This is a Country of Hearsay and Rumour
A country where music competition judges
are deaf people sporting earphones,
and where poetry arbiters have souls
in the process of petrifaction,
where wooden legs win races
and where security rifle blades
are held up by broken plastered hands,
a place where doko after doko
kharpan after kharpan
truck after truck of souls
are decked before roadways and verandahs,
where those who become political leaders
sell and buy souls like stock agency shares,
where the champions of the youth bear
corrugated wrinkles on their foreheads,
where the �wash and wear crease� of respectability
of even the worst reprobate never crinkles,
where even the most debased whore�s face
of synthetic skin never wrinkles,
where agriculture fairs
display seeds that promise double yields
while spreading news of drought and famine,
where in the place of Bagmati and Bishnumati rivers
beer and whisky now trickle,
and where Pashupati and Swayambhu are used
not to get a taste of sacred offerings
but for a taste of Adam and Eve�s forbidden fruit
in the surrounding jungles and forests,
where sugar factories produce not sugar but alcohol,
where free mothers birth not sons but lahureys,
where great poets die before their time
still unable to pay off debts,
where a poet insane with his country�s anxiety
must seek refuge in another country�s hospital,
and where the sole daughter of the goddess Saraswati
withers in her youth for lack of medical attention,
where guides remind tourists
of Nepal�s contribution to foreign lands
and on holidays ask for the contribution
of their foreign cameras,
where young people
undergo army training
singing songs of Nalapani and Kangada fortresses
Donning a khukuri along with coat and tie,
renting my heart wide open
I feel I must speak to this country,
O fellow countrymen
O national poets
O honorable leaders
If you want you can label me
someone who hates or betrays his country
but this country is mine as much as yours,
even if we were to divide it equally
my small hut would stand
on one of its ten million pieces,
my funeral pyre would stand
on one of its countless river banks
This is the feel that compels me to say
that gives me courage to say:
this is a country of hearsay and rumour
If one were to unearth the foundation of each house here
only hearsay and rumour would be found heaped there
That�s why this is a country of hearsay and rumour
This is a country standing on hearsay and rumour
This is a country founded on hearsay and rumour
This is a country of hearsay and rumour
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