Poetry
दागबत्ती
Not translated into English
Bhim Nidhi Tiwari · 1946
Synopsis
The poet looks back on the night when, at the age of seven, he was woken from sleep and taken to Aryaghat, on the bank of the Bagmati, before his mother's body. He is undressed, his head is shaved, a lamp is put in his hand; he must walk around the pyre and carry the fire to it himself, while those present weep and some curse fate. The memory of the years when she nursed him runs through the poem, which compares the dead woman to a mother bird gone before her time.
Context
The poem recounts a memory of its author, who lost his mother at the age of seven, and is among his best-known texts. It is included in the Padya Sangraha, an anthology of Nepali poetry compiled by the pandit Badrinath; its date of first publication is not known. Most of Tiwari's work nevertheless went to the stage: three of his historical dramas, Silanyas, Matoko Maya and Yashasvi Shav, were awarded state prizes, and the BnF holds several of his plays in their Nepali editions.
Who it is for
A short poem in Nepali, with no French or English translation. The title names the flame carried to the funeral pyre.
Prizes and reception
Counted among the best-known poems of its author, it circulates today on Nepali poetry sites and in recorded readings.
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