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Monsoon has seeped into Itahari, our home town. With wet days ahead we hear a call: a zine is a need. I muse: of course it is. I at once embark upon Pen Himalaya together with my friends of our circle. Chaos has ruled the atmosphere around us. We have come out with it, as if with a gun in hand. Pen Himalaya is a refuge of ours. Thus, we feel we are doing something.

Here's a poem I composed last year on the eve of the new year. It still has not lost its contextual significance. Let's read once to go back in time and assess the mood.

The New Year

A clammy,
humid,
puff of air
sneaks as ever
into the lungs.

Swollen up
and rounded time
slithers past.

Aged anguish

ruptured, gnarled values,
unutterable torment,

cruel hunters,
wily impostors,
foul smelling coxcombs.

Having devoured
the entire treasure in store
those,
raging in them
the flame of insatiable hunger.

Degenerated with its content
the chowk,
emanating an unremitting stench.

Careened down
into a gaping pit of stasis
the city,
the countryside,

everywhere
on everyone
has crashed down
an old, shredded prospect.

In the same fashion,
with the same gait,
has issued forth
a new year.

translated from Nepali: the poet