Even at 92, national poet Madhav Prasad Ghimire has a radiant smile of a youngster that he flashes as he enters the room. [break]
He settles on the sofa to reminisce his colleague, his friend and his favorite poet – Laxmi Prasad Devkota. And he talks, pausing now and then, to think, to remember, and to take in audible breaths after each phrase, almost like he is reciting a poem from long ago etched only in his memory.
Ghimire, who started writing with poet Lekhnath Poudel as his inspiration, first worked with Devkota at Nepali Bhasha Prakashini Samiti.
Though Devkota was ten years older than him, they quickly became good friends as they started sharing their work with each other.
“Devkota would write first-rate essays and he’d read them out to me. As time passed, I became a great admirer of his literary skills and qualities,” he says.
Ghimire adds that Devkota would be so absorbed that once he started writing, he’d forget everything. He was never financially strong because he did not care about money, but also not as poor as people have exaggerated him to be.
He just earned and spent and did not save. Being published was in itself an achievement, a joy that was enough for Devkota and many of his contemporaries, including Ghimire, and they never imagined they would earn anything from their writing.
“Devkota was very passionate about taking Nepali literature to the world and that’s why he worked very hard on translations, his own and others,” Ghimire adds. “And he was a great orator.”
Ghimire recalls the famous incident when he had accompanied Devkota to Tashkent, formerly a part of Russia, for the Afro-Asian Literary Conference where they had to present a paper on the literary scenario of Nepal.
“He came knocking at my hotel room at almost midnight to read out to me what he had prepared in English,” he says, “He’d written it really well; his words were more like of a powerful essay than of a presentation.”
And the next day, Devkota recited. “When he spoke, he had thunder in his voice that enraptured everyone,” Ghimire adds. “When he was done, there were big rounds of applause, cameras flashing and journalists following us.
His impressive personality had given a taste of what talents Nepal had in literature on that world stage.”
However, back home after introducing the wealth of Nepali literature internationally, his health faltered, as his cancer was in the last stages.
“But even during his last days in the hospital, he was writing furiously.
I had recorded some of his interviews during those days where he has expressed his pain in spontaneous poems, in both Nepali and English,” Ghimire says.
After Devkota’s death, the recordings were handed over to his family. Ghimire adds that Devkota wrote without considering any personal gains but he did have a goal. He wanted to take Nepali literature to international heights and that required translation.
“I saw him translating during our trip to Russia,” Ghimire recalls, “With the Nepali version on the left and the English on the right side of a notebook.
He was bent on translating as many literary works, not just his, but all important works in Nepali literature so that it would receive the values and esteem it truly deserved.”
Half a century has passed since Devkota left the Nepali literary scene but his works still remain as relevant and as popular, maybe even more. With more of his works being translated in many languages other than just English, attempts have been made to reintroduce Devkota in different parts of the world.
One organization working for this goal and opening up doors for Devkota studies for younger generation is Mahakavi Laxmi Prasad Devkota Study and Research Center (DSRC).
Keshab Sigdel, a member of DSRC, is one of the avid admirers of Devkota and has been reading and researching him for ten years. He shares that Devkota did not only start the tradition of translation but also was one of the first Nepali to originally write in English.
“His epic Shakuntal was originally written in English and again in Nepali. Both works were very independent and they weren’t just mere translations,” Sigdel informs.
Bapu and Other Sonnets, a collection that included 54 sonnets originally written in English, and the bilingual publication of poems in the Indreni Magazine, show Devkota’s proficiency in the English language.
There have been debates on how good his English writings and translations were. But Sigdel says that even with his flaws that were natural for non-native English writers, his contributions were very significant.
Besides, other writers, including some foreign scholars, have tried to translate Devkota’s work and many still are trying to do so. Most of the translations have been of his folk epic Muna Madan, which still reigns as one of the most popular works in Nepali literature.
“Devkota is so much more than just Muna Madan,” says Sigdel. “People constantly refer him as a romantic poet but it’s like undermining his versatility.”
Sigdel points out that Devkota touched on many different issues, such as his political awakening and protests in magazines such as Yugbani and Pahadi Pukar, social consciousness and female empowerment in his novel Champa and many of his dramas, as well as environmental issues and humor and satire in his essays.
