Unseen lessons from earthquake
The hills and the Great Himalayan range are a testament attesting to the fact the Nepal lies in a high-risk zone of possible massive earthquakes. Earthquakes of devastating nature can strike Nepal anytime and anywhere as has been the case since time immemorial.
On a political front, the Gorkha earthquake of April 25, for me has been a reflection of successive Nepali government’s shameless failure to take on preventive measures to ensure minimal harm during such calamities. But on a closer look, the fatalities, casualties and the destruction, invariably point to something we are yet to grasp as human beings with all our intellect which has the potential to be stretched to unbounded levels.
It is the use of our unbiased conscience that will lead us to unseen questions in times of such scenario where human efforts are rendered pitiably worthless by a merciless and frightening force, and where powerful and pervasive intellect is deliberately blinded for a cause. It is for our individual need that we understand this unexplained phenomenon, not just for preaching and seeking a spiritual answer. Just because a person escaped unscathed in the earthquake or during any such overwhelming force of any form of catastrophe, one should not discard the plight and the recurrent pangs in those sufferers who were at the receiving end of this jolt.
Sandesh Shrestha
Sub-Editor
English Desk- RSS
poems by Shyam Rimal
To Mother Earth
Why do you tremble mother Earth?
Did the huge fish that carries you changed its shoulder?
Or did the shesha naaga, the serpent king, changed its attacking
position?
Or did more sin spread around here?
Here man’s house is nothing
The trust of the foundation (of house) is with your own soft soil
Do not tremble anymore,
Here, people do not believe others
Even to their houses
The house has turned into a graveyard
All food grains have been buried here
Wealth of man here is just a house,
Whether it be a hut or a palace
Now man’s heart and mind goes
Towards lawns, paddy fields and barn
Leaving the house behind
The temples, mosques, stupas, and palaces
Are all the hard work of your offsprings
The dharahara tower had not left the ground
But was heading towards the sky
Carrying people within himself.
Oh achala, do not tremble much
Here when man gets frightened
The house is all darkness
Man, rather lives eating soil
But loses heart, if he leaves home
When soil, where heart is sown, is shattered,
Grains will not grow here
Have you read well the faces of man?
Who have not had a meal?
