There were others like Arjun Parajuli on whom we shall devote a separate write-up in this column in the future. But few would deny that one poem that so powerfully reflected, and explained the reason for, the dissent of an entire nation against a whimsical despot was Mukarung’s tour de force Bishe Nagarchi’s Confession. [break]
Master!
After 250 years in this Gorkha kingdom
I have gone mad
A potent attack on Nepal’s former Shah rulers’ biggest defense to their hereditary rule – that their ancestors unified the nation - the poem presented a strong case for the likes of Bishe Nagarchi, a tailor, who also contributed to the unification of the nation in his own small way.
It was only my wife who was killed
It was only my daughter who was raped
It was only this Bishe’s shed that was torched
Are these enough reasons for Bishe to lose his calm?
Damn Bishe…! I have gone mad master!
Mad!
Bijay Rai
THE POET
Mukarung was born in Dilpa village of Bhojpur district in 1968. The unassuming, polite man with dreamy, melancholic eyes said though his ancestors were relatively well-off, the family’s fortunes dwindled by the time he was born owing to the old practice of polygamy.
“My great-grandfather had nine wives. Grandfather had three. And father had two,” said the man almost apologizing for his ancestors’ polygamous habits.
Mukarung was born as the eldest among three sons of his father’s elder wife.
The poet who believes that for being alive one must pursue dreams was initiated into writing by the country’s literary legends like Parijat, Bhupi Sherchan, Shanker Lamichhane and Indra Bahadur Rai whose works were available at his school library in Bhojpur.
The passion for reading poems translated into a burning desire to become a poet during the Nepali students’ movement after the assassination of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan. The poems he wrote during the student movement turned him into a poet for good, which he would bitterly regret at one point in his life.
Mukarung came to Kathmandu in 1987 for further studies, eventually earning his B.A. degree. In Kathmandu, he was naturally drawn to the literary milieu and soon caught the eyes of Parijat, who encouraged him, and Mohan Koirala, who gave him a job at the then Royal Nepal Academy.
POVERTY AND POETRY
Ten years ago, Mukarung deeply regretted becoming a poet. The reason: poverty.
“It is tough for a poet to support a family in Nepal,” said Mukarung, who lives with his wife and six-year-old daughter in rented rooms in Baluwatar.
“I took up some jobs in the past. But right now, I don’t have a proper job. But I have survived haven’t I?”
The 2006 movement changed things to some extent for the Mukarung family. His poem was a crowd-puller and he made up to Rs 40,000 in a single recital of the poem in Nepal. A recital in Hong Kong later earned him Rs 300,000.
“But that cannot be called regular income,” he said.
Deprivation taught the Mukarung family to manage with bare essentials. “We have trained ourselves to live in Kathmandu on 5,000 to 6,000 rupees a month,” he said. That includes the rent of two rooms and a kitchen, schooling for his daughter and food for the family.
After having six published works in the market, Mukarung is fully aware that publishers generally exploit writers.
“There is royalty of 40 percent to writers, but that is after deducting the cost of publishing and also after the distributor decides that he has stolen enough from the writer,” he said.
To survive, Mukarung takes help from his well-wishers who take his books along while making trips to Hong Kong, Brunei, Korea and European nations. And he really has a lot of well-wishers.
“They bring me back money that is usually more than the price quoted in the book,” he said.
“I have learnt that society rescues people who are true to their profession,” he added.
Bijay Rai
THE POEM
Like any good work of art, Bishe Nagarchi’s Confession was a product of hard social realities coupled with the poet’s artistic inspiration.
During his Gorkha visit in 2005, Mukarung was gripped by a desire to visit the village of Bishe Nagarchi that stretches along the slopes of the hill that houses Gorkha Durbar.
He came to know that the entire village was being relocated in the name of conserving the Durbar. That gave birth to a question in the poet’s mind: what qualifies as heritage?
If Gorkha Durbar does, then why not the village where people who helped him in the unification campaign lived?
History has it that Bishe Nagarchi was a tailor and musician who performed at the royal courtyard. After suffering early setbacks in his unification campaign that led to the loss of his best soldiers and weapons, Prithvi Narayan lost hope. One day, he sought Nagarchi’s advice on how to realize his unification dream.
Bijay Rai
Bishe Nagarchi advised him to collect 50 paisa from each family in Gorkha kingdom, which the Shah King did. This initiative had two effects. First, every family in Gorkha began to believe that the war their King was fighting was their war too. And the money that was collected allowed Prithvi Narayan to purchase weapons from India to finance the war.
“As an individual, Prithvi Narayan would probably have remained a nonentity, like all other Kings of small kingdoms that Nepal was divided into back then. He became what he became because of help from people like Nagarchi,” said Mukarung explaining the main premise of his poem.
Mukarung first recited the poem at a function organized at Art Council by the Save Independent Radio Movement. That was just the beginning.
“So far, I have recited it at innumerable functions. I think I recited it in almost all +2 schools in Kathmandu in the months leading to the people’s movement, and during street demonstrations in Kathmandu and outside. To tell you the truth, I am still asked to recite the poem in functions I attend,” he said.
BISHE NAGARCHI’S DESCENDANTS IN NEW NEPAL
Mukarung is not hopeful that the way things are moving ahead in the country will actually ensure mainstreaming of the marginalized communities.
“Picking up individuals from marginalized communities and giving them posts is not the right way to go about ensuring inclusiveness,” he said, reminding that such practice existed even during the Panchayat era.
Bijay Rai
“The proper way to go about ensuring inclusion is bringing people’s aspirations to the national mainstream,” he said.
But a diehard dreamer that Mukarung is, he refuses to stop dreaming.
“It is difficult to keep alive one’s most beautiful dreams in an ugly world. But dreams give meaning to our lives. If a writer stops dreaming, he is dead. If a society stops dreaming, it is dead. People need dreams, they need hopes. This is what Nepal needs today. Dream is what our rulers need to inject in people,” said the man.
“I might be wrong. After all, I am just a poet. A dreamer.”
bikash@myrepublica.com
