Ever since Gopal Prasad Rimal broke traditional form and wrote poems in disarmingly simple language, Nepal's poets have taken up free verse with gusto, not always with memorable results. Reading the multitudes of poems being published today, it is possible to conclude that most of them are mini-essays (or worse, mini-lectures) with broken lines. They look like poems on the page, but they lack rhythm, they lack tonal complexity, they lack emotional and intellectual charge. (For example, \'My tears flow at all this poverty/ So much poverty/ Have we no heart?' would pass as a poem today). Poems should be layered, resonant expressions, suggestive and rich and compressed; but reading most of today's free verse, it would seem as though Rimal did us all a disfavour by licensing hoards of slack, flat doggerel.

Rajav, who is at his best writing stories, has taken up the challenge of free verse head-on in the poem translated below, but without compromising his storytelling impulse. His is clearly a narrative sensibility; the poem below could have been written in prose form. Yet the content does gain by being a poem: there is a comic effect to many of the line breaks, and the lightness of the tone is well served by the slight, quick movements of the lines. Indeed, the un-poetic content and \'artless' style seem to poke fun at the stodginess of the verse form. By not taking itself too seriously, the poem allows the reader to relax and enjoy its main offering, which is, in the end, its story.

A LIFE-THREATENING COLD
Important persons in the office have
come down with colds.
This is why these important persons
are not performing
any work
now.

The important persons
who have come down with colds are
the peon
and
the boss.

As soon as the boss caught a cold
the whole office got into a muddle.
No signs of approval were scrawled on the files.
No stamps were affixed on the letters.
Lacking the boss's signature
all outgoing letters were halted.
All visits ended for those not dealing in cash.
The only thing to leave the boss's room were
his sneezes: ha-chioo!
Those who asked "What's that?" were told:
"The boss's nose caught a cold."
Dreadful!
The peon has also caught a cold.
He's shuffling in and out
wiping snot from his nose, sneezing,
bringing the boss drinks of hot lemon
and serving tea to the boss's visitors.

The cold has made no difference to the peon.
Wiping snot from his nose and
sneezing: ha-chioo!
he continues with the boss's assignments.
To cure his fever
he came without eating his meal.
He's famished but
this hasn't dampened his zeal.

The cold has affected the office, though.
Office matters aren't moving ahead.
The boss hasn't signed all the letters,
only those that bring him some cash.
The cold has earned him
a tidy income.

"The boss has caught a cold.
Come tomorrow.
No files will be approved today.
Leave now.
Don't crowd around,"
say the boss's emissaries as
they have the papers signed of those
who whisper in their ears about money.
The cold-embattled boss
wipes snot from his nose with cash
and scolds the peon,
"This ass's cold spread to me.
Oh! How my nose itches!"
Rubbing his nose he
eyes all the papers that bring in no cash.
"Take all these away.
Bring them back another day.
Oho! What I cold I've caught.
It spread to me from this ass."

Outside, the peon starts bragging,
"I caught the boss's cold."
Proud at having caught the boss's cold
he pinches his nose and tells everyone,
"The boss passed on his cold to me
What to do?"
Sneezing: ha-chioo!
and enjoying himself
he tells everyone he meets,
"What to do?
I'm ruined, I caught the boss's cold."

Those who overhear him
tell on him to the boss, and
the boss rages like Jung Bahadur
of the olden days:
"What?
He says I gave him my cold?
He gave me his cold!
Call him in!"

The peon is fetched.
Sneezing five times
he offers a humble namaste.
Without acknowledging his greetings
the boss rages:
"I gave you my cold?
This is what you claim?"
"No hajoor,
I haven't said that.
No hajoor,
I haven't said that.
No hajoor,
I haven't said that.
I haven't said that, hajoor."
The peon adds,
"Rather, I gave you my cold."
Then he gets leave from the boss's room.
And again he starts to feel proud.
Pinching his nose and
wiping away the snot
he starts to brag,
"I gave my cold to the boss!"

Pleased at having given his cold to the boss
he now says, "See, I caught a cold
and passed it along to the boss."

The boss hears about this too
and again the peon is fetched.
The boss rages like a double Jung Bahadur:
"You gave me your cold?"
"No hajoor.
No hajoor.
No hajoor"
After saying reams and reams of this
the peon understands all, at last
and says, "I don't even have a cold, hajoor."
Pleased that his is
a highly original cold
as befitting his station
the boss wipes snot from his nose
and after sneezing, snaps,
"I wonder whose cold I caught?"

Now the peon sneezes: ha-chioo!
vigorously wipes snot from his nose
but never mentions that he's caught a cold.
Rather he prays in silence:
Eh Kashi,
may I never catch a cold
that proves life-threatening to
my employment.