The slim volume of poetry, English translations of a selection of Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s poems, is a delightful excursion into Nepal’s best known poet’s imaginative, troubled mind.

Though Ranjan modestly says Devkota’s writings are “as difficult to capture as the fog’s moisture or the light of a million fireflies” the young translator has done a splendid job of doing just that.

That, this reviewer believes, is due not only to Ranjan’s command over and dexterity with the English language but also because he is himself a poet of no mean promise, his youth notwithstanding.

As he has said in a short foreword, Ranjan has not interpreted Devkota “word for word” prefering, very rightly, to convey the poet’s moods as he experiences them in his poems.

In the title piece “The Pilgrim” Devkota asks plaintively:

To which temple do you go? In whose company?

What presents do you take

to offer to your lord?

…An endless temple you are yourself,

so where will you go?

Towards which temple’s door?

…God is inside and the world outside

so in which land will you search for him?

He lives within your depths, how far

across the surface will you float?

The volume contains wonderfully evocative excerpts from Muna Madan, Devkota’s saga of a husband who travels to Lhasa to earn a fortune but returns to find that his wife has died in the interregnum.

Madan’s lament, in part, goes like this:

                “My sister, tell me Muna is here.

                Tell me she is upon this earth.

                Tell me when she will be back.”

                “She lives across the river. On the other side.

                But she laughs with the flowers, dances with water,

                Blinks with the stars, speaks with the blackbird

and her eyes, they shine.

She weeps with the dew and when she is sad

you will see the mist sinking.”

The other pieces featured are “Clouds”, “Cycles”, “The Grass-cutter”, “The Farmer”, “This Season”, “Her Song”, “Jungles”, “Paths”, “Childhood”, “Evening” and “In the End”.

The volume, slim as it is, is as delectable and heady as fine wine and is best savored in tiny sips. Attractively produced and elegantly illustrated with line drawings, it is free of typos – which is in itself a remarkable achievement for a Nepali publication.

While The Pilgrim can therefore be highly recommended for readers who are unable to read Devkota in Nepali verse, even for those who are familiar with the poet’s works, it could possibly provide many moments of joyful reading.

Ranjan must be encouraged to continue his work both as a translator of top rate Nepali poets but also as a poet himself.