(Chunu Gurung is the name of a revolutionary women  leader, a poet and a famous cultural activist. She wrote and sang  many revolutionary songs. Her songs are very popular among the oppressed people of  Nepal. She was the Central Committee member of ‘All Nepal People’s Cultural Association’,  a sister organization of CPN ( Maoist) . During the People’s War, she was captured by Royal Army and was brutally assassinated in custody. In the occasion of  March 8, we are posting her famous poem ‘Belisara’. It describes how a   ordinary  village girl  Belisara turned into a guerrilla fighter.)

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 Belisara¹

Days ended before one had time to breathe

Before one had time to rest, at the slope of Kashughat²

Who are coming down: are they cattle or cattle-grazers?

Day and night loiter the gang of killers in the village

Packing consciously

Things at the bottom of doko³, covering with dry leaves

The pile of firewood on the top

Carrying on head, arranging the blade of namlo³

Belisara, covering herself with a dusk-colored shawl

Walks along her path as usual

Faces the murders that have asked the price of life

Many times, walks without fearing a bit

Belisara’s mind itself has changed

She says her courage comes to rise

Her boldness comes to rise

Sometimes the goods at the bottom of doko³, tomato on top of goods

Carrying the leaves of oil-seed Belisara reaches the local market

Safely delivers goods at the place of hiding

Belisara is a female laborer

She is the wife of a poor

Roams about the streets ever with her job

Carries tomato to every house, delivers vegetables

Receives implausible price

Earns the price not of labor but of labor-force

Belisara has ever lived a life of deficit

Why is a master’s life more comfortable than a worker’s?

A concern has entered her mind

Belisara needs to know all these

Really, Belisara these days

Walks at the risk of her life

Says she has got the price of life in the risk

Carries arms and ammunitions frequently here and there

Delivers message: brings it

Selling vegetables, she reaches every place

What against the people is happening at the enemy’s headquarter?:

She reports immediately

Scratching legs infected by rainy-clay

Shedding blood from the body sucked by a leech

Bathes in sweat, smelling sour

Goes out into the working field

Sings a new melody in many a working field

Sings a song that frightens

Sings a song that agitates

Sings a song that pleases the field-workers very much

After working the whole day she comes home in the evening, Belisara

At a time of tiredness

Children want more maize to be fried

Belisara gives birth to future boatmen, who get their fill

Licking nose mucus

Swallowing a lump of soil

Tucking those part of heart into her lap

What does she do the whole night these days?

She makes a new plan

Lighting an oil-lamp, the papers tucked under the pillow,

The document of a lovely world,

Wraps around the girdle, thickened with dirt

Then before the cock crows

Takes it from one place to another

Belisara participates in every field

What would you do to Belisara, should you have the guts to find her?

Maybe make her undergo many an inhuman torture!

Scratch her body making it bare; take her life perhaps!

Chew Belisara’s flesh chopping it into pieces!

What punishment can your search campaign give to Belisara?

Belisara has played with death, already, she fears not

You fear yourself with defeat of your own crusade

Belisara walks carrying bomb inside the grass

Wearing garland of bullets around the neck

Many a time Belisara has fought in the war

Where is a dishful of food for us albeit tasteless?

Where is a dress for our body albeit worn-out?

Where is our cottage albeit a leaking one?

Had you but worked for our interest?

Do you think we shouldn’t speak against you?

Have you allotted any right to us?

Why shouldn’t we retaliate against you?

000

^{1. The name of a typical rural Nepali girl.}

^{2. A place name.}

^{3. Doko is a basket with big eyes all around it which the Nepali farmers use to carry things in. this basket is carried on head with the help of a rope called namlo.}

From : Poems of People’s War