Aryaghat

Prof. Dr. Durga Prasad Bhandari

Prof .Dr. Durga Prasad Bhandari

Thirty years have gone
Since I have seen the living and the dead
In a kind of encounter
Challenging - as it was - each other
In a situation untold
By the poets of the past
And still remains untellable
For the poets of the present
With their heads stuck to the world's illusions
Or their hearts struck by life's mysteries

Yet one hazy morning
Walking down the Mrigasthali climb
I stopped by the Bagmati bridge
To meditate upon
The unfelt, mute interface
Of the dead and the living
On the holy banks of Bagmati
In a flash of inspired moment
I saw fire all around
Consuming both the dead and the living
The fire that burns the breathless bodies
The fire that burns the breathful souls
Upon the theatre of Aryaghat
Dead bodies have gone beyond death and desire
Dying bodies are here to suffer the fire of desire
And desire is a more terrible fire
Than the fire of the burning ghat
And I tell you, gentlemen
Each death is the death of every other living
And, each 'bell tolls' for the every other.

Courtesy: Of Nepalese Clay, October 2004, Photo courtesy: Durga Shrestha