Laxmi Prasad Devkota – Pagal

लक्ष्मी प्रसाद देवकोटा – पागल

जरुर साथी म पागल !
यस्तै छ मेरो हाल ।
म शब्दलाई देख्दछु !
दृश्यलाई सुन्दछु !
बासनालाई संबाद लिन्छु ।
आकाशभन्दा पातालका कुरालाई छुन्छु ।
ती कुरा,
जसको अस्तित्व लोक मान्दैंन
जसको आकार संसार जान्दैन !
म देख्दछु, ढुङ्गालाई फूल !
जब, जलकिनारका जल चिप्ला ती,
कोमलाकार, पाषाण,
चाँदनीमा,
स्वर्गकी जादूगर्नी मतिर हाँस्दा,
पत्रिएर, नर्मिएर, झल्किएर,
बल्किएर, उठ्दछन् मूक पागलझैँ,
फूलझैँ- एक किसिमका चकोर फूल !
म बोल्दछु तिनसँग, जस्तो बोल्दछन् ती मसँग
एक भाषा, साथी !
जो लेखिन्न, छापिन्न, बोलिन्न, बुझाइन्न, सुनाइन्न ।
जुनेली गङ्गा-किनार छाल आउँछ तिनको भाषा
साथी ! छाल छाल !
जरुर साथी म पागल !
यस्तै छ मेरो हाल !
तिमी चतुर छौ, वाचाल !
तिम्रो शुद्ध गणित सूत्र हरहमेशा चलिरहेको छ
मेरो गणितमा एकबाट एक झिके
एकै बाँकी रहन्छ !
तिमी पाँच इन्द्रियले काम गर्छौ,
म छैटौँले !
तिम्रो गिदी छ साथी !
मेरो मुटु ।
तिमी गुलाफलाई गुलाफ सिवाय देख्न सक्तैनौ,
म उसमा हेलेन र पद्मिनी पाउँछु,
तिमी बलिया गद्य छौ !
म तरल पद्य छु !
तिमी जम्दछौ जब म पग्लन्छु,
तिमी सँग्लन्छौ जब म धमिलो बन्छु,
र ठीक त्यसैका उल्टो !
तिम्रो संसार ठोस छ ।
मेरो बाफ !
तिम्रो बाक्लो, मेरो पातलो !
तिमी ढुङ्गालाई वस्तु ठान्दछौ,
ठोस कठोरता तिम्रो यथार्थ छ ।
म सपनालाई समात्न खोज्दछु,
जस्तो तिमी, त्यो चिसो, मीठो अक्षर काटेको
पान्ढीकीको बाटुलो सत्यलाई !
मेरो छ वेग काँडाको साथी !
तिम्रो सुनको र हीराको !
तिमी पहाडलाई लाटा भन्दछौ,
म भन्छु वाचाल ।
जरुर साथी ।
मेरो एक नशा ढिलो छ ।
यस्तै छ मेरो हाल !

15 thoughts on “Laxmi Prasad Devkota – Pagal”

  1. enlish
    Lunatic
    Laxmi Prasad Devkota

    1. Oh yes, friend! I’m crazy-

    that’s just the way I am.

    2. I see sounds,

    I hear sights,

    I taste smells,

    I touch not heaven but things from the underworld,

    things people do not believe exist,

    whose shapes the world does not suspect.

    Stones I see as flowers

    lying water-smoothed by the water’s edge,

    rocks of tender forms

    in the moonlight

    when the heavenly sorceress smiles at me,

    putting out leaves, softening, glistening,

    throbbing, they rise up like mute maniacs,

    like flowers, a kind of moon-bird’s flowers.

    I talk to them the way they talk to me,

    a language, friend,

    that can’t be written or printed or spoken,

    can’t be understood, can’t be heard.

    Their language comes in ripples to the moonlit Ganges banks,

    ripple by ripple-

    oh yes, friend! I’m crazy-

    that’s just the way I am.

    3. You’re clever, quick with words,

    your exact equations are right forever and ever.

    But in my arithmetic, take one from one-

    and there’s still one left.

    You get along with five senses,

    I with a sixth.

    You have a brain, friend,

    I have a heart.

    A rose is just a rose to you-

    to me it’s Helen and Padmini.

    You are forceful prose

    I liquid verse.

    When you freeze I melt,

    When you’re clear I get muddled

    and then it works the other way around.

    Your world is solid,

    mine vapor,

    yours coarse, mine subtle.

