BIO
Born in Terathum of eastern Nepal, Dr. Abhi Subedi (अभि सुवेदी) received his higher education in Nepal and Britain. He is an essayist, critic, linguist, playwright, translator, and poet. He has over two- dozen books on different subjects to his credit. Among his over ten plays, strong theatre groups in Nepal and abroad have performed several of them. Professor Subedi has taught for 40 years at the Central Department of English. He is vice-President of the Nepali Folklore Society of Nepal. He is the founding former President of the International Theatre Institute (ITI) UNESCO from 2000—2008 and member of International Playwright’s Forum from 2000-2011. Subedi became President (1990-1992) and two times General Secretary of the Linguistic Society of Nepal. He was also President of the Literary Association of Nepal. He is vice-President of the Nepal Folklore Society and member of the International Association of Theatre Critics. He is involved in several interdisciplinary study groups and a prolific writer on issues of freedom, culture, literature, arts and social transformations. His essays and seminar papers are published in Nepal and outside.
Currents between Words
We promised to climb a time
Over Nagarjuna in Kathmandu
We promised ourselves to scale Sunya
With these jerks in life
That hang like shadows
In bends awaiting returns–
Whose returns?
a good question
I know somebody has departed
Leaving only a moment written
In my own history page
My own words.
When we write
We all touch times
Each of us has lived
People that each of us has seen go
Moments that each of us has lived
In utter solitude
What currents are these
Dancing between words
That touch all our times?
I read Kaiser Haq’s poetry
All morning today.
.
Soft Storm
I became soft
I became soft
after I heard the tumult and
crashed on the eerie stillness;
I inherited the soft
when the sky grew like crocuses
over stones and
became five inches taller
that very night
when moon skidded down
your walls
speaking in the language
of posters and politics
rituals and reasons.
I became soft
as the softness rose like a gale
tearing my roofs
that very night
when the moon sang of
lampposts and gutters
in this seamless city.
I became soft
when homeless children in Thamel
cried with hunger under the bat-bearing
trees of Kesharmahal;
I became soft
when I returned
from the melee
where ceremony
dances with mad steps
on the unwedded gardens of history
growing around protruded rocks.
I became soft
when I alone turned to you
leaving deep dents of words
on these white sheets;
I became soft storm
when I saw a forlorn child
carrying transistor radio around his neck
run around wailing
to find his mother
in the corridors of violent history.
I became a soft storm
when I saw a man
beaten mercilessly
for no reason
before his family
by nobody for no reason
in no sensible times.
I became soft
when I saw
a blood-stained shirt
speaking in the earth’s ears
with bruised human lips
in the far corner
under the moon
of history and dreams
playing hide and seek
in open museums
of human times.
I became soft
since you gave words
but did not listen to them,
gave storms
but didn’t wait to see its Leela
over the silent stone.
Crocuses have grown
over the stone–
I saw last moonlit night,
storms have loitered
in the narrow lanes
where I too have walked alone
pensively in rain tears
and little chuckles of sun laughter
that have risen and melted
like rainbow.
Soft is my storm
that rages and rages
over silent pages,
silent stones,
silent forlorn shirts carrying war memories,
silent dilapidations of gods’ abodes
where dances and songs
are buried under helpless divine debris
in human courtyards.
Soft is what you saw,
I honor your mooneyes
but the mad time spools
winding all that we see and live with,
stone growing in flower
moon humming melodies
history rushing under the lamppost
and over deforested land,
birds singing of bizarre journeys
over the warming earth
rhododendron blooming in winter,
mother earth telling of the tumults
in the songs of the sad birds.
All in unison have created
this soft gale.
But in these hard times
I want to melt like a rainbow
my soft storm in your minuscule sky.
My soft storm
dances in ripples
of your uneasy lake.
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