Midday and the Cold Sleep - Bhupi Sherchan

In the newspaper's "wanted" column,

I seek the face of my future,

I search for a foothold in every procession,

every assembly, every speech,

I look through the files of each new plan.¹ 

On the lips of the new budget

I seek some reassurance,

from radio announcements I beg

two words of consolation;

my family's age I measure

with a new pay scale, made young again

by the news of each vacant post;

each time I hear from my interviews,

life stinks like sweat in an armpit.

Somebody is mixing despair

into even my mother's love,

even in my father's encouraging words

a cold, impatient sigh can be heard.

It is as if vermilion fears

the parting of my daughter's hair,² 

and my wife is always serving up

satire on my plate.

An age has passed:

with a face like an application letter,

I have wandered from door to door,

I have called from house to house.

A cold sleep always tries to engulf me,

I know that if I sleep this time

I shall never wake again.

Oh you who form lines like caterpillars,

chant more slogans, chant them loud;

I do not want to sleep today.

Wake me up! Wake me up!

---

Bhupi Sherchan (1936 - 1989) Nepal

Translated Michael James Hurt

Source: Himalayan Voices An Introduction to Modern Nepali Literature, Translated and Edited by Michael James Hurt, University of California Press, 1991

1. The plan is the five-year plan for national development drawn up by the government of Nepal.
2. Vermilion paste is applied to the parting of a woman's hair when she is married. The speaker means that he cannot arrange his daughter's marriage because he has no income.