Rajendra Bhandari Biography

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
...