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At
23 Pallav Ranjan is on his way to make his presence prominent in
contemporary English literature. This young Nepali poet is alo the
translator of The Pilgrim, the volume of translations of
Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s poems, editor of Spiny Babbler, a poetry
journal and the director of Editorial Services, a group which deals
in editorial jobs from translations, layouts to printing and publishing.
Pallav
Ranjan was born on the 13th of November 1971. He studied
in Saint Xaviers’s Godavari and Jawalakhel till 10th
standard and tried a year at St. Xavier’s College, Jawalakhel in
I.Sc. He dropped out and joined Nepal Traveller, the travel journal
instead because, he says, “I could learn much more working there
than spending my time in the college.” But a year at the college
proved beneficial to him in other ways. “I met wonderful teachers
there, like Greta Rana who helped me a lot later in my several ventures.”
Pallav worked in Nepal Traveller for three years, one year
of which he was an assistant editor. He left the office last year
to set up his own office of Editorial Services. This office is a
group of 8 young people working together, doing translations for
basically NGOs and INGOs, editing papers for them, designing, and
other related jobs. Now they are also going to take over the job
of publishing Kalilo, the journal for the children being published
so far by an NGO.
During
the period, he worked as a volunteer in Awon Library for three years,
where he did extensive reading, of things that interest him – poetry,
literature, social subjects and others. He has also worked for Adventure
Nepal on contract, and The Nepal Looms and other tourism
trade magazines.
He
started working on Spiny Babbler since he was with Nepal
Traveller. It is a poetry journal, a collection of contemporary
poems of the poets from Nepal and abroad. “I wrote letters to many
poetry journals aboard to print my poems. The response from their
side was not good. Most of the time they don’t answer and you have
to send a self-addressed envelope with the stamps of their countries
to get it back. There are lots of hassles. Then I thought of starting
my own poetry journal. That would make things easier for the writers
of English poetry in our country. I also get the poems from other
countries and the poetry lover of our country can enjoy the present
day poems of the western world, it provides them with western flavour.”
By far three issues of Spiny Babbler, the quarterly, has
been out and the 4th one, which is going to be a Greta
Rana special edition, will soon be out.
Pallav
started working on ‘Maya My Love’, a novel, from Nov. 13 1994 and
it took him 7 months to complete it. It is a story of a flesh trader
who takes girls and women from villages and sells them to brothels
in Bombay. With very powerful expression of minor details, Pallav
has largely been able to do justification to the characters in the
novel. The movie copy right of the novel has been brought by Media
Alert.
Early
this year, he published 'The Pilgrim', translation of poems
of Laxmi Prasad Devkota. The book contains the poet’s 13 poems.
He
has also completed ‘The Fifth Tier’, a travel book, which
is due to be released in August this year. The book contains pieces
of his writing previously published in Nepal Traveller and
other journals. The pieces are mostly fictions, with details on
the tourist sites and culture, norms and values of the society of
the country.
Currently,
the big project Pallav is working on is the translation of the holy
book Swasthani into English. He started it in 1992 and is being
ceased for the time being. “I wanted to translate Swasthani because
it is based on the pure Nepali culture. It is pure Nepali. Ramayan
is basically an Indian story, as well as Mahabharat, Swasthani Bratta
Katha is something very Nepali, the location there is Nepali and
actions take place mostly in Nepal only.” In his view, people would
read the translation to know about Nepal. It would be a good reference
for the scholars too.
His
future plans consist of completing Swasthani, finding a good publisher
for ‘Maya My Love’, (may be a foreign publishing house), bringing
out the collection of his own poems which he has named ‘An Introduction
toAfter Life’ and he also has plans to go on a cross country mountain
bike ride.
This
devoted guy scored 73% in his SLC and instead of attending colleges,
started creating works of literature. His parents are divorced,
his mother and sister living in America and father in Swayambhu.
Let this be a lesson for those who take up drugs and hang around
in filthy akhadas in the name of their irresponsible mother or unloving
father. Pallav could easily have fallen in the line and blamed their
parents. It is something that he is already on his way to making
history. His father was a journalist and mother a poet. He must
have possessed it in blood. He does not smoke and his hobbies include
travelling and cycling. “Cycling is a very exciting thing. When
you go all the way up to a hill and then come down in that speed,
it’s wild.”
And
for WAVE readers, he says, “Don’t be bullied by your parents. You
should know what you want to do. You can make a living by doing
anything. People say you cannot earn by writing, look I’m earning.
I’m making my living by my writing.” Or be a rebel with a cause.
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