Abhi Sir: A Story of Chronology

We have many stories of singing Scottish songs, reciting poems on occasions from moments of agitation to Nagarjuna Yatra, sitting on my motorcycle parked in the garden, I laugh when sir cries, etc. This is a chronological story. Looking back on these long years, my friends like my Guru Sridhar Sir, Sanjeev and Sajjak seem like characters in novels and poems.

My garden and motorcycle appear like characters in a story when I look at them in memory. Abhi Subedi sir's defeat and sadness were not visible there. It was 2000-2001 – my family lived on the ground floor of Abhi sir's Gongbu residence. Sir's eldest son Salil was interested in the flowers on the ground floor and the decoration of the motorcycle. There are many ways of seeing and knowing Abhi Sir. His writings, poems and dialogues can be taken. One true thing is that there is a mythical structure in man, there is a rural mind in him. Sir's immobility, liberation is a mythical mind, which I have internalized from the stories and events I have seen. Sir's rural mind creates sadness. However, the way I know Shridhar sir is his walk. The story of that walk should be told some other time.

Abhi sir taught me in Kirtipur. Sir's humor is a kind of metaphor. Even if we just kept laughing, we would be far away from what he said. "Sir, you laugh a lot," we used to say. "Laughing for me is a metaphor", Sir used to say. It seemed that Sir's speech has a humorous device. There are many incidents, I want to remember one. Maybe 25-30 years ago, I was going to Kirtipur sitting on the back of Sir's motorbike listening to him and laughing. Sir talking in front, me laughing in back, that was the order. Abhi sir stopped at Balkhu and said, 'Arun, I have to get some petrol.' When he took off his helmet at the petrol pump, he saw someone else dancing in his eyes. He is telling the story of the death of a very dear South Indian friend from cancer. I'm still laughing. Laughing loudly, Sir said, 'We can only cry if the heart is big.' We are natural people, but we do not think about nature. There is no time to think about that,' said Sir. This is how opportunities are created. Our tea time is such an occasion, which is always beautiful, when there is no talk of negative politics between us, we are not touched by religious frenzy, but the suffering of the people caught up in the Gaza-conflict and our distress, the opposition to Mammon Satan's deity in John Milton's epic 'Paradise Lost' And his concern for injustice is reflected in themes such as the poet Lord Byron's 'Walk in the Beauty of Night'. William Wordsworth calls it 'elegant slowness'. Tea time is the time of patience and stability of Sir.

Once upon a time, Sir and I sat on a motorcycle and walked along the streets and rivers during this time of tea. The culmination of that journey was beautiful. We made a play out of it. It was through that journey, when I befriended a guru. That was the time of Nadi Theater with Sir. Abhi Sir has written :

I realized that theater is connected with Vagmati river. I thought, if we could go to the river, catch its waves and perform a play, we could uncover the subject of rhetoric. I prepared the caliber of rhetoric and river consciousness in a collage of poems. Arun Gupto directed and planned to present a river drama in a shanty of Wagmati, we went around the banks of Wagmati across the valley. Finally, on 25 Bhadra 2056, we entered the waters of Vagmati near Guhyeshwari from the sight of the river stage and performed the play of Vagmati. We kept the lessons in it from the Vedic period till now. My dramatic poems were more. We sang songs in Newar language, which I sang in the water. Kiran Manandhar created a water canvas by throwing paint into the water. Under the guidance of Arun Gupta, Alka Atreya Chudal, now a Sanskrit teacher at the University of Vienna, and Pushpalal Damai, who teaches at an American university, chanted the Vedas while standing in water, creating a social taboo that women and Dalits should not read the Vedas. My journey continued.'

