the basis of their similar physical condition. The blind and the deaf share their respective forums. The AIDS patient is consoled by the fact that s/he is not the sole person to suffer this condition. We alleviate our own suffering by sharing it with others and we alleviate the suffering of others by lovingly listening to what they have to say to us. This is why there is a whole category of literature of the disabled which has found a place in university curricula all over the world.

I need not repeat here that poetry, art and music have their own therapeutic values. Poetry is that chemical of the soul that can be blended with noble and enlightened feelings in the beaker of the heart where life constantly flows in and out. It is then linguistically encapsulated in its generic literary form. Diagnosis of an ailment relies more on the head than on the heart. Physics observes and decides even as chemistry cures. Diagnosis is a processing of empirical data in the head. The cure functions so subtly that physicians have to rely on its apparent symptoms to understand its inferred intracellular processes, which may even then be obscure to them. Poetry, too, works in subtle and invisible ways to nourish human sensibilities. Our fickle sensibilities are often benumbed and dehydrated, so to say, by force of habit, by repeated invasions of the ugly and the bad, and by uncritical ingestion of too much of general lies that float as rumuors in the public atmosphere.

What we all need is a regular re-invigoration of our sensibility. This is even more so especially in violent times like ours when uneducated responses to frustrations defy the sanctity of human life itself. On a more practical level, medical practitioners and, on a more spiritual level, poets are sworn into the promotion of life, not its destruction. Whenever the spirit and the act synchronize in the same individual, humankind wins yet another battle against the ugly and the bad. We have many battles to win.

And, what is the harm anyway if a course in the literature of the disabled, for instance, were offered in a curriculum for medicine? Do students of medicine have anything to lose by studying some literature that explains the physical, social, and psychological conditions of their patients? It will expose physicians to the perspectives of their patients and promote a better understanding that will lead to improved service of humanity.

Or, for that matter, a course in creative writing for students of medicine is not unimaginable. It can be offered as an optional paper for those that find it meaningful. After all, many medical practitioners all over the world have written poetry and other forms of literature. Some have even sacrificed their medical career and established themselves as excellent poets and writers. Humanity can be served in a hundred different ways, but poetry can be relished and produced by only those who keep alive the soothing flames of human sensibilities.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Padma Devkota

What Is Good Literature?[1]

I want to begin by thanking the Literary Association of Nepal (LAN) for giving me this pleasant and honorable task of lighting the inaugural lamp today on the occasion of its Annual Conference 2013. May the light of this lamp burn throughout the year! May it kindle in our hearts a love for good literature, a thirst for the pursuit happiness through knowledge and a desire to use that knowledge for the cultural enhancement of our nation if not of the whole world!

Personally, I have been associated with LAN since its inception in 1980 when Professor Durga Prasad Bhandari was the President, Professor Yugeshwar Verma its Vice-President, and Professor Shreedhar Lohani its Secretary. I have been a part of its vicissitudes and seen how it has risen again and again to meet its scholarly goals and its general objectives despite financial and other problems in addition to the initial lack of paper writers. I am well aware of the tensions and anxiety that forerun an event such as the one that we have just inaugurated today. This is why I must congratulate all of you, especially the members of the executive committee, for keeping alive what must not wither away or die. Literature, and especially the Humanities, is going through a difficult period in our universities especially because of the present phase of political transition from utter confusion to higher sense. Once the transition is complete, I am sure that Literature and the Humanities will be given all due respect and recognition in our universities. Any government that does not give due importance to the Humanities will naturally weaken itself through spiritual and ethical atrophy.

Good literature has the virtue of being universally understood as the most soul-searching human activity, which transcends mere material existence. It is only when literature is regarded as a consumable product that its social and utilitarian function begins to outweigh its symbolic significance, its aesthetic expressions and its spiritual resonance. It is then that ideological lessons tend to take over the so-called social uselessness of art and literature. It is true also that good literature fashions attitudes and ambitions of people who take to heart its concerns, cogitations, and cognitions of what a good life is or should be. However, good literature is never didactic like good ideological propaganda literature. Poetry and propaganda stand miles apart, but totalitarian regimes often benefit by mixing up these two in confused public heads. Good literature is suggestive, simple in its concerns for human welfare, beautiful in its expressions of simple events of ordinary life, truthful in its recordings of human conditions, apt in its expressions of human values that are generally acceptable, and always optimistic and positive in its vision of human societies and progress. Good literature is different from a good book. A good book is readable but what it offers is not necessarily true; it is entertaining but not necessarily realistic; it is popular but not necessarily profound in its insights into minds, societies and cultures. James Joyce’s Ulysses is a bad book, which very few people read; but it is good literature. Ann Rynd’s Atlas Shrugged is a good book which many people read but not necessarily good literature. Sometimes mere popularity seems to stand as a measuring rod of good literature as in the case of Harry Potter. Although all the seven volumes of this series make interesting reading, they neither offer fresh philosophic perspectives into human life and condition, nor record the lived history of human pain, fear, dream or hope. It is a good series to read for mere entertainment, not for serious statements or profound understandings concerning human life and society. However, I must also admit that it is an excellent sample of good children’s literature.

