Lamp Post Baata Khaseko Jun

A Review

It is a common truth among all the readers and writers that poetry is not salable at least in Nepal’s context. Exception is there, obviously that is filled by old poets who have been writing poetry only, for some decades. A face has been added in the Nepali poetry who finds that the world is charged of poetry and is present everywhere from the flowing river to the chirping birds and from the mountain’s top to fountain. Manu Manjil’s latest venture “Lamppost Bata Khaseko Jun”, an anthology of poems, highly aware our senses and reminds Shelley’s poem filled with aerial fire that introduces him as an ambitious and influential poet of modern times.

In the preface, he defends poetry and accusations it has been made by prose writers that its scope is limited; each poem is personal or subjective, does not appeal to large number of people and ultimately overshadowed by prose. He uses great sense of wit and responses tacitly that poetry has been accused of thoughts of bad-tempered by some whereas it’s also believed as God’s message by some part of people. He gives many accounts of sidelining of poets and their neglect. He admires the natural capacity of poem how it expresses the feelings more than the written words and why the statement may be false, made by poet seems like true. He argues that although the prose writers threaten about the loss of poetry it will never vanish and exists somewhere forever. Whatever may be written either a drama or an essay or a story, the writer writes in poetic language so as to appeal to readers and arouse feelings. He mentions Surjit Paater’s saying that: “Words are light. You can pick and drop wherever you like but the most difficult thing is that you should be able to pick and place the word in such a way that they can never change their places for ages”.

Manu Manjil’s poems are filled with wit, intellectual tide, explosive awareness that is amalgamated with melody and tune in spite of being free verse. His poems are filled with metaphors, similes and other rhetoric that creates analogy and makes the vivid contrast between familiar things with the thing less familiar. In his poems, there is depiction of realities found in contemporary nepali society. The characters in his poems are people of different psychological backgrounds like fearful, frightening, elated, and hidden and so on. I assume his poems as literary art that involves two parts, dynamic art and expressive. Dynamic art in the sense that he uses figurative language in flexible way and expressive art since his poems carry heaps of emotions and feelings.

The anthology comprises of forty six poems, all written in free verse. There is an acute amalgam of musicality, sound, rhythm and emotion. He has oneness in his poems. His poems carry important messages to convey the readers. Although his use of words seem simpler, the meaning it hides there is vast and sometimes difficult to understand. His poems are very appealing to be recited. The first poem “Gaule Ek Baalak Samjhera” presents the optimism in the subtle way. He wishes many things to happen, most importantly the smile of the boy when he meets him. “Dushman” seems to be reader friendly as it presents contrasts and uses of different images to describe the nature and behavior of enemy is worth reading. The poem “Lamppost” is very advanced in the sense that it is a bit complex due to the use of multiple similes, metaphors, images and contrasts. There is a pure contrast between a life and a lamppost.

There are many influential poems like ‘Yo Sahar Kasko Ho’, ‘Dashain’, ‘Bagh’, and so on. They are very unique in nature filled with contemporary awareness. The poet in his poems takes out real life issues in a simple language filled with images. “Yo Sahar Kasko Ho” is a realistic contrast of town and village life where the poet has expressed his boredom and wrath regarding the difficulties of town life irrespective of some material luxury. “Dashain” gives deep insights about the biggest festival of hindus in figurative manner creating different imagery related to dashain culture. “Bagh” pictures and immortalizes the quality and unique impressions of tiger that is created simply within the utterance of word tiger. The poem is similar to the theme of the poem “Tyger” written by William Blake.

I really admire the poet’s courage and vigor to stand still holding the independence of poetry and his explicit recitation skills that his poems also donate, calling him as one of the new star of modern Nepali poetry. His poems resemble to PB Shelley in the sense of the aerial fire. His poems possess a breadth of vigor of realistic presentation of nepali society beyond that of any contemporary.

As a reader I enjoy the contrast in his poems that is found to be acting like thread in garland, also weaved with multiple figures and images. I had once asked poet Manjil during an interaction organized by my literary society why poetry although the oldest form of literature is less enjoyed by the readers these days. In his reply, he said tacitly that in order to understand poetry we have to create the mood first and all are not capable of arousing. His poems are the representation of contemporary nepali culture.