जिन्दगी हो गोल चक्र, बुझ्दैन किन मान्छे ?
वैशाख १२, २०७२ ! विशेषत लोकतन्त्र जन्मिएको दिनको दोस्रो दिन भनेर बुझिन्थ्यो । तर केवल एकै झट्का पनि काफी रह्योः परिवर्तनको लागि । अबदेखि वैशाख १२ गतेको आfनो परिचय बनेको छ । मध्यान्ह ११ बजेर ५६ मिनेट ! नेपाल र नेपाली मनमन सम्भवतः सर्वाधिक यो मितिले हल्लायो र अभैm पनि हल्लाइरहेको छ । अभैmपनि निरन्तर पराकम्पनहरु आइरहेका छन् । कहिले कता? कहिेल कता? भएर पराकम्पनहरु गए पनि हल्लाउने त मन नै रहेछ ।
यस्तै प्रकारका अनेकानेक तर्कनाहरुले मनमा ड्याnग्रो ठोक्ने गर्छ अचेलभरि । निर्मलालाई सोच्नको अन्य धेरै विषयहरु नभएका भने होइनन् । छोरा छ- रहरलाग्दो उमेरको, जीवनसाथी छ-माया गर्ने सायद आपैm भन्दा धेरै, ख्याल गर्ने अनि सदैव आशाहरुलाई जीवन्त बनाउन सिकाइरहने ! मन बुझाउने बाटा नभएको भने होएन तरपनि सबै कुराहरु यहि भूकम्पतिरै विषयान्तर भएका छन् यतिखेर । अनिश्चित, अनिश्चित । भूकम्प गएपछि दिनहुँजसो नै उस्तै कुरा हुन्छन् । एकैप्रकारको अनि एकैथरिको । माया हो कि, चिन्ता हो कि, डर हो कि, सपना हो ! उस्तै उस्तै कुराहरु । घरको दुःख देशको जस्तै । देश दुखेको बेला घर उभानो कसरी पो रहन्थ्यो र ? छोरा नियमित जस्तै स्कूल जान थाली सक्यो । दिनहुँ स्कूल जानु-आउनु, गृहकार्य गर्नु, खेल्नु आदि आदि उनको दैनिकी पहिलेजस्तै बनिसकेको थियो । वर्षायामको मध्य समय छ। पानी बेस्सरी घनघोर वर्षिरहेको छ । हावाहूरी उस्तै गरि त्यसमाथि चट्याng पनि । नर्मला सोच्दै थिइ- मानिसले प्रकृतिलाई सम्पूर्णतः जान्न सायद असम्भव छ । दूर दराज गाँउहरुमा मनहरु कति आक्रान्त होला ? सायद हामीभन्दा धेरै धेरै गुणा बढी । पानीमा निथ्रुक्क रुझेर निर्मलाको बुढा पनि घर आइपुग्यो । छोराको बारेमा सामान्य जानकारी लिई खाना खान थाले दुवैजना । भूकम्पले घर लिएर गएदेखि पर्दा पारी सुत्ने गरेको छोरा सुतिसकेको छ । उसलाई जमिन हल्लाउने कुराले सदैव जिज्ञासु बनाइराख्छ । कहिले, कतिबेर अनि कति पटक । यस्तै यस्तै । निर्मलाको बुढाबुढी केही सामान्य कुराकानी पछि पर्दा वारि सुत्ने तरखरमा थिए । सुत्ने बेलामा सदा भैm निर्मलालाई अब केहि दिनमा भूकम्प बन्द हुने, सानो तिनो, थोरै आउने जस्ता कुराहरु सुनाई ढाडस दिदै थिए- उनका श्रीमान् । यतिखेर निर्मलालाई यहि कुराले पनि मनमा आशा रहिरहन्थ्यो- भत्केको घर पूनः निर्माण हुने, मोडिएको यात्रा पुनः नयाँ मोडमा सुरु हुने । आशाहरुको नयाँ विहानी हुने । नयाँ घामको किरणहरु लिएर । त्यतिकैमा नजिकै आवाज आउँछरु । भूईमाथिको गिलास, गिलास माथि सानो गिलास अनि त्यसको छानो बनेर बसेको स्टीलको थाल लडेको थियो नजिकै, हाम्रो सिस्मोमिटर । गाँउघरको सिस्मोमिटर । मनलाई हल्लाउने भूकम्पको जनाउ दिदै थियो सिस्मोमिटर अभैmपनि । ईति 2015-7-8 Nobel Literature Prize Winners in literature
1901: Sully Prudhomme (France) 1902: Christian Mommsen (Germany) 1903: Bjornstjerne Bjornson (Norway) 1904: Frederic Mistral (France) and Jose Echegaray (Spain) 1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz (Poland) 1906: Giosue Carducci (Italy) 1907: Rudyard Kipling (Britain) 1908: Rudolf Eucken (Germany) 1909: Selma Lagerlof (Sweden) 1910: Paul Heyse (Germany) 1911: Mooris Maeterlinck (Belgium) 1912: Gerhart Hauptmann (Germany) 1913: Rabindranath Tagore (India) 1915: Romain Rolland (France) 1916: Carl Von Heidenstam (Sweden) 1917: Karl Gjellerup (Denmark) and Henrik Pontoppidan (Denmark) 1919: Carl Spitteler (Switzerland) 1920: Knut Hamsun (Norway) 1921: Anatole France (France) 1922: Jacinto Benavente (Spain) 1923: William Butler Yeats (Ireland, but at the time Britain) 1924: Wladyslaw Reymont (Poland) 1925: George Bernard Shaw (Ireland, but at the time Britain) 1926: Grazia Deledda (Italy) 1927: Henri Bergson (France) 1928: Sigrid Undset (Norway) 1929: Thomas Mann (Germany) 1930: Sinclair Lewis (USA) 1931: Erik Karlfeldt (Sweden) 1932: John Galsworthy (Britain) 1933: Ivan Bunin (Soviet Union/ Russia) 1934: Luigi Pirandello (Italy) 1936: Eugene O'neill (USA) 1937: Roger Martin Du Gard (France) 1938: Pearl Buck (USA) 1939: Frans Sillanpaa (Finland) 1944: Johannes Jensen (Denmark) 1945: Gabriela Mistral (Chile) 1946: Hermann Hesse (Germany) 1947: Andre Gide (France) 1948: Thomas-Stearns Eliot (USA) 1949: William Faulkner (USA) 1950: Bertrand Russell (Britain) 1951: Par Lagerkvist (Sweden) 1952: Francois Mauriac (France) 1953: Winston Churchill (Britain) 1954: Ernest Hemingway (USA) 1955: Halldor Laxness (Iceland) 1956: Juan-Ramon Jiminez (Spain) 1957: Albert Camus (France) 1958: Boris Pasternak (Soviet Union/ Russia) 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo (Italy) 1960: Saint-John Perse (France) 1961: Ivo Andric (Yugoslavia) 1962: John Steinbeck (USA) 1963: Giorgos Seferis (Greece) 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (France) 1965: Michail Sholokhov (Soviet Union/ Russia) 1966: Shmuel Agnon (Israel) and Nelly Sachs (Germany) 1967: Miguel Asturias (Guatemala) 1968: Yasunari Kawabata (Japan) 1969: Samuel Beckett (Ireland) 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Soviet Union/ Russia) 1971: Pablo Neruda (Chile) 1972: Heinrich Boell (Germany) 1973: Patrick White (Australia) 1974: Eyvind Johnson (Sweden) and Harry Martinson (Sweden) 1975: Eugenio Montale (Italy) 1976: Saul Bellow (USA) 1977: Vicente Aleixandre (Spain) 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer (USA) 1979: Odysseus Elytis (Greece) 1980: Czeslaw Milosz (Poland) 1981: Elias Canetti (Bulgaria) 1982: Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (Colombia) 1983: William Golding (Britain) 1984: Jaroslav Seifert (Czech) 1985: Claude Simon (France) 1986: Wole Soyinka (Nigeria) 1987: Joseph Brodsky (Soviet Union/ Russia) 1988: Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt) 1989: Camilo Cela (Spain) 1990: Octavio Paz (Mexico) 1991: Nadine Gordimer (South Africa) 1992: Derek Walcott (St Lucia) 1993: Toni Morrison (USA) 1994: Kenzaburo Oe (Japan) 1995: Seamus Heaney (Ireland) 1996: Wislawa Szymborska (Poland) 1997: Dario Fo (Italy) 1998: Jose Saramago (Portugal) 1999: Gunther Grass (Germany) 2000: Gao Xingjian (China) 2001: Vidiadhar Naipaul (India) 2002: Imre Kertesz (Hungary) 2003: John Coetzee (South Africa) 2004: Elfriede Jelinek (Austria) 2005: Harold Pinter (Britain) 2006: Orhan Pamuk (Turkey) 2007: Doris Lessing (Britain) 2008: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (France) 2009: Herta Muller (Germany) 2010: Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) 2011: Tomas Transtroemer (Sweden) 2012: Mo Yan (China) 2013: Alice Munro (Canada) 2014: Patrick Modiano (France) http://www.scaruffi.com/fiction/nobel.html Posted from: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/Poetry/LoversComplaint.html
( William Shakespeare26) FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded A plaintful story from a sistering vale, My spirits to attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale; Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain, Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain. Upon her head a platted hive of straw, Which fortified her visage from the sun, Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw The carcass of beauty spent and done: Time had not scythed all that youth begun, Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage, Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age. Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne, Which on it had conceited characters, Laundering the silken figures in the brine That season'd woe had pelleted in tears, And often reading what contents it bears; As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe, In clamours of all size, both high and low. Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride, As they did battery to the spheres intend; Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend Their view right on; anon their gazes lend To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd, The mind and sight distractedly commix'd. Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat, Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat, Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside; Some in her threaden fillet still did bide, And true to bondage would not break from thence, Though slackly braided in loose negligence. A thousand favours from a maund she drew Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet, Which one by one she in a river threw, Upon whose weeping margent she was set; Like usury, applying wet to wet, Or monarch's hands that let not bounty fall Where want cries some, but where excess begs all. Of folded schedules had she many a one, Which she perused, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood; Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud; Found yet moe letters sadly penn'd in blood, With sleided silk feat and affectedly Enswathed, and seal'd to curious secrecy. These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes, And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear: Cried 'O false blood, thou register of lies, What unapproved witness dost thou bear! Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here!' This said, in top of rage the lines she rents, Big discontent so breaking their contents. A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh-- Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew Of court, of city, and had let go by The swiftest hours, observed as they flew-- Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew, And, privileged by age, desires to know In brief the grounds and motives of her woe. So slides he down upon his grained bat, And comely-distant sits he by her side; When he again desires her, being sat, Her grievance with his hearing to divide: If that from him there may be aught applied Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage, 'Tis promised in the charity of age. 'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold The injury of many a blasting hour, Let it not tell your judgment I am old; Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power: I might as yet have been a spreading flower, Fresh to myself, If I had self-applied Love to myself and to no love beside. 'But, woe is me! too early I attended A youthful suit--it was to gain my grace-- Of one by nature's outwards so commended, That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face: Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place; And when in his fair parts she did abide, She was new lodged and newly deified. 'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls; And every light occasion of the wind Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls. What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find: Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind, For on his visage was in little drawn What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn. 'Small show of man was yet upon his chin; His phoenix down began but to appear Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear: Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear; And nice affections wavering stood in doubt If best were as it was, or best without. 