Wednesday, October 28, 2020

My daughter, Sukrity Sharma's interview in The Irish Times.

When asked what attracted her to study in Ireland, Sukrity Sharma answers without a moment’s hesitation. The books, the poetry and the playwrights, she replies. “Famous writers like Yeats, his poetry inspired me to come here. And Ireland had good opportunities for work and study, that’s why I came.”

The Nepalese student later reveals that it was, in fact, her father’s influence that led to her decision to move halfway around the globe to study journalism. The daughter of famous Nepalese-Indian poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma, who has travelled the world sharing his prose and poetry, Sharma says she felt drawn to follow in the footsteps of her father.

She recalls joining him on treks in the Himalayas where she watched him jot down words he would later read to international audiences. “I could see my father was always writing something. He is also a journalist and had written for lots of newspapers. It was him who suggested I come to Ireland, I actually didn’t know it existed. But when I read about this place and its poetry, I knew it was perfect for me.”

I was given the opportunity to go abroad and study; lots of women in Nepal never get that chance

Sharma had discovered, as she grew up, that women in her home country struggled to find career opportunities and develop their professional lives. “Nepal has always been a patriarchal society. Women are considered as wives and are not expected to work as much. Especially in remote areas, women are considered as objects of pleasure and seen as delicate. It’s very hard for a woman to reach a high post in Nepal, you have to fight your way there.”

Having worked with an NGO supporting women who are trafficked, Sharma was also conscious of the privileges she had in her own life. “I was given the opportunity to go abroad and study; lots of women in Nepal never get that chance. I hope to bring something back from my time in Ireland, to help empower women in Nepal.”

However, the reality of living in a strange country thousands of kilometres from loved ones was not quite what Sharma had imagined studying abroad would be like. She arrived in Dublin in September 2019 ready to embark on a year-long master’s in journalism and public relations from Griffith College. After a lifetime of living at home in Kathmandu with family, being in Dublin was not easy.

“In Nepal even adults live with their families, it’s not like western countries. It was my first experience of living alone, and that led to a lot of anxiety. I felt depressed and settling in was hard.”

After briefly staying with a Nepalese family, Sharma found a waitressing job to pay for rent in shared accommodation. She started questioning her decision to move to Ireland and cried herself to sleep each night.

“I felt like I was broken inside. I kept moving houses because the rent was so expensive. In one house, the tenant advertised the room against the will of the landlady and she then kicked me out. I was homeless for two days. It was difficult moving all the time, I was in complete breakdown, I was a mess. At the same time I had to keep going to college and do assignments and presentations. I lost all my self-confidence and felt completely useless.”

Sharma’s father advised her to stay strong, that possibilities would come her way, while a friend reminded her that everyone faced challenges when moving abroad. “She reminded me that crying wouldn’t solve anything, that everyone is facing problems and instead of crying I should find a solution.”

Sharma was working in a Spar deli when Covid-19 arrived in Ireland and briefly signed on to the Covid-19 payment in July after losing her job. At the time of this interview, which was before Level 5 restrictions came into effect, she was back working as a waitress in an Indian restaurant.

Having completed her master’s degree, Sharma started applying for journalism internships with Irish media companies, undeterred by the challenging climate she’s living through. “I think journalism is a very powerful medium; it gives you a voice. I’d also like to earn the money to bring my family here for a trip. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

In 2019 I regretted coming here. But I’ve learned so much and met new people and that helped me to be stronger

Having blogged about her experiences over the past year, she now plans to write a book about moving abroad as a young woman. “Through my experiences they can gain knowledge of how to live alone. For a person who is dependent on their family, all of a sudden you’re thrown into this big world with no one to help you. I don’t want people to get lost like I did.”

Living in Ireland has also helped the 29-year-old develop a new appreciation for her home country.

“Nepal is a small country but, from my point of view, it’s the most beautiful place in the world. The moment you land there you fall in love with the people and the environment. In Nepal we have Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, our religions live in harmony. India was ruled by the British but we were never ruled by a foreign power. That’s why we can live together. Now I always dream of going back to Nepal where I can properly start my own career.”

