“वुद्ध जन्मेको देशमा आजका स्वर-लहरीहरु” शिर्षकमा अन्तराष्ट्रिय साहित्यिक महोत्सब

लुम्बिनी-कपिलवस्तु दिवस अभियानको आगामी डिसेम्बर १ मा छैटौं बार्षिकी मनाउने क्रममा वुद्ध र लुम्बिनी बिषयमा केन्द्रित भएर अन्तराष्ट्रिय साहित्यिक महोत्सब मनाउने हेतुले डा मधु माधुर्यको मूल संयोजकत्वमा गठित समदर्शी काइंला (युनाइटेड अरब एमिरेट्स), उमा सुवेदी (नेपाल), कमला प्रसाई (अमेरिका), भगवती बस्नेत (इजरायल), सानु घिमिरे (अस्ट्रेलिया), सुरेन्द्र लिम्बू परदेशी (भारत), बिमल गिरी (बेल्जियम), बिकल आचार्य (वेलायत), हरि कृष्ण लभली श्रेष्ठ (नेपाल), बिनोद अधिकारी (कुवेत), डा लेखनाथ काफ्ले (ताइवान) र डा हरि कुमार श्रेष्ठ (नेपाल) रहनु भएको १३ सदस्यीय मूल आयोजक समितिले “वुद्ध जन्मेको देशमा आजका स्वर-लहरीहरु” शिर्षकमा तपसिलका सीमामा रहेर अन्तराष्ट्रिय साहित्यिक महोत्सब आयोजना गर्ने भएको छ:

4th Lumbini-Kapilvastu Day: Haiku by Janak Sapkota

This haiku was received from Janak Sapkota, Finland on the auspicious occasion of 4^th Lumbini-Kapilvastu day. Janak Sapkota is from Nepal, currently a postgraduate science student in Finland. He has published Lights Along the Road, a collection of haiku co-authored with the American poet Suzy Conway. He won the Smurfit Samhain International Haiku Prize 2006 and the Seventh Annual Ukia Haiku Competition 2009. While on a writing residency at Cló Cheardlann na gCnoc, Donegal, Ireland, he published Full Moon, a limited edition haiku with Irish- language translations by Gabriel Rosenstock and images by Danielle Creenaune. He is, therefore, an internationally recognized poet, however; shadowed in his own motherland and this is just an attempt to bring him among Nepali community. For more please click here ]

   Kapilvastu* –
every corner
renders silence

(* Kapilvastu is one of the districts of Lumbini Zone, Nepal. The district is located in a part of ancient Shakya kingdom of Buddha.  )

THE CITY THAT I’VE LIVED

By  Chandra Gurung
Manbu, Gorkha (Now Bahrain)

All over the body of this city

The concrete buildings sprouting like wild mushrooms

All of them

-Stretching their life pooped spines

-Raising their honor stooped heads

-Broadening their dignity sunken bosoms

-Opening their dream captivated eyes

Over the smudged skies

Are humming in chorus- a hymn of their hollow heights.

**************************************************

Measuring the setting youth of life

I have witnessed

-Housing lands turning fat, devouring the green fields

-Water tanks taking height, swallowing the wells and springs

-Houses standing tall, barricading the hills on either side

-Walls erecting high, demolishing the splendor of trees

-Streets lying crushed, under millions of feet

Here- In the city that I’ve lived.

***************************************

I have found

The advent of movie theatres chasing the Rodhis*

The germination of fast food cafes replacing the tea stalls

And-

On the either side of street

-Lifting heart-alluring showrooms with both hands

-Carrying colourful shops on shoulders

-Wearing artificial smile on faces

To attract the ‘time-pass’ throng of people

Standing swarming are shopping centers.

Especially for the Gurkhas

It wouldn’t be wrong to call Moon Lim Huiying the Florance Nightangle as she is a nurse by profession and wishes to travel to war zones to tend to wounded soldiers and in the war ground she says she will not judge the victims as friends or foes but simply as fellow human. Her liking for soldiers deepened when she got to know the Gurkhas in Singapore. Following is poem from her to fellow Gurkhas. “To all the Gurkhas of the world, Can you feel my very own words, Are you fighting like a samurai with a sword, Or praying for your brothers to the lord. You all are heros with no fear, Just armoured with your weapons and some gear, Charging into the fortress but your enemies cannot hear Not even afraid of hearing death with your ears. I will salute you all till the end, Fighting not for your country and not for your land, But for someone else’s home and their sand, You are heros and I know you will do what you can. I wish that I had the chance on this very night, To curve my name on my friend’s khukri under the light, So that he will remember when he draws this knife during his fight, The Moon that is following his every move to strike. I will always remember your smiles,

True Love

By Wislawa Szymborska (awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize)

True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions but convinced
it had to happen this way – in reward for what?
For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn’t this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn’t it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn’t they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends’ sake?
Listen to them laughing – its an insult.
The language they use – deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines –
it’s obviously a plot behind the human race’s back! 

My Books

I write living books, books with life

But quite astonishing, no paper, no ink, no pen nor any hand

This book is not written with a pen on a paper

This book is written with consciousness in a disciple’s heart

If at any time the heart is disclosed

You see ‘Guru’ and only ‘Guru’ there

With smile like the living spring

What I write is irremovable,

Union

You love me, so there is a risk.

You want to enclose me in love, this too is an adventure.

Can you indeed embrace the whole ocean?

And is it possible to trap the sun in a box?

Can you reflect the whole moonlight in your eyes?

Then I wonder how you attempt to install me in the humble lustful heart.

Behold, it is too hard.

To love me requires

Firm resolution,

We Nepalis

by  Mahakavi[1]Laxmi Prasad Devakota

[Translation by: David Ravin]

We are the children of Aurora,
Offspring of Asia‘s reawakened age,
Sons of the Hiamlayas we crave,
To climb the peaks wreathed with the golden rays.
We are the products of the Buddha’s soil
The honey-sweet playmates of Janaki, the flower of our earth,
We are the effulgence of the fingers of Araniko,
And the ripe harvest of Prithvinarayana.
We are the golden dreams of Tribhuvana.
We are Mahendra’s garden rich in flowering shrubs,
We are the rivals of the tiger,
And the sentinels of democracy.
We are the still small voice of humanity’s dove,
With the Danphe’s prismatic plumes of fancy,
We are the scented breath of the Himalayan flowers that grow
out of the dust of the sages that lie in their long silence.
We are the songsters of the luxuriant wilds
That trill and warble love upon the leafy boughs of the world,
We are the mountain temples, of humanity,
We are the liberal liquefaction of the Himalaya‘s snow-breast
that nourishes the life of India in network of serpentine rills.
We are the prophetic angels of the east,
That dwell in the dominion of the first sun-beam.
We are the partners of this round home, this terrestrial sphere,
Partaking of a single plate.
We are the worshippers of self sacrifice,
We are the citizens of the world.

The Life That I Have

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

Leo Marks