Safa Tempo:

 Pure Love for the Purity of Life

Book Review by Ganesh Ghimire

Lonely little guy

is faltering away

in hunt the quest.

A few roses which

befall on her lap

curved into cuff

that caresses her

yet to bloom sis.

On a true scale of life, Safa Tempo presents a space where unsociable elements struggle to find their place. Very first poem, “Paintbrush” evokes readers’ appetite for true continuum of life.

In spite being an economist, Thapaliya makes the things happen all through his poetry. His poems oblige the readers to halt and brood over before moving to the next line. Irony and images, he employs is stinging and intriguing: 

He slept as a truck driver

with vertigo

in the Mungling lodge

midday buffet of

daal,bhat, tarkari and naked women,

all left on their own.

Dreamt he was

ascending to the heaven

of prosperity

on an escalator

made out of her thighs

holding The World Bank’s

“Annual Poverty Report” in his hand.

His voice races not just through each and every corner of the crowded cities. His poetic concern ranges from sophisticated city dwellers to rustic village people. Their redundant lives get absolute concentration in his each verse:

Danuwar communities

that once pulsed life

atop these plains

have been swallowed

by the cavernous city mouths

and the half-baked Arab dreams.

The use of pun very lucid. The title poem, “Safa Tempo” depicts the picture of Kathmandu valley. Love poems of the first section suddenly turn into harsh reality. Life struggles in ‘Safa Tempo’ just to live to tell the tale.  

How does a Kathmandite feel life when s/he steps out of the valley? Go through poem , “Kavre” where you will come upon two beautifully wrought word-photos.

Similarly, “Forsaken Villages” talks about brain drain and muscle drain happening in Nepal due to poverty and redundancy. As the result, most of the Nepalese villages are forced to remain deserted.

Bhuwan does not talk only about love and life. He tersely analyzes Nepalese way of life. “A Mugling dream” is a pure satire on futile life-style of working class, an irony of foreign aids.

His poems declare: I am not in me / though I abide within myself and ask the readers ‘Am I a poem? / or am I just a rhymed hoax?’

Blending almost all spheres of human concerns, Bhuwan leaves his readers awestruck. His rebellious persona warns anti-social people not to underestimate ‘Democracy’: 

I am cold

but not numb.

I am silent

but not dumb…

I will strike

at the heart

of the tyranny.

Ganesh Ghimire is an emerging Nepalese scholar and poet. His recent research remains critical study of Poetry and Photography in context of Yuyutsu Sharma’s mountain poetry on German Andreas Stimm’s panoramic Himalayan photography. Currently, he lives and works in Jumla, Nepal’s remotest district and contributes to various national and international magazine