But for now, Sharma plans to stay and find work in Ireland. She admits she’s still struggling to settle in this country but has learned a lot over the past 14 months.

“In 2019 I regretted coming here. But I’ve learned so much and met new people and that helped me to be stronger. I’ve learned to be patient and work hard and to know you have to survive on your own. I recently had a bad break-up but I’m still strong and I’m determined to stay here.

“I want to prove to myself that I can do this. There are millions of people around the world like me suffering, I’m not a special person. Everyone has tough times but I’m tired of complaining. Actions speak louder than words.”

We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com. @newtotheparish

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/i-actually-didn-t-know-ireland-existed-but-i-read-about-it-and-knew-it-was-perfect-for-me-1.4387312

Monday, October 26, 2020

"Open, fearless & candid: The mantra to decode modern poetry," Yuyutsu Sharma Interview in London-based iGlobal magazine

iCommunity
Open, fearless & candid: The mantra to decode modern poetry
iGlobal Desk
Published on : 21 Oct, 2020 , 12:05 pm
In this series for ‘iGlobal’, UK-based writer and poet Yogesh Patel hand-picks some poets of pride from across the Global Indian diaspora to showcase their works and poetic journey.
In this edition, we meet Yuyutsu Sharma, who is a world-renowned Himalayan poet and translator and recipient of fellowships and grants including the Rockefeller Foundation; Ireland Literature Exchange; Trubar Foundation, Slovenia; the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature; and the Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature.
He has published 10 poetry collections including, ‘The Second Buddha Walk’, ‘A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems’, ‘Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems’ and ‘Annapurna Poems’. Three books of his poetry, ‘Poemes de l’ Himalayas’, ‘Poemas de Los Himalayas’ and ‘Jezero Fewa & Konj’, have appeared in French, Spanish and Slovenian, respectively.
Half the year, he travels and reads all over the world and conducts Creative Writing workshops at various universities in North America and Europe but goes trekking in the Himalayas when back home on the Indian subcontinent. Currently, Yuyutsu Sharma is a visiting poet at Columbia University and edits ‘Pratik: A Quarterly Magazine of Contemporary Writing’.
Q: You are a Himalayan poet in the sense of not only the landscape you are one with but also in the leaps of your Himalayan intensity of poetry. Coming from Punjab, moving to Nepal and having a second home in the US, how have you preserved the incorruptibility of your contrasting and simultaneous existences?
A: Excellent question sketching my journey as a poet. Life has been brutal as well as kind to me. I was born in a small Punjabi town, Nakodar, and spent most of my early life with my mother there. My father from the Indian Himalayas worked as a welder in a small hillside town, Nangal Town Ship, where yearly during summer school break I would join him and visit a shrine of Naga Sadhus on the bank of river Satlej.
It’s in this Himalayan town I learnt elementary lessons in poetry and worldly wisdom. Later, as I moved to Nepal and taught at a university campus in a small hillside village, Bhimphedi, I rediscovered my connection with the mountains and poetry. It was my rebirth as a poet. My Punjabi blood and upbringing made me travel fearlessly, first to the remotest Himalayan for over a decade and later to Europe and North America.
During the later wanderings, I carried with me the treasures of silence I’d gathered in the Himalayas. The quiet ennobling life I lived there had ushered a new spring in my writing and made me win the hearts of countless readers I came across. It’s the silence of the snow peaks that has kept me going.
Q: As an editor and publisher exposed to a great range of poetry worldwide, in what context do you see it against your output and poetry being written elsewhere?
A: Indian devotional poet Kabir says, if you want to be a poet, first set your house on fire and come with me and be a poet. I used to teach at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, but one day quit my job to take the forbidden path Kabir talks of.
It was like walking on a razor’s edge in the beginning. It’s only in the West I mastered the art of what the Irish would call “singing for supper”. Each nation has its special historical background and life patterns to determine the content and scope of its literature. Over the years, I’ve learnt a great deal from each continent I’ve entered.
Since 2004, my recurrent visits to London have put me in touch with the verve of contemporary British verse and idiom, away from snooty bookish poetry in English that we are attuned to in our subcontinent. The spoken word circles of the British poetry energised my work. Editing a special British poetry issue of ‘Pratik’ with Pascale Petit made me explore the diversity of content and style in British poetry.
Later travelling to the Americas enriched lines of my poems. The grand landscape of North America has expanded my stanzas and their experiments with self, soul and individual freedom have further metamorphosed my vision as visible in my ‘Space Cake, Amsterdam’ and ‘A Blizzard in my Bones’.
Latin America has made me look inwards with a surreal eye and my African counterparts have shaped my urgency to utter the mantra of human dignity and equality, making me look at own demons from a fresher light.
Q: How would you advise readers to approach modern poetry; can you suggest any handles to allow a better grasp of the meanings kneaded in any poem?
A: To understand my work, I do not think they need any handles, only a pure heart. To approach modern poetry, I want my readers to be open, fearless and candid, shed academic trappings, expand their horizon, discard snobbery and respect the ones that have suffered get space and attention.
Like in India for long, the Indian English scene was monopolised by soft-nailed elites and smug bureaucrats. Now with the internet and freedom of communication and reach, there’s a chance for an average middle-class Indian like me to come forward and explore the opportunities hidden meticulously from the masses by our colonial cushions.
When the leading figures in Indian literature were striking deals with the Western counterparts, our forefathers were struggling to survive in India, getting acquainted with the idiocy of newer regimes of oppression.
Finally, a new India is rising to grab the laurels received in proxy by those close to colonial masters. Honestly, without democracy, education and internet, I wouldn’t have been able to step out of my hometown in Punjab, what to talk of becoming known worldwide as a Himalayan poet. If you stay cloistered in a prescribed world, nothing happens. Those who sleep, find nothing, as the Indian saying goes; only those who wake up will discover the treasures of life.
Yogesh Patel MBE runs Skylark Publications UK as well as the non-profit Word Masala Project to promote South Asian diaspora literature. He is the recipient of many awards, including as Poet of Honour at New York University in April 2019. By profession, he is a qualified optometrist and an accountant.
In this regular series for ‘iGlobal’, he will be profiling Global Indian poets from around the world.
*Register here for poetry sessions such as these and much, much more at DiwaliFest 2020.

