Painting & Poetry:
A Vignette of a Princess-like Photograph, Juneli
Painting: Ramesh Shrestha
Momila
One day in the rural settlement
Juneli amassed all her prowess of youthfulness
And collected cliff bees' honey from precipice
Without eating sold it in market
And majestically entered an urban studio.
On the lawn of the wall-covering poster
Leaning against a huge tree amid flowers
More colorfully than flower itself
In a princess-like pose
She got a photograph of marginal wish clicked.
The same photograph of princess-like vignette
Surely the most expensive wish in Juneli's life.
Every morning after she woke up
Juneli would see the photograph
As big as a human figure pasted
On direct eye-contact
And smilingly run away, shy on her youth
She would embrace her dream-boy on dream garden.
The shy-smile of moonlight face
Perhaps cliffs and corners in the village realized.
One day leaving the photograph on wall
In the moonlit night
Juneli handed over the darkest night to village
And submerged across the hill
But where nobody knew.
Time and again the moon rose on firmament
But Juneli rose not for years.
Out of the blue Juneli
Carrying the darkest night on countenance
Emptying her youth in Arab
Stealthily entered the parentless desolate house
And bore a son on the darkest night.
The son's own father adopted him
And took him to Arab.
In absolute desolation
After her waking in morning
Juneli happens to see the same photograph
While running shyly she bumps on Arab
And falls down the precipice of life.
She gets tattered into hundreds of pieces
On the torn out photograph.
She tearfully joins the parts of photograph
And goes on joining herself, too…
Somehow the photograph joins
But not as beautiful as earlier.
Torn and joined Juneli along with Photograph
Exactly looks like the same ugly photograph
Residue of moonlight dream the photograph
Neither can she help pasting
Nor can she enjoy pasting it
In morning startlingly wakes up from dream
Looks as if joined out of fragments along with photograph
When she sees the ugly photograph as big as a human
She condemns her youth
Again tears photograph on fury
And goes on getting fragmented.
Every morning like a daily routine
Juneli keeps shredding photograph
And gets continuously disjointed.
As she tears photograph into shreds
Dreamless Juneli herself
Tears into pieces and meaninglessly ends.
Having the vignette of princess-like photograph
In the name of Juneli
For further fragmentation
Neither remains any photograph
Nor remains any dream.
Translation: Suresh Hachekali
