The Story of My Birth

[ As told by my mother ] 

-          Manprasad Subba

 

I’d already overstayed, ensconced

In my young mother’s womb

Utterly refusing to come out

For some reasons unknown.  

 

It was the time when brooks and creeks

With excessive pride had swollen

While my poor mother’s abdomen

Had then so enormously grown.

 

Paddy-fields along the riversides

Were all hopelessly washed away.

And all the green hills and valleys

Were bruised brown and grey.

 

But I continued to stay in the womb

Defying the mighty god of time.

May be the subconscious deep in me

Foresaw my life to be coated with grime.  

 

When in this remote corner of earth

The autumnal breath was first felt,

My embryo was in its eleventh month

But still unwilling to leave that state.

 

One day I chose a dreamy moment

To go out on journey of life on earth.  

The poor young couple, my parents,

Tossed with anxiety awaiting my birth.         

 

As August gave way to September

My mother in pangs lay on the floor

To bring a new life out of her own!

A divine task she knew not before.  

 

For three long days and fretful nights

She had the bouts of gripping pain.

An old midwife came to see her,

A shaman performed the sapok chomen¹  

And as my sudden cry filled the hut

In chorus with the cock’s first crow,

With smiles on lips all eyes lit up, 

A drop of sweat fell from her brow

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1.       Sapok chomen -- A kind of ritual practiced in the Limbu ethnic group and performed by a shaman-priest for the well being of an expectant woman and the baby in the womb.