Society and private sentiment find equal place in the work of poet Shyamal: his commentaries on social injustice are deeply personal, and their expressions of suffering are firmly grounded in the injustices which shape Nepali society. The two poems translated below are excerpted from his 1987 collection Tapainharu Marfat. Written against Panchayat repression, the first poem voices a scathing critique of artists who work as apologists for power-a critique just as timely today.

Last Night
Soldiers dressed in commands
were marching through our courtyard
We couldn't sleep last night
Acclaimed poet of this country!
Perhaps you haven't awakened yet from stupor
In your poems we expected something
sought something understood nothing
We couldn't even close our eyes last night

At an hour of desperate suffering
we lit dry twigs at the windows
Perhaps you had a gala to attend?
Acclaimed poet!
Perhaps you had a secret engagement?
Silent night
and the thick shoes of soldiers

This is what we thought all night as the weapons went mad
The still courtyard where these children now crawl
and the black shoes of brutal soldiers
We walked away from the strain of our fears and the future
Last night we couldn't sleep at all
During that long nighttime
perhaps you had an old friend to catch up with?
Or were you taking cover in some corner?
What was ringing in our sky at night?
What was the colour of the sky last night?
Perhaps you were seeking immortality
placing such words on a hangman's rope?
There was a parade of black cats in the kitchen
and in the bedroom apparitions
The top floor of the house was like a stadium
last night
there was a parade of ghouls in the libraries
and your poems in the wind
Perhaps you had some business to tend to?

To spend nights beneath black coverings
How frightening! How frightening!
The night is deepening now, too
This is what we're thinking
The terrain that a mother's hand touches
is being erased in the silent night
is turning invisible
Uneasily today too
we light dry twigs at the windows
Again, poet! Again, the same condition
Oh! Silent night
and the hard shoes of soldiers

The second poem, below, is equally chilling in tone. A world-weary narrator observes, with love and anguish, a girl at the cusp of womanhood. With conflicted, dissonant tones, he augurs the life of victimization that lies ahead of the young woman, and the state of emotional paralysis that perhaps lies ahead of him.

A Poem in my Sister Neelam's Name
When hope shatters to pieces
dreams slide off cliffs
the make of life starts unraveling like a sweater
and after the design is marred no one remains
yearnings set alight and the mind starts to burn....
All you have right now are dreams
and realities that flee like when I call you
You have no citizenship now
only visions of placing your footsteps on flowers
When eagles' claws pounce instead on
your movement of doves swimming in air
When questions come to you as to others
your dreams become as misshapen as your country
When the loneliness of harrowing nights lingers in you....
All you have right now are rays of moonlight
which set the whole earth aquiver
Neelam! Where you live right now the ill-omened calls
of wolves and kites are a far way off
If they were to close in, drumming against the ear
what a pity! Your disposition would be caged
in screeches that shake the whole settlement
Right now you rarely suffer nightmares
My younger sister Neelam!
The fleeting pace of your steps as I call you
would bring me such solace
if it were used to crush malign paws
Your laughter right now - ah!
How pleasurable it would be for me if
impenetrable towers were to catch on fire
When situation places her ruthless marks on you
if you could become a pride of lions and
mangle her ugly hands, ah! Then we might
sit by the edge of the courtyard and share stories
But all you have right now are
raw pencil marks in your accounts book
The torments remaining with you are imperceptible now
Must I keep loving you without speaking a single kind word
Buds are blossoming in your mind right now
You have with you unknown bruises
and visions of dancing on beds made of flowers

Today, Shyamal ranks prominently among a number of creative figures that Nepal has sacrificed to NGOs, INGOs, private businesses and other well-paying enterprises. This is a great loss. Originally from Dailekh, and now working for the UNDP in Nepalgunj, Shyamal is steeped in the complex realities of rural Nepal. His language is among the most sophisticated in Nepali letters. Frankly, the UNDP might better serve the country by giving him six months' paid leave each year to contribute to the creative life of the nation.