Mahesh Paudyal

Proposal for a New World questions the existing philosophical foundations that draw a line of division between divinity and humanism.  It also questions the rampant pessimism that dots post-war imaginations that are utterly pessimistic. Parajuli discovers a new light of hope by seeing the potentiality of divinity in man, and finds solace in universal peace and brotherhood as answer to all sorts of misunderstandings, genocides and wars.

Mahesh Paudyal

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Critic, and Lecturer of English, Tribhuvan University

The epic A Soldier in Search of Peace is presented as a dialogue between two characters—a poet and a solider—who are two conflicting selves of the same person, the poet. Engaged in a serious spiritual crisis, the self and its alter-ego present themselves as two paradigms in the poet’s life—the soldier’s paradigm and the seer’s paradigm. The soldier’s paradigm that has its bearing in the poet’s youthful days is both violent and contemplative, and is a cleft entity, unable to settle in the gun, and unknown about its future course of action. >

The first half of the encounter is that of a crisis that comes about, when the poet is face-to-face with an ‘armed character’, which means, the arguments, zeal and vigor of the armed character is more dominant, while the poet is recessive. The second half is where the poet presents himself as a refuge, and the armed soldier comes into his camp. This means, this time, the soldier is recessive and the poet dominant. Finally, the soldier has abandoned his arms and has dissolved into the personality of the poet. This announces a moral victory of peace over war, of reconciliation over gun, of tranquility over violence and of love over hatred. In no circumstances can the gun justify its presence in the human world. All uses, deployments and exhibitions of guns expose inherent violence rooted deep in the human mind, and can in no way emblematize peace and tranquility. What use is a gun a man picks, if it is not to shoot, deter, intimidate or terrorize? There can be no use of a gun other than these!

Mahesh Paudyal

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Poet and Critic, and Lecturer of English, Tribhuvan University

(Sahityapost.com, 9 June 2020)