Mukahang Limbu (13) has become the first winner of the national writing competition sponsored by The Sunday Times. His story was one of more than 3000 poems with the theme “home”, submitted by state school pupils.
Mukahang Limbu, who is a student at Oxford Spires Academy moved to the UK after spending his early formative years in Nepal. His poem, “When I Came From Nepal”, is an account of his personal experience and feelings of leaving home and adapting to a new places, eventually making it his new home.
The competition was organised by the charity, First Story and was judged by a panel. The prize was presented by the Duchess of Cornwall.
When I came from Nepal
As I clutched my suitcase...
thick hot sweat
built in the slits
of my palms, which
shook holding its cool
metal brace. We walked
into dry-winds, thick
as dried-out paint
on unwashed canvas.
The sky was painted
daffodil yellow. The ground
was a dirty grey.
There was a metal bird:
an array of fearful,
forgotten
paint.
Missing the feeling of home
I smell the iron rust
of the Municipal Gardens.
The sour tang of home still
sits on the tip of my tongue
like the zest of sweet citrus
fizzling.
I did not know
of grey, gravel roads,
or the bright buzzing,
of scarlet cars.
I did not know
of lonely red-bricked houses,
gazing strangers,
standing next to next,
military officers, in endless rows.
I did not know,
of silence in the streets,
or the secret whispers on the buses,
or the sly gestures of restaurants.
I know now
In this place,
Where I did not know,
the things I did not know
embrace me in the ways
I didn't know.
Mukahang Limbu, 13
