Every language delivers emotions with the same intention but with a different tone. The sound gets to complement our necessities only when other voices make a room for the desirable one to sustain around us. The Dust Draws its Face on the Wind: Selected Poems by Avinash Shrestha is a collection of Nepali poems which has been translated by Rohan Chhetri. The poems found a voice that rightfully nurtured and metamorphosed the poems without making it tiresome for the readers. Regional poets of different circles do not form a part of our syllabus or consciousness. It is for this reason only most poets who cultivate poetry in its truest form stay unnoticed. The mysticism of Avinash Shrestha’s poetry wrestles to remain contemporary or relevant (even though none of them matter) for a longer period. Behavioural acting baffles the audience but the skill never gets to descend on the viewers. The subtle mannerism of Avinash’s poetry also is like a winter rain. We do not know the reason of its occurrence. Yet it keeps us hooked to the beautiful experience.
Mysticism can be best expressed in the arms of nature. Nature and its constituents strip the covers which veil our understanding. It explores several layers of the institution. The Relative is a poem that works like a blade and like time. It forms a pattern and gets deeper into the phenomenon that is evident but often do not get to meet our eyes. In this poem, the poet does a comparative analysis between several components to present a picture which verifies the variety of emotions nature keeps in us and vice-versa. It soothes our mind but does not refrain from disturbing it too. The poet cuts the binary idea and begins to construct a grey structure of both nature and poetry which subsequently summarizes both the units. So, when he writes about how the heart drifts higher than the butterflies and birds, he claims the might of the human heart. But, in the same poem, the poet puts a thorn as more sorrowful than colours. It can be picturized as when a widow if forced to wear a white saree after her husband’s death, the caress of the white colour makes her sad. But if she is forced, it works like a thorn and that is painful. There is classification but somewhere around the poem we do feel that all the possibilities quietly blend without becoming obnoxious.
The poet writes:
Age flows
Molten gold flows
Illusion enfolds illusion, in turn hidden by another illusion
Like night enfolds darkness, and darkness hides by night.
Climate consciousness is something we all need to have in mind before politics, ideologies and our own art. Avinash’s poem Water is about the origin of life, which we know are oceans. It is a poem that is not preachy. It rather triggers the readers. Each stanza hits the mind without any reluctance. Even in the presence of metaphors, we get an idea about the lurking danger. Empty portions of the Earth should have water, but with the rising buildings, and human greed, we are seeing destroyed water bodies and less groundwater. The poet describes how in the near future the darkest forests and busy cities will have to face a situation where normalcy would be no or less water. There is a concept of surrender in the poem. The poet asks human beings to cast off the other four elements of the universe to keep the origin alive for the infinity of life to become a reality.
The poet writes:
Inside the clamour of carbon
nowhere there is – water
Inside the smoke’s wintergreen dark
there will not be any – water
Inside the grey cloud of dust
you will not find – water
Love is known to break borders. But what makes it even stronger is the absence of the person we are in love with. Desire or wish too takes the same route where the absence of an emotion makes us dig our desires to that particular one. In the poem Wish-Letter, the poet speaks about loss but with several branches. The losing person or moments gets back to him through a song. It is relatable since in our most depressing moments, we listen to a sad tune with either exaggerate the pain for our own sake or to set ourselves free. Truth of a loss is even more painful and its realization pierces through our bones. To give birth to this condition the poet writes – This moment in time that is tethered; above me now – it is quite unlike your smile; Like a dagger it is aimed to plunge into me. In a stanza the poet supports the exaggerated emotion or outburst after a certain loss. He does not nullify the existence of pride that mostly leads us to becoming a hard nut. Yet, at the end of the day, we still crave to have a future with lovers. Our surrounding gives us enough choices. The human mind prioritizes the one that provides hope without any rules and regulations.
The poet writes:
Even so, I will feign neither politeness
nor tact or formality
I will die without an ‘ah’ if I have to
My mulish pride dear to me.
The disturbing atmosphere of the poems The Blues does not deliver chaos in a conventional way. It speaks about the violence people commit in the name of colour. Racism is an easy word to refer to such violent acts. But, at the very root level, this violence builds restriction which is claustrophobic in nature. It is erotic at the same time because to put a battle against the violent acts the genre of Blues became a medium for the dark-skinned people. It is still hailed as the genre which magnifies intimacy. The music forms an abode for those who still have love and hope in them. According to the poet, through Blues the skin of the musicians melts to form their black consciousness. We all need a medium to survive the bleak times. Blues is one of them.
The poet writes:
Black anguish/and the black bright. Pitch
black consciousness/a black sun,
and a black constellation.
Sheltered under the darkness of their own despair
cradling the night’s dead child
piercingly, the slaves sing blues.
Avinash Shrestha’s collection is an essential read in the realm of poetry. Everything can be translated if done with honesty and precision. The mRNA translates into protein only when the encoded information in mRNA is absolute. Rohan Chhetri finds the coding region in Avinash’s poetry. His thought works as the promoter which enables him to assess the correct sequence of translating a Nepali poet. It is not easy to translate poems which do not represent ideas in a blunt way. The Dust Draws its Face on the Wind evolves as we keep on feeding on the poems. It gives the readers a document which has the poet’s soul. The soul broadens like a cloud over a deserted land. To rain one has to wait. To keep it relevant the readers must drink the poet’s offerings.
Kabir Deb is a poet and reviewer. He currently works as the Interview Editor of the Usawa Literary Reviewer. When he is not working, he likes being cuddled by his dogs.
