Woes of a Wounded Wanderer

Reviewed by Tenzin Dechen

Conflict of Duality
By Bhuchung D. Sonam
TibetWrites, Dharamshala,
80 pages, Rs.150

THIS COLLECTION OF POEMS BY BHUCHUNG D. Sonam is an outpouring of the heart. His verses read like pages from a diary, revealing the poet’s frustrations, his desires, and his hopes… His words are “a raw and unpolished burst of energy that springs from a deeply wounded soul”. The poems reflect a sense of loneliness, the sorrow of being in exile and a longing for home.

Four Seasons Wailing describes the agony of waiting, waiting as time passes by our door, leaving us behind. “I writhe and retch through a thousand scorched nights”, he writes in Freedom Eludes. But he must hang on to his faith, and he takes refuge in the Buddha, finding peace in prayer.

Then sometimes he indulges in despair, drowning in grief and talking of death when a lifetime of struggles and dreams must end unfulfilled. Despair is followed by bitterness and the feeling of futility of the quest for freedom. In Perforation and Last Resort, we see the warrior tired of war, numbed by the constant pain—

I forgot my tears somewhere

Along life’s tortuous path”.

However, it cannot break his spirit. In 1000th Day in Drapchi Solitary Confinement the poet describes the fate of a political prisoner in Tibet, beaten yet defiant with a biting sarcasm. In Duel, we see the resilience of a phoenix as he writes with renewed vigour-

With truth running through me I will fight
With every ounce of my strength I will fight
With my last dying breath I will fight.

However, it is the occasional poignant verse like Wish of a Dead Tibetan that tugs at the heartstrings, bringing tears to the eyes. Here we see a glimmer of hope in a dead man who wishes that he might be born again as a little fish in a brook in Tibet. The most memorable poems are A Room without a Door, which brings out the quiet angst of the poet and I Saw a Chinese Man, in which he marvels that a Chinese man looks just like him, so unlike the beastly enemy he had imagined.

The poet runs the entire gamut of emotions in his verses. His words are the window to his room without a door. And what we find inside echoes the feelings of an entire generation of exiled Tibetan youth. In the title poem, he shows us the paradoxes of life, alluding to his own personal conflicts as he longs for the peace that can only be found in his own land, in the land full of icy white peaks.

Other books of poems by Bhuchung D.Sonam are Dandelion of Tibet and Muses In Exile: An Anthology of Tibetan Poetry. His forthcoming book: Crazy Diligence: Life and Works of Thangton Gyalpo.

Tenzin Dechen is a third-year student of journalism and communication studies at the Manipal Institute of Communication.