Creative Expressions
Remembering Rajya Laxmi Rana - A MODEL OF GRACE, COURAGE AND DIGNITY
Last year my cousins, Sunil Rana and Sabina Thapa entrusted me with the task of compiling a collection of poems, penned by their beloved mother, the late Rajya Laxmi Rana who passed away on June 2006, after battling valiantly with cancer. I also contacted my cousin Ranjit Rana, their brother who lives in Australia to garner his support in publishing this volume of poetry.
Rajya Laxmi Rana was my maternal aunt. My siblings and I called her ‘Maami’. Though her resemblance to my mother was uncanny, her personality was totally different, and as a child I was drawn to her artistic temperament. She lived next door to us in Thapathali and I visited her frequently. My nanny, Ganga didi would often carry me there. My cousins were elder to me, so I was indulged in this home. Their dog Nicki could perform an array of tricks, and to top it, a pet parrot would amble around the room articulating random words like a Ginsberg Beat poet. I remember sitting on my aunt’s bed, listening to radio plays or geeti- kathaas that she had penned. The stories were always tragic and I had no inkling of the inner turmoil she was going through. Sometimes, she would write poems on scraps of paper which she would hide inside a cigarette box, under her mattress or in the cracks and crevices of the wall. I was too young to understand what was going on but I sensed her sadness. She was delighted by the smallest of things: a drawing that I made or by my childish prattle and would exclaim that I would be an artist one day- after all, I even saw living forms in the pakoras that she cooked for us!
When my family returned from Afghanistan, my aunt had moved from their rambling ancestral durbar in Thapathali to a small cottage in Baluwatar. I learnt that my aunt and her family were going through difficult times. When my uncle passed away at the age of 52, my aunt’s problems were far from over. The ghost of an abusive family member has the tragic ability to live on as the victims cannot speak out, and retain permanent psychological scars from the suffering and the humiliation they have faced over the years. These scars were to haunt and traumatise my aunt forever.
The last phase of my aunt’s life was marked by ill health. She had moved to Sundarijal by then. She was thin, troubled and stressed. She also had a lump in her armpit. On my mother’s insistence, she had a biopsy done and it was revealed that she had cancer. My aunt showed no fear when the news that she had cancer was broken to her. Her entire family rallied around her because she was very special to all of us- her courage, kindness and dignity in the face of such incredible hardship was truly extraordinary.
Her trips to Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital and the chemotherapy sessions exhausted her. Despite all the loving care and medication, the cancer grew and spread with vicious strength and speed. This was a difficult time for her family. My mother suffered too, she wanted her ailing sister to spend her last days in relative comfort. She brought my aunt home and looked after her. My aunt was in a lot of pain as the cancer had spread to her lungs and stomach. One afternoon when she was lucid and could forget the pain, we spent time talking about art. I learnt then that her favourite painter was Shashikala Tiwari -perhaps it was because Shashikala’s paintings celebrated nature, and the images of isolation and solitude were also echoed in her own poems. I talked to her about printing a volume of her poems. She wondered that if she could not print a volume of her poems while she was alive, who would do it after she was dead. She did not fathom our love for her and the esteem she commanded amongst her family and friends.
Some weeks later, I think my aunt sensed her end was near and insisted that she return to her Sundarijal home. She said she missed her grandchildren. I believe she also wanted to die in her own home and was worried about her family. A few days later my mother got a call from Sunil Dai - my aunt had high temperature; she had refused food, she was in a great deal of pain and was delirious. Sunil dai and Sabina diju decided that the Military Hospital in Chhauni would be best for her. At the military hospital, the doctors told us that the cancer had spread to her brain and that she would not make it. The only thing we could do was to make the last days of her life comfortable.
Once the painkillers and antibiotics were administered, my aunt was lucid and comfortable again. She had many visitors: army wives, soldiers she had helped and family members. On the day that she died, she was actually radiant and some of us foolishly thought she would get better. That evening she consumed with relish a meal prepared by her daughter. After her meal, she asked for a cigarette. This set off some confusion about whether she could smoke in the hospital or not, and especially in the condition that she was in. My mother demanded that a cigarette be arranged immediately. I am told that my aunt smoked her cigarette with great enjoyment, after which she lay down and died peacefully with a half smile on her face. She was cremated with full military honours as she was the wife of an army general, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.
Some months after my aunt’s death, I collected her poems from Sunil dai and Sabina diju. I learnt that my aunt had been a member of the Royal Nepal Academy and was well known by the literary giants of her time: Balkrishna Sama, B.P.Koirala, Madhav Prasad Ghimire, Shyamdas Vaishnav, Laxmi Prasad Devkota, Bhim Nidhi Tiwari, etc. I also learnt that my aunt sometimes used a nom de plume ‘Kalpana’ and she would use this wistful name to sign some of her works. Her handwriting was exquisite and I felt desolate when I went through her poems. Though a handful of poems in this collection have dates, I believe that the other poems may have been written between the late 1950’s to the mid 1970’s. I contacted Radio Nepal in the hope of finding some of her radio plays. Though she had penned several plays, this lead proved to be unsuccessful and some of her short stories and poems are lost forever. Sagun Shah, a relative and good friend of my aunt, gave me an important clue. She told me that I might be able to find some my aunt’s poems in Janardan Sama’s library. I immediately contacted Jeevan Rana, Janardan Sama’s son. Jeevan dai was able to locate some poems for me.
I have often wondered what my aunt thought about as she smoked her last cigarette. Though she made her mark as a writer and knew the great literary giants of her time, she was never able to reach her full potential as a writer. Though she was the daughter of a wealthy zamindar and the wife of an army general, her family problems imprisoned and shackled her. Perhaps the half smile that we all saw was an acknowledgement of the mockery of life, or perhaps it was an acknowledgement that her death would set her free at last. Rajya Laxmi’s poems definitely reveal that we lived with a literary personality, and yet we did not acknowledge the gift of her writing in her lifetime.
‘Joonle Pani Polchha’ contains several of my aunt’s moving poems and the only short story we could find. It was important to put this anthology of poems together, to dispel our own ignorance, to honour a woman who braved so many obstacles, and to celebrate the fact that we paid our tributes to her memory in a way that Rajya Laxmi Rana would have loved.
- Sangeeta Thapa
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Sangeeta Thapa is the Art Curator/Director of Siddhartha Art Gallery and Infinity International, a public relations and event management firm.
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