'His qualities were beauteous as his form, For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free; Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm As oft 'twixt May and April is to see, When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be. His rudeness so with his authorized youth Did livery falseness in a pride of truth. 'Well could he ride, and often men would say 'That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!' And controversy hence a question takes, Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by the well-doing steed. 'But quickly on this side the verdict went: His real habitude gave life and grace To appertainings and to ornament, Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case: All aids, themselves made fairer by their place, Came for additions; yet their purposed trim Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him. 'So on the tip of his subduing tongue All kinds of arguments and question deep, All replication prompt, and reason strong, For his advantage still did wake and sleep: To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep, He had the dialect and different skill, Catching all passions in his craft of will: 'That he did in the general bosom reign Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted, To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain In personal duty, following where he haunted: Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted; And dialogued for him what he would say, Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey. 'Many there were that did his picture get, To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind; Like fools that in th' imagination set The goodly objects which abroad they find Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd; And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them: 'So many have, that never touch'd his hand, Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart. My woeful self, that did in freedom stand, And was my own fee-simple, not in part, What with his art in youth, and youth in art, Threw my affections in his charmed power, Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower. 'Yet did I not, as some my equals did, Demand of him, nor being desired yielded; Finding myself in honour so forbid, With safest distance I mine honour shielded: Experience for me many bulwarks builded Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil. 'But, ah, who ever shunn'd by precedent The destined ill she must herself assay? Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content, To put the by-past perils in her way? Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay; For when we rage, advice is often seen By blunting us to make our wits more keen. 'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood, That we must curb it upon others' proof; To be forbod the sweets that seem so good, For fear of harms that preach in our behoof. O appetite, from judgment stand aloof! The one a palate hath that needs will taste, Though Reason weep, and cry, 'It is thy last.' 'For further I could say 'This man's untrue,' And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling; Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew, Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling; Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling; Thought characters and words merely but art, And bastards of his foul adulterate heart. 'And long upon these terms I held my city, Till thus he gan besiege me: 'Gentle maid, Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity, And be not of my holy vows afraid: That's to ye sworn to none was ever said; For feasts of love I have been call'd unto, Till now did ne'er invite, nor never woo. ''All my offences that abroad you see Are errors of the blood, none of the mind; Love made them not: with acture they may be, Where neither party is nor true nor kind: They sought their shame that so their shame did find; And so much less of shame in me remains, By how much of me their reproach contains. ''Among the many that mine eyes have seen, Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd, Or my affection put to the smallest teen, Or any of my leisures ever charm'd: Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd; Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free, And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy. ''Look here, what tributes wounded fancies sent me, Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood; Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me Of grief and blushes, aptly understood In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood; Effects of terror and dear modesty, Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly. ''And, lo, behold these talents of their hair, With twisted metal amorously impleach'd, I have received from many a several fair, Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd, With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd, And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality. ''The diamond,--why, 'twas beautiful and hard, Whereto his invised properties did tend; The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend; The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend With objects manifold: each several stone, With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan. ''Lo, all these trophies of affections hot, Of pensived and subdued desires the tender, Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not, But yield them up where I myself must render, That is, to you, my origin and ender; For these, of force, must your oblations be, Since I their altar, you enpatron me. ''O, then, advance of yours that phraseless hand, Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise; Take all these similes to your own command, Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise; What me your minister, for you obeys, Works under you; and to your audit comes Their distract parcels in combined sums. ''Lo, this device was sent me from a nun, Or sister sanctified, of holiest note; Which late her noble suit in court did shun, Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote; For she was sought by spirits of richest coat, But kept cold distance, and did thence remove, To spend her living in eternal love. ''But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave The thing we have not, mastering what not strives, Playing the place which did no form receive, Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves? She that her fame so to herself contrives, The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight, And makes her absence valiant, not her might. ''O, pardon me, in that my boast is true: The accident which brought me to her eye Upon the moment did her force subdue, And now she would the caged cloister fly: Religious love put out Religion's eye: Not to be tempted, would she be immured, And now, to tempt, all liberty procured. ''How mighty then you are, O, hear me tell! The broken bosoms that to me belong Have emptied all their fountains in my well, And mine I pour your ocean all among: I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong, Must for your victory us all congest, As compound love to physic your cold breast. ''My parts had power to charm a sacred nun, Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace, Believed her eyes when they to assail begun, All vows and consecrations giving place: O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space, In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine, For thou art all, and all things else are thine. ''When thou impressest, what are precepts worth Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame, How coldly those impediments stand forth Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame! Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense, 'gainst shame, And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears, The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears. ''Now all these hearts that do on mine depend, Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine; And supplicant their sighs to you extend, To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine, Lending soft audience to my sweet design, And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath That shall prefer and undertake my troth.' 'This said, his watery eyes he did dismount, Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face; Each cheek a river running from a fount With brinish current downward flow'd apace: O, how the channel to the stream gave grace! Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses That flame through water which their hue encloses. 'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies In the small orb of one particular tear! But with the inundation of the eyes What rocky heart to water will not wear? What breast so cold that is not warmed here? O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath, Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath. 'For, lo, his passion, but an art of craft, Even there resolved my reason into tears; There my white stole of chastity I daff'd, Shook off my sober guards and civil fears; Appear to him, as he to me appears, All melting; though our drops this difference bore, His poison'd me, and mine did him restore. 'In him a plenitude of subtle matter, Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives, Of burning blushes, or of weeping water, Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves, In either's aptness, as it best deceives, To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes, Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows. 'That not a heart which in his level came Could 'scape the hail of his all-hurting aim, Showing fair nature is both kind and tame; And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim: Against the thing he sought he would exclaim; When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury, He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity. 'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd; That th' unexperient gave the tempter place, Which like a cherubin above them hover'd. Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd? Ay me! I fell; and yet do question make What I should do again for such a sake. 'O, that infected moisture of his eye, O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd, O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly, O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd, O, all that borrow'd motion seeming owed, Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd, And new pervert a reconciled maid!' The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennes- see and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. "Now look here, Bailey," she said, "see here, read this," and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did."
