This time Satis Shroff tells you in his prosepoem about Nepal’s Wandering Minstrels called Gaineys, who go from village to village throughout the country and besondere Northern India with their crude versions of the violin and sing about kings, princesses, love-stories..

PROSEPOEM: A MINSTREL’S SONGS OF LOVE

AND SORROW (Satis Shroff)

Go away, you maya. Disappear.

Haunt me not in

my dreams..

What’s has become of my country?

My grandpa said: “In Nepal even a child Can

walk the countryside alone.” It’s just not true, ist

not for a Nepalese, born with a sarangi in his

hand.

I’m a musician, one of the lower caste in

the Hindu hierarchy. I bring delight to my

listeners, hope to touch the hearts of my

spectators.

I sing about love, hate and evil, kings and

queens, princes and princesses,

The poor and

the rich, and the fight for existence, in the craggy

foothills and the towering heights of the

Himalayas, the Abode of the Snows, where

Buddhist and Hindu Gods and Goddesses

reside, and look over mankind and his folly.

I was born in Tanhau, a nondescript hamlet in

Nepal, were it not for Bhanu Bhakta Acharya

who was born here, the Nepalese poet who

translated the Ramayana, from high-flown

Sanskrit into simple Nepali for all to read.

I remember the first day my father handed me a

sarangi. He taught me how to hold and swing

the bow. I was delighted with the first squeaks it

made, as I moved the bow on the taught

horsetail strings. It was as though my small

sarangi was talking with me in its baby-talk.

I was so happy, I and my sarangi, my sarangi and me.

Tears of joy ran down my cheeks. I was so

thankful.

I touched my Papa’s feet, as is the

custom in the Himalayas. I could embrace the

whole world.

My father taught me the tones, and

the songs to go with them, for we gaineys are

minstrels who wander from place to place, like

gypsies, akin to butterflies in Spring.

We are a restless folk.