“The Pathetic Journey”
November first week was auspicious for Literature Council of Bhutan (LCOB) having the pleasure of redemption of “The Pathetic Journey”, a poetic book penned by Mr. Narad Pokhrel. He has revealed most of historic aspects of exiled Bhutanese community throughout his book.
“I begged for the pair of discarded sneakers
Discarded by one of my neighbor boys,
His discards would all be my rewards”.
Of course, this is the reflection of missive poverty. Acknowledging these verses revealed by the author, I realize that we all have came through this sense of poverty and crisis and been continuously struggling to get emancipated from all of these social, economical, political disabilities. Including to this we are mainly concentrated focusing on aspect of our culture and Literary existence.
Though, I must acknowledge here that I’m not much efficient for commenting on poetic creations, this is my pleasure to get chance writing few lines up-on Narad Pokhrel’s poetry.
As I feel, without a literary intellect human existence has no worth. Every Society exists up-on its own social aspects, cultural values, political history with its own identity. And every one’s social Identity is safeguarded and promoted through its own Literature. So, there is a saying “literature serves as a mirror to one’s society”.
Actually, in our Bhutanese context, still we are so poor for portraying enough literary creations reflecting the real cause of our historical situation. Still we do not have enough literary presentations to denote our existence. In this need of the time Narad Pokhrel has appeared with his valued literary contribution as a poetic collection, “The Pathetic Journey”.
The Pathetic Journey is seen really pathetic as author has revealed in most of his creations, about the facts we faced being refugees. Being stateless and fall in poverty are the main theme that author has taken into account. Through his art of expression, Mr. Narad has stated the pitiful pain and frustration of being a refugee and poorest man in the world while he also has a proud of gaining a great intellect being a refugee. Poem 17 “Let me escape” and poem 22 “One word” stated the grave of authors frustration and Poem 42 “We are cool”, poem 44 “Notion” have given new hope to live despite of hurdles in livelihood.
Though poetry is purely an outcome of imagination, it has to meet certain range of realities, while prose is the fruit of intellect. The earlier form of poetry is the epic. In Italian, Greek, German, English or Indian epic we can find a clear reflection of the ancient social history of the countries. Mark closely the contents of the Beowulf, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and you will find in them a picture of the ancient life and society of the respective countries. Even in the much later epics of England, Germany or India, you can find a similar picture of ways of life of the peoples or more recent times of those countries. Of course, poetry has more of the element of imagination than of reality, it still has a sober element of art of expression. Thus we can say even if poetic literature can’t be compared with other prose, it still reflects the inner heart of society and is considered to be a mirror of society. Therefore, it is accepted fact as prose and dramas can elaborate the sense that poets already expressed.
As I already have stated, in every part of the world, literature has been more or less, mirror of society. At the earliest stage, literature invariably takes the form of poetry, while prose is a much later creation, because prose develops with matured age. Anyway it is not a mere task to be a poet, which Narad Pokhrel has shown us with a courageous example. Being a poet with a noble creation is like climbing to Mount Everest and Narad has topped us in that mission.
I wish him for a creative and successful future literary life ahead and also I expect his focus in accelerating more of our social aspects to put forth, through his creations.
Henceforth, I would like to tell the author to be assured that ‘LCOB’ is always with you and you are not alone in ‘The Pathetic Journey’.
Bhakta Ghimire
President
Literature Council of Bhutan “LCOB”
584 Chiller Avenue
Akron-OH 44310
Phone: 330-934-1397
Email: ghimirebhakta@gmail.com / bhaktaghimire@lcob.org
Webpage: www.bhutaneseliterature.com