Rajendra Bhandari Poems

Forests are quietly green
Waters glide to the fields,
The scarecrow stands guard over the crops.

In me is buried a whole city
The park, its benches and the temple
A noisy procession, too
The chaos is weighed down.
Riding the melody on a sitar,
I long to journey to a land of calm
I desire to swim along a river
And land on a lonely stone that shines.

Out of the sores of the earth
Pus seeps into my tea cup.
Skeletons scream out of newspapers,
A rickety bus hurls me
Towards my office at ten
(Time, accounts of an inept clerk)
And home, comes there clamouring in.

To erase one chaos I search for another.
To forget one chaos
The chaos in me craves for another.
One chaos overwhelms another
And is overwhelmed by another chaos
Ever bustling, scuffling, playful.

In the midst of chaos
Chaos itself sits quiet.

Translated from the Nepali by Dorjee Lepcha
...

Parting the leaves of the banyan tree
the egg-shaped sun came
and
dropped The Times of India
at my door.


The Times of India gave me a country
floundering to be a nation,
a blood-stained earth
crying out to become a mother.


Later, the day gave me
agitating streets on fire
seeking a clear identity.
As the sun flared up in a flame,
the griddle of the sky
roasted the earth like a roti
ravenously consumed
by a handful of mouth
round a table.

Translated from the Nepali by Pankaj Thapa
...

The Autumn Sky,
droops like an apple.
The perpetual burden of the skies
has hunchbacked the hills,

The eagle soars high above
as it's shadow seeks hapless chicks pecking.
The teenaged trees are mesmerised
by their own reflections in the Teesta.
The clouds wander from hill to hill
slandering the sultry sky.
The lush ricefields sway
In the yellow fragrance of the soil.
Miles below, the plains look jumbled.

The Khangchendzonga strolls out to bask,
it's sibling peaks in tow.
An incomplete folk tune
drifts along on Teesta's froth,

'Chhati bhari bokera pirai pir
Jadaichau hai Tista ko tirai tir..'

A northern breeze flirts
across the nose.

Setting aside his plough,
Hariprasad settles down to read
the travelogue on his soles.
Opening wide his chest he glances
at a sepia album of his past.
The walls washed bone-white
and blood-red, - he has lost count.
The numbed skin
forgets to scream.
But the heart remembers
its map of dreams, lovingly preserved
where children gambol
through fields,
through forests,
through teagardens,
seeking to pluck their own sun.
...

To slumber amongst the awakened
is more difficult
than staying awake amongst the slumbering.

slumbering can be contagious,
one slumber leading to another,
another, ..... and another
till an epidemic of slumber explodes.
During the pandemic of sleep
the despot sings of peace.

The slumbering public is innocent,
like a slumbering child,
smiling in its sleep.
Asleep, it does not know when it bedwets,
asleep, it is photogenic,
asleep, it does not cast stones at the mirror
does not ask for aeroplanes and guns,-
Things, a despot knows better
than a poet.

Like sleep, wakefulness too is contagious,
One rubs his eyes as he awakes,
sighs and coughs...
another coughs, another sits up, talks.
all talk to each other,
the talking growing into a din...
Like a sprouting shoot of thought
One thought sprouts, and another... and another.
becoming a bountiful harvest of thoughts.
Things, a poet knows better
than a despot.

Translated from the Nepali by Pankaj Thapa
...

Baje has become incapable of going down to the fields.
Last year, using a stick, he could reach the yard.
This time he only made it to the porch.
After a three day confinement, Baje passed away.
Boju passed away.

Then mother began to pass away.
At first, she passed from the bazaar to seclusion.
Then she passed from the yard to the porch.
At the porch she became a scarecrow to the grain
drying in the yard.

The light passed from her eyes,
From her legs, the strength to stand.
Even her desires were passing,
she passed away herself.

One day, a wild young thing flirted with me
But like a calm lake, I pooled by her side.
Youth was passing from me.

In the yellow autumn, in floe fields
the paddy was passing into haystacks.
The grain had passed and become manure.

The world itself is passing every day.
The atmosphere is passing into the ozone hole.
With the passing of seedling, and of plant
the passing of flower and dead leaves
the passing of leaf and shoot
the passing of bud and flower.
With these passages
the venerable lotus passed from the face of the earth

But time has not passed
Time is just not there
Time would pass; if it at all existed.

Translated from the Nepali by Anrnole Prasad
...

Forests of people, caves of faces
adrift on the sea, the lonely ships of the mind
Bermudas of ideas
islands ascending
islands descending

(How far the distance between the corporeal and the sublime?)

For no reason
I flag suddenly walking
On the mind's shoulder
desire's bag
in which I carry groceries of dissatisfaction

(How far is nirvana from the kerosene queue?)

Meat, sugar, Surf, baby clothes
a packet of contraceptives
vegetables, a bar of the latest soap
odds and ends, etc, etc.
I head for the bookshop below the hospital
and slip Arnold's new translation of the Gita into my bag

(What is the relationship between a bank pass book and blood pressure?)
(between a Prime Minister's digestive system and the nation's future?)
(between the nation's constitution and wrinkles on one's face?)