“One of the challenges I faced as a teacher was that students have a set mind that Devkota was a great poet and a romantic one, but they don’t question why he was such an important figure and take time to read and review his works,” he shares.
Devkota has written in practically every genre of literature. Though previously people only honored him for his poems and some essays, Sigdel says more and more people have started to review his stories, plays and other writings as well. Many of which, he says, are still unpublished.
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“Devkota never wrote or published for visibility and economic gains but for social change, justice, awareness, and humanity,” says Padma Devkota, Devkota’s son and currently the president of DSRC.
“His literature was honest and his personality was erratic,” says Padma. “If you can understand these two traits of Devkota, you can infer many of his literary works and intellectual writing.”
Padma shares that even during Devkota’s last days he had a strong intellectual hold and never gave up his passion for literature. Though some of his statements at the time seem as if it came out of a sense of failure and depression, which was a natural stage of grief, it was also a self-evaluation and surrender to the end one must face.
“One of the things he’d say was to preserve Muna Madan even if all his other works were burnt,” says Padma. “But it was out of his sense of self-evaluation and a feeling that he could’ve done better than what he did.”
According to his contemporary writer, Bal Krishna Sama, Devkota was born thrice into literature: first, with Muna Madan; second, with Nepali Shakuntal; and, third, with Pagal (the poem “The Lunatic”).”
However, Padma says that Devkota’s literary appreciation cannot be limited to his selected works. “Each one of his work has its own strength,” he says.
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Currently, Devkota’s house, Kavi Kunja, on Shastri Marg in Maitidevi of Kathmandu, houses some tenants and a room that serves as the office for DSRC and Devkota Library.
From the outside, the old building looks like it is in a good enough condition; but as soon as you enter through the low ceiling door, you realize the disheveled state it is in.
The room that serves as the library – if you can call a few stacks of books, an unused computer, some chairs, old photographs on the walls, empty cupboards, piled up bug-eaten books and notebooks a library – was Devkota’s personal room.
This was the room where he wrote many of his classics, sitting on its floor, leaning over on to a notebook on his lap or a cushion and a lit cigarette on the side.
Padma now carries a heavy responsibility to uphold Devkota’s name and preserve his legacy as the only son of the icon still here in Nepal.
“All have their hopes rested on me, and to be honest, it’s tiring” says Padma, “I’ve tried to do what I can to preserve his legacy, but my sole efforts will never be able to do that.”
According to Padma, he, along with DSRC members, has tried to convert Kavi Kunja into a museum but have not been able to do so due to several problems.
“Firstly, my sister has the legal ownership of the house; and unless we have support from the government, we can’t afford to renovate it,” he says. Despite that, Padma says he utilized some of the grants the Center had collected, with which he renovated the ground floor which was almost in shambles due to rainwater flooding in, and repainted at least the room.
“We had made proposals for renovating the building around seven years ago but nothing came out of it as the then government said it wouldn’t acquire and maintain any person’s house.”
Devkota, however, isn’t just any person but a national personality.
“I think the government had agreed to turn Devkota’s house into a museum but couldn’t do it due to family tiffs and confusion regarding to whom the property belonged,” says Jal Krishna Shrestha, spokesperson at the Ministry of Federal Affairs, Constituent Assembly, Parliamentary Affairs, and Culture. “Even for the government to take any step, there has to be a grantee or a partner for the project, and there’s been no such proposal to that effect.”
Meera Devkota, Devkota’s youngest daughter who previously owned the building and was living there with her elder sister.
Ambika Rimal, passed away some months back. Upon inquiry, Rimal says she would have no problem if the house was made into a museum in the memory of their father, and it would actually be good.
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The blame game aside, Devkota’s collections of literary works by him and on him lie abandoned in his house.
The Mahakavi was and is idolized and revered by followers, admirers and lovers of Nepali literature.
However, his room and heritage possessions now remain discarded amidst tiffs, indifference and silver fishies. And as Devkota stares on at his room from the black and white photographs hung on the walls of the Kavi Kunj, the only words that reverberate from it are his own:
“Ma shunyama shunyasari bilayen...”
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Devkota in 2019