Bailey didn't look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children's mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbit's ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. "The children have been to Florida before," the old lady said. "You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee." The children's mother didn't seem to hear her but the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky child with glasses, said, "If you don't want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?" He and the little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor. "She wouldn't stay at home to be queen for a day," June Star said without raising her yellow head. "Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?" the grandmother asked. "I'd smack his face," John Wesley said. "She wouldn't stay at home for a million bucks," June Star said. "Afraid she'd miss something. She has to go everywhere we go." "All right, Miss," the grandmother said. "Just re- member that the next time you want me to curl your hair." June Star said her hair was naturally curly. The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She didn't intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of her gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself. Her son, Bailey, didn't like to arrive at a motel with a cat. She sat in the middle of the back seat with John Wesley and June Star on either side of her. Bailey and the children's mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother wrote this down because she thought it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when they got back. It took them twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of the city. The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady. She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen hid themselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery: Stone Mountain; the blue granite that in some places came up to both sides of the highway; the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple; and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled. The children were reading comic magazines and their mother and gone back to sleep. "Let's go through Georgia fast so we won't have to look at it much," John Wesley said. "If I were a little boy," said the grandmother, "I wouldn't talk about my native state that way. Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the hills." "Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground," John Wesley said, "and Georgia is a lousy state too." "You said it," June Star said. "In my time," said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!" she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?" she asked and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the back window. He waved "He didn't have any britches on," June Star said. "He probably didn't have any," the grandmother explained. "Little riggers in the country don't have things like we do. If I could paint, I'd paint that picture," she said. The children exchanged comic books. The grandmother offered to hold the baby and the children's mother passed him over the front seat to her. She set him on her knee and bounced him and told him about the things they were passing. She rolled her eyes and screwed up her mouth and stuck her leathery thin face into his smooth bland one. Occasionally he gave her a faraway smile. They passed a large cotton field with five or fix graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. "Look at the graveyard!" the grandmother said, pointing it out. "That was the old family burying ground. That belonged to the plantation." "Where's the plantation?" John Wesley asked. "Gone With the Wind" said the grandmother. "Ha. Ha." When the children finished all the comic books they had brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The grandmother ate a peanut butter sandwich and an olive and would not let the children throw the box and the paper napkins out the window. When there was nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested. John Wesley took one the shape of a cow and June Star guessed a cow and John Wesley said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he didn't play fair, and they began to slap each other over the grandmother. The grandmother said she would tell them a story if they would keep quiet. When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic. She said once when she was a maiden lady she had been courted by a Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden from Jasper, Georgia. She said he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her a watermelon every Saturday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E. A. T. Well, one Saturday, she said, Mr. Teagarden brought the watermelon and there was nobody at home and he left it on the front porch and returned in his buggy to Jasper, but she never got the watermelon, she said, because a nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials, E. A. T. ! This story tickled John Wesley's funny bone and he giggled and giggled but June Star didn't think it was any good. She said she wouldn't marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday. The grandmother said she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentle man and had bought Coca-Cola stock when it first came out and that he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man. They stopped at The Tower for barbecued sand- wiches. The Tower was a part stucco and part wood filling station and dance hall set in a clearing outside of Timothy. A fat man named Red Sammy Butts ran it and there were signs stuck here and there on the building and for miles up and down the highway saying, TRY RED SAMMY'S FAMOUS BARBECUE. NONE LIKE FAMOUS RED SAMMY'S! RED SAM! THE FAT BOY WITH THE HAPPY LAUGH. A VETERAN! RED SAMMY'S YOUR MAN! Red Sammy was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower with his head under a truck while a gray monkey about a foot high, chained to a small chinaberry tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got on the highest limb as soon as he saw the children jump out of the car and run toward him. Inside, The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at one end and tables at the other and dancing space in the middle. They all sat down at a board table next to the nickelodeon and Red Sam's wife, a tall burnt-brown woman with hair and eyes lighter than her skin, came and took their order. The children's mother put a dime in the machine and played "The Tennessee Waltz," and the grandmother said that tune always made her want to dance. She asked Bailey if he would like to dance but he only glared at her. He didn't have a naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous. The grandmother's brown eyes were very bright. She swayed her head from side to side and pretended she was dancing in her chair. June Star said play something she could tap to so the children's mother put in another dime and played a fast number and June Star stepped out onto the dance floor and did her tap routine. "Ain't she cute?" Red Sam's wife said, leaning over the counter. "Would you like to come be my little girl?" "No I certainly wouldn't," June Star said. "I wouldn't live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!" and she ran back to the table. "Ain't she cute?" the woman repeated, stretching her mouth politely. "Arn't you ashamed?" hissed the grandmother. Red Sam came in and told his wife to quit lounging on the counter and hurry up with these people's order. His khaki trousers reached just to his hip bones and his stomach hung over them like a sack of meal swaying under his shirt. He came over and sat down at a table nearby and let out a combination sigh and yodel. "You can't win," he said. "You can't win," and he wiped his sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief. "These days you don't know who to trust," he said. "Ain't that the truth?" "People are certainly not nice like they used to be," said the grandmother. "Two fellers come in here last week," Red Sammy said, "driving a Chrysler. It was a old beat-up car but it was a good one and these boys looked all right to me. Said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?" "Because you're a good man!" the grandmother said at once. "Yes'm, I suppose so," Red Sam said as if he were struck with this answer. His wife brought the orders, carrying the five plates all at once without a tray, two in each hand and one balanced on her arm. "It isn't a soul in this green world of God's that you can trust," she said. "And I don't count nobody out of that, not nobody," she repeated, looking at Red Sammy. "Did you read about that criminal, The Misfit, that's escaped?" asked the grandmother. