Finding My Soul in Kathmandu

<p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Above all else Sushant Thapa's Finding My Soul in Kathmandu is a book of wandering </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>a pilgrimage of the soul. The author also partakes in literal wanderings as he travels </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>the country on planes and buses strolls the streets of Kathmandu filled with water </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>and bread sellers walks in his garden and embarks on a personal pilgrimage as in </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>the poem A New Day. Sushant Thapa's writing is both reflectively philosophical and </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>filled with a sensual immediacy dominated by recurring flower motifs the music </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>of Patti Smith and Lana Del Rey as well as jazz. Flowers and fragrance ooze out of </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>the pages where the author notes the color of devotion/Makes me open my eyes. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In the poem I Am a Flower Mr. Thapa puts forth the notion of living one's life as </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>an offered exultation to God where the author proclaims: I make your sky more </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>colorful/I make your sunset more purple. In other poems flowers are used as </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>bookmarks and their fragrance enjoyed in others such as the poem Being a Teacher </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>the teacher sees his students as Bright bulbs of brilliance - instruments of growth </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>and guidance. In fact childhood experience is another prominent feature of this </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>book whether it be the author's own that of his students or that of his young niece </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>as in the poem Sketch of Myself. There is also an underlying tension in the book with </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>a subtle backdrop of war as well as a sometimes uneasy dependence or wrestling </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>of modernity with tradition as in the title poem of the book where The birth of </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>modernity/Rests on the shoulders of enthralling/Traditions. The writing itself </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>is very fluid mirroring the constant presence of water throughout and one gets the </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>idea that Sushant Thapa has not only found his soul in Kathmandu but has taken </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>you along on his wonderfully vibrant journey of sensual longing. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>- Ryan Quinn Flanagan (Author of Kiss the Heathens)</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p>