Master essayist Yubaraj Nayaghare’s latest delivery, Ghamko Chumban, is in the market and has received various preliminary reactions. A collection of travel essays, it follows Anam Pahadma Phanphani, his work of the same genre that came out in 2006. In between, Nayaghare published Ek Haatko Taali, a collection of essays that won him the prestigious Madan Puraskar.
Ghamko Chumban contains 23 travel essays that give an almost photographic representation of many different places throughout the country—both on land and in the air-that the author had been to. Continuing with his salient style that bears the timbre of country dialect and rustic diction, the author presents a highly sophisticated addition to the genre of non-fiction, retaining poetic traits and qualities of a good narrative.
Compared with Anam Pahadma Phanpahni, Nayaghare’s new collection provides a more matured insight, and makes a more eclectic selection. The author seems to better understand the places visited this time, and has taken pains to record even the smallest details, giving his essays an added richness. Characters—both men and women—walk into his narrative and weave their sorrows between his lines. Most of the essays incorporate comments by locals, and evolve to the rank of political satires. They lay bare the paradoxes of our development plans, political will and commitments for progress. There is a critical streak running through the dialogues. Observed this way, many of his travel essays bear a stamp of being contemporary, and point sharp political fingers at the failing statehood.
Thematically, the essays do not vary widely. All tell similar stories, and are more concerned with exploring the author’s personal evaluation of different locations he explored. Locations differ, twists and turns vary, and people change. But the soul of the narrative is unwavering and is centred on documenting the author’s affective experiences. Under the guise of external pictorial descriptions, the essays explore the author’s internal world—his alignment with the rural experience, and his criticism of city or town life and the establishment.
These rural experiences and rustic tastes are best expressed through the author’s scrutiny of the environment of the places he visits. Trees and plants, accompanied by their rural names, have a powerful position in the essays. Their mention bears the undercurrent of an eco-critical insight, as the author has loudly dissented to deforestation and the deterioration of vegetation. The presence of animals is another strong indicator of the author’s acute awareness of the changing environment and the resultant universal concerns.
One of Nayaghare’s most laudable qualities is his ample and effective use of apostrophe—an exclamatory rhetoric figure that indicates the author is addressing an imaginary person or abstract idea. He addresses nature, and receives feedback. The rivers and ridges talk to him. The hamlets tell their forlorn tales, and the trails uphill and downhill are his conversational partners. He thanks the landscapes, receives their invitations, and bids them goodbye. This may be the reason his essays are about mostly secluded places. His pen runs across uninhabited meadows, grasslands, valleys, fields and mounds that stretch between villages, and bear the scars of human access and exploitation. These geographical features often speak in critical tones—at times challenging man’s vain claims of powers, and at others, laying bare the paradoxes of civilisation and rationality inherent in man’s very existence. This conversational style, and the allegoric treatment of inanimate objects, gives dramatic colour to his narrative.
Nayaghare’s most remarkable quality as an essayist, however, is in his control of diction. His words are able to make the obvious obscure, and to obscure the obvious. This can be a risky approach and his essays sometimes toe the line of being bawdry. For example, Nagarjun Forest Reserve, quite close to Kathmandu and visited by many travellers, is not actually as spectacular and obscure at the essay claims it to be. Here, the author has used the politics of his rhetoric to ensure a literary affectation of the ordinary.
There are some obvious limitations in Nayaghare’s travelogue. These limitations seem to be due to the fact that as a Madan Puraskar winner, and by that token, a top-ranking litterateur. readers have high expectations from him. An award-winning author must be alert to guard the honours and decorations conferred him and not disappoint his readers. It appears that Nayaghare is decided about his style—rustic diction and ample use of periphrasis—but his themes remain flat, and rarely rise above photographic descriptions and almost diary-like writing. Travelogues, by their nature, do not demand critical analyses. But from authors like Nayaghare, the readership expects serious contemplative engagements, philosophical and theoretical treatment of issues, and a line beyond the status quo. Authors of travel accounts or ecoliterature abroad—Sharman Apt Russell for example—bring in myths, allusions, cross-references and anecdotes, and force readers to think twice before moving on. But Nayaghare’s plain style and limited themes do not challenge his readers. A thorough reading exhausts the resources of his essays, and leaves little grounds for quoting or remembering. This could pass from other authors. But to maintain his high rating and to deserve those acclaims and decorations, Nayaghare needs to infuse his essays with graver issues and more varied themes. For such an accomplished writer, it is not enough to merely change locations and characters and make geographical descriptions with highly decorated language.
