Banira Giri: bemused songster

Banira’s enthusiasm is infectious. She smiles, nods, gestures and waves her henna-dyed hair back as she talks about her school days in Kurseong, near Darjeeling in West Bengal of India, where she was born in the spring of 1946. Did she ever think that she was going to be a poet of note in her adult life? She is not sure, but says that the annual fair at Giddhe Pahad filled her with joy and she loved listening to Sanskrit Shlokas recited by her mother every morning.[break]

An echo of those formative years can be heard in the first few lines of the following verse, before the poet in her flies into deep philosophy:

When I was small

in the first stage of this song of praise

from the mound of my birth place

I screamed “life”

till I died

and heard the echo

of life again replying

“life, life”

— From the Lake, Love, page: 100

Banira talks fondly of her science teacher and school principal Radhika Pradhan who wanted to transform her into a researcher. But fate intervened. And she drifted towards Kathmandu, the destination of choice for ambitious girls around the hills of Darjeeling in the sixties. How would she describe her work? She says she is enduring the punishment of poetry! This from an author who has been celebrated as one of the most promising novelists of this era.

Of her first novel Karagar (Sajha, Kathmandu, First Edition BS 2035; translated into English by Ann Hunkins as The Prison and privately published by Jiba Lamichhane) writes Madan Mani Dixit, eminent writer, editor and former vice chancellor of Royal Nepalese Academy, “Karagar has left behind Parijat’s Shirish Ko Phool at every step in story and poetic expression, establishing powerful human characters and ideology. She creates an equally powerful liberated woman character, a character which did not even need a name but strongly made an impact in the hearts of readers.” Comparisons invariably have an element of bias, but there is no denying that Banira is an engrossing creator of fiction, her way with plots, characters and sentences visible equally powerfully in Nirbandha and Shabdatit Shantanu, two poetic novellas to come out of the Sajha stable, the later getting the Sajha prize. Her much-acclaimed poetry collections include Jiwan Thaimaru and Mero Aviskar.

Banira considers herself a poet first, and prose writer later, but she has probably written more words in the later form through her regular ruminations in her column in the Punarjagaran Weekly. She has recited her poetry in France, Japan, Russia and many other countries. English translation of her select poems, with introduction by Wayne Amtzis, appeared sometime back as From The Lake, Love (Himshikhar Publications, Kathmandu, 2000) and she continues to bask in its glory as fans of her work drop by, sometimes unannounced. She has retired from her day job as a teacher of Nepali at Padma Kanya Campus of Tribhuvan University and now has more time to read and write.

She herself considers Karagar her best work and admits that Freudian thoughts have influenced many of her works. She dedicates the “pieces of inspection” collated in the form a novel to the person that “wears the name of Shankar Giri for the society”. She does not disclose how she calls the person that uprooted her from Giddhe Pahad and planted her into the fertile soil of Kathmandu Valley.

Mountains are imposing—inspiring amazement, awe and wonder. Valleys embrace and invite the visitor to sing, dance and celebrate. Banira’s home has the best of both. No wonder she travels between prose and poetry with such a practiced ease.

Her prized award: Prabal Gorkha Dakshinbahu, a royal decoration that once signalled a person’s entry into the circle of elite in Kathmandu. The king has become a commoner, but Banira’s words and sentences continue to emanate light that has the power to

ennoble.