I hadn't seen any photographs of Mahakavi Devkota when he was young. I found this one in HIMAL. Do you have any in which he is younger than this?

la na devkota guru timi le ke garyo malai....timi ta mero guru, mero idol...tara timro pachi laayera no comment jindagi sanga sarai khusi chu.....pheri pani yo sansar ma timi ra mero jasto bekti ko ritho eesthan raicha..malai ne timi jasto garib bekti deekhi ke coat ta ke jaangi ne fukaller dina maan laagcha...salary 5th tarik jharcha tara mero ta 8 tarik nai jharcha.....sabai le bhancha paisa chine ne , ama bhanu huncha babu paisa chinu paryo...ma bhanchu....haat ko mailo suna ko thailo, ke garnu dhaan le, khaayera basnu sisnu ra saag aanandi maana le......lau ma ke garu guru ji...class 6 ra 7 ( LAS) ma padeko timro kabita tesmathi tyo nepali sar acharya sir.....manish jane pachi marnai parcha, tara jo mare ra ne amar huncha....blah blah...ahile ne tehi dimag maa basecha

guru sapna ma aauna na yeso marg darshan deu na

timi mahan hau

In fact I was looking for his collections on "Vikhari" -- Nepali version. Would you please provide me if you've it. Thanks.

Some of you, who would like to know about Devkota. I found a link:

http://www.spinybabbler.org/literature/personalities/laxmi_prasad_devkota.htm

or

He has fallen from the black clouds
and is living in the shadows.
Do we see a god in him,
or do we see a beggar?

Devkota was born on the night of Gai Puja, when Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, is honored. Seeing this as an omen, Devkota?s parents named him after the goddess. It was an omen indeed, but of a different kind. In Nepal, Laxmi is seen as a bitter rival of Saraswati, the goddess of education and learning. Saraswati is displeased if a person is wealthy. On the other hand, Laxmi is not inclined to grant favors to those whose main pursuit is learning. As it turned out, the rivalry between the two goddesses was played out in Devkota?s life. He was known as Mahakabi, the great poet, and lived and died a poor man.

When Devkota was born in Dillibazaar, Kathmandu, in 1909, the country was ruled by the Rana oligarchy. The Rana administration was not enthusiastic about educating the masses, so the permit to study was a privilege. Devkota?s family went through a lot of trouble to enroll him at Durbar School, the only school in the Kathmandu Valley. Devkota wrote his first poems at school. He is said to be a quiet student who preferred reading and writing. He proved to be an excellent pupil and was married at the age of fifteen while at school.

After graduating from school with high marks, Devkota enrolled in the science program at Tri Chandra College in 1925 and began to read English poetry. Writers of the romantic era were a particularly strong influence on Devkota and he incorporated some of their themes in his work. Devkota completed his Intermediate of Science degree and switched to arts. He received his bachelor?s degree in arts in 1929 and went to Patna, India, and was impressed by the libraries he saw there. He and his friends then wrote a letter to the Rana prime minister requesting permission to open a library in Kathmandu. Since the administration took a dim view of providing uncensored information, Devkota and his friends were put in prison. They were released after paying heavy fines.

In 1931, Devkota went back to Patna on scholarship hoping to study English for his Master?s degree. But seats were not available so he studied for the Bachelor of Law degree instead. After he received the degree, he returned home and felt the first shocks of poverty that would trouble him for the rest of his life. Despite tutoring to supplement his earning, sometimes for fourteen hours a day, financial problems never left him. Muna Madan was among the creations of this time. The book challenged Sanskrit scholars who dominated the Nepalese literary scene. While these scholars determined good poetry as those following the Sanskrit form, Muna Madan was based on the jhaurey folk tune. The book received recognition from the Ranas and a significant purse of Rs. 100.

The mid-thirties were a terrible time for Devkota: his mother, father, and a two-month old daughter died within two years. Devkota was never a smoker at school or college, but when he learned to smoke, he became a chain smoker. He was exceedingly nervous and began to complain that everything hurt him. His brothers were worried enough to put him in a mental hospital in Ranchi, India, for five months in 1939.

