The Power of Words
on Adventures in Nepal (Nepal), 12/Jan/2011 08:18, 34 days ago
_uacct = "UA-3483228-1";urchinTracker();The US Embassy held a poetry slam recently here in Nepal. Below is a poem from a Nepali youth.I find it incredibly refreshing. Almost every youth I ever meet (aside from my 17 year-old friend who is my downstairs neighbor) just wants to get out of Nepal. They are sure that the solution to a better life is somewhere else.There is so much beauty in Nepal, though, on many levels. And Nepal needs it's next generation desperately.HomeYukta BajracharyaAll I can see outside from these rose colored glassesare neatly aligned boxes with big windows that breathe despairbig gates that breathe suffocatingand walking, talking sticks inside them that do not breathe at all.The air here stifles,crushes,murders my every thought. Those cold faceswith hypocrisy painted over themsuck the life out of me.Vaccums me.But of course, you won’t hear the noiseyou’re too deafened by theclinking of the coins,the rough strokes of the ugly green.And so I sit here wishingthat I could fly to that placeyou refuse to call your home.Fly to that placethat I call home.Home.Where,Poverty rings like temple bellsand smells like plastic full of dendrite.Yet,Home.Where the air redolent in the smell of fresh jasmines,the buttery smell of sweets from the haluwai,Warm my soul.Home.Where,Illiteracy, Surfaces as statisticsof people in the West,dying of diarrhea.Yet,Home.Where when you sit in the dabalis of the Patan Durbar Squarewith eighteen rupees a cup tea in your handand for oncethe world stands still.You forget all your worries.Home.Where the streets are not paved with goldbut with potholes,Because what fun in treading on smooth pavements?To not trip once in a while and feel human?Home.Where the temple bells ring at early hours in the morningand again at the not-so-early eveningand again and again and againuntil, my spirit start to ringin unison.Home.with shabby houses that smile,slanting just a littlebut standingthrough and through the test of time.The narrow, labyrinthine gulliesthat lead you to courtyards of epiphany.That perfect place of imperfectionwhere not everything is right,but everything is alright.I refute hundreds of your“heavens”to go back home.Because home,is where I belongBecause, homeis where my soulfinds the voice to speak.