                Good, serious literature must necessarily stir our emotions and, thereby, lead us to reexamine our thoughts, attitudes and traditions. This is why literature also makes things happen in the world. Today’s conference, for instance focuses on one particular instance of injustice: violence against women, which is a global issue. The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8 is also violence against women and girls. Such violence, which takes place at home or in the public sphere, is only one example of injustice that gives rise to human suffering. Injustice and other similar inflictions of pain and suffering by human beings on other human beings or groups of people in the name of gender, race, religion, money, political power, etc. become the basic themes of literature. Injustice is one of the many problems of the human society against which poets and writers have been crying out since eons ago. This is what William Wordsworth bemoans when he writes: “And much it grieved my heart to think,/ What man has made of man.” And this is what Maya Angelou speaks out against so powerfully in “Still I Rise”:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

It seems to me that the best among poets is capable of speaking out more powerfully than the best among literary critics or theoreticians. These pour out their heart; those pin down their brains. Passion and piety often convinces us more quickly than any rosy rings of logic and rhetoric.

Good literature, therefore, educates the public sentiment with a gentle wave of the literary wand. People need to be educated all the year round. Any civilized society needs to develop a reading culture where ideas expressed by poets and writers are discussed so that one does not forget the injustice done by political regimes, races, religious groups or individuals upon other groups or individuals.  Keeping in mind the pains of evil helps us shun evil. So, one would expect such education to reduce crime and violence. One would expect politicizing an issue to solve some of our problems. One would expect that making laws against domestic violence against women would reduce such violence. The reality is that evil never dies and we are forced to fight it every day of our life with the best intention of a final victory, which (and I whisper this to you) is another fiction, another ideal we create to enhance our life. Of course, literature is concerned with denouncing such evil and sensitizing people to the need for common happiness. Any literature that deals with such social problems and issues and thinks about it seriously is good literature. And all good literature is optimistic, encouraging and warm with hopes of a better future.

Yet, we also know that, despite everything else, many writers and scholars are not placed in positions from where they can do anything much to improve unemployment and economic distress at home, which leads to such violence. They can at the most maintain their faith in good literature and keep shooing evil away with powerful voices that are heard by the masses. They can cultivate faith in synergetic action and in its ultimate positive effect, if not in eliminating crime and violence, at least in keeping these at bay. Once again, Maya Angelou beautifully expresses this act of eternally rising up against unending violence in the following lines:

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

I wish this Annual Conference of the Literary Association of Nepal a grand success. I hope it will encourage scholars to rise against evil, against sloth, against mediocrity to a loftiness of the spirit, to a profound sense of purpose and to an intellectual height that is visible from across all sorts of frontiers.

Thank you.

---

[1] Inaugural Address: Annual Conference 2013, LAN

From Setopul

I was delighted to see nature fight back

and reclaim a small portion of land from those

who had encroached upon her majestic flow.

The traffic upon the bridge was slow

for nothing would move ahead

the helmet lines were impatient but dead

upon their track as I stood on the pavement

clicking right and left. Below, the water still flowed.

Above, the blue sky was too deep to be mired

by the city haze. God! I heard right then

the wilds howl against human intelligence!

                                                                                January 10, 2018 8:25 p.m.

स्वदेशीको सत्कार

२०७३ साल भदौ १७ गते मालिन्डो चढेर म र मेरी श्रीमती क्वालालम्पुर तर्फ प्रस्थान ग¥यौं । करीब पा“च घण्टाको उडान अवधिपछि टर्मिनल १ मा उत्रियौं । हामीलाई टर्मिनल २ बाट एअर एशिया समात्नु थियो । आफ्नो सामान लिनु अगाडि छोटो अवधिकालगि भए पनि भिजाका निम्ति निवेदन दिनु थियो । यस प्रकारको अनुभव प्रथम बार गर्दै गरेका हामीलाई कताबाट कता जाने हो भन्ने थिएन । विमानस्थल निकै ठुलो भएकोले गर्दा बाटो र ठाऊ“ खोज्दै खोज्दै तल र माथि, दाया“ र देब्रे गर्दै बल्लतल्ल ट्रेन चढ्ने ठाऊ“सम्म पुगियो । त्यहा“ भित्र छिर्न विद्युतीय ढोका थिए जसको अगाडि हामी पुग्दा तीन चार युवा कामदार गफ गरेर उभिएका देख्यौं । ती मध्येका एकजना हामीलाई देखेर आए । उनी नेपाली रहेछन् र उनका साथीहरू पनि ।