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he didn't attack this place right here," said the woman. "If he hears about it being here, I wouldn't be none surprised to see him. If he hears it's two cent in the cash register, I wouldn't be a tall surprised if he . . ." "That'll do," Red Sam said. "Go bring these people their Co'-Colas," and the woman went off to get the rest of the order. "A good man is hard to find," Red Sammy said. "Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more." He and the grandmother discussed better times. The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it, she was exactly right. The children ran outside into the white sunlight and looked at the monkey in the lacy chinaberry tree. He was busy catching fleas on himself and biting each one carefully between his teeth as if it were a delicacy. They drove off again into the hot afternoon. The grandmother took cat naps and woke up every few minutes with her own snoring. Outside of Toombsboro she woke up and recalled an old plantation that she had visited in this neighborhood once when she was a young lady. She said the house had six white columns across the front and that there was an avenue of oaks leading up to it and two little wooden trellis arbors on either side in front where you sat down with your suitor after a stroll in the garden. She recalled exactly which road to turn off to get to it. She knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but the more she talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again and find out if the little twin arbors were still standing. "There was a secret:-panel in this house," she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, "and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found . . ." "Hey!" John Wesley said. "Let's go see it! We'll find it! We'll poke all the woodwork and find it! Who lives there? Where do you turn off at? Hey Pop, can't we turn off there?" "We never have seen a house with a secret panel!" June Star shrieked. "Let's go to the house with the secret panel! Hey Pop, can't we go see the house with the secret panel!" "It's not far from here, I know," the grandmother said. "It wouldn't take over twenty minutes." Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid as a horseshoe. "No," he said. The children began to yell and scream that they wanted to see the house with the secret panel. John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat and June Star hung over her mother's shoulder and whined desperately into her ear that they never had any fun even on their vacation, that they could never do what THEY wanted to do. The baby began to scream and John Wesley kicked the back of the seat so hard that his father could feel the blows in his kidney. "All right!" he shouted and drew the car to a stop at the side of the road. "Will you all shut up? Will you all just shut up for one second? If you don't shut up, we won't go anywhere." "It would be very educational for them," the grandmother murmured. "All right," Bailey said, "but get this: this is the only time we're going to stop for anything like this. This is the one and only time." "The dirt road that you have to turn down is about a mile back," the grandmother directed. "I marked it when we passed." "A dirt road," Bailey groaned. After they had turned around and were headed toward the dirt road, the grandmother recalled other points about the house, the beautiful glass over the front doorway and the candle-lamp in the hall. John Wesley said that the secret panel was probably in the fireplace. "You can't go inside this house," Bailey said. "You don't know who lives there." "While you all talk to the people in front, I'll run around behind and get in a window," John Wesley suggested. "We'll all stay in the car," his mother said. They turned onto the dirt road and the car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust. The grandmother recalled the times when there were no paved roads and thirty miles was a day's journey. The dirt road was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp curves on dangerous embankments. All at once they would be on a hill, looking down over the blue tops of trees for miles around, then the next minute, they would be in a red depression with the dust-coated trees looking down on them. "This place had better turn up in a minute," Bailey said, "or I'm going to turn around." The road looked as if no one had traveled on it in months. "It's not much farther," the grandmother said and just as she said it, a horrible thought came to her. The thought was so embarrassing that she turned red in the face and her eyes dilated and her feet jumped up, upsetting her valise in the corner. The instant the valise moved, the newspaper top she had over the basket under it rose with a snarl and Pitty Sing, the cat, sprang onto Bailey's shoulder. The children were thrown to the floor and their mother, clutching the baby, was thrown out the door onto the ground; the old lady was thrown into the front seat. The car turned over once and landed right-side-up in a gulch off the side of the road. Bailey remained in the driver's seat with the cat gray-striped with a broad white face and an orange nose clinging to his neck like a caterpillar. As soon as the children saw they could move their arms and legs, they scrambled out of the car, shouting, "We've had an ACCIDENT!" The grandmother was curled up under the dashboard, hoping she was injured so that Bailey's wrath would not come down on her all at once. The horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee. Bailey removed the cat from his neck with both hands and flung it out the window against the side of a pine tree. Then he got out of the car and started looking for the children's mother. She was sitting against the side of the red gutted ditch, holding the screaming baby, but she only had a cut down her face and a broken shoulder. "We've had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed in a frenzy of delight. "But nobody's killed," June Star said with disappointment as the grandmother limped out of the car, her hat still pinned to her head but the broken front brim standing up at a jaunty angle and the violet spray hanging off the side. They all sat down in the ditch, except the children, to recover from the shock. They were all shaking. "Maybe a car will come along," said the children's mother hoarsely. "I believe I have injured an organ," said the grandmother, pressing her side, but no one answered her. Bailey's teeth were clattering. He had on a yellow sport shirt with bright blue parrots designed in it and his face was as yellow as the shirt. The grandmother decided that she would not mention that the house was in Tennessee. The road was about ten feet above and they could see only the tops of the trees on the other side of it. Behind the ditch they were sitting in there were more woods, tall and dark and deep. In a few minutes they saw a car some distance away on top of a hill, coming slowly as if the occupants were watching them. The grandmother stood up and waved both arms dramatically to attract their attention. The car continued to come on slowly, disappeared around a bend and appeared again, moving even slower, on top of the hill they had gone over. It was a big black battered hearselike automobile. There were three men in it. It came to a stop just over them and for some minutes, the driver looked down with a steady expressionless gaze to where they were sitting, and didn't speak. Then he turned his head and muttered something to the other two and they got out. One was a fat boy in black trousers and a red sweat shirt with a silver stallion embossed