Poetry
Muna Madan
मुनामदन
Laxmi Prasad Devkota · 1936
Synopsis
Madan, a young man from Kathmandu barely married to Muna, leaves for Lhasa to make his fortune despite the pleas of his wife and his old mother; he wants to bring back gold jewellery and fulfil the wishes of his sick mother. The stay drags on, the cold overwhelms him, and he falls ill with jaundice on the way back, while his companion returns alone and announces his death. A Tibetan takes him in and nurses him, according to the introduction to Anand P. Shrestha's English translation.
Context
The poem is written in the jhyaure, the metre of rice-transplanting songs, which the elite of Kathmandu associated with seduction; Michael Hutt considers that he made it one of the country's native metres. The story probably comes from an eighteenth-century Newar ballad about a merchant who set out for Tibet. Hutt gave an English translation of it in 1996, and Anand P. Shrestha another in 2000, whose preface reads in it a migration narrative. Gyanendra Deuja made a film of it in 2003, which Nepal submitted for the Oscar for foreign film.
Who it is for
A short narrative poem, to be read aloud. No French translation; two English versions exist.
Prizes and reception
One of the best-selling Nepali books, still reissued by Sajha Prakashan, and the most loved title of its author.
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