Chandra Gurung's ​My Father's Face

Reviewed by Koushik Goswami

(Rubric Publishing, 2020)

Chandra Gurung’s recently published book entitled My Father’s Face is a welcome arrival of a fresh bouquet of Nepali poetry in English translation. Gurung, a Nepali poet located in the diaspora, looks back to his own beautiful country, devastated by civil war, natural disasters, poverty and corruption, and documents his responses in aesthetically pleasing poetic diction and images. The poems are translated smoothly by Mr. Mahesh Paudyal – the strains of translation, even if present, are hardly evident. It is certainly a valuable contribution to a field of studies less traversed. Along with other literary works currently being produced by Nepalese creative writers in English and English translation, Gurung’s collection of poems will help foreground his country’s legitimate claim in South Asian literature.
 
Chandra Gurung is currently located in the Kingdom of Bahrain. He usually writes in the Nepali language. The book under review – My Father’s Face – is a collection of forty-seven Nepali poems. The poems reveal the pleasures and pangs of an individual in exile – a longing for home, the memory of the pristine natural beauty, of the political turmoil, and a deep sense of concern for his nation. From thematic point of view, this volume can be divided into three broad sections: poems dealing overtly with the theme of nation and nationalism, poems focused on the diasporic longing for home and poems dealing with poetic sensibilities.
 
The title of this book relates the father figure to the nation. The title is used in a metaphorical sense. In the title poem “My Father’s Face,” his father becomes the symbol of his homeland, Nepal. The use of the image of a male face on the cover page reinforces this impression. What is said in words in the title poem corresponds to what is portrayed in the image of the face on the cover page. The floral world of Nepal, such as pines and orchids, is superimposed on the face. The father’s face indeed becomes the face of the country itself.
 
Gurung captures a picture of the beauty of the mountains and the pleasant natural environment of Nepal. The images employed by him bring out a sense of his deep attachment to nature. Images of ‘sun,’ ‘moon,’ ‘air,’ ‘storm,’ ‘thunder,’ ‘trees,’ ‘mountain,’ ‘winds,’ ‘stars,’ ‘rainbow,’ ‘rain,’ ‘clouds,’ ‘morning,’ ‘sky,’ ‘rivers,’ ‘horizon,’ ‘garden,’ ‘woods,’ ‘flames,’ ‘rain showers,’ ‘earth,’ ‘bough,’ and ‘leaf’ are used in a positive way in the first eight poems. At the same time, he critiques the government and political institutions of Nepal. He speaks of the filthy politics, the deep-rooted corruption and unimaginable poverty. It appears that God has been ‘slaughtered,’ ‘butchered,’ and ‘murdered’ in Nepal.  He poses several questions in the course of his narratives: How is the beauty of Nepal destroyed? How does the ‘ill time’ of Nepal prevail everywhere?  How does the hunger ‘hound the hollow belly?’ All these questions are raised by the poet. Nepal is portrayed as a garden and its beauty is robbed by a tormenter in the form of a storm.
 
A deep sense of attachment to his nation is prominent in most of his poems. Some of his poems deal with Nepal as a nation. Nepal is compared with an old lamppost in one of the poems:

An Old Lamp Post
Stands quietly in a corner and witnesses
…
There sits a beggar wrapped in darkness
…
Some rioters
Passing along the street
Are pelting stones on the old lamp post
…
And my nation stands in the darkness of time
As does this old lamp post.
 
(“An Old Lamp Post”)

​In another poem, entitled “Nation, Bones and the Dogs,” the plight of the nation is described through the following image: 

Nation is seen as hanging piece of bone
In the tattered map on the wall.
 
(“Nation, Bones and the Dogs”)

​The word ‘bone’ here suggests the image of death and subsequently suggests a death-in-life situation. Gurung also depicts the world of ‘terror,’ ‘ferocious faces,’ and ‘shadows of malpractices’ prevalent in Nepal. The dark images of Nepal are delineated effectively in the following lines:

By people unfurling flags of their own interests
Singing the songs of their own concerns.
 