From the market
in the evening
via the morgue
I return.
...

What could be more explosive
the city's lonely man
or
the bomber's lonely briefcase abandoned at some junction?

Memory's tree, lush branches
laden with fruits
Where are the roots?

Here the breath's polluted Ganga
flows thus
Where is the sea?
Where its Gangotri?

The body bears the mind's burden
Or has the history of the body burdened the mind?

To build which palace of faces
must this face become a wall?
And to save which face
must this face become a martyr
Which face? What face?

How many faces
can fit inside one face?
...

Abandoning ancestral homelands of meaning
words find new shelter.
From lisping and napkins
through the attire, moustaches of youth
I'm heading towards wrinkles and walking sticks.
From where I stand
the graveyard is nearer than my home.
The noonday shadow
under my foot
stretches in the afternoon.
Everything is running further:
Mother's embraces, Father's blessings,
the childhood landscapes
the playground of my youth
the bamboo groves.
My classmates who used to be punished together for
multiplication mistakes
are disappearing:
Bhakta Bahadur … died in an accident,
Ambarey … joined the army,
Rajaman, Dilip, Kesang … no news of them,
backbencher Ramey is a distantly smiling officer.
After an unknown big bang
villages, neighbours, friends, cities
form supernovas.
Spaces fly from sight, gasp, body.
The past remains a misty phantom.
All escapes all
from temples, God
from hearts, hope,
from courts, justice,
from embraces, intimacy
and I, from myself
the sky, from the sky.
...

Stretching wide his chest
my father readied the field, studded the boundary
with sal saplings
nurtured them with his blood.
Along with the gagun, the simal, the badahar trees
I too took root,
raised my head high.
My father remembers
the first harvesting day
more vividly than my birthday.
Father is as old as the courtyard's parijat,
as firm as a rock.
The wayside pebbles, earthy songs,
the whistling thrush, the rafters of the ancient house,
the rhythmic gong of the primary school,
sweating, hurrying, panicking,
the god, the usurer, the locality,
and Father.
An image of all these
dances before my eyes.
Father, the genesis of my universe,
the household primordial sound.
Father, the sun
around whose axis
rotate Mother, brothers, the neighbours.
Father, the unborn.
The ketaki bloomed in the garden.
I, on the portico.
A maize, an alder or a fig tree
have no birthday
and neither have I.
My father does not know my birthday.
What I do know definitely is
my features are gradually resembling
my father's.
Even my temples are graying
in much the same manner.
My father let his graying hair gray
while I engage in some black politics there.
...

Der Wörter Umsiedlung

Der Wörter allergrößter Feind? Das Wort.
Man weiß nicht, welches in ihrem Gedränge
ist fidayeen, bereit zum Selbstmordattentat.

In eben derselben Wörter Gedränge
geht plötzlich ein Wort hoch
Stirbt weg uns ein Wort noch
oder ist schwer verwundet.

Wörter, die ein freies Leben fȕhrten,
von nur einer extremen Bedeutung entfȕhrt
verlangen sie als Lösegeld all dein Bewuẞtsein.

Wörter, an den Handel verschachert,
in den Advertisements, auf dem Strich.

Wörter, die suchen nach ihren Gedichten
zur Selbstverteidigung, nach Sätzen ihres Vertrauens.

Wörter, die unverbrannt blieben, nach ihrem Tod,
irren umher, stehen stinkend an Kreuzungen rum,

werden aus allen Städten vertrieben,
all ihre Dörfer stehen verwaist.

In Bibliotheken, Tempeln, Kirchen, Klöstern, Schulen
lungern die Wörter, sprachlos, zerstreut.

Die Dichter aber halten Notsitzung.
Ihr Plan ist: All der Wörter Umsiedlung.

Übersetzung: Christian Filips

Zurückeroberung der Wörter

Der allergrößte Feind des Wortes ist das Wort selbst.
Welches Wort im Gedränge der Wörter ein fidayeen* ist,
Bleibt unerkennbar.

In diesem Gedränge der Wörter
Sprengt sich ein Wort in die Luft.
Viele Wörter sterben.
Viele verletzen sich.

Wörter, einst freie Leben führend,
Werden entführt von extremen Bedeutungen.
Sie verlangen ein ganzes Bewusstsein als Lösegeld.

Mit Wörtern wird Handel getrieben, man schickt sie
Auf den Strich der Reklamesprache.

Die Wörter suchen nach Selbstverteidigung in Gedichten,
Sie suchen nach vertrauenswürdigen Sätzen.

Manche Wörter stinken uneingeäschert
Auf den Straßen vor sich hin, an Kreuzungen im Stich gelassen.
Werden sie vertrieben von ihren angestammten Orten,

Sterben die Dörfer aus.
In Bibliotheken, in Klöstern, in Kirchen, in Schulen,
Überall liegen die Wörter sprachlos, zerstreut.

Die Dichter müssten eine Notsitzung einberufen
Zur Zurückeroberung der Wörter.
* arabisches Wort für „Selbstmordattentäter"

Übersetzung: Judith Zander

Übersetzung: Christian Filips und Judith Zander
...