In 1943 Devkota was selected to represent writers in the Nepal Bhasanuwad Parishad, a state organization that acted as a censorship board. He wrote a lot during this time and tutored for long hours. He complained that people asked him for a thirty-two hour day. He wrote his first epic, Shakuntala, in three months. It is said that Puskar Shumshere Rana challenged him to write another epic in thirty days and Devkota responded by handing him the manuscript of his second epic, Sulochana, in ten days. Both epics are considered among the best works of Nepalese literature. Most of his work was unconventional. He had a habit of inventing new words to suit his poetic requirements. At times his more conservative colleagues resented his taking so many liberties with the language. Devkota became a professor at Tri-Chandra College in 1946. He left Nepal without any obvious reason and worked in exile in Benaras, India. He was editor of Yugbani, an opposition paper. He also wrote Pahadi Pukar, a book that addressed people?s poverty in Nepal. The book was banned in Nepal.

The Ranas invited him back to the country. After the democratic movement was successful, he helped publish Indreni, a bilingual journal, and was a part of the influential Royal Nepal Academy. Financial troubles followed him throughout these years. Part of the problem was his generous nature. He gave money to people who came to him with hard luck stories. One cold winter day he gave the coat he was wearing to a beggar shivering at the roadside.

Even as he was having financial worries, he was getting high appreciation and by 1957, he had become minister of education though he was an active politician. At this time he suffered from what doctors at first thought was gastric ulcer. By 1958, cancer was diagnosed and since Devkota did not have enough money (his salary was held back by the Royal Nepal Academy for visiting the former USSR as a representative of writers without informing the king), King Mahendra gave him Rs. 5,000 after complaints in the local papers and the Indian Embassy provided air transportation for him to go to India for treatment. Three inches of cancerous color was removed.

Devkota knew before his death that the end was approaching and stayed up late into the night to continue his writing. He wrote to a friend while he was in Santa Bhawan Hospital, ?Death stands before me. I search for constellations in the sky but can find none. I cannot give peace to myself. If I could rise, I would kill myself and my children.?

There was much pain towards the end of his life and perhaps this explains his bitterness. So that was how, even though everyone appreciated him, Devkota died in 1959 in sorrow, thinking that he achieved nothing. He asked that Muna Madan be preserved even if all his other works faded away. Muna Madan is the most popular of Nepalese works today and though Devkota felt himself a beggar towards the end of his life, he is revered by his country people as a god of Nepalese literature.

damn Devkota was goodlooking..any look alikes in sajha? ;)

What a coincidence that I am seeing this great writer's picture and reading comments about him! I just finished reading Muna Madan last Monday night, and began Sulochana last night! He is quite talented and his youghtful portrait above gives some glimps of his youth and some of the feelings that he has described or alluded in his literary works that I am reading now. I just wished I had started reading about him long ago, not now in the USA. Anyway, thanks, Gauram A for posting the pix.

Here is ever young Devkota. . .

वैशाख चतुर्दशीकी चाँदनीसँग

"हिम-स्तनी ए ! हिउँमा टेकी,
किन आ'की ?"
"दिवस-ज्वरको ज्वलनको आगो
निभा'की ! "

"सुधावदिनी हे ! स्वर्गकी चरी, किन
हँसिली वदन ?"
"प्रेमी जोडीहरुको देख्दछु,
मधुर मिलन ! "

"यति मीठोसँग पृथिवीमा किन मुसका'की -"
"हरिया हृदय, अधरमा फुस्किन,
छु सिका'की !"

"भाव-ग्रन्थिका गहिरा बास्ना
रानी ! कसरी फुस्किन्छन् ?"
"शीतलताको ललित लतामा
एकान्त जूनमा निस्किन्छन् !"

"ए जूनरानी ! संसार निहार्छ्यौ।
के, के, उदेक छ ?"
"पागल मातले जब काढाँ सब
फूल फूल देख्छ !"

"स्वर्ग कहाँ छ ?" "मुखमा राजा ! "
"दृष्टि कहाँ छ ?" "जूनमा राजा ! "
"अमृत कहाँ छ ?" "दिलमा राजा ! "
"प्यार कहाँ छ ?" "बेलीमा ताजा ! "

"ए जून ! दिन के ?" "घाउ, घाउ ?"
"रात के प्यारी ?" "मलम, मलम ?
स्वपना, विपना, शवनम !"