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Yuyutsu Sharma to appear at the Asian Literary Society live session on 'Feminism in Modern English Literature'

Yuyutsu Sharma to appear at the Asian Literary Society live session on 'Feminism in Modern English Literature' with Santhini Govindan, Mandira Ghosh and Kiren Babal in the 3rd Asian Literary Confluence 2020 on 23rd October 2020, 4:00 pm

You are cordially invited to attend the live session of Ms. Santhini Govindan (Eminent Writer), Mr. Yuyutsu Sharma (Eminent Writer), Ms. Mandira Ghosh (Eminent Writer) in the 3rd Asian Literary Confluence 2020.

Topic: Feminism in Modern English Literature

Date and Time: 23rd October 2020, 4:00 pm (at the Asian Literary Society Facebook group)

This session will be moderated by Ms. Kiren Babal (Ambassador, ALS)

Monday, October 19, 2020

Yuyutsu Sharma to read at Asia Pacific Writers & Translators & the New York Writers Workshop's monthly reading series, Isolation Break v.6 hosted by Ravi Shankar

Join the Asia Pacific Writers & Translators and the New York Writers Workshop for our monthly reading series, Isolation Break v.6 featuring the best established and emerging voices from around the world. In this edition, join T.S. Eliot Prize winning poet and memoirist George Szirtes, Moth International Short Story Award winner and novelist Mandy Beaumont, poet, columnist for the Financial Express and cofounder of The Indian Novels Collective Ashwani Kumar, 2020 Varuna Fellowship winner and Queensland Premier's Award nominated playwright Emilie Collyer, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellow and one of Nepal's finest poets Yuyutsu Sharma. Hosted by Pushcart Prize winning poet and memoirist Ravi Shankar, Isolation Break is archived on YouTube and open to all. Click on the link to register for the event. You'll get a reminder when the event goes live this Saturday

APWT Official FB Page

https://www.facebook.com/APWriters

APWT Group Page

https://www.facebook.com/groups/APWT.association

Isolation Break v.6 Link:

https://www.facebook.com/137962856262442/posts/3532451040146923/

APWT is also on Twitter, Insta and Linkedin.