केही कुराकानी गरेपछि ती युवाले हाम्रा ठुलाठुला बाकसहरू समातेर गुडाउ“दै भने, “आउनुहोस्, म लगिदिन्छु ।” उनिले हामीलाई ट्रेन चढ्ने ठाऊ“सम्म लगिदिए । हामी उनिलाई धन्यवाद भन्न खोज्दै थियौं, ट्रेन आइपुग्यो । फेरी हाम्रा बाकस गुडाउ“दै उनि ट्रेनभित्र छिरे र हामीलाई पनि बोलाए । हामी पछि लाग्यौं र धन्यवाद भन्न चाहिरहेका थियौं । उनले भने, “म उतैसम्म पु¥याइदिन्छु ।” आस नगरेको सहायता पाएर हामी मनमनै दङ्ग भयौं । मेरी श्रीमतीले भनिन्, “किन कष्ट गर्नु प¥यो र ? हामी गइहाल्छौं नि π” उनि हा“स्दै भने, “हैन, के भो र ? हामी यस्तै सहायता गर्न बसेका हौं ।”

कुरा चल्दै जा“दा थाहा भयो यी सहयोगि युवा सिन्धुपाल्चोकका कृष्ण थापा मगर रहेछन् । क्वालालम्पुर विमानस्थलमा काम गरेर बसेको छ वर्ष भएछ । उनिले कथा पनि हाले – कैयौं यात्रु थाहा नपाएर टर्मिनल १ मै बसिरहेका हुन्छन् र उनिहरूको उडान छुटेर पछि दुःख पाउ“छन् रे π यसैले हामीलाई लगेज चेक इन् पनि उनैले गराइदिए । म र मेरी श्रीमती निकै थाकिसकेका थियौं । त्यसैले पनि मैले उनिलाई कृतज्ञता व्यक्त गर्नकै निम्ति पनि केही चीसो वा तातो पिउन निम्ताए“ । उनिले हामी हाल भएको तलामा खाना मह“गो हुने हुनाले आर्को तलामा जाने प्रस्ताव राखे र हामी उनिस“गै आर्को तलामा ओर्लियौं ।

त्यहा“ एक जना भारती नागरिकले चलाएका पसलमा रोटीचने खान कृष्णले प्रस्ताव राखे । त्यो चिल्लो हुन्छ कि भनेर यसो यताउति अरू कुरा खोजेपछि कस्तो रहेछ भनेर बुझ्न एक प्लेट मात्र अर्डर गरें र पैसा तिर्न थैलो निकाल्न हात खल्तितिर लगें । कृष्णले मानेनन् र भने, “हैन, म तिर्छुं ।”

मैले पनि मानिन, “त्यो त हुनै सक्दैन । म तिर्छुं ।”

उनि पनि कमका थिएनन् । केही बेरमै उनिले जिते, “मलाई तपाईंहरू आफ्नै आमाबाबु जस्तो लागिरहेको छ । म यही“ कमाएर बसेको छु । मेरो कमाई खुवाउन मन लाग्यो ।” उनिले वास्तवमा दुईदुई प्लेट रोटीचने र तीनवटा कफी मगाई छाडे ।

हामीले पनि त्यसो भए छोराछोरीले पनि त आमाबाबुले भनेको मान्नु पर्छ । हामीस“गै बसेर एक प्लेट रोटीचने खान प¥यो भनेर किनिदियौं । अनि तीनै जना बसेर खायौं, गफ ग¥यौं र बाटोको दुःख एकैछिनकालागि भए पनि भुल्यौं । मानौं यो यौटा पारिवारिक जमघट थियो ।

भदौ २१, २०७३

Stray Thoughts on a Sunny Morning

The human race, a wise Chinese once said,

should learn to hold three clear mirrors:

the mirror of brass in which is inlaid

the physical world of errors,

the mirror of people where your image

shines or fades beyond your control,

and the mirror of history, quick time’s rage,

which will just forget or extol.

But O! What are mirrors to eyes of stone

from which the divine spark has fled?

What are mirrors to flesh, blood and bone

though it be with the world inlaid?

Fame is the evil charm of history

in a mediocrity-centric world

where certainty defies all mystery

and knowledge keeps too many folds.

I love the dab of color on the leaf,

I love the autumn leaves of flesh,

I love the colors of human belief—

All these I love, all these I bless.

Some great being beneath the ground or high

in the turrets of the deep sky

receives my gratitude each day for I

welcome him and bid him good bye.

                                                Friday, 08 January 2016

on writing

instead of writing just close your eyes
like you close your lies
when in blessed moments you spoke alone
and honesty shone
in limpid thoughts that raced through your being
without your seeing
and the power of the current you gushed forth
spoke its own worth
when without the intention you took a pen
and wrote again

December 17, 2015