"तरुनालाई म हुँ जवानी,
दीवानी !
अरुलाई हुँ, बिर्सिनसक्नु,
कोमल एक कहानी ।"

"रस केमा छ ?" "दुई प्यालामा ?"
"मधुबाला को ?" "रानी !" "रुप ! "
"सुन्दर कहाँ छ ?" "जून-गालामा ।
सृष्टिकी हुँ पीली दीप"

"यो के जादू ?" "जीवन ! जीवन !
प्रेरणा, मिलन, सुमन !
प्रकृतिका हुन् मीठा मन्त्र, सृष्टिमुखी, यी !
इन्दु-किरण ! इन्दु-किरण !"
___

yeh he is a great poet indeed.Class 9 ma mahendra malai pahdeko yaad auncha

Chetri ko choro yo pau chuncha
Gheen ley chudaina
Manis thulo dil ley huncha jaat ley hudaina

Saprasnaga sahit bhyakhya garnus:)

Go to this site for some glimps of our beloved Devkota:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Laxmi%20Prasad%20Devkota&btnG=Google+Search&sa=N&tab=wi

deepak dai,

thank you for the beautiful poetry.....never read devkota so romantic

देवकोटाका फुटकर कविताहरुको निम्ति:

लक्ष्मी कविता संग्रह
- http://www.nepalikavita.com/kavita-sangraha/laxmi_kavita_sangraha.pdf

*** *** *** ***

One more picture of young Devkota-

Here is an article written by Devkota. It was printed in weekly Telegraph in 1999 ( I found it by google). I guess this was written during the time when he was a minister of the government of Nepal, but I am not sure. We can see how sweetly his language flows. A real master of the language!





"We think of ourselves first"

Laxmi Prasad Devkota


This morning a young writer came to me and expressed his eager desire to go into Rapti Valley where the Government of Nepal has been perfunctorily implementing a grand agricultural project. He said he had adventured into that valley in pursuance of my own suggestions. I recalled the day on which I had suggested Agriculture as the best possible course for us people here who wished to earn some honey- money without the magnetising capital necessary to attract it into out empty pockets. The majority of valley gentlemen, I had then explained, were a puzzled and overstrained class, with grabbing or profiteering instincts highly pronounced; but helpless to operate them in the absence of capital for investment in any field. We maintained a very precarious prestige by running out of breath every festival period; and our desire to make a small fortune for comfortable living landed us after a course of bitter frustrations in other fields in a government office where, very ill-paid and grumbling. We rubbed our calm palms together after a six-hour, regular prison duty about the worm eaten desks. We could not shake ourselves out of it for fear if the shock of sudden domestic unbalancing as the insistent demand of the daily cold oven could not be out off for a single reason. There was something like hereditary in out natural propensity to look up towards the secretariat as the most proximate, the most accessible of places of employment to keep the wolf from our door. And a position would be procurable by just a cleaver wire-pulling through a court favourite or a genuflection before a master of state job charities. The immediate and the proximate enslaved our spirits and barred the line for our wider and remoter visions. The train of my arguments, and the healthy analysis of the general situations among us, came back to me, as he made reference to the convincing speech I made that day, urging him to venture into the Rapti Valley for a preliminary inspection of possibilities. I remember how I had harangued him and accused his species of wanting in a strong effort of will and the spirit of healthy adventure. Business, I had explained, was uncertain and hazardous on the principles of honesty and sincerity in unwary and the inexperienced. Couldn?t the half-starved state of our government servant fit himself with a shake off one or other of the state programs for national developments in our new democratic vision? I had expatiated upon the natural superiority of Agriculture over other occupation; for was it not milking the Earth? Was it not the most natural of human operations, the most ancient and the most necessary? Did not conduce to healthier life in the open air? Was not a poet, of all men, most fitted by nature for it? Could not go into the most intimate communions with nature herself? Well: that was a day of inspired oratory, which had thoroughly, convinced my fellow writer. We had finished by indulging mutually in the poetic vision of a writer?s colony in that blessed region of natural beauties.

He was the writer of small brochure entitled ?Government Employment? in the days of the Under Payee?s Agitation, then a clerk on Rs. 17 per mensem, a sum which kept him starved with his family for three weeks. He is now an employee in the Nepal Radio at Rs. 100 or so per mensum, a pay nearly seven times higher than the original one. He said he had been in the said valley on a leave. He had inspected the land, and found it cultivatable with profit for us. Provided the water supply was assured. I asked him facetiously whether a man was not always on the verge of ninety-nine, and whether from the evils of starvation he did not intended to jump into the worse ones of surfeiture. He replied with a smile that people of our sort should never dream of affording to be guilty of that. We had certain discussions following during which I had the occasion to remark how we thought of the nation in any of the dreams or schemes that we entertained or sought to promulgate or implement. I went off into another price of oratory again on the evils of our general habits that made us self-centred would be profiteers without harmonising our actions of our principles to the spirit of state program or National Schemes.