There are many things to learn from sir, but my time is the time of the university, my writing the book is a tribute to the university. There is no other reason. Studying and meeting students in class, talking to Sridhar Lohani or Abhi Subedi sir over tea again and finally writing again gives me courage. Abhi Sir calls these times, 'Vail of Soul Making' or the Kandara of Mind Creation. Martha Nasbam and Rabindranath Tagore and Bronson Elcott have said, 'Soul' is that 'faculty' of thinking and imagination that makes man, which helps to build relationships human time, not utility.... Be it poet Siddhicharan Shrestha's poetry or Maithili art, one must create time to keep the mind calm. I am interested in

Nepali writing. However, while reading the Nepali articles of Sanjeev and Abhi Sir, I used to feel like a visitor even though I am a Nepali. As if I am a guest of Nepali language and culture. I am talking about the potential of the cultural-invitator - the cultural-invitator of the Nepali language. This talk of visitor and inviter is a sensational subject of writing in any language Newari, Rai, Maithali, Hindi, Awadhi, Gurung.

I am using the word 'visitor' here, not 'guest'. A guest is a visitor who has entered the house. He falls into the hospitality and hospitality of the inviter's acceptance. Abhi sir's writing used to excite me a lot. It made me want to write in Nepali. While writing in Nepali, I started feeling like a Nepali cultural inviter through this language. Using the language of the inviter turns the guest into the inviter. I told Manjurul Islam, a professor from Bangladesh, on the phone, "I have written a book in Nepali as well." His answer made me and my wife very happy. He said, 'Arun, now you have become a householder.'

My academic interest is in literary theory. My training in this field spans many decades. Reading Abhi Sir's poetry brings many thoughts to mind. The play 'Nadi Rangmancha' is a reflection of such ideas. Reading Sir's poetry, talking to Sir reminds me of Parisian culture and art, which I have studied from books. Claude Piccio wrote there, 'Art was the fate of the city.' I think such a city comes alive in Abhi Sir's poetry.

Abhi Sir sees Kathmandu as a myth. In that, the river does the work of making the city moving and speeding it up. This is not Sir's point of view, but Sir's attempt to understand himself. For me, this is the mythical aspect, which is why I look at Sir as a Gururupi Bandhu . From the point of view of religious institutions and society, I find Sir to be at a distance. However, we are associated with cooperation due to that distance. Sarko Nadi Rangmanch directed and staged by me is the same metaphor, the same rhythm and collaboration. Here's an excerpt from it:

River / Man's sweat gets drunk

In the river's sky / Clouds of our sweat freeze

River / Man—drunken/ Treads the edge of time / Across

/ In endless shapes of wet clothes

Abhi Sir has endless stories, of myth and of the river. A guru can be a friend if the story of this flow is understood. In that sense, my students are my friends and I am your student. We moved from Gongbu to Golfutar around 2004. Sir said, 'Why live without Baba (my daughter Pallavi)!' Due to this, Sir's family also moved there. The days of Gongbu and Golfutar are the legendary days of art in our existence. There are many forms of art. One day, the sound of Girish's (sir's younger son) playing the guitar woke up while Pallavi was reading his story, Salil and Mero staged a play inside the house, Sir's singing of Scottish songs, the typewriter's voice - rhythm, Bindu Didi's writing abroad memoirs, Soma's interpretation of Tagore's poetry and singing. Didi (associate) will give 'breaking news'! They were all the rhythms and symphonies of that life. From this, it is not known whether Sir sometimes comes to tea as a teacher, sometimes as a friend and sometimes as a protector. In the family of this art, there were girls and boys from Nepal, America and India. Let me give you an example of a speech. Pallavi calls sir uncle while Girish calls me dai. Sir and my relationship does not fall within the scope of any definition.

What I understand is that family is cultural and relationship is poetic. Let me give you a small example. Many years ago when the central English department was on fire, we friends and teachers did not talk much in the ordinary sense, but we were talkative. As Sridhar sir used to talk about philosophy and Abhi sir used to sing Tagore's songs, Sajjan used to compose plays while Sanjeev was interested in acting. It is a form of cultural family. When listening to the political situation of the country, it seems that the cultural family is weakened. It seems that it is changing into a culture of struggle and conflict! Abhi sir had come to my house for tea last Saturday. In this way, he reads my English and Nepali articles himself.

Sir will come to my house next Saturday too. Sir, how do you like this article of 'Samadrishti'? Questions are rising in mind.