    You think a stone reality;

    harsh cruelty is real for you.

    I try to catch a dream,

    the way you grasp the rounded truth of cold, sweet coin.

    I have the sharpness of the thorn,

    you of gold and diamonds.

    You think the hills are mute-

    I call them eloquent.

    Oh yes, friend!

    I’m free in my inebriation-

    that’s just the way I am.

    4. In the cold of the month of winter

    I sat

    warming to the first white heat of the star.

    the world called me drifty.

    When they saw me staring blankly for seven days

    after I came back from the burning ghats

    they said I was a spook.

    When I saw the first marks of the snows of time

    in a beautiful woman’s hair

    I wept for three days.

    When the Buddha touched my soul

    they said I was raving.

    They called me a lunatic because I danced

    when I heard the first spring cuckoo.

    One dead-quite moon night

    breathless I leapt to my feet,

    filled with the pain of destruction.

    On that occasion the fools

    put me in the stocks,

    One day I sang with the storm-

    the wise men

    sent me off to Ranchi.

    Realizing that same day I myself would die

    I stretched out on my bed.

    A friend came along and pinched me hard

    and said, Hey, madman,

    your flesh isn’t dead yet!

    For years these things went on.

    I’m crazy, friend-

    that’s just the way I am.

    5. I called the Navab’s wine blood,

    the painted whore a corpse,

    and the king a pauper.

    I attacked Alexander with insults,

    and denounced the so-called great souls.

    The lowly I have raised on the bridge of praise

    to the seventh heaven.

    Your learned pandit is my great fool,

    your heaven my hell,

    your gold my iron,

    friend! Your piety my sin.

    Where you see yourself as brilliant

    I find you a dolt.

    Your rise, friend-my decline.

    That’s the way our values are mixed up,

    friend!

    Your whole world is a hair to me.

    Oh yes, friend, I’m moonstruck through and through-

    moonstruck!

    That’s just the way I am.

    6. I see the blind man as the people’s guide,

    the ascetic in his cave a deserter;

    those who act in the theater of lies

    I see as dark buffoons.

    Those who fail I find successful,

    and progress only backsliding.

    am I squint-eyed,

    Or just crazy?

    Friend, I’m crazy.

    Look at the withered tongues of shameless leaders,

    The dance of the whores

    At breaking the backbone on the people’s rights.

    When the sparrow-headed newsprint spreads its black lies

    In a web of falsehood

    To challenge Reason-the hero in myself-

    My cheeks turn red, friend,

    red as molten coal.

    When simple people drink dark poison with their ears

    Thinking it nectar-

    and right before my eyes, friend!-

    then every hair on my body stands up stiff

    as the Gorgon’s serpent hair-

    every hair on me maddened!

    When I see the tiger daring to eat the deer, friend,

    or the big fish the little,

    then into my rotten bones there comes

    the terrible strength of the soul of Dadhichi

    and tries to speak, friend,

    like the stormy day crashing down from heaven with the lightning.

    When man regards a man

    as not a man, friend,

    then my teeth grind together, all thirty-two,

    top and bottom jaws,

    like the teeth of Bhimasena.

    And then

    red with rage my eyeballs rool

    round and round, with one sweep

    like a lashing flame

    taking in this inhuman human world.

    My organs leap out of theirs frames-

    uproar! Uproar!

    my breathing becomes a storm,

    my face distorted, my brain on fire, friend!

    with a fire like those that burn beneath the sea,

    like the fire that devours the forests,

    frenzied, friend!

    as one who would swallow the wide world raw.

    Oh yes, my friend,

    the beautiful chakora am I,

    destroyer of the ugly,

    both tender and cruel,

    the bird that steals the heaven’s fire,

    child of the tempest,

    spew of the insane volcano,

    terror incarnate.

    Oh yes, friend,

    my brain is whirling, whirling-

    that’s just the way I am.

    Laxmi Prasad Devkota Lunatic translation of Pagal by Mahakavi himself.

  2. Just a fab poem……..there is no doubt to say that he is just a incredible person…..i wish if i had born on that days of him…..💕💖😉

  3. Above poem is not complete. Can you please post full poem in Nepali. Thank you!!

  4. Dewkotako bhawna chune aajai koi janmeka chainan ma ta kewal bujne chesta nai garirahechu 100 palta पाठ garisake tara feeling kam kahilei bhako chaina ….!!! Sabdai bilaunchan yo parda…!

Comments are closed.