I have dwelt long on that morning talk for the healthy spirit implied in it. Ourselves first is perfectly true of me as much as of any other censure. We must think of ourselves first. It is probable question for political and sociological science whether an underdeveloped state, maintained by money and gun-power, can have the right to expect thinking in terms fit of its individuals whom it has neither fed, clothed or employed profitably for itself. The Nepalese adapt form to the effect that a loaf is baked on both sides. Is it immortal, is it unintelligent to aspire to live where death by starvation is the general social law? To drive off the continually recurring wolf is the goal of lives in general. And of those who surfeit, goal is extension of affluence for future security. For there is no moral edict, no social sanction, no legal ban on indulgence is acquisition for luxury and power. Shall we not then, one and all, first think in terms of ourselves? Life, the poor ones cry! More life, wail the rich. And an amoral philosopher can find no fault in this operation of the vital instincts.

We, poor people, are dreaming continually of becoming living units in a discased or paralysed Body and struggling or to fulfil our dreams. We struggle to live so that the General Body that gives us no impulse may feel the presence of live cells sucking in something out of the general air. We are living apologies for galvanising into action a frame inanel something is wrong at the root. Everyone feels it. We are stunted dwarfish shruds his own symptoms, and to play his own doctor. There is no adequate energy for research. We can keep nothing in reserve after what we do for ourselves to the dictate of our starved moments.

That is what my brother does, with his wonderful intellect shown on the hands. On starvation wages on the Nepal Radio, he is heavily drunk at nights, and indulging in high-flown invectives against false pillars, social illusions, brainlessness and surfeiture. Extremely modern in outlook, and an amateur psychologist, he has no safe landing for his physical feet. He cannot step out of his own suicidal currents. That is an illustrative example for many a fellow brother at Kathmandu. Brains of high level are helpless. Limbs of high strength lie inert. Or if they must be yoked,?

( Text courtesy: Janmotsab journal-chief editor).

"Extremely modern in outlook, and an amateur psychologist, he has no safe landing for his physical feet. He cannot step out of his own suicidal currents. That is an illustrative example for many a fellow brother at Kathmandu. Brains of high level are helpless. Limbs of high strength lie inert."



Reading these lines over and over!!!

Gautam B and Hellbound,

Many thanks for your detailed info on our very own Romantic genius - Wordsworth!
********
Nepe jee,
Thanks for sharing the poem. Spellbinding. This aside, I happen to read your gazhals in a thread the other week. Can I say that only a few of us with such creative gift can produce writings of that quality - the sheer intensity of imagery the words engender does leave you speechless. I will try and be active to read your input on literary stuff from now on. My grasp of the Nepali literature is pathetic and it's time I got my acts together. I don't mean to say that my English one is any good either.
*****
John,
Pleasure always to see your shadows shooting past my screen! (funny metaphor eh!)
I have just posted my comments in your thread - BOYS DON'T CRY! I wish, we didn't have to! :)

Carpe diem.

get your copy of muna-madan here.

http://www.nepalikavita.com/khanda-kabya/Munamadan.pdf

gaalab jee, will do. Thanks for the handle.

Sandhurst Lahure जी, यति प्रिय शब्दहरुको लागि त धन्यवाद दिएर पनि ऋणी नै रहने छु म ।

देवकोटाले छायावादी धार (equivalent to Romanticism genre of the west ?) को कविताको ठूलो प्रतिनिधित्व गरेका छन् ।

मेरो एउटा विरल छायावादी कविता यहाँ छ । पहिल्यै देखनु भएको होला, नभए एकपल्ट छक्क पर्नु हुनेछ ।

- http://guild.sajha.com/guild/read.cfm?guildid=19

नेपेजी, माने तपाईँको सौन्दर्य चेत र वर्णन गर्न सक्ने क्षमतालाई। दोहोराएर पढ्दैछु।

"अनि, मग्न, मधुर, मदिर, तस्वीर सिताराको" ले भूपिको "मैनवत्तीको शिखा"को याद दिलायो।

प्रेरणा त भूपि नै हुन् । अनि अलिकति Nat King Cole's को Monalisa पनि र बाँकी त के भनिरहन प-यो र ।

नेपे

One more picture of young Devkota...

Devkota with foreign writers (in Moscow ?)