@ap_writers

[https://www.facebook.com/137962856262442/posts/3532451040146923/](https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/vEetCK1qKYh2BQ36vfMvPJB...)
Asia Pacific Writers & Translators
See you all on Saturday! 

Sunday, September 6, 2020

The Kathmandu Post Review : Yuyutsu Sharma's New Nepali collection, Panaharu Khalichchan

Without Fear or Favour

Books

Poems that travel across and beyond the Himalayas

Yuyutsu RD Sharma’s Panaharu Khali Chhan is a collection that outlines the poet’s oeuvre and leaves the readers wanting more.

bookmarkmail

Bibek Adhikari

Published at : September 5, 2020

Updated at : September 5, 2020 09:35

Kathmandu

In the Preface (titled The Pride in Being a Himali Poet) of his recent collection of Nepali poems, Panaharu Khali Chhan, eminent Nepali poet and editor Yuyutsu RD Sharma writes: “This [poetic] journey began on a long wooden table outside a small tea shop in Bhimphedi.” That was around 40 years ago. The lush greenery, the soft rustle of mountain air, and the lonesome sleepy hamlet enchanted Sharma. The young poet in him was piqued with an unwavering interest—he sat beneath a peepal tree, put pen to paper, and started writing about the hills, the people who live there, and their everyday struggles.

In his long career of 40 years, Sharma has produced more than a dozen anthologies, contributed to numerous literary magazines worldwide, and served as a visiting poet-scholar at many American universities. What makes his poems so widely read and anthologised is because they are grounded: they depict the actual image of the penurious lower-class Nepali society. Yet the depiction is not straightforward—he yokes many images into a single poem, creating a long-lasting and at times hauntingly gripping experience for his readers.

Reading the collection, which is divided into four parts—Pahadko Artha, Khacharharu, Phurbako Yarling, and Whitmanki Chhori—is synonymous with having a long tête-à-tête with the mountains and their people. It is only in the latter part of the work that readers get transported to the West: New York, Amsterdam, London, among others. The first part—Pahadko Artha, The Meaning of the Hills—chronicles the bleak and bizarre lives that thousands of poverty-stricken Nepalis are forced to live. Readers find themselves between short, pithy lines surrounded by labyrinthine images. Yet, at the heart of all these poems, the notion of loss prevails over beauty.

Take, for instance, the first poem Euta Sapana. Dreams about thunder and vultures get juxtaposed with the falling of a “four-month embryo / from the greedy mouth of a hateful hawk.” The result is the trembling of the newly-wed bride, who was “dreaming of pregnant sunsets.” It is Sharma’s caliber as a poet that enables him to stitch one image after another into the Frankenstein-esque poetry of grotesque horror. The “horror,” however, is everyday reality for many Nepalis.

In his next poem, Niyati, the poet compares the life of a street dog with a drunken porter—both are “huddled / in the shadow of / a pagoda.” The element of dread is manifested by Sharma’s choice of images: “gorilla kick” and a “pus-dripping paw.” This nauseating description of a normative scene results in a prickling sensation of fear and loathing in the reader.

In the poems that follow, Sharma contrasts Buddha with the “death of a dream” and the “illusion of a colorful lust.” He broods over the death of an old woman in a traffic accident and thinks about the fiery, swollen eyes of the sun. Bhimphedi, on the other hand, is a powerful work that brings together labour workers in a tunnel to the philosophical musing—“another name for drunkenness is death.”

Sharma also pays a fitting tribute to one of his inspirations, Gopal Prasad Rimal, in the poems Aamaka Sapanaharu and Gopal Prasad Rimal. He calls Rimal a “young embryo-son” and later the “pagoda of poetry.” What I personally found charming is his bewildering use of imagery. He defamiliarises what is commonplace and comes up with something strangely fascinating. Take his poem Lumbini as an example. He sees the sacred pond “green [but] with droplets of dried blood,” while “upon the boiling afternoon’s boundary” a tortoise raises its long neck and gawks.