on the front of it. He moved around on the right side of them and stood staring, his mouth partly open in a kind of loose grin. The other had on khaki pants and a blue striped coat and a gray hat pulled down very low, hiding most of his face. He came around slowly on the left side. Neither spoke. The driver got out of the car and stood by the side of it, looking down at them. He was an older man than the other two. His hair was just beginning to gray and he wore silver-rimmed spectacles that gave him a scholarly look. He had a long creased face and didn't have on any shirt or undershirt. He had on blue jeans that were too tight for him and was holding a black hat and a gun. The two boys also had guns. "We've had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed. The grandmother had the peculiar feeling that the bespectacled man was someone she knew. His face was as familiar to her as if she had known him all her life but she could not recall who he was. He moved away from the car and began to come down the embankment, placing his feet carefully so that he wouldn't slip. He had on tan and white shoes and no socks, and his ankles were red and thin. "Good afternoon," he said. "I see you all had you a little spill." "We turned over twice!" said the grandmother. "Once", he corrected. "We seen it happen. Try their car and see will it run, Hiram," he said quietly to the boy with the gray hat. "What you got that gun for?" John Wesley asked. "Whatcha gonna do with that gun?" "Lady," the man said to the children's mother, "would you mind calling them children to sit down by you? Children make me nervous. I want all you all to sit down right together there where you're at." "What are you telling US what to do for?" June Star asked. Behind them the line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth. "Come here," said their mother. "Look here now," Bailey began suddenly, "we're in a predicament! We're in . . ." The grandmother shrieked. She scrambled to her feet and stood staring. "You're The Misfit!" she said. "I recognized you at once!" "Yes'm," the man said, smiling slightly as if he were pleased in spite of himself to be known, "but it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn't of reckernized me." Bailey turned his head sharply and said something to his mother that shocked even the children. The old lady began to cry and The Misfit reddened. "Lady," he said, "don't you get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don't mean. I don't reckon he meant to talk to you thataway." "You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you?" the grandmother said and removed a clean handkerchief from her cuff and began to slap at her eyes with it. The Misfit pointed the toe of his shoe into the ground and made a little hole and then covered it up again. "I would hate to have to," he said. "Listen," the grandmother almost screamed, "I know you're a good man. You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!" "Yes mam," he said, "finest people in the world." When he smiled he showed a row of strong white teeth. "God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy's heart was pure gold," he said. The boy with the red sweat shirt had come around behind them and was standing with his gun at his hip. The Misfit squatted down on the ground. "Watch them children, Bobby Lee," he said. "You know they make me nervous." He looked at the six of them huddled together in front of him and he seemed to be embarrassed as if he couldn't think of anything to say. "Ain't a cloud in the sky," he remarked, looking up at it. "Don't see no sun but don't see no cloud neither." "Yes, it's a beautiful day," said the grandmother. "Listen," she said, "you shouldn't call yourself The Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell." "Hush!" Bailey yelled. "Hush! Everybody shut up and let me handle this!" He was squatting in the position of a runner about to sprint forward but he didn't move. "I pre-chate that, lady," The Misfit said and drew a little circle in the ground with the butt of his gun. "It'll take a half a hour to fix this here car," Hiram called, looking over the raised hood of it. "Well, first you and Bobby Lee get him and that little boy to step over yonder with you," The Misfit said, pointing to Bailey and John Wesley. "The boys want to ast you something," he said to Bailey. "Would you mind stepping back in them woods there with them?" "Listen," Bailey began, "we're in a terrible predicament! Nobody realizes what this is," and his voice cracked. His eyes were as blue and intense as the parrots in his shirt and he remained perfectly still. The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground. Hiram pulled Bailey up by the arm as if he were assisting an old man. John Wesley caught hold of his father's hand and Bobby I,ee followed. They went off toward the woods and just as they reached the dark edge, Bailey turned and supporting himself against a gray naked pine trunk, he shouted, "I'll be back in a minute, Mamma, wait on me!" "Come back this instant!" his mother shrilled but they all disappeared into the woods. "Bailey Boy!" the grandmother called in a tragic voice but she found she was looking at The Misfit squatting on the ground in front of her. "I just know you're a good man," she said desperately. "You're not a bit common!" "Nome, I ain't a good man," The Misfit said after a second ah if he had considered her statement carefully, "but I ain't the worst in the world neither. My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. 'You know,' Daddy said, 'it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He's going to be into everything!"' He put on his black hat and looked up suddenly and then away deep into the woods as if he were embarrassed again. "I'm sorry I don't have on a shirt before you ladies," he said, hunching his shoulders slightly. "We buried our clothes that we had on when we escaped and we're just making do until we can get better. We borrowed these from some folks we met," he explained. "That's perfectly all right," the grandmother said. "Maybe Bailey has an extra shirt in his suitcase." "I'll look and see terrectly," The Misfit said. "Where are they taking him?" the children's mother screamed. "Daddy was a card himself," The Misfit said. "You couldn't put anything over on him. He never got in trouble with the Authorities though. Just had the knack of handling them." "You could be honest too if you'd only try," said the grandmother. "Think how wonderful it would be to settle down and live a comfortable life and not have to think about somebody chasing you all the time." The Misfit kept scratching in the ground with the butt of his gun as if he were thinking about it. "Yestm, somebody is always after you," he murmured. The grandmother noticed how thin his shoulder blades were just behind his hat because she was standing up looking down on him. "Do you every pray?" she asked. He shook his head. All she saw was the black hat wiggle between his shoulder blades. "Nome," he said. There was a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely by another. Then silence. The old lady's head jerked around. She could hear the wind move through the tree tops like a long satisfied insuck of breath. "Bailey Boy!" she called. "I was a gospel singer for a while," The Misfit said. "I been most everything. Been in the arm service both land and sea, at home and abroad, been twict married, been an undertaker, been with the railroads, plowed Mother Earth, been in a tornado, seen a man burnt alive oncet," and he looked up at the children's mother and the little girl who were sitting close together, their faces white and their eyes glassy; "I even seen a woman flogged," he said. "Pray, pray," the grandmother began, "pray, pray . . ." I never was a bad boy that I remember of," The Misfit said in an almost dreamy voice, "but somewheres along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the penitentiary. I was buried alive," and he looked up and held her attention to him by a steady stare. "That's when you should have started to pray," she said. "What did you do to get sent to the penitentiary that first time?" "Turn to the right, it was a wall," The Misfit said, looking up