Thapathali Campus: A Burlesque of Life
By: Bibek Adhikari (@bibek_writes)
Some discontent stirs in me
at times when I walk in this campus
old questions I had learnt to ask not
old yearnings and desires
approach me flying
like a boomerang
leave me seething with anger
& hatred
I look around with vague anxiety
& see the wilderness amid the urbanity
O look at the thistle –
sprouting out luxuriously
like body hair
after shaving –
the cctv cameras –
dangling like penises
tumescent and pompous
tattered flags mounting twisted flagpoles –
waving like a drowning man’s hands
in the hope of getting some attention
these walls stripped naked –
like eucalyptus leaves off its bark
earthquake-broken temple –
still seeking obeisance
withering like fallen pipal leaves
the demi-goddesses of knowledge –
sitting weary and mute
drooping her body
like a bottlebrush tree
shedding muted cries
students who suck
on beer bottles
& roll cigarettes
& watch porn at lunch breaks
mutter red manifestos
under their breath –
never a lull in their noises
their blood boils
the sweat pours off their brows
& a long screech of Shangri-La attracts
these buildings, huddled together
like gutters
like gourd vines
climbing, twining, creeping
there is redness everywhere
the hush of the revolution is red
the rage of the unknown is red
the replica of broken slogans,
carved on the toilet walls, is red:
long live deemoocraacy!
down with hypoocrissy!
all of these remind me of my broken dreams
the way I wanted to be somewhere else
the way I wanted to be someone else
every time I enter this campus of
redness, a beehive collapses in my mind
& petrified of drones and stings
I sleepwalk like souls in a purgatory
while all the while
my life falls into the
yawning abyss of rancor
& an agony of doubt
stings me with its sharp fang
& a numbness pains
my senses
these buildings are dying &
nothing will remain here
in the yards
even these walls are sagging
even these bricks are unsalable
with redness, they thought
they had beaten the system
& made intellectual choices
look how they are failing!
all that remains here
is their rotten luxury
of red manifestos
one day soon will turn
into absolute emptiness
there will only be dung-heap
of emptiness, plying on more
& more emptiness
from that vast stretch
of oceanic emptiness,
atop that mutilated corpse
of buildings, of streets and courtyards
of red manifestos,
inhaling the foul smell of rottenness,
I will sit in lotus position
like some bloody Buddha
& keep smiling.
Originally published at Writing Till The End.