In the second part of his book—Khacharharu, Mules—Sharma’s poems reach Lake Phewa, Ghorepani, and Birethanti. The people of these areas are like the hill mother from his poem, Asafaltaharu, who has nothing to offer her caterwauling son except a “moist but stinking kiss.” Yet life goes on. The hill people struggle to make their ends meet, but drag their lives like mules, carrying “stanzas of modern slavery” on their backs. These mules carry Iceberg beer, Chinese bricks, tin cans, rice sacks, and iodised salt on their backs—and they are “cursed for a lifetime eternal wandering.” So are the people living there.

The third part of the book—Phurbako Yarling, Phurba’s Earrings—takes the readers to the northern Himalayas, from where even the “God says hello.” Sharma writes about the “turquoise lake” that reflects the image of the Sagarmatha and “longs to belong to the ocean”; a stark contrast to what is assumed to be normal. Meanwhile, Phurbako Yarling is a romantic poem that embraces mountain metaphors and Helambu’s essence. The poet sees Phurba [Again] in Ghyalung right before entering the Langtang forest and reminisces his traveling experience amidst the “mountain stillness.”

The last part of the book—Whitmanki Chhori, Whitman’s Daughter—takes the readers beyond Nepal. Readers travel to the chilling alleys of London to the butterfly-filled streets of the Netherlands. One of his most read and loved poems—Ani Tapai New York-baasi Hunuhunchha (Are you a New Yorker?)—chronicles his first-hand experience in the streets of New York. Moreover, in another poem, London Bombaari, the poet travels around London and collocates the euphoria with Bhaktapur fair and Shakespeare’s Prospero.

As an ardent admirer of his many English poems, reading Sharma in Nepali was a bit of an uncommon experience. Many of the poems in this collection, having first written in English and later translated in Nepali, have a different flair from the usual contemporary poetry. Still, some poems feel like they are being forcibly translated. One example of this is Yeshuko Cross, or Christ’s Cross, which is too ambiguous even after multiple readings. But once the readers scan the English version, the meaning resurfaces. This is quite frustrating for someone solely relying on the Nepali version.

Sharma’s Nepali is peppered with many phrases from Hindi and English. Readers who are looking for a “standard Nepali” are at a loss. Nevertheless, the use of the poet’s idiolect—the speech pattern of an individual—is a classic double-edged sword: it can either attract the readers or repel them. Personally, I found it rather charming, especially reading the stanzas sprinkled with strange dialects. Still, the occasional typos and errors in punctuation make the reading a jittery one. An efficient editor can easily solve this problem.

For Sharma, the best poems are like “the poems / on the Lake [he] didn’t write,” just like the “kisses [his lover] / refused” to accept. Also, for him, the Lake (especially Lake Phewa) is like a half-written poem, forever struggling to be wholesome and achieve something illusionary. Between these two dualities—of writing the best poems and eschewing the half-baked ones—he struggles sometimes and fears the blank page, the dreadful khaali pana. In the eponymous poem, Panaharu Khhali Chhan, he “scribbles anger,” “compiles a cosmos of failure,” dreams about the “flaring fields of fire,” and “chants the mantras”—the same that used to fill his pages before.

For readers who want to peruse Sharma’s selected poems in Nepali, which he wrote (and sometimes translated) for 40 years, this anthology will be the right choice. It will outline the poet’s oeuvre and leave the readers wanting more. On a final note, reading Sharma in English is a delightful experience; reading him in Nepali, a somewhat bewildering and disconcerting one.

News: Yuyutsu Sharma's Quaking Cantos poem at Zebra Film Festival

Distinguished film maker Stephan Bookas' film based on Yuyutsu Sharma poem, "I See My World Shaking" from 'Quaking Cantos' has been selected from nearly 2000 submissions by the programme commission to be a part of the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival taking place from 19 to 22 November 2020 in the Kino in der KulturBrauerei in Berlin.

https://www.haus-fuer-poesie.org/…/literaturwerkstatt…/home/