Mahavinishkraman or 'the great renunciation' is a turning point in the life of Prince Siddharth. Having witnessed the four truths of human suffering, he departs from home and sets on his spiritual journey to finally attain enlightenment and become the Holy Buddha.
Pavitra Lama in her powerful visual poetry called 'Mahavinishkramanpachi' or 'after the great departure', revisits the idea of renunciation, with the help of her protagonist- "A married working woman".
As soon as dawn breaks, her duties start teasing her. One by one, she finesses her domestic obligations and then proceeds to get dressed for the office.
The poet's rhythmic lilt quietly steals a glance at an intimate moment in the woman's routine. As she leaves home for her office, she turns to lay a quick gaze on her home: A culmination of all her years of hard work, the poet says. She clutches onto her keys tighter
Now, we are at the office, and here the protagonist maneuvers in the office environment, quietly fulfilling her deadlines while also being uncomfortably aware of the voyeuristic gazes of her male colleagues.
The poem also describes how the woman has been missing many sunrises and sunsets, conveying the absence of leisurely personal space.
The pith of the poem lies in the verse where the poet finally takes us through her stream of thoughts as she walks back home from the office.
In her thoughts, she witnesses these four images:
A white silhouette of Mirabai, the 16th-century woman saint and loyal devotee of the Vaishnavite Lord Krishna
The dark shadow of a vibrant and scholarly girl, married off as a child bride to succumb to death during her youth.
A formless figure of her elder sister, a mother of 5 daughters, who died during her 6th childbirth
The mirage of the old lady who stops by her office to enquire about pension, abandoned by her sons.
While envisioning these shadows, she starts to remember them. Now, she pictures her sister's cold dead body, her friend Urmila's lifeless face, the old Mataji's weary face, and the serene face of Saint Mirabai at her altar. Thus, she awakens to the four realities of the women in her life, four different fates borne in the same womanhood.
These four sights of her great awakening are parallel to the four noble sights of the Holy Buddha before his great renunciation. When the Buddha witnessed the four great truths of human suffering, he was so agitated that he decided to renounce his worldly ties.
But the nameless woman now hurries home. It is her safe harbour, after all. The culmination of all her years of hard work.
As she lands exasperated from the day, she misses her Mother’s soft caresses. Promptly, she gets up and goes to pray at her altar, her space of spirituality and repose. Evoking the Goddess Durga in her mind ( A symbol of feminine strength in Hindu mythology, she proceeds to her domestic duties clutching onto her familial ties and tide through another day with compassion and awareness of the collective suffering of women.
Pavitra Lama, through her melodious recitation, graceful gestures, and eloquent Nepali diction creates an entire theatrical performance that voices the lived realities of women in the Eastern Himalayas. Her evocative Nepali poetry is a path-breaking in the feminist literature of the region. Some of her other poems include Harkamaya, where she talks about a tea plantation worker’s lived reality, and Marsang, where she sings about a migrant woman working as a "namle" or porter in urban Darjeeling.
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