The Saranghi¹ Player

On a dusty street of Katmandu, full
of flashing sounds and streaming
colors and the ever present chant
of the vendors’ vision, he stood
with his wandering eyes matching
the gaze to where his thoughts roamed
- further than I could ever follow into
the deep mystery that is South Asia.

‘Play song, sir’ he asked in the street English
of one who knew the ways of the Western traveler.

I nodded and he began to play some pop hit, but I stopped
him at that point amidst the quizzical looks
of the ever-curious crowd that started to throng around us.

‘A Nepali song” I said ‘I want
to hear a Nepali song.’

A shrug of his shoulders and he began to sing
while the world within earshot froze
around us, all transfixed by the mournful voice
that matched the sound of the bow upon the strings.

A voice filled with the weariness
of longing and life, sorrowful and sweet,
flew me through the Himalayas, across
the green paddies and deep into the heart
of a man long separated from his roots.

On the wind our wings soared into a golden sun
and glided over the silver and purple clouds
through the deep azure of the morning sky
of a soul whose talent when he began to sing
of his Nepali home made God stop
and for that instant the world be still
so He too could stand in awe of a voice
that makes a deity contemplate his own exiles.

On through the winter snows we moved,
on through the rains, on through the summer,
on through the harvest, on through
a tale of when a man has nothing to lose
how can he still lose everything.

Then he finished and immediately the world unfroze
and everyone went to back to their chores
and appointed rounds. I paid him his ten rupees
and he disappeared into the throng, lost
forever from the view of my life.

Lost forever from the view of my life
but not from my heart and mind. For whenever
a sad song graces my ears, whenever thoughts
of exile and loss intrude, whenever the nameless
causes me to awaken and not return to sleep,
some place within me I can see the wandering eyes
of a man and of his song and of his soul

that long forever

for his Nepali home.

¹ A small, four-stringed viola played with a horse-hair bow.