again at the cloudless sky. "Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor. I forget what I done, lady. I set there and set there, trying to remember what it was I done and I ain't recalled it to this day. Oncet in a while, I would think it was coming to me, but it never come." "Maybe they put you in by mistake," the old lady said vaguely. "Nome," he said. "It wasn't no mistake. They had the papers on me." "You must have stolen something," she said. The Misfit sneered slightly. "Nobody had nothing I wanted," he said. "It was a head-doctor at the penitentiary said what I had done was kill my daddy but I known that for a lie. My daddy died in nineteen ought nineteen of the epidemic flu and I never had a thing to do with it. He was buried in the Mount Hopewell Baptist churchyard and you can go there and see for yourself." "If you would pray," the old lady said, "Jesus would help you." "That's right," The Misfit said. "Well then, why don't you pray?" she asked trembling with delight suddenly. "I don't want no hep," he said. "I'm doing all right by myself." Bobby Lee and Hiram came ambling back from the woods. Bobby Lee was dragging a yellow shirt with bright blue parrots in it. "Thow me that shirt, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. The shirt came flying at him and landed on his shoulder and he put it on. The grandmother couldn't name what the shirt reminded her of. "No, lady," The Misfit said while he was buttoning it up, "I found out the crime don't matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you're going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it." The children's mother had begun to make heaving noises as if she couldn't get her breath. "Lady," he asked, "would you and that little girl like to step off yonder with Bobby Lee and Hiram and join your husband?" "Yes, thank you," the mother said faintly. Her left arm dangled helplessly and she was holding the baby, who had gone to sleep, in the other. "Hep that lady up, Hiram," The Misfit said as she struggled to climb out of the ditch, "and Bobby Lee, you hold onto that little girl's hand." "I don't want to hold hands with him," June Star said. "He reminds me of a pig." The fat boy blushed and laughed and caught her by the arm and pulled her off into the woods after Hiram and her mother. Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her but woods. She wanted to tell him that he must pray. She opened and closed her mouth several times before anything came out. Finally she found herself saying, "Jesus. Jesus," meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing. "Yes'm, The Misfit said as if he agreed. "Jesus shown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me. Of course," he said, "they never shown me my papers. That's why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get you a signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then you'll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you'll have something to prove you ain't been treated right. I call myself The Misfit," he said, "because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment." There was a piercing scream from the woods, followed closely by a pistol report. "Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain't punished at all?" "Jesus!" the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money I've got!" "Lady," The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, "there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip." There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, "Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!" as if her heart would break. "Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl. "Maybe He didn't raise the dead," the old lady mumbled, not knowing what she was saying and feeling so dizzy that she sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her. "I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't," The Misfit said. "I wisht I had of been there," he said, hitting the ground with his fist. "It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known. Listen lady," he said in a high voice, "if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now." His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children !" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them. Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky. Without his glasses, The Misfit's eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenseless-looking. "Take her off and thow her where you thown the others," he said, picking up the cat that was rubbing itself against his leg. "She was a talker, wasn't she?" Bobby Lee said, sliding down the ditch with a yodel. "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." "Some fun!" Bobby Lee said. "Shut up, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life." source: http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/goodman.html ~रमा गौतम ‘आश्मा’~
कहिले काही मलाई त्यो गाँउको यादले निकै सताउछ । त्यो घर, त्यो आगन, ति उकाली-ओराली, खोला-पाखा ,जहाँ उ र म संगसंगै हिड्ने, डुल्ने र खेल्ने गर्थ्यौ। म सधै सधै अतितका पानाहरुलाई पल्टाइरहेकी हुन्छ ! चाहेँ सपना होस चाहेँ बिपना मेरो मनसपटलमा लगातार घुमिरहने त्यो आकृति मेरो मुटुमा अमिट छाप बनेर बसेको छ। जब बिर्सन्छु मबाट केहि हराएको महसूस हुन्छ, जब संझन्छु मन भित्र अदृष्य भावनाहरु खट्किन्छ—यो वर्षौको समय अन्तराल पछि पनि बाल्यकालको उही छायाँ मेरो वरिपरि घुमिरहेको पाउछु- “रेवती ! पर्ख-पर्ख !!” उस्को हात छोडेर झस्किदै अडिन्छु , फुपू ढोकाको संघारमै उभिदै मलाई छेक्नु हुन्छ। रुक्न चाहान्न तर अगाडि पनि बढ्न पाउदिन। विवस म फटिंग्रेलाई हेर्छु अनि फुपूलाई। हो,फटिंग्रे म पनि उसलाई फटिंग्रे नै भन्छु। सबै उस्लाई त्यहि नामले बोलाउछन। तर , मलाई यो नाम मन पर्दैन। एक दिन मैले बाबालाइ भने ” बाबा फटिंग्रेको नाम ‘शिवप्रसाद’ राखि दिनुस न।” बाबाले मलाई संझाउदै भन्नु भयो”यो तिम्रो दादाको नाम हो”।त्यसो भए ‘हरिप्रसाद’ राखिदिनुस न त। बाबालाई शायद मेरो कुरो मनपरेन–“तिमी चुप लागेर बस त”। म आज्ञाकारी भए। तर मलाई यसरी चुप हुन लगाइएको मन पर्दैन।म उदास हुदै बाबाको कठोर आदेसलाई चुपचाप पालना गरे। फुपूले अम्खोरामा पानी लिएर म भएतिर छर्कनु भयो र भन्नु भयो “जाऊ अब भित्र।“ म दौडेर आमा भएतिर गए “हेर त तिम्रो यो नाक को फूलीमा के टाँसिएको हरियो?” –माया तर सम्मान दिदै आमाले हप्काउन शुरु गर्नु हुन्छ । तर आमाले यसरी हप्काउदा मलाई निकै मनपर्छ। म झन काखमै लिप्सिदै जान्छु …. नकुनै अनुरोध नकुनै स्वीकृती मानौ आमाको काख मेरो अधिकार हो। ।म डराउदा,आमा भन्दा टाढा हैन नजिक हुन मनपर्छ “ल हेर कपाल मा पनि यस्तै छ”। “ फटिंग्रे ! ए!फटिंग्रे ” !! आमाको आवाज ले म भयभित हुन्छु। “हजुर न !!! उहि नम्र स्वर कानमा गुन्जिन्छ। एकैछिनपछि फटिंग्रे हस्यागं फस्यागं गर्दै आउछ र अभ्यस्त उस्का पाइलाहरु संघार बाहिरै रुकिन्छन्। उ बाहिर उभिएको मलाइ मनपर्दैन। खै आमाले भित्र पस्न नदिएको हो अथवा समाजिक रितिरिवाजसंग डराएर हो उ कहिले पनि भित्र आउदैन । उस्को निन्यारो मुख देखेर माया लागेर आउछ। उ घर भित्र किन आउदैन मलाई सधै खुल्दुली हुन्छ तर आमालाई किन छुदैन त्यो जान्न चाहान्न म बरु उ आमाको काखमा नबस्दा खुशी हुन्छु। अरुले उस्लाइ केहि भनेको मनपर्दैन मलाइ तर आमाले चाहिँ गाली गर्दा पनि नरमाइलो लाग्दैन । किनकिन म उस्लाइ धेरै माया गर्छु। मेरो मन बोल्न थाल्छ- माया त म आमालाइ पो गर्छु त। उसो भए त्यो के होला ? म सोच्न थाल्छु उसो भए यो कुनै चेतना होला, भावना होला …. अथवा कुनै विस्वास होला अथवा सहानुभूति …. “तल वेसी खोलामा गा’थ्यौ” फटिंग्रेको जवाफ संगै मेरो सहास बढेर आउछ। “हो नि ” म आमालाई कुरा प्रष्ट पार्न खोज्छु। “आमा हाम्ले माछा मारेको” । ‘खै त माछा? आमाले अधिकार प्रयोग गर्नु हुन्छ् मानौ मेरो हरेक कुरा थाहा पाउनुपर्छ उहाँलाइ। मलाई लाज लागेर आउछ झूट पक्डिएकोले। “छोरी!तिमी त झूट बोल्न पनि जान्दिनौ” म निशब्द हुन्छु। आमालाइ थाहा छ .. छोरी माछा मार्न चाहान्ने बरु माछा पानीमा पौडेको हेर्न मन पराउछे। हो त माछा पानीमा स्वतन्त्र उन्मुक्त भएर पौडेको कस्तो राम्रो। आहा!!! म पनि यस्तै पानीमा पौडनसके??!!!! म पौडन सुरु गर्छु उफ!!!पानीमा जादा त खुट्टा माथि पो आउछ त ?!! उफ!!! म आफूलाइ कमजोर सम्झन्छु । तर मलाई पौडिन भन्दा पानी माथि लागेको सिंवाली झार ओढ्न पो मनपर्छ, मेरो कमजोरीलाई छोप्ने प्रयास गर्छु म- “फटिंग्रे!!” म कराउछु “माछाको खुट्टा छैन त?” उ हाँस्छ । यसरी हाँसेको मनपर्दैन मलाई । तर म किन सक्दिन माछा जस्तो पौडिन, प्रष्न गर्छु आफै संग र उस्लाई सोध्छु फेरि- “म माछा जस्तो पौडिन किन सक्दिन? “ “नानू हजुर ठूलो भए’सि सक्नु हुन्छ।” पौडिदै गरेको उस्लाई सोध्छु म “तिमी कसरी सकेको त?” उ रोमान्चित हुदै भन्छ “ म ठूलो छु”। मलाई उस्को कुरा पटक्कै मन पर्दैन। खुब! म भन्दा एकहात मात्रै त अग्लो छ नि … मनमनै रिस उठ्छ मलाइ।