Forlorn is the face of my nation
At this hour
As though it were a sky, wherefrom
The sun of happiness has been snatched away
As though it were a horizon, wherefrom
The moon of peace has been looted away
 
(“Face of the Nation”)

​The Maoists’ insurgency in Nepal, the violence, riots, murder of the king, political conflicts, and natural disasters like earthquake and poverty have disrupted the peace of Nepal. The picture of terror is portrayed in the following lines:

The rioters rush in the streets
. . .
Time shall be beset with crisis
The television will show the chaotic scenes
The radio shall air the tales of misery
And shadows of ill omen shall rule people’s minds and hearts
 
(“Ill Omens”)

​The brutal pictures of ‘rape,’ ‘corruption,’ ‘disorder,’ ‘barrenness,’ ‘bribery,’ and ‘discrimination,’ are highlighted in the poem “Some Poems on Nation.” He further addresses the Government of Nepal as “an impotent government” and says: 

No kisses of development
No cohabitation of peace
No conception for any bright future
Merely –
An impotent government
And a barren country.
 
(“Some Poems on Nation”)

The image of impotency continues in the poem “Hunger and an Impotent State.” In the poem “Patriotism,” he satirises the power politics in Nepal and questions the authorities, the government and the constitution of Nepal, which are controlled by the hegemonic power that Gurung refers to as ‘He.’ He personifies the State in terms of masculinity. Gurung, in this poem, highlights the issue of marginalisation and subsequently refers to the politics of Nepal that suppress the voice of the common people: 

Pointing a piece of land
On a map hung on the wall of my heart
He said:
That’s your country.
 
(“Patriotism”)

The tragic picture of Nepal is further reinforced in these lines:

I, on my part
Am standing on the frontier of my nation
Hungry
Naked
Bare foot and empty-handed
Kissing a handful of soil

("Patriotism")

​Chandra Gurung’s style of writing and of providing titles to the poems is unique. In the two poems, “The Nation-1” and “The Nation-2,” he highlights two different pictures of Nepal. In the first poem, “The Nation-1,” he portrays Nepal from a negative perspective. The aspects which should not be the characteristics of a nation are specified here: 

Nor is the nation a goat-market
Projecting a graph of profit and loss in the mind
Operated by a corrupt politician

​He further says, 

The nation
Is not the trick your brain often hatches;
Nor is it a dice you throw
Back and forth as willed
Merely to ploy and win
A game of intrigues.
 
(“The Nation-1”)

​At the end of this poem, he depicts the picture of an ideal nation:

The nation is the sensation that runs in every nerve
It is the tide of agony that rises in the heart in separation
It is the pleasure coming from tight bosoms
And the intimate waves that ripple in every corner of the heart.
​
(“The Nation-1”)

In the poem “The Nation-2,” Nepal is compared to ‘a pretty and placid moon that smiles for everyone,’ ‘a glittering sun that rises for everyone,’ ‘a bright star that twinkles for everyone,’ ‘a holy mountain,’ ‘a pristine breeze,’ ‘a fragrant lilac,’ and finally to a ‘mother.’ In the poem “Party Workers,” Gurung satirically refers to those leaders who play with the faith and trust of the common people and deceive them. These leaders offer false promises and destroy workers’ trust. Gurung here points out the unemployment problem that plagues the country and shows his disgust for the self-centered and inhuman leaders.
 
The picture of a terrible war that disrupts the peace of Nepal and snatches lives of many people is narrated through some natural images employed in the poems “Peace” and “In Complete Victory.” Lack of education and healthcare infrastructure have impeded Nepal’s development. In the poem “Vehicle in the Village,” he addresses the authority, government and the moral standard of Nepal in the following way: 

After the first vehicle
Arrived in my village
The secretary’s land has expanded but not the road
The contractor’s house has soared but not the road
Bars and spas have been added to the minister’s quarters,
But the road has remained unrepaired
The engineer has erected a new house,
But the worn-out road has not been mended
 
(“Vehicle in the Village”)

​The problem of untouchability is also referred to in some of his poems. Additionally, Gurung refers to natural disasters such as earthquakes that devastate the garden that Nepal is. Through the eyes of an old boatman, one can see the ‘poverty stricken society’ that compels people to leave their country: 

