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RAJU SYANGTANG


Desires of Chyangba

Chyangba!
You said you would go to Yambu1
Can you buy the road for you?
Can you buy the soil?
You need to purchase some affection
And your own shadow too
You also need to buy the blow of the wind
That comes here in chiyorten2 and gumba
To sing the selo songs
Can you buy them all?

If you cannot afford
Do not worry, Chyangba
Yambu will buy you!

Once it buys you
It will ask for your heart
And then your eyes, your tongue
Not satisfied
It will ask for your cap, your damphu3
And the bird over the damphu

You will then become
A modern Chyangba
Chyang will be your new name
And Yambu will beat
A modern drum
Made out of your great grandfather’s skin
Who worked as a potter for them
Outside the mortuary of your own dream
You shall play the skeleton of your body as a sarangi
And sing-
“Woven from hundred flowers
The garland is we Nepali”4

Chyangba!
Look, it suits you so well
This Tamang cap!
Do not be the so-called modern Chyangba
Rather take out your old dhyangro
Let us go, you and me
And from the edge of the time
Let us drum it loud
And make everyone hear
The story of
Our stolen Yambu.
                                        
                                                    (Translated from Nepali by Keshab Sigdel)
---
1 Yambu is a Tamang name for Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal.  
2 Chiyorten is a small mound built in memory of the dead person.
3 Damphu and dhyangro are traditional drums used by Tamangs.
4 These lines are a part of Nepal’s national anthem.

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