तर उ म भन्दा ठूलो त पक्कै छ ….. आक्रोश पोख्न सक्दिन। “अब घर जाने …. आउनुस” म फटिंग्रेको आवाज ले जर्याक-जुरुक उठ्छु। “ल हजुरको खुट्टामा के लागेको?” म खुट्टा हेर्छु । हो त साच्चिक.. कालो तर चेप्टिएको म हटाउन कोशिस गर्छु त्यो कालो झन तन्किदै जान्छ ।म रुन थाल्छु दुखेको चै थिएन.. “हजुर रुनु भयो भने मलाई घरमा गाली गर्नुहुन्छ” उस्ले मलाई धम्क्याउदै माया देखाउन थाल्छ। मानौ उस्ले मेरो उ प्रतिको लगाव बुझेको छ। म चाहान्न कसैले उस्लाई गालीगरोस्। “के हो त्यो?” मैले जान्न खोजे। “ठूलो जूका” उस्ले आफ्नो टोपीले समातेर खुट्टा बाट निकालिदियो। “हजुरको खुट्टा मा रगत…….?! मलाई डर हैन कौतूहल जाग्यो रातो रगत देखेर । म सम्झन थाल्छु —-एकदिन उ घाँस काट्दै थियो । सानो सानो कीराहरु उड्दै एताउता गर्दैथिए। एउटा कीरा चाहिँ कहिले एता कहिले उता उफ्रिदै थियो। “यो किन उफ्रेको? ” किरालाई हेर्दै म उस्लाई सोध्छु। “ उफ्रेको हैन उफ्राइएको”… उस्को आवाजमा रुखोपन प्रष्ट झल्कन्छ। “नानू हजुरलाइ कुन किरा मनपर्छ?” “ मलाई म खमली किरा खुब मनपर्छ ” म प्रफुल्ल हुदै उस्लाई पनि सोध्छु “तिमीलाई नि?” उस्ले मतिर हेर्दै गंभिरहुदै भन्छ-“उ त्यो उफ्रि’रहेको किरा मनपर्छ मलाई”। मलाई हाँसो उठ्छ – “के हो यस्को नाम?” “फट्याङ्रा” अनायास हाँस्न रोक्छु म। मैले पहिलो पटक जीवन भित्र जीवन्तता भेटे –फट्याङ्रा उफ्रिदै थियो बाच्नलाई संघर्ष गर्दै थियो शायद।मैले फटिंग्रो शब्दभित्र सत्यता भेटे उस्को उपस्थितिको । किन किन मलाई उस्को नाम मनपर्न पो थाल्छ। बाबाले भनेको संझे मैले ‘हरि’ नाम भित्र अदृष्य रुपमा भगवानको बास हुन्छ रे। त्यसैले उ हरि हुन सक्दैन” जो कसैले पनि देख्नै या महसूस गर्नै पनि नसक्ने वस्तुमा बाबाले त्यति धेरै महत्व किन दिएको होला ? मेरो खुट्टा बाट बगेको रातो रगत हेर्दै मैले फटिंग्रे र फट्याङ्राको तुलना गर्न थाल्छु। -अस्ति घाँस काट्दा तिम्रो हातमा पनि रातो रगत थियो नि?” मैले उस्लाई सोधे “हो” उ गम्भिर हुदै भन्छ। “ तिम्रो रगत पनि रातो थियो त?” उ चुपचाप हुन्छ। उस्को स्तब्धता मलाई मन पर्दैन। उस्ले केहि भन्न चाहेर पनि भन्न नसकेको अनुभूति हुन्छ मलाई ।उस्लाई हेर्छु म ,त्यहाँ उस्को आखाँमा तूफानी समुद्रको छाल जस्तै उतार चढाव प्रष्ट देख्छु । मानौ उ बोल्न खोज्दा भाषाको कमि भए जस्तो , उस्को अन्तरमनमा चलिरहने द्वन्दहरु छहराको सङ्लो पानी झै पहरा र ढुंगाको प्रहारलाई पनि चुनौती दिदै उन्मुक्त प्रवाहित भएको देख्न चाहान्छु म। मेरो प्रष्नले मलाई नै गिज्याए जस्तो लाग्छ । हो त उस्को जस्तै मेरो रगत पनि रातो नै हुन्छ। फरक यत्ति हो मान्छेद्वारा निर्मित नियम पक्षपाती छ तर प्रकृतीले मानिस मानिस विच कुनै पक्षपात गरेको छैन। मैले कुरा मोड्न चाहेँ मानौ उस्लाई खुशी गराउन चाहेँ…. “सबै माछा मिलेर जूकालाई किन नमारेको होला?” मेरो प्रष्नले उस्लाई झन आक्रोशित बनाउछ -— “किन माछाले जुका मार्ने ?”उस्ले पहिलो पटक मलाई प्रतिप्रष्न गर्छ-- “जूकाले हजुरलाई टोकेको छ माछालाई हैन” त्यो जुका घस्रिदै मेरो खुट्टा नजिक आउदै रहेछ । यस्पटक उस्ले मेरो खुट्टा तिर बढेको जूकालाई हटाउने कोशिश गरेन बरु मेरो आँखामा हेर्दै मलाई सचेत गराउछ – “आधा मरेर पनि हिड्दै छ जुका।” म डराए र उस्लाई च्याप्प समात्छु । उस्का हातहरुले बलियो साहरा दिएको अनुभूति हुन्छ,अनि चुपचाप उस्को हातसमातेर घर तिर हिड्न थाल्छु म……. ****************************************************************************** रेवती! ए, रेवती! झोला लिएर आऊ छिटो,” फुपू बोल्नु भयो। हातारिँदै म भर्याङबाट ओर्लिएँ। फटिंग्रे तल मलाई नै पर्खेर बसिरहेको रहेछ। मलाई देख्नेबित्तिकै भन्यो, ”खै दिनुस् झोला।” मैले झोला ऊतिर हुर्याइदिएँ। एक अर्थमा मैले रिस पोखेकी थिएँ ऊसँग। अरु कसैलाई म केही गर्न सक्दिन थिएँ। ऊ नै एउटा थियो, जोसँग म मेरा भावना र आवेश पोख्न सक्थेँ। ”ह्याँ गाउमा राम्रो स्कूल छैन के, रेवती। त्यसैले तिमीलाई बजारको स्कूलमा नाम लेखाई दिएको।” फुपूको आवाजमा माया थियो। मेरो उज्जवल भविष्यको सपना पनि थियो होला। तर मैले महसूस गर्न सकिनँ। मलाई घरदेखि बाहिर हुँदाको परिस्थिति, फटिंग्रेसँग टाढा हुनु पर्दाको क्षण, नयाँ ठाउँ अनि नयाँ स्कूलको सम्झनाले झस्काइरहेको थियो। म सबै कुरा रोजी-रोजी लिने गर्थें। (उसो त त्यो मेरो बानि अझै पनि जस्ताको त्यस्तै छ) पढ्दा, खेल्दा, हिँड्दा मन परेको मान्छे हुनु पर्थ्यो मसँग। त्यसैले जब म खेल्न थाल्थेँ, उसलाई नै जोडीको रुपमा रोज्ने गर्थेँ म। गृहकार्य गर्नुपर्दा उसले नै लेखिदिन्थ्यो। “नानू अब जाने हैन?” म झस्किएँ। म टोल्हाएको देखेर उसले मेरो ध्यान मोड्न चाह्यो शायद। मेरो एकोहोरपन उसलाई मन पर्दैन थियो। “अँ… हँ?” मैले मुण्टो हल्लाइदिएँ। मलाई कतै जान मन लागेको थिएन। मेरो हरेक इशारा बुझ्थ्यो ऊ। “ल ल हिँड।” बाबाको पछिपछि आज्ञाकारी भएँ म, केही मदहोशमा। मेरो इच्छाबाहिर घरदेखि टाढा लखेटिँदै थिएँ म। हिँड्नुभन्दा पहिले मैले केही सामान हातमा लिन चाहेँ तर उसले दिएन। घर छोड्नुको भन्दा मलाई उसँग छुट्टिनुको पीर थियो। बेला-बेला म उसलाई हेर्थें। तर ऊ कतै नहेरी सरासर हिँडिरहेको थियो। अलिक पर पुगेपछि हाम्रो बाटो छुट्टिनेवाला थियो। मलाई रोउँ-रोउँ जस्तो लागिरहेको थियो। शायद यसरी घरबाट टाढा गराइनुको एउटा कारण ऊसँगको मेरो घनिष्टता पनि थियो। हुन त मेरा दाजु र दिदीहरु सबै बजारको स्कूलमा पढ्नु हुन्थ्यो। एकैछिनमा बस स्टेशननेर आइपुग्यौं। “फटिंग्रे अब तिमी जाऊ।” बाबाको आवाज मैले सुनेँ। “नानू राम्रोसँग पढ्नु ल,” झोला दिँदै भन्यो फटिंग्रेले। कति नै ठूलो भएर भन्नु परेको? म भन्दा एक हात त अग्लो छ नि! उसको कुराले मलाई अलिक रीस उठ्यो। ऊ आँखाभरि आँशु टिलपिलाएर मलाई नै हेर्दै थियो। म चाहिँ उसको हातबाट झोला लिँदै थिएँ। हातको बुढिऔँलाको घाउमा धक्का दिएछु र, अलिकति रगत बग्यो। दुईदिनअघि मात्रै घाँस काट्दा उसले आफ्नो हात काटेको थियो। मनमनै मैले त्यो घाउको पीडा महसूस गरेँ। ऊ भने चुपचाप थियो। घाउभन्दा उसको मन बढी दुखिरहेको थियो त्यो बेला, शायद। ********************************************************************************* एकदिन अवनाले भनिन्, ”हामी बनेपा जाने ल, शुक्रवार बिहान। वनेपामा १२ वर्षे मेला लागिरहेको आज भोलि” सबैले स्वीकृति जनाए। मेला भने पछि म हुरुक्कै हुन्छु मनमनै जाऊ कि लाग्यो। जान मिल्छ या मिल्दैन भन्नै सकिन,मलाई चाहिँ अलिक समय नमिल्ला जस्तो पनि लाग्यो । तापनि म भरे भन्छु है त भनेर टारेँ।उसो त साथीहरु संगको समय निकै अमूल्य लाग्छ।तर,जीवनका कयौ बसन्त काटी सक्दा पनि घरमा आमालाई नसोधेर हिड्ने आँट गर्न सकेकी छैन अझै। उमेरले परिपक्वता देखाउन थालेको थूप्रै भयो तर पनि सेतै फुलेकी आमाको स्विकारोक्ति बिना अझै पनि कुनै पनि कार्य प्रति आत्म विस्वास देखाउन सक्तिन। सायद यो मेरो संस्कारिक सोच हो; मेरा सबै सफलता आमाको आशिर्वाद बिना शंभव छैनन्। बेलुका घरमा सोधे अनुमती पाऐँ। अब म पनि जान सक्ने स्थिति आयो। आधाबाटो ट्याक्सीमा अनि आधाबाटो साथीको मोटरसाइकलमा जाने निधो भएअनुसार हामी ट्याक्सीमा चढ्यौं। अरु साथी पनि मोटरसाइकलमा गए। वनेपामा १२ वर्षे मेला लागिरहेको थियो। मेला त माथि डाँडामा पनि लागेको रहेछ। सबै साथीहरू प्रफुल्ल भए, मेलाको रमाइलो देखेर. यस्तो मेला मेरो लागि नौलो होइन। घरमा हुदा आमा संग धेरै पटक मेला (मेला भर्न) जाने गरेकी थिए। त्यसैले मेला भन्दा पनि त्यहाँको खेतको गह्रा कान्ला र परबाट देखिने पहाडका बडेमान केस्राहरू अनि खोलाको सङ्लो पानी, ससाना माछा र ठूल्ठूला ढुंगाहरूले मेरो मन तानिरहेको थियो। साथीको हाँसोमा रमाउन सकेकी थिइनँ म। त्यहाँको सुन्दर दृष्यले स्मृतिको सुदूर क्षणतर्फ धकेलिरहेको थियो मलाई। “माथिबाट तल हेर्दा निकै सुन्दर देखिन्छ। जाम् न माथि,” अवनाले भनिन्। उनी त्यो ठाउँमा पहिले आइसकेकी रहिछन् क्यारे। सबैले माथि नै जाने निधो गरे। साथीहरूको पछि-पछि मैले पनि सिंढी चढ्न शुरु गरेँ। सानै उमेर देखि उकाली र ओरालीसंग लेकवेसी गरेकीले म संग उकालो बाटोको छुट्टै मित्रता छ। बेला-बेला आफू कति माथि पुगियो त भनेर तलतिर फर्केर हेर्ने गर्थेँ म। यसरी फर्किँदा हरेक पटक एउटा अनौठो मान्छेको अनुहार मेरो आँखामा ठोकिन्थ्यो। मलाई यस्तो परिस्थिति अलि अप्ठारो लाग्छ तर ऊ कोही परिचित जस्तो थियो। किन किन मेरो मन पनि ऊ तिर तानिए झै थियो तर म चाहिँ उसलाई ध्यान नदिएर जस्तो गरि आँखा अन्तै घुमाइदिन्थेँ। साथीहरू फटाफट हिँडेर माथि गइसकेका थिए। तर म चाहिँ हिँड्न सकिनँ। मेरो मनमा शुषुप्त इच्छा जाग्यो या हिड्न हैन रुक्न चाह्यो। थाकेको महसुस भएर आफूलाई यसो बिसाउने ठाउँ खोज्दै थिएँ। एउटा माग्ने देखेँ। उसको खुट्टा काटिएको थियो। तर उसले ऐया! भनेको सुन्दा चाहिँ कतै चोट घाउ भएको जस्तो लागेन मलाई। तै पनि सोधेँ, “काटेको हो हजुरलाई?” “हो, हजुर।” तर उसको बनावटीपन प्रष्टै देखिन्थ्यो। तै पनि दुई रुपियाँको नोट दिएँ। उसलाई प्रतिप्रश्न गर्न उचित लागेन। मानिसहरू रहरले होइन, विवश भएर नै लाचारी बाटो समात्छन्। म हेर्दै थिए पारी कान्लामा खेतका गह्राहरु, सुन्दर तरेली परेका परका पहाडहरुदेखेर म भित्र बेग्लै तरंग संचारित हुदै थियो। ”नानू!” कसैले नानू भनेको सुनेर म झस्किए। कसैले मलाई नै बोलाएको जस्तो छ, तर मेरो नाम त नानू हैन। म सम्हालिएँ। “मैले हजुरलाई नै बोलाएको,” मेरो अगाडि उही पहिलेको मान्छे मुस्कुराउँदै आइपुग्यो। म हेरेको हेर्यै भएँ। न बोल्न सकेँ न हाँस्न। “चिन्नु भएन?” उसका आँखा अनौठो गरी चम्किरहेका थिए। उसले मलाई एकटक लगाएर हेरिरह्यो। परिस्थिति मेरो लागि असामान्य थियो तर पनि प्रतिउत्तरको लागि शब्द थिएन। “अँ…” मैले संझिने प्रयास गर्दै जमिनतिर हेर्दै थिएँ। एक्कासी मेरा आँखा उसको बुढीऔंलामा गएर रोकिए। दाहिने हातमा उसका दुईवटा बुढीऔंला थिए। अनि काटेको खत पनि प्रष्ट देखिन्थ्यो। विष्मृत मेरो मस्तिष्कमा अचानक स्मृति पलायो। ती जोडिएका औलासँग मेरो हत्केलाले कयौं पटक मित्रता गाँसेको महसूस भयो।