Dil Bahadur Majhi stares –
At several dejected porters moving town-ward;
At several needy lives moving across the border
 
(“Land of the Old Boatman”) 

Memories of home and a sense of longing for his motherland are prominent in the following lines:

When you are away
All hills of the heart are overcast with clouds of memories . . .
There is a deluge of reminiscence
A rain of forlornness flows from the eyes
 
(“A Shower of Memories”) 

​This sense of nostalgia is evident in another poem: 

A fragrance of longings wafted
And the birds of desires, sitting on the heart’s lamp-post
Sung the sweet songs of love
 . . .
My heart in full forlornness
 
(“That Window”) 

​Gurung’s love for his homeland is also found in the last five poems of this book. In one of these poems, he says: 

With a sharp thunderbolt of sorrows
Pity on this pain!
In fact,
A land Overseas
Is a two-edged sword:
It slays in sorrows
And jobs in joys too”
 
(“Land overseas – 1”)

​Leaving home and living outside his homeland do not give him any feeling of comfort, and this is projected in the following lines:

When a man goes missing
A courtyard is lost
The feet that come stepping on it are lost
The door awaiting the sound of those footsteps is lost
The windows where the eyes meet are lost
 A home is lost
The fragrance of a family is lost
 
(“When a Man Goes Missing”)

​However, his sense of longing for home gives way to a different mood and tone when he comes back home and watches the miserable picture of his homeland. The sun is no longer bright here. It is shattered and fragmented into ‘innumerable pieces.’ A disorder prevails everywhere and is projected in the following way: 

The wings of the wind have been severed
The flight of the birds writhes in blood
Time slips, as though nothing has ever gone wrong.
There certainly is a defect, somewhere
 
(“There Is a Defect, Somewhere”)

How the natural smile is transformed to ‘fabricated smiles’ and ‘forged smiles,’ how the natural joys are changed into superficial joys, and how the sense of intimacy has lost its essence and meaning are portrayed in “When We Meet these Days.” There is a complete unrest, a kind of disruption and lack of security. Children are frightened and cannot move freely. They scream and cry. This sense of terror is highlighted in the poem “Small Children at Play.”
 
In some of his poems, like “Poet and Poetry,” “The Antique Hill” and “Life Keeps Writing Poems,” he speaks of the creative power of a poet and of how a poet uses the elements of the natural world: they incorporate these elements into their poetry to give it a sharp edge. The same is true in his case. The diction used by Chandra Gurung is simple and lucid. The images are lively and thought-provoking. The translation is smooth and easy to understand. He is a promising poet. Gurung has foregrounded Nepal through arresting images and poetic flavour. In short, My Father’s Face is a valuable addition to the small corpus of poetry in English and English translation originating from South Asia. 

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Koushik Goswami is currently pursuing a PhD at the Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Earlier, he completed his M.Phil in English from the University of Burdwan. He received a JU-RUSA doctoral fellowship and was a Humanities Visiting Scholar, Exeter University, United Kingdom. He was invited by the College of Humanities, Exeter University, and University of East Anglia, England, to deliver talks on his PhD topic and for academic discussion. Some of his recently published articles are: “Rewriting Tibet in The Tibetan Suitcase: A Novel (2019) by Tsering Namgyal Khortsa” (Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities), “Cool Texts, Cold Wars: Singapore and Tibet in Historical Fiction of Small States” (The Calcutta Journal of Global Affairs), “The Politics of Fencing and Exchanges of Enclaves: A Study of the Indo-Bangladesh Border”(Border, Globalization and Identity, Cambridge Scholars Publishing), “Violence as Spectacle: Manjula Padmanabhan’s Treatment of Ethical Responsibility in Lights Out” (Apperception, Visva-Bharati) and “Nation and Diaspora in Manjushree Thapa’s Select Stories” (Borders and Border Crossing: Reading Partition, Reading Diaspora, University of Burdwan Press). His areas of interest include South Asian Literature, Diaspora Studies, and Postcolonial Literature.