Wednesday 29 December 2010
along infinite time
above a nest
a whisper of promise
down below
the gurgling of river
somewhere, along infinite time
a speck of knowledge
where've all the wisdom gone?
a whisper of promise
down below
the gurgling of river
somewhere, along infinite time
a speck of knowledge
where've all the wisdom gone?
Right foot on the brakes!
One cold wintry morning, exactly at 8:50 AM, Chayphee drove his car inches behind a Toyota Land Cruiser. On such a cold morning, for neither was he a prophet nor an astrologer, it was hard for him to predict the moves and whims of the driver in front.
To add to that, at breathing intervals, he let out thick vapors from his mouth that he could literally count the water droplets at two thousand. Every droplet from these two thousand at every breath settled on the windshield that he had to defog it. Defogging poses a serious issue when the engine refuses to warm up during winter. But then, we will forget this for now.
For the better part of his morning drive to the office, he completely lay at the mercy of his driving skills and humanlike non-prophetic travel of the machine ahead.
His blood pressure didn’t agree well with someone who drove in front, having neither the decency nor the respect to use the indicator lights. So, there he was, his right foot on the brakes, ready to press it without warning, anytime!
As he cursed, fuming water droplets at his nose that settled on the windshield, he faintly heard himself through the song on the radio “Babesa, Babesa… Babesa joemi taxi lesha dhu… (Babesa, Babesa… There are taxis, so many, going to Babesa)”:
“The car manufacturers should export cars to Bhutan without indicator lights!”
He wondered if it was the ignorance of the drivers in Thimphu to use the indicator lights that made them suffer the unintelligent congestions that plagued the tiny city. For all he knew, in a city where more than 70% of the drivers were educated, it was quite unfortunate for them to suffer that way!
For an instant, which appeared like an eternity to him, he basked in the singular thought-exercise that all drivers in the city used their indicators, that they drove on the right lanes, and that they rendered each other the respect of safe driving.
But then, there was this Land Cruiser in front, defying all the rules of safe driving. The Land Cruiser would unexpectedly cut junctions, maneuver turns on the wrong lane, stop without prior notice in front, and start talking with someone in the street.
Chayphee couldn’t endure it anymore. He felt the whole bearing falling upon him that he felt a tingling sensation in his eyebrows and a fierce shriek in his ears, which rendered him motionless in his own car.
As he opened his eyes, he was in a different set up where everything was white. Even the man near him was in a white gown. As he prepared to leave, the man in white gown wrote on his prescription: Blood pressure- 180/120.
# posted by Sonam Phuntsho @ Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Thursday 16 December 2010
Of Climate Change, Talking Fishes and the Himalayas
The glacial lakes far north in the country had all burst and the rivers across the Himalayas had turned pitch brown, and the atmosphere was adorned with the most powerful smells of soil and nature. Plant debris floated on the angry rivers as they knocked against each other producing the most hideous thuds.
Two large fishes had been washed ashore along the banks of Punatsang-chu right on to the grounds of Khuruthang after a flash flood.
The sky was cast with a depressing family of clouds. Lightning struck and thunders clapped, rolling loud into the gills of the fishes on the bank. Shortly, it was followed by rain. As the droplets severely fell on the leaves of the trees, they cut through them like knives and cooked the eyes of the two large fishes on Khuruthang ground.
One of the fishes had the strength and thus the wisdom to shout, “Cop15”, followed by the second fish’s, “Failure” and died painfully of acid rain.
The year was 2080 the fishes had spoken for the first and the last time.
Down south, their oceanic cousins had all died, due to a rise in temperature and acidity of the ocean.
The rate at which the greenhouse gases were produced as a result of human activities had reached its peak and the oceans had started warming at a rate 50 times more than the atmosphere.
The water vapors from the oceans and seas floated high up and towards the mountains forming nebulous clouds. Across the Himalayas, the weather had become unpredictable and inhospitable for human settlement. Here, the atmosphere was bombarded by thunders, roasted by lightening and rummaged by heavy rainstorms.
The land had given itself up to chronic landslides, high magnitude earthquakes, and in some parts, boiling volcanoes.
Typhoons, cyclones, and windstorms ruled at sea. The ocean beds had become a melting pot of magma.
As the effects of global warming started taking its toll, first it affected the flora and fauna, then the drinking water followed by a decline in hydropower generation and ultimately the economy and the people of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.
Natural disasters spread around the globe with human beings getting trapped in the gaping earth as earthquakes of cosmic magnitudes began.
Most of them were also killed as they got washed away by the flash floods and swelling rivers. Fiery volcanoes that ensued in most parts of the world consumed the population.
Most of them were also killed as they got washed away by the flash floods and swelling rivers. Fiery volcanoes that ensued in most parts of the world consumed the population.
A pestilence of a rare kind followed fostered by the warm weather.
The human race was on the brink of extinction. The population of the developing world had all perished in the face of nature.
The capitalistic hunger of the developed nations that made them produce and consume more than they needed, followed by telescopic global warming led to this dire situation.
The year 2080 was a complete end in the era of human settlement in the Himalayas.
Starting from puny ants on earth to birds flying high in the sky, to the fishes in the oceans had breathed their last and were expecting reincarnation in a world better than the one inhabited by the humans.
Friday 3 December 2010
Down the wayside puddle
In monsoon, the raindrops
In rhythm
And your feelings
Flow
Down the wayside puddle
Straight into my thoughts
At once wet
And then, warm
Feelings rhyme
In raindrops
You, me and
This poetry in music
Dissolve
Down the wayside puddle…
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