The Half Closed Eyes and the Setting Sun
The Half Closed Eyes and the Setting Sun
by Shankar Lamichhane
Hey guide! You don’t understand, you cannot understand at all, how thrilled we, the westerners get to step on your land for the first time. This green valley as soon as the plane enters the valley, and the series of farming lands, and the red, yellow, white houses smeared with its mud; and the scent of the soil and mountain in its air, the peace of ages in its environment; you were born here; you might feel this embrace of these blue mountains by extending their hands a bondage; but we, who live in plains, who live on the side of the ocean, whose sight get lost in the horizon, either that of the land or the water; we know how the bosom of the mountain always stick your sight. You haven’t had the experience of degradation of vanishing when the sight vanishes. Maybe because we are just running with the vastness, we love this boundary of yours. And have you pondered over a thought? How you feel the Buddha’s half-closed eyes seem to be welcoming you; how you feel like finding a peace, a recurrence, and a shelter? Read the rest of this entry »
GOD’S WORK
Shankar Lamichhane
MANJUSHREE THAPA
Considered one of Nepal’s foremost essayists of all times, Shankar Lamichhane wrote with a lyrical, musical tempo, unrestrained by the ponderous language that often mars the essays of his elders, peers or followers. He died an untimely death at the age of 48, but had stopped writing before that, discouraged by an anonymous accusation of plagiarism, an accusation he accepted, but which is still deliberated over by critics. That Lamichhane’s fresh, playful style greatly enriched Nepali literature is, however, indisputable. The essay below, translated from his collection Abstract Chintan: Pyaz, shows off his light touch in dealing with both intimate and metaphysical subjects.
GOD’S WORK
“What work does your father do, dear?”
“He does god’s work.” Read the rest of this entry »
Krantiko Pahilo Charan
“Krantiko Pahilo Charan”
Shankar Lamichhane
-The First Phase of Rebellion –
Translated by Deep Lamichhane
Kanchhi, don’t make any lunch for me today.
I am in the bathroom. I hear my son’s voice from the nearby kitchen. I begin to think – what could be the reason for his unusual demand? Had there been, by any chance, any misunderstanding between him and the housemaid?
(Actually, I should have perhaps begun this story by informing you about my son’s age, his personality and features, and my own position in this society. Will it not suffice to say that he is nine or ten years old, attends an English-medium school as a day-scholar, and carries his school lunch from home every day? He is good-looking, maybe far too good-looking, and, additionally, he is extremely adorable – this, perhaps, is an opinion of a doting father! As a writer, my heart can be quite sensitive – which, again, may be a logical thing to expect. Also, it could be that, since my own childhood was entangled in countless difficulties and struggles, I may only be trying to make his life as comfortable as possible. I am the head of a middle-class family, living in the year 2020 B.S. (1963 A.D.), here in Kathmandu, Nepal. (Who knows? I could even resemble someone like you.) Read the rest of this entry »