मलाई प्रिय लाग्ने ती हत्केला र औंलाको संगम ताजा भयो। आँखाभरि धेरै पुराना दिनहरू घुम्न थाले- उही वन, पाखा, खोला र माछा। म हैरान थिए- कस्तो संयोग हो यो!!! मैले उसलाई हेरिरहेँ। मलाई लाग्यो, उसको आँखामा अतितका सबै खुशीहरू, जो म बाट धेरै टाडा छुटेका थिए, एकैपटक प्राप्त भए जस्तो । कसरी कसरी फेरि एकपटक ती जोडिएका औंलासँग चोखो भावना साट्ने रहर जाग्यो । समय कहिलेकाहिँ कति बलवान हुदो रहेछ! समयले वर्षौं पुरानो याद हाम्रो सामु छताछुल्ल पारिदियो। “चस्मा लाउन थाल्नुभएको हजुरले?” मेरो आँखामा हेर्दै सोध्यो उस्ले। चस्मा लगाउछु र देख्यो उस्ले किन सोधेको होला फेरि? एकमनले ‘लाउदिन” भन्न मन लाग्यो तर हिम्मत गर्न सकिन। “हो त।” जवाफ दिए। मुखले बोले पनि मनले म अझै अतितको गहिराइमा थिएँ। “सरसंग (मेरो संबन्धित जो हामी दुबैको सर हुनुहुन्थ्यो) सँग निकै पहिले भेट भएको थियो। हजुर कीर्तिपुर छात्रावासमा बस्ने कुरा सुनेको थिएँ।” उस्ले मेरो बारेमा जान्न खोजेको प्रष्ट हुन्थ्यो। “अहिले चाहिँ भक्तपुर।”विस्तारै मन र मष्तिष्कलाई अतितको गहिराइबाट बाहिर निकाल्ने कोशिश गरेँ। परिस्थिति अलि सामान्य हुँदै गयो। तर मैले उसलाई संबोधन गर्ने शब्द पाएकी थिएनँ। मलाई कुरा गर्न असजिलो भएको देखेर उसले नै भन्यो, “मलाई उही नामले बोलाउँदा हुन्छ।” ओहो!!उसको बानी उस्तै रहेछ अझै पनि!! उसले मलाई बोल्न सजिलो बनाइदिन खोजे पनि मेरो अप्ठ्यारो टरिरहेको थिएन। उसलाई ठूलो हुनुपर्ने सधैँ? मनमनै उही वाक्य याद आयो- कति नै ठूलो जस्तो, मभन्दा एक हात त अग्लो छ नि ऊ। उस्लाई हेर्दै मैले मेरो उचाँइ नापे। अनुमति थियो या थिएन आमाको तर पहिलो पटक मैले आत्म विश्वासका साथ ऊ भित्रको परिपक्वतालाई महसूस गरेँ । परिस्थिति सम्हाल्ने उसको तरिका मन पर्यो। समयसँगै मानिसको स्वभाव र परिपक्वता परिवर्तन हुन बेर नलाग्ने रहेछ। उसको हालखबरको पूरा विवरण त मसँग थिएन। गाउँको स्कूलबाट छात्रवृत्ति पाएर ऊ बुढानिलकण्ठमा पढ्न गएकोसम्म सुनेकी थिएँ। “बाबा!” हामी दुबै झस्कियौं। “म मेदी (मेहन्दी) लगाउने।” सानी ५-६ वर्षकी बच्ची नजिकै उभिरहेकी थिईन्। “हेर न फणिन्द्र, छोरीले सताउन थालीन्। हात रंगाउने रे!” एकजना महिलाको यो आवाज मलाई परिचित लाग्यो। “होस् न त, लगाउन देऊ,” उसले बच्चीको हात समाउदैँ भन्यो। “जाऊ छोरी मेहन्दी लगाऊ,” उसले ५ रुपैयाँ वालेटबाट झिकेर दिँदै भन्यो। छोरी दौडेर गईन, हातमा मेहन्दि लगाउन। ‘फणिन्द्र’!!!? मैले सोध्न चाहेको कुरो उसलाई थाहा भएछ कि उसले मुस्कुराउँदै भन्यो, “हजुर गाँउ छोडे पछि हजुरको बाबाले दिएको मेरो नाम हो यो।” म घरदेखि टाढा भएपछि बाबा आमासँग मेरो कमैमात्र भेट हुन्थ्यो। घरदेखि टाढा बस्दा आमाको निकै याद आउँथ्यो। बाबालाई मैले एक अभिभावक को रुपमा भन्दा अर्को रुपमा बुझ्नै सकिन ति दिनहरुमा। म निकै एकहोरी र दुब्ली भएकी थिएँ। हामी बसाइ सरेर पहाड र तराइ दुई तिर बाडिएका थियौ। स्कूल ,कलेज बिदा हुदा म तराईको घरमा जान्थे। एककिसिमले पहाड घरका थुप्रै कुरा बिर्सेकी थिए।फटिंग्रे मनमा थिएन। दिमागमा थियो। ऊ संग छुट्टिदाको परिस्थिति मेरो आँखा वरिपरि घुमी रहन्थ्यो तर पनि मैले बितेका दिनमा कहिल्यै फटिंग्रेको बारेमा कसैसँग पनि सोधिनँ। “ए हो र?” मनमनै बाबा प्रति कृत्तज्ञता ब्यक्त गरे । बाबाले मेरो भावनाको यसरी कदर गर्नु हुन्छ भन्ने कहिल्यै सोचिन। मेरो आँखा आँशुले भरिए बाबाको संझनामा! “अँ साच्चि नानू, उनी मेरी पत्नी,” उसले औंल्याउदै भन्यो। मलाई खासै रमाइलो लागेन उस्की श्रीमतीको उपस्थिति। यसो हेर्नमात्रै लागेकी के थिएँ, उनले भनिन्, “नमस्ते! म श्रष्टा शर्मा।” नाम सुनेको हो कि जस्तो लाग्यो। तर परिचय गर्ने रहर नहुदा नहुदै पनि म जवाफ फर्काउँदै थिएँ, “म…” “….आश्मा, हैनत?! ” मैले भन्नै नपाई श्रष्टाले मेरो नाउँ भनिदिइन्। “सुर्खेतको सम्मेलनमा भेट भएको थियो नि हाम्रो। बिर्सनु भयो?” आहा! कति शिष्ट भाषा! कति आत्मिय आवाज! म चुपचाप श्रष्टातिर हेर्दै थिएँ। मेरो नाम सुन्दा उस्को अनुहार अलिक आश्चर्यचकित थियो। “ए हो त,” मैले हात बढाउँदै भनेँ। एकै पटक हर्ष र विष्मात छायो मभित्र। “अनि तिमीले कहाँ चिनेको त आश्मालाई, फणिन्द्र?” श्रष्टाको उत्सुकताले वातावरण अलिक असजिलो भयो। मेरो नामले आश्चर्य चकित थिए दुवै। श्रष्टा मलाई आश्मा नामले चिन्थिन त ऊस्ले रेवती! ऊसले मेरो शिरदेखि पाउसम्म उही पहिलेकै तरिकाले नियाल्दै भन्यो, “उहाँ नानू।” उसको गंभिर दृष्टिले अव्यक्त प्रेम र अपार आत्मीयताको अनुभूति भयो मलाई तर अचम्म! कति निष्ठुरी हुन्छ मान्छे! मेरो मनको हलचल बुझेको खै ऊस्ले?! बिनसित्ति बोलिदियो ‘म नानू’ ! अब म त्यो पहाड र कन्दरासँग लुकामारी खेल्ने चुलबुले ‘नानू’ रहिनँ। मभित्र पहाडसँग प्रीति गाँस्ने अनि कन्दरासँग हातेमालो गर्ने उत्कण्ठा विकसित भइसकेको छ। गोधुलीको शीतल वताससँग ठोक्किएर निस्कने सुसेली सुन्दा रोमाञ्चित हुँदै मुटु तरंगिन थालेको वर्षौं भएको छ। उसको हेराइलाई म उही रेवती या नानूको दृष्टीले बुझ्न चाहन्नँ। समय र परिस्थितिले हमीलाई टाढा गराइएकोथियो। तर, उमेरको उकालीसँगै मभित्र उब्जिएका चाहनाहरूलाई अदृश्य रुपमा अझैसम्म पनि मैले उसैको नाममा समाहित गरेकी छु। ऊ आज मेरो सामु उभिएको छ, म भित्रको ‘म’ एक्कासी तरंगिएको छ। मेरा रहरहरू पारिलो घामको किरणले हिउँ पग्लिए झैँ पग्लँदै छन्, जसलाई म उसको हत्केलाभरि समर्पण गर्न चाहन्छु। लामो समयका ती दिन र रातका छट्पटी अनि सपनालाई साकार पार्न चाहन्छु। तर यो परिवेश र क्षण विपरीत छ।फेरि पनि मनलाई बाँधेर दिमाग चलाउन विवश छु। मैले उसका लागि गरेका प्रभातकालीन शुभ-कामना अनि प्रार्थनाहरू म देखाउन सक्तिनँ उसलाई। अर्को एकपटक परिस्थितिले धोका दिएको छ मेरो मनलाई। मसँग एउटा मनै त छ, जो मेरो अधिनमा छ। म बोल्छु मेरो मनसँग, कुरा गर्छु मनसँग र आफ्नो अटल प्रेम-कहानी उही मनलाई सुनाउँछु। ऊसँगको भेटमा मेरो भावनासँगै मन पनि रोएको छ। तर म एउटी नारीले आफ्नो एकतर्फी चाहनाको खातिर अर्की नारीको सुहागमा कात्रो बाँध्न मभित्रको मानवताले दिँदैन। नितान्त व्यक्तिगत स्वार्थको लागि म कसरी यति क्षुद्र बनूँ? अहँ! म वास्तविक जीवनलाई काल्पनिक कथाको मोड दिन सक्दिनँ। अझैसम्म श्रष्टाले मुस्कुराउँदै मेरो हात समातिरहेकी थिइन्। मेरो मनको भूकम्प उनले महसूस गर्न सकिनन् अथवा उनी बुझेर पनि अबुझ बनिन किनभने त्यहाँ मेरो स्थितिको कुनै महत्व थिएन। “नानू,” उसले मौनता तोड्दै भन्यो। “म अर्को शुक्रबार नर्वे जाँदै छु। दुई वर्षको लागि।” परिस्थिति बेजोडको थियो। उसको जीवनको सफलता देखेर मलाई मिठो महसूस भयो। “बधाइ छ, यहाँलाई,” मैले खुशी ब्यक्त गरेँ। “उही नामले बोलाउनुस् मलाई,” उसले श्रष्टालाई हेर्दै भन्यो। अहिले चाहिँ मैले हाँसो रोक्न सकिनँ। “ल ल! हुन्छ, श्रष्टाजी?” मैले वातावरण परिवर्तन गर्न चाहेँ। ऊनी मुस्कुराउदै मलाई समर्थन गरिन्। ‘श्रष्टा शर्मा’ मेरो साथी नै त होइन, तर अलिक पहिले दलित समुदायको एउटा कार्यक्रममा भेट भएको थियो। त्यो बेला उनी नेपालगञ्ज क्याम्पसमा वाणिज्यशास्त्रमा स्नातक पढ्दै थिइन्। कार्यक्रममा व्यक्त उनका बेजोड तार्किक शब्दहरूले मलाई जातीय विभेदको विरोध गर्न थप उर्जा प्रदान गरेको थियो। मान्छे बोलीमा जस्तै व्यवहारमा पनि बलियो हुनुपर्ने रहेछ। श्रष्टा साँच्चिकै श्रष्टा हुन्। मध्ययुग सम्झाउने एक्काइसौं शताब्दीको छुवाछुती हाम्रो समाजलाई चुनौति दिने समाजकी श्रष्टा। आज फेरि एकपटक उनको सिद्धान्त र व्यवहारले मलाई मान्छेको जातलाई होइन, व्यवहारलाई सम्मान गर्नुपर्छ भन्ने पाठ सिकाएको छ। मेरो मनले श्रष्टाको साहसलाई सहर्ष सलाम गरिरहेको थियो। “बाबा हेर्नुस त,” दुबै हात उसको अगाडि तेर्स्याउँदै छोरीले भनिन्। “उहाँलाई नमस्ते गर त, छोरी,” मतिर देखाउँदै उसले भन्यो। “होस होस् पर्दैन नमस्ते गर्न, बुट्टा बिग्रन्छ,” उनको चुलबुले बानी नै मेरो लागि पर्याप्त थियो। “बरु, भन त तिम्रो नाउँ के हो?” उनले बाबा-आमालाई हेर्दै भनिन्, “रेवती विश्वकर्मा।” “आहा! कस्तो राम्रो नाम,” मैले झट्ट भनेँ। तर मेरो हृदय एक्कासी मर्माहत भइरहेको थियो। मन थाम्न खोजे पनि मेरा आँखा रसाएको मलाई थाहै भएन। “कसले राखीदिएको यो नाम?” उनको टाउको मुसार्दै आफूलाई सम्हाल्न कोशिश गर्दै सोधेँ मैले। उनले बाबाको काखमा गएर अलिक लजाउँदै भनिन्, “बाबाले!” रेवतीको कपालमाथि रहेको मेरो हातमा मेरो आँशुको एक थोपा विहानीको शीतको थोपा पातमा टिल्पिलाए जस्तै नाच्न थाल्यो। इति!! http://ashmako.blogspot.com/ September 25, 2010 (स्रोत : Dautari ) -अभिनाश श्रेष्ठ
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हे मेरा भाइ ! हे मेरा बहिनी ! पहाड शहरमा, यो यौटा मेरो भक्तिको माला चढाएँ चरणमा । अरु ता मैले के गर्न सक्थेँ ! अपढ(अज्ञानी, आँसुले भिजेको यो फूल गाँसेँ नजानी नजानी । भूमिका
जेष्ठको उक्लिदोँ तापक्रमीय लामा उज्याला दिनहरुमा हामी पनि उस्तै एकांकी अंग्रेजी वर्षका जुन महिनीय दिनहरु उस्तै परिवेशमा सदा भैmँ कारियामा काटिरहेका थियौँ । सायद मौसम भिन्न नहुने हो भने विदेशमा रहेका लाखौँ मानिसहरुलाई भिन्नताको महशुश सायदै हुने थियो । सदा एकै प्रकारको दैनिकी । तारा बजी लई लई
मामा आए घोडा ! माईजु आईन् डोली पापा ल्याईन्् सोली वुवु माम सुपुक्क काफल गेडी कुटुक्क बिरालो भन्छ म्याऊ, म्याऊ अगुल्टो भन्छ उछिट्याऊ आउनुहोस् एकफेर फेरि गुनगुनाऊ, ति पुराना गीतहरुः पुराना ती रमाईला दिनहरु सम्झेर (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-WWsj9evzE) Youtube post by Kapil Nepal एकदिन यमराजले मर्त्यलोकमा घुम्दै गर्दा एउटा हात्तीलाई एउटा दुब्लो पातलो मरन्च्याँसे माहुतेले हातमा एउटा मसिनो लट्ठीको भरमा तह लगाइरहेको देखेछन्। हात्ती एकान्तमा भएको मौकामा यमराजले हात्तीसित भनेछन्- “गजराज, यत्रो विशाल र शक्तिशाली भइकन पनि यस्तो फिस्टे मान्छेको वशमा किन पर्छौ? यस्ता भुसुनालाई पनि ठेगान लाउन सक्दैनौ?”
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