Written by Krishna Bajgai, translated from Nepalese by Dr. Rupak Shrestha
Alphabet Adoration
Since the thirst of alphabets
Was witnessed in his young eyes,
The illiterate parents made him
Swallow all the alphabets,
Forcing him to memorise.
As soon as he was strong enough
To carry on his back
A bag of alphabets,
His teachers forcefully fed him
Tough words from books.
As he grew,
He started to learn by rote
History and politics,
Finally, philosophy,
From the professors' antiquated notes.
He grew up with alphabets,
Learned to play with them,
Understood layered
Meanings of words and sentences,
By days and by nights.
He stuck on his routine life,
Made books his pillow at night,
Surrounded himself with the alphabets
In classrooms and libraries
For hours and hours, days and nights.
One day,
All of a sudden,
A gigantic price was put on his head,
Charged for playing with
Weapons made of alphabets.
The next day,
An arrest warrant was issued in words.
Soon he was freed
by the rallying of sentences.
Again, he wrote
More and more with alphabets
While he continued to live,
Till the last sentence he wrote was –
‘’I adore alphabets.’’
Krishna Bajgai leads the Samakalin Sahitya Pratisthan that he founded in 2014. He publishes and edits www.samakalinsahitya.com. He has thirteen published books, three of his which are taught at the Universities in Nepal for Bachelors’ in Arts degree. Two have been part of research for the Master’s degree curriculum at Tribhuvan University. Decorated by seven prestigious awards in his literary career, he is also affiliated with many literary institutions.
Rupak Shrestha, a renowned figure in the Nepalese Diaspora in the United Kingdom writes free verse, ghazals, songs, muktaks (quatrains), and haiku, does literary criticism and translates. He has been felicitated by different literary institutions for his contribution. He has authored Big Ben ra Samay (Poetry Collection) 2011, Pokhtak (Muktak Collection) 2014, Butte Kimono (Haiku Collection) 2017, and Rupak (Songs’ Album) 2018.
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