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literature. More
about Suresh Dhital later.
But, if I am to
speak of him, why shouldn’t I speak right now? If we are to speak of
people, let’s speak of them, and be done with it. He sent me an
email through nepalisite.com and said he didn’t want to be published
here. He takes these things too seriously. I told him that Nepali
readers aren’t concerned enough to invest their integrity in the
literature of their land, especially if it comes in another
language. No one really reads what I write, it seems, and no one
will read his poems about Titli. I asked him if that was a real
name, because even for Bombay, it must be somewhat unusual. It
reminds me of the fat, raunchy Hindi novels I used to read as a
child. If I could get my hands on one of them, I’d still read it. He
said Titli was a part-time extra in the movies. He sent me another
poem instead, saying it too appears in another article. I asked him
then if he wanted me to give his previous article to the webmaster.
He said no. He likes drama of that sort. Perhaps, that is why he is
in that city, “struggling,” as he puts it.
Since I want to be
done talking of him, here’s the poem:
it is afternoon in
Kathmandu.
i can see the sun
on bare arms that
circled
my neck once. pale,
friendly and warm--
like the luminosity
of affection.
but before me--
this show of snow
and skin.
a scantily clad
heroine,
of virtue, too--
how she straddles
a shiny, plastic
and steel motorbike,
on that outcrop
over
a sheer blue drop.
my brothers and
sisters,
as writer/director
in struggle--
allow me to reflect
a knowledge of
secret matter--
it is all glitter
in this unnamed
city.
my eyes are eaten
out
by the glare of arc
lights,
but, there is no
sun in sight!
Again, since the
poem was in the middle of the article, I can’t give you the title,
or the context it appears in. I did tell Suresh that it wasn’t a
very good way of going about it, but he was impervious to any
suggestion. I gleaned it must be a poem about an actress and an
outdoor shoot.
So much for that.
I decided to see
for myself what SEBS online was really about. Many friends had been
telling me about the site. There are so many student associations
that boast a particular unity, a set of particular visions, and that
too, in an apolitical nature. But I did not take long to decide
against SEB Sonline as a forum for pertinent ideas. I can understand
the youthful enthusiasm for great liberty and bounteous tolerance
that allows for utopias, but the people who frequent sebsonline.org
need to become less exclusive if they intend to bear any meaning at
all upon the future of the country. What SEBS seems to
understand-that spirit of righteous unity-could also be the radical
mob-making that becomes the undoing of it. Just think of the
demographic peculiarities of such a crowd. Nowhere does it come
close to brushing with reality-this rambunctious slue of hatchlings,
bred in a hormone drenched pool under Shivapuri, their eyes glazed
with the romance of aggrandized poverty. They sit in most disparate
lives-cubicles in New York, desks at colleges. And they congregate
at this watering hole for those who still refuse to grow up. Even in
naming their projects, they make the doko a hero-so much self
importance, so much self flagellation.
This place is
frequented by who? Not the common man! This is a site for uncommon
men, because, let us be honest-those few women who post at this site
have to come with grave tolerance, and they too are too few and
unimportant. There is no real reflection of Nepal there.
This place is full
of unreal cordiality, and even worse, unreal contempt towards
various entities. Why should someone, who doesn't disclose his real
name, be supporting OR opposing a person who uses his real name?
Roopesh Joshiji is commendable simply for using his real name while
making those moldy, mundane, self-deprecating remarks about
everything. Paramendra Bhagatji, on other hand, is appealing to
spineless people who don’t dare use their real names. On what great
faith will he stay his appeal to these people, if I may ask?
And, of course, it
is full of a crowd of the most impressionable age--their starkest
mark yet being their persistent refusal of the same. These are but
saplings, yet distanced from the spring of experience that will make
"men of weight" of them, eventually. With such cries about “bokaism,”
I see no saving grace for SEBS. These kids, given to gratuitous
rhetoric, should be a lot more eager to shed that playfulness before
they accord substance to their unity and capacity. Let us yet see
what doko dai will achieve.
I live in a house
where many poor men have lived before me. I even bought my computer
from the person who lived here before me. I think he was Greek, a
very recent arrival. He landed a job within a few weeks, and moved
to a more familiar neighborhood, to wait for his family. But I will
be in this place for a while now. The storage area in this building
is a veritable tale in itself-a litter of so many things abandoned
by their owners, while so many more must have been held closer to
heart and pains taken to wrap them in the most sacred shrouds, to be
buried in the dark corners of a new dwelling. In each, perhaps, was
trapped the memory of one simple moment, or, like happens more often
in life, perhaps those were the physical essentials of life-a can
opener, an old notebook, a creased map with distracted scrawling
elevating it from an accidental scrap of paper to a wife’s face that
could be caressed, and therefore treasured. I have cringed many
times in the past week to see objects that remind me of other
objects that I ought to have saved, just so that there’s be
something to touch when the absent carnality of my yearning rant for
one fragile moment in the tosses of a turbulent memory pushes me to
the brink, and only something solid and grave will pull me back.
I don’t understand
how Suresh Dhital manages to frolic with life in the manner he
does-I would tell you stories about him if I really wanted. His
delusions, his Quixotic quests, his many Titlis-they would all make
such vivid stories, and so many of them, that you people
would delight in it. You would forgive that he never completed
anything he ever started, but you would ridicule him and his ways
and laugh so loud as to shake off all thoughts, and that would be
superior entertainment. When I think, in one breath and one thought,
of Suresh Dhital, of myself, and those faceless names of colorful
characters at sebsonline.org, I am overwhelmed by the extremes that
each individual sits at, and how utterly simple the absolute
worthlessness accorded to each of us. Sure, doko dai may succeed,
but why should it be celebrated before it is even executed? Suresh
Dhital may yet get “the shiny plate in brass” that he refers to as
his future, but why should I celebrate his failures and make a poet
out of him? He writes bad, meaningless poems, and such people
shouldn’t be encouraged. And, as I sit at my desk in this dingy
apartment that has been the hole that many an immigrant, many lonely
alien bachelors, I can’t shake off the fact that I am bound to be
here for longer than most other people. But I have no wish to
stretch my wings either.
I am making an
appeal to the readers-please contribute to this site if you want
something more meaningful to be published. I am but a man-warped and
despondent, and what torch of enlightenment do my words carry? Let
not this corner be tainted with my dry musings and pusillanimous
bleats, but bring into this space your pains, too, so that we may be
struck once more by the regality of life itself, and cautiously
treat each other’s words to reverence and compassionate
comprehension. Before I wax too much, adieu! |
