Development and Destruction (Satis Shroff)

My Nepal, what has become of you?
Your features have changed with time.
The innocent face of the Kumari
Has changed to the blood-thirsty countenance
Of Kal Bhairab,
From development to destruction,
From bikas to binas.

You’re no longer the same
There’s insurrection and turmoil
Against the government and the police.
Your sons and daughters are at war,
With the Gurkhas again.

Maobadis with revolutionary flair,
With ideologies from across the Tibetan Plateau and Peru.
Ideologies that have been discredited elsewhere,
Flourish in the Himalayas.
Demanding a revolutionary-tax
From tourists and Nepalese
With brazen, bloody attacks
Fighting for their own rights
And the rights of the bewildered common man.

Well-trained government troops at the orders
Of politicians safe in Kathmandu.
Leaders who despise talks and compromises,
Flex their tongues and muscles,
And let the imported automatic salves speak their deaths.
Ill-armed guerrillas against well-armed Royal Gurkhas
In the foothills of the Himalayas.

******

Child Soldiers

Nepali children have no chance,
But to take sides
To take to arms not knowing the reason
Against whom and why.
The child-soldier gets orders from grown-ups
And the hapless souls open fire.
Hukum is order,
The child-soldier cannot reason why.
Shedding precious human blood,
For causes they both hold high.
Ach, this massacre in the shadow of the Himalayas.

*****

Not in Nepal

Nepalis look out of their ornate windows,
In the west, east, north and south Nepal
And think:
How long will this krieg go on?
How much do we have to suffer?
How many money-lenders, businessmen, civil servants,
Policemen and gurkhas do the Maobadis want to kill
Or be killed?

How many men, women, boys and girls have to be mortally injured
Till Kal Bhairab is pacified by the Sleeping Vishnu?
How many towns and villages in the seventy five districts
Do the Maobadis want to free from capitalism?
When the missionaries close their schools,
Must the Hindus and Buddhists shut their temples and shrines?
Shall atheism be the order of the day?
Not in Nepal.

*****

A THOUSAND DEATHS (Satis Shroff)

It breaks my heart, as I hear over the radio:
Nepal’s not safe for visitors.
Visitors who leave their money behind,
In the pockets of travel agencies, rug dealers,
Currency and drug dealers,
And hordes of ill-paid honest Sherpas
And Tamang and other ethnic porters.
Sweat beads trickling from their sun-burnt faces,
In the dizzy heights of the Dolpo, Annapurna ranges
And the Khumbu glaciers.
Eking out a living and facing the treacherous
Icy crevasses, snow-outs, precipices
And a thousand deaths.

No roads, no schools,
Beyond the beaten trekking paths
Live the poorer families of Nepal.
Sans drinking water,
Sans hospitals,
Where aids and children’s work prevail.

*****



Lichhavis, Thakuris and Mallas have made you eternal
Mana Deva inscribed his title on the pillar of Changu,
After great victories over neighbouring states.
Amshu Verma was a warrior and mastered the Lichavi Code.
He gave his daughter in marriage
To Srong Bean Sgam Po,
The ruler of Tibet,
Who also married a Chinese princess.

Jayastathi Malla introduced the system of the caste,
A system based on family occupation,
That became rigid with the tide of time.
Yaksha Malla the ruler of Kathmandu Valley,
Divided it into Kathmandu, Patan and Bhadgaon
For his three sons.

Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha,
Brought you together,
A melting pot of ethnic diversities.
With Gorkha conquests that cost the motherland
Thousands of ears, noses and Nepalese blood.

The Ranas usurped the royal throne
And put a prime minister after the other for 104 years.
104 years of a country in poverty and medieval existence.
It was King Tribhuvan’s proclamation and the blood of the Nepalese,
Who fought against the Gorkhas under the command of the Ranas,
That ended the Rana autocracy.

His son King Mahendra held the septre
When Nepal entered the UNO.
The multiparty system along with the Congress party was banned.
We chuckled about Kaphley’s compulsory History book.

Then came thirty years of Panchayat promises of a Hindu rule
With a system based on the five village elders,
Like the proverbial five fingers in one’s hand,
That are not alike and yet function in harmony.
The Panchayat government was an old system,
Packed and sold as a new and traditional one.

A system is just as good as the people who run it.
And Nepal didn’t run.
The age-old chakary experienced a revival,
Feudalism with its countless spies and yes-men,
Middle-men who held out their hands
For bribes, perks and amenities.
Poverty, caste-system with its divisions and conflicts,
Discrimination, injustice, bad governance
Became the nature of the day.

