Books and Culture

Guru Brahma: Guru Bishnu Gururdeva Maheshwora:

Guru sakshyat Parabrahma, Tasmai Sri Guruwe Nama: 

• KUBER CHALISE

The full-moon day of Asad, according to the Lunar calendar, is celebrated as Guru Purnima, honouring Gurus, the teachers, an epitome of knowledge and wisdom. Though we do not have any specified date, where and when this tradition began, it still exists today. This day especially students honour their teachers by offering presents, fruits and sweets. A group of students, from a local Shahid Sukra High School, are preparing to honour their teachers by offering them fruits and presents. “They teach us the whole year around, and now it’s our turn to honour them by celebrating Guru-Purnima,” says Preeti Maharjan. There are various stories of Guru-Shishya, teacher-student, relation like Ekalavya in almost all the Hindu scriptures, be it Mahabharat, the longest epic or the Puranas and Ramayan. They all place Guru second to the father and mother, because Guru moulds a child into a real human being by imparting knowledge and wisdom. Guru, according to the scriptures, is the God, trinity in himself: Brahma-the creator, Vishnu-the preserver and Maheshwor-the destroyer. “He, without whom one will perish in the darkness of ignorance, should be honoured and respected,” says the Hindus Shastras. Ramesh Katuwal, founder of Neptune Boarding High School, Bagbazar, opines the same. “One can not ignore our social norms and the traditions. They are not all worthless. They are the roots of our harmonious society. In the western countries, students have also started celebrating the Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and the Teacher’s Day, but we are forgetting our own tradition,” he adds: “Our scriptures teach us to respect our fathers, mothers and the teachers that is our culture. We have been celebrating these days from time immemorial.” The day is also celebrated as Byas Jayanti, by worshipping Guru Byas, the Guru of all the Gurus, who wrote the longest epic Mahabharat. In the beginning, there was only one Veda, it was Vyas, according to the Puranas, who elaborated the Veda into Samaveda, Yajurveda. Atherbha and the Rikveda. Thenceforth, he was called Vedavyas. It is said, Vedavyas used to reside and meditate in a cave in Damouli, Tanahu district, a western part of Kathmandu, which is now called Vyasgufa, a cave of Vyas. Students and devotees visit this cave and worship on this day to pay Maharishi Vyas homage. Those who has no idea about the significance of the day also celebrate this day as its good to respect teachers. Our traditions have always advocated for the co-existence. Each celebration in our culture gives the message of harmony in the society, in the family and in the country as a whole. But our culture and religion today has become a weapon of a group of organised blind faith and the religious fundamentalist, which has overshadowed our traditional values and the harmony of the society.

·        Kuber Chalise

Pool Ra Parkhalharu (A bridge and walls), an anthology of poems by Sneha Sayami, has 36 poems.

One will come through more metaphors in Sayami’s poems like Musaharu (Mice), Roadmap, and Juddha Sadak, which is a metaphorical representation of an autocracy that has survived a long history of Nepal .

He challenges the protagonists, hits the conventionalists and tries to bridge the hearts with minds. He even refuses to dream. Like almost all the poets Sayami rips apart the traditional curtain and unveil the truth; truth that is ugly and naked. As the poet himself claims, “Poem is but a naked expression of life.”

And unlike other collections, there is not a single love song in Pool Ra Parkhalharu rather there is a Nepali boy, who works in an Indian city in Kasto Hota Hai, a vulture and a jackle, who claim to be our care-taker in Surakshya and an antagonist, who salutes comrades for their cunningness in Dalaal Salaam.

I salute you, Comrades

for your smartness

who have ganged up with dogs

to fight against fox

the pragmatist comrades

Dalaal Salaam Comrades!

Going through the collection, a reader is forced to think why the poet is so bitter – bitter to himself and to the society – and so angry. Is he a nihilist? If so he should be thrown out of the society. Otherwise this contaminous disease will grip the whole society.

BOOK REVIEW

Book: Pool Ra Parkhalharu

Author: Sneha Sayami

Publisher: Sirjana: Chaitra 3

Pages: 69

Price: Rs 75

Some students put fire to the sociology department in the Tribhuvan University a couple of days ago.

Pashupati Nath’s Agam Ghar, a house where the secret tantrik worship used to be done, has burnt down to ashes.

The streets of Kathmandu are burning everyday. This is the ‘season of fire’. And here is Laxmi Mali, who feels the heat and passes it on the readers.

Aago ko Yaam — ‘Season of Fire’ is her collection of poems. Her poetry is not mere figments of imaginations, but a mirror the times we live in. The book depicts our time and the tears and the smiles of our time.

Poems like Nachhe Galli and Manmaya are snapshots of not only our time, but the space that we inhibit in. The people and places we visit in her poems are disarmingly familiar to us. The places seem our neighbourhood and the people we met last evening. The metaphors and symbols in her poetry are not surreal and obscure, as some other modern poets’ tends to be.

With pain and tragedies abounding, she rarely lacks the fuel to reflect the heat from the fire within and without. The charm of her poetry lies in her warm, disarming tone and style that invites the readers to partake in a question like kaskalagi (for whom). If she writes of fire, it is because she feels. And when she writes of pain, she feels it.

While social disparity hurts her, the familiar as well as the sudden mysteries of nature seems to hold her spellbound. A subtle contrast between nature’s charms and human woes is the centre of attraction of her poems. And like all good work of art, it touches the hearts of total strangers.

Mulyankan Prakashan Griha is the publisher of Aago ko Yaam, which is a must read. Reality hurts and the poems in the collection seem very real.

Statutory Warning: Don’t read the book because, reality not only hurts but also burns; after all it’s the Season of Fire.

As birds twitter at the break of day,

And morning bustle starts holding sway,

Around Bhadrakali, Sankata and Sundhara,

Life at Nachhe Galli throbs through every strata.

Swept roads, given a new coat of sheen,

Sprinkled by shaking buckets unseen.

Wafting aroma of Gwaramari and Chatarmari,

Impatient hoards of connoisseurs in a hurry.

A shuffle here, a hustle there,

End of a morning walk,

Topped with unending talk,

An argument, an agreement gay,

Nachhe Galli is having just another day.

                          (Nachhe Galli)

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Book — Aago ko Yaam (A poetry collection with 31 poems)

Poet — Laxmi Mali

Publisher — Mulyankan Prakashan Griha

Price — Rs 50.

Pages — 56