Laxmi Prasad Devkota

Photo courtesy: Supral Raj Joshi

 Today is Laxmi Puja, the third day of the Tihar festival in Nepal. Indians call it Diwali but Nepalese know it as "Deepawali".  Incidentally, it also the day of birth of the great poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota, won our hearts with his poems. He was a genius. Even after his untimely demise with cancer, he is remembered as the greatest literary genius Nepal has ever seen. He is and always will be more of a gift or Goddess Saraswati than Laxmi.

The reason I said that was because he never got the chance to enjoy economic prosperity. All of his life, he had to deal with economic hardships and pain. He was once sent to the Mental Hospital in Ranchi to cure whatever was wrong with his mind (according to the belief of his contemporary artists). He was ousted, broken, pushed, and scarred. But he never gave up that fight. He carried on. Even in his deathbed, he loved his art. That is why he lives on via his work.

The lesson we need to learn from him is that, no matter what comes in our life, our talent lives on. We will be immortals if we achieve the maximum. There is no compromise in the success if we achieve the zenith of our capabilities. We might complain about not achieving in our lifetime but that is not what always counts. The thing that counts is the life of our work. The value of our life and our work! The value of the smallest thing that we do!

Laxmi Prasad Devkota will always be an inspiration. No matter where anybody is, those touched by his work will always be inspired by him throughout their lifetime. I won't defend or contradict the fact that his demise was a fault of our society. But I believe that if we take him as a role model then we can achieve greatness in our own fields, we will always be successful. This success will be in our work quality and economic standard.