A big chasm appeared between the haves-and-have-nots.
The social inequality, frustrated expectations of the poor
Led to a search for an alternative pole.
The farmers were ignored, the forests and land confiscated,
Corruption and inefficiency became the rule of the day.
Even His Majesty’s servants went so far as to say:
Raja ko kam, kahiley jahla gham.

The birthplace of Buddha
And the Land of Pashupati,
A land which King Birendra declared a Zone of Peace,
Through signatures of the world’s leaders
Is at war today.

Bush’s government paid 24 million dollars for development aid,
Another 14 million dollars for insurgency relevant spendings
5,000 M-16 rifles from the USA
5,500 maschine guns from Belgium.
Guns that are aimed at Nepali men, women and children,
In the mountains of Nepal.
Alas, under the shade of the Himalayas,
This corner of the world has become volatile again.

*****

GUNS INSTEAD BOOKS (Satis Shroff)

My academic friends have changes sides,
From Mandalay to Congress
From Congress to the Maobadis.
The students from Dolpo and Silgadi.
Dolpo, unforgettable through Peter Mathiessen
In his quest for his inner self,
And his friend George Schaller’s search
For the snow leopard.
The students wrote Marxist verses and acquired volumes
From the embassies in Kathmandu:
Kim Il Sung’s writings, Mao’s red booklet,
Marx’s Das Kapital and Lenin’s works,
And defended socialist ideas
At His Majesty’s Central Hostel in Tahachal.
I see their earnest faces, with guns in their arms,
Instead of books,
Boisterous and ready
To fight to the end
For a cause they cherish
In their frustrated and fiery hearts.

But aren’t these sons of Nepal
Misguided and blinded,
By the seemingly victories of socialism?
Even Gorbachov pleaded for Peristroika,
And Putin admires capitalist Germany,
Its culture and commerce.
Look at the old Soviet Union,
And other East Bloc nations.
They have all swapped sides
And are EU and Nato members.

*****

Time Stands Still in Nepal

Globalisation has changed the world fast,
In Nepal time stands still.
The blind beggar at the New Road gate sings:
Lata ko desh ma, gaddha tantheri.
In a land where the tongue-tied live,
The deaf desire to rule.
Oh my Nepal, quo vadis?

The only way to peace and harmony is
By laying aside the arms.
Can Nepal afford to be the bastion
Of a movement and a government
That rides rough-shod over the lives
And rights of fellow Nepalis?

Can’t we learn from the lessons of Afghanistan, Romania,
Poland, East Germany and Iraq?
The Maobadis will be given a chance at the polls,
Like all other democratic parties.
For the Maobadis are Bahuns and Chettris,
Be they Prachanda or Baburam Bhattrai,
Leaders who’d prefer a republican rule
To monarchy in Nepal.

*****

HOPE IN THE HIMALAYAS (Satis Shroff)

What better chance for a constitutional monarch,
A re-incarnated Vishnu,
Who now holds
Spiritual and temporal powers
In the shadow of the Himalayas?

Hush, an unholy alliance made the rounds,
The political parties and the Maoists are united
They rattle their sabres no more
Under Vishnu’s bed of serpents.

Narad brings us good news.
We don’t have to shiver together in angst.
There is hope in the Himalayas.
Hope of a separation of powers,
Hope of free elections,
Hope of fair trials before impartial tribunals,
Hope of amnesty.
We’ll do what Nepalese normally do:
Wait and drink Ilam tea,
And watch the scenario unfurl,
In the shadow of the Himalayas.

___________________________________

About the Author

Satis Shroff is a writer based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and Manchester. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize for 1998.

Writing experience: Satis Shroff has written two language books on the Nepalese language for DSE (Deutsche Stiftung für Entwicklungsdienst) & Horlemannverlag. He has written three feature articles in the Munich-based Nelles Verlag’s ‘Nepal’ on the Himalayan Kingdom’s Gurkhas, sacred mountains and Nepalese symbols and on Hinduism in ‘Nepal: Myths & Realities (Book Faith India) and his poem ‘Mental Molotovs’ was published in epd-Entwicklungsdienst (Frankfurt). He has written articles in The Rising Nepal, The Christian Science Monitor, the Independent, the Fryburger, Swatantra Biswa (USIS publication, Himal Asia, 3Journal Freiburg. More articles, poems and reviews in www.yahoo & www.google under: satis shroff.

Satis Shroff writes with intelligence, wit and grace. (Bruce Dobler, Senior Fulbright Professor in Creative Writing, University of Iowa/
Pittsburgh).