MAHESH PAUDYAL PRARAMBHA
Ghamko Chumban contains 23 travel essays that give an almost photographic representation of many different places throughout the country—both on land and in the air-that the author had been to. Continuing with his salient style that bears the timbre of country dialect and rustic diction, the author presents a highly sophisticated addition to the genre of non-fiction, retaining poetic traits and qualities of a good narrative.
Compared with Anam Pahadma Phanpahni, Nayaghare’s new collection provides a more matured insight, and makes a more eclectic selection. The author seems to better understand the places visited this time, and has taken pains to record even the smallest details, giving his essays an added richness. Characters—both men and women—walk into his narrative and weave their sorrows between his lines. Most of the essays incorporate comments by locals, and evolve to the rank of political satires. They lay bare the paradoxes of our development plans, political will and commitments for progress. There is a critical streak running through the dialogues. Observed this way, many of his travel essays bear a stamp of being contemporary, and point sharp political fingers at the failing statehood.
Thematically, the essays do not vary widely. All tell similar stories, and are more concerned with exploring the author’s personal evaluation of different locations he explored. Locations differ, twists and turns vary, and people change. But the soul of the narrative is unwavering and is centred on documenting the author’s affective experiences. Under the guise of external pictorial descriptions, the essays explore the author’s internal world—his alignment with the rural experience, and his criticism of city or town life and the establishment.
These rural experiences and rustic tastes are best expressed through the author’s scrutiny of the environment of the places he visits. Trees and plants, accompanied by their rural names, have a powerful position in the essays. Their mention bears the undercurrent of an eco-critical insight, as the author has loudly dissented to deforestation and the deterioration of vegetation. The presence of animals is another strong indicator of the author’s acute awareness of the changing environment and the resultant universal concerns.
One of Nayaghare’s most laudable qualities is his ample and effective use of apostrophe—an exclamatory rhetoric figure that indicates the author is addressing an imaginary person or abstract idea. He addresses nature, and receives feedback. The rivers and ridges talk to him. The hamlets tell their forlorn tales, and the trails uphill and downhill are his conversational partners. He thanks the landscapes, receives their invitations, and bids them goodbye. This may be the reason his essays are about mostly secluded places. His pen runs across uninhabited meadows, grasslands, valleys, fields and mounds that stretch between villages, and bear the scars of human access and exploitation. These geographical features often speak in critical tones—at times challenging man’s vain claims of powers, and at others, laying bare the paradoxes of civilisation and rationality inherent in man’s very existence. This conversational style, and the allegoric treatment of inanimate objects, gives dramatic colour to his narrative.
Nayaghare’s most remarkable quality as an essayist, however, is in his control of diction. His words are able to make the obvious obscure, and to obscure the obvious. This can be a risky approach and his essays sometimes toe the line of being bawdry. For example, Nagarjun Forest Reserve, quite close to Kathmandu and visited by many travellers, is not actually as spectacular and obscure at the essay claims it to be. Here, the author has used the politics of his rhetoric to ensure a literary affectation of the ordinary.
There are some obvious limitations in Nayaghare’s travelogue. These limitations seem to be due to the fact that as a Madan Puraskar winner, and by that token, a top-ranking litterateur. readers have high expectations from him. An award-winning author must be alert to guard the honours and decorations conferred him and not disappoint his readers. It appears that Nayaghare is decided about his style—rustic diction and ample use of periphrasis—but his themes remain flat, and rarely rise above photographic descriptions and almost diary-like writing. Travelogues, by their nature, do not demand critical analyses. But from authors like Nayaghare, the readership expects serious contemplative engagements, philosophical and theoretical treatment of issues, and a line beyond the status quo. Authors of travel accounts or ecoliterature abroad—Sharman Apt Russell for example—bring in myths, allusions, cross-references and anecdotes, and force readers to think twice before moving on. But Nayaghare’s plain style and limited themes do not challenge his readers. A thorough reading exhausts the resources of his essays, and leaves little grounds for quoting or remembering. This could pass from other authors. But to maintain his high rating and to deserve those acclaims and decorations, Nayaghare needs to infuse his essays with graver issues and more varied themes. For such an accomplished writer, it is not enough to merely change locations and characters and make geographical descriptions with highly decorated language.
MAHESH PAUDYAL PRARAMBHA
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