A profile of Chandra Gurung

 Chandra was born in a remote village in the district of Gorkha in Nepal. He went to Himanchal Pradesh, in the hilly northern part of India, for his schooling with his father, who was in the Indian army as a soldier in Gurkha Regiment. “The hilly people of Himanchal Pradesh, with their natural simplicity and innocence, were not different at all to the people of my village which,” says Chandra, “as a child growing up alone and away from my mother and my motherland, was a good thing. But the bad things were the geographical distances between my family members, especially with my mother. That made me experience solitude and loneliness as a child, and I was often deprived of many social connections.” Chandra became a sensitive and quite lad, and preferred to remain alone; turning to his pen, words and books for comfort. “And to this day, these early emotions are still some of the strongest urges in my writing.”

Although his love for words was still buried deep in Chandra's heart, college and working life took him away from writing and poetry, and it wasn't until around the age of 30 that he found himself once again alone, homesick and working in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that his love for poetry inspired him to put pen to paper once again. A short while later he published his first poetry collection in Nepali titled (translated): His Heart Hath Not His Country’s Map.

Most of the themes Chandra writes about are generated when he is travelling alone. “It is not that I write poems about just anything that comes to my mind,” he says, “but I write only on those topics and themes that are of most interest to me, such as social and political issues and the predicament of human life. These are the subjects of many of my poems, as are the present deficiencies of humanity.” An idea would creep into Chandra's mind, normally inspired by some incident, experience or event, and he would then start converting this idea into a poem. Initially, a quick draft and then a lot of moulding, developing and rewriting to polish it further. “Moreover, I usually work on two or three new poems at the same time; taking out and inserting words and metaphors from one poem to another, as required.”

One of the main challenges Chandra has is with writing poetry in his mother tongue: “Many poets writing in their mother tongues are only exposed to lovers of poetry in their own country, and not around the world; their works are rarely translated, and they just don’t have the publishing opportunities that others might have. However, I believe translation is very important for the promotion and preservation of good poems and poets." Chandra has translated a number of Hindi and English poems into his native Nepali language, and has translated many Nepali poems into Hindi and English.

Writing is an act of expressing oneself. Poets write mostly about their life experiences, memorable moments and their own perspectives on things. Writing is a journey within and for exploring oneself, and for Chandra, writing poetry is like pouring out his own feelings and emotions, as well as fulfilling his duties towards other people, society and country. “Writing can be for self-pleasure or social purposes, but what often starts as hobby gradually becomes a social duty as more responsibility comes with serious writing.”

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