When Kathmandu erupted in riots end-December, I got a request to write about Bhupi Sherchan's Yo Hallai Hallako Desh Ho-'This is a Country of Hearsay and Rumour.' The request came from none other than Nepali Times columnist Artha Beed: that all wildly hard-headed business minds would keep an active interest in arts and literature. Indeed, for many dark days, parts of Nepal resembled the land described in Sherchan's poem:
where the daggers of security
are carried by plastered hands
where baskets and baskets
dokos and kharpans
trucks and trucks
of decorative souls
are adorned on verandas and pathways
where those who buy and sell souls
like shares in the stock exchange
become our leaders

This poem was widely quoted in papers at that time, and many agreed with Sherchan in saying:

if one were to dig up the foundation of each house here
only hearsay and rumours would be heaped up there
that's why this is a country of hearsay and rumour
this is a country standing on hearsay and rumour
this is a country founded on hearsay and rumour
this is a country of hearsay and rumour

In another less-quoted poem, Sherchan deepens this theme further, and I've translated it in its entirety below:

THE HISTORY OF MY COUNTRY SEEMS WRONG TO ME

When I take a few days' lodgings
and witness
these junctions drowned in hunger
these alleys like wilted blossoms-
the history of my country seems wrong to me

These deities who excavate dirt
in the middle of the road,
these people who understand
but act dumb,
this earthquake-stricken shrine
and
these crooked temple tops,
these lords who stand as statues
at the intersections
When I see all these always here
always like this
always the same-
my history of windstorms
seems wrong to me

Seeing innumerable Sitas
forever at the roads and crossings
in the alleys
in the markets
through the world
stripped naked like a eucalyptus tree,
and seeing innumerable Bhimsen Thapas
who stand unmoving still calm quiet,
stopping my soul's song
and letting both arms sag
like the boughs of a willow tree
I feel like performing
a sacrifice of my own blood

When I take a few days' lodgings
and witness
these junctions drowned in hunger
these alleys like wilted blossoms-
the history of my country seems wrong to me

Amar Singh reached Kangada I hear
Tenzing climbed Sagarmatha I hear
Buddha sowed seeds of peace in the earth I hear
Arniko's craftsmanship won the world's heart I hear
I always hear and only hear I hear
but I don't believe

When I take a few days' lodgings
and witness
these junctions drowned in hunger
these alleys like wilted blossoms-
the history of my country seems wrong to me

My true history-

Sherchan's astonishing, emotive and uncompromisingly critical poems can be read in the original in his classic collection Ghumne Mechmaathi Andho Manchhe (The Blind Man on a Revolving Chair). Scattered translations have also been done by Tara Nath Sharma, Michael Hutt, Wayne Amtzis, Kunda Dixit
and others.