Whipping Words

2011-01-24T21:20:00.004+06:00

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Right foot on the brakes!

2010-12-29T09:36:00.001+06:00

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 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

Of Climate Change, Talking Fishes and the Himalayas

2010-12-16T12:21:00.001+06:00

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 were 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. Lightening 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 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 decline in hydropower generation and ultimately the economy and the people of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.

The 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.

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.

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.

The whole charade of these results were the selfish decisions taken at cop15 by the privileged and capitalistic developed countries!

Far Away

2010-10-03T13:23:00.004+06:00

It was raining outside, and the raindrops trickled down the windowpanes. She stared into the glass and her image looked back at her, piteously. “Far away”, she thought. And deep into her thoughts she flew away, away to a land where everything was blissful. Colorful. There, she dreamt a life of unhindered joy, where everyone was gentle and kind, where everyone did their business without poking each other’s noses.

She had been staring into the glass for more than an hour when she came to reality, with a start. She checked the rooms. He was still not home. It was 10 PM already. Where in the world would he be at this hour, she wondered.

Dead into the night, he was with his friends, drinking and making merry. Time to time, he took out a lump of dark matter nicely covered in a plastic. He took a portion from it, pierced a needle into it, took a match, lighted it and burned the portion to some degree. After that, he mixed the roasted matter with tobacco, rolled it up in a paper neatly and appreciated his handiwork from an arm’s length.

They smoked the roll, passing it round like a relay-race token. On the other hand, they held a plastic glass of the finest whiskey the country produced. The bottle was labeled “Special Courier”. Shortly then, someone stood up and shouted “photo session”. Everyone tried to put on his or her best smiles, and as the camera panned, a statue of the lord Buddha rose as the background. Once the photo was taken, they shouted their lungs out, in a way of making merry. Someone even, lumped down, out of sheer drunkenness and intoxication of illegal matters.

As Chayphee reached out for his mobile, which was ringing incessantly, he spoke into the mouthpiece so loud that a good deal of saliva had accumulated on it. On the other end, a crazy lady was blurting out, questioning him of his late outing. It was sometime before he realized it was his wife. He told her he would be home as soon as possible that he was in town attending to some urgent work. He hung up only to realize it had passed 1 AM in the morning. Few more sips from the glass, and more puffs from the joint rendered him almost senseless, afterwards.

He crawled on the slippery grounds, without either the benefit of his legs or his friends carrying him on their backs. His friends had dropped him till the motor-able road. His chest was bruised and he was bleeding profusely.

He swam across a small muddy puddle, across the drain and crawled his way up the stairs. He knocked on a few doors up late into the morning when finally he discovered his right flat. His wife opened the doors for him.

He was dripping blood mixed with mud when he slumped into his bed with his boots on.

His wife grimaced, thinking of that far away land. And as she slept on the sofa, that image of the beautiful far away land loomed across her eyelids and soon fell into a deep slumber. It was there that she felt real, in her dreams, and she slobbered late into the sunny afternoon…

My First Krackjack Smile

2010-08-13T19:52:00.001+06:00

It was when I was in class four that the year was 1992, and krackjack biscuits were all the rage that I fell in love with a girl.

At the age of 12, one’s heart is still tender with your brain still knitting its lobes that you discover an extraordinary taste for biscuits. In 1992, krackjack biscuits went very well with our class four taste buds.

Students with rich parents would buy krackjack biscuits and send them over to their best girls. And the best girls, in turn, would give them their best smiles that made the boys think they owned a fraction of the world, which was hardly true.

Boy, that was some age! For the rich little guys, though…

On a Tuesday afternoon with the sun high up in the sky, class four students were out in the open with the Dzongkha teacher telling tales of pancakes and old folks.

I, for one, didn’t agree so well with the sun and the heat. I would go all red in the face and sweat to some acceptable degrees that I almost hated my Dzongkha teacher.

A girl named Rinzin in my class was quite a beauty that eased my hatred towards my Dzongkha teacher during such sun-outings.

I always dreamt of buying her krackjack biscuits… only money saved me from doing it…

One day, a rich friend of mine called me, pushed a packet of krackjack biscuit into my gho and whispered in my ears to give it to my beautiful Rinzin from him.

And there, my dreams of buying her krackjack biscuits faltered like a thousand bees in agitation in my ears, and saw stars on a broad daylight...

I walked towards my Rinzin, gave her the biscuits and pretended to whisper something into her ears. She looked at my rich friend, and smiled at me.

And that is how I earned my first krackjack smile…

Fear that reeks of liquor, smoke and madness

2010-04-18T22:53:00.003+06:00

Can we give names to fear? Well, can I, for that matter, give names to it?

Mm… To start with, lets say, fear is a day named Sunday. Or better yet, fear is a taxi full of drunken people. Fear is, so we continue, when those people in the car abuse you screamingly! “If you are a girl, I love you. If you are a beetle, hate you like hell!”

There is a point to note… I don’t want a bunch of drunken people to love me either. But it is a shame to realize that we are not allowed by our conscience to hate monks. Ah, it sickens you to see a bunch of them sitting in a taxi, robed in maroon uniform, reeking of liquor.

You fear they might attain enlightenment right in front of you, with the taxi driver, who is drunk too when they are covered with blood, off road. You also fear you might slide off the road speeding at 80 kilometers per hour with the men in robes cutting chase on you, and you fear that they might spell mantras on you.

You fear it is dark. And at some point in time, you fear religion. No. You fear men of religion. You fear what liquor can do to them. You fear they smoke. You fear that they shout. You fear they are mad.

I don’t say it is wrong to drink or smoke. I don’t say it is wrong to wear maroon robes. I don’t say it is wrong to shout. I don’t say, it is wrong to be mad. I only say it is wrong to drink or smoke, or shout or be mad when drunk when you are wearing a maroon robe.

Well, in the end, fear is a man in a robe who stinks of liquor, smokes and that shouts a lot.

Point of views- a lizard story

2010-03-30T23:39:00.005+06:00

In a room, where only silence prevails, is a man standing on the floor.

In good time, he looks up at the ceiling and sees a lizard, equally staring at him.

Same thoughts resonate through the room, breaking the silence…

The man thinks “a lizard hanging on to the ceiling”.

Slowly, as you move up to the lizard’s standpoint, you hear it think “a man hanging on to the ceiling”.

Moral of the story:
Point of views, and choices of perspectives are what make even lizards right in this bamboozling world!

Lethargic

2010-03-25T01:47:00.002+06:00

Lethargy.

The last time he suffered this disease was when he was fifteen. Ever since, the disease had put up so well with him.

Lying down in his bed alone, a prickly fear crept over his person that he decided to drink some beer. No sooner had the beer flowed down to his liking, he had a strong desire to smoke.

He lit himself a smoke and looked at the side of the wall where portraits of his parents and siblings were put on.

His dad seemed to look at him with those stern eyes, as though, he was lashing him hard with those looks.

But, there were days when his dad lashed him even though he didn’t smoke or drink.

He let those thoughts linger on for sometime. All the same, he went strong with beer and smokes.

By the time, the beer was gone, it was already time for his bed.

He slept like a log for a very long time.

No one knows if he got up after that.... ever!

2052 (Part II- The Last Khar-Shing)

2010-03-15T13:15:00.001+06:00

Agent P from the intelligence department flew his car inches apart from the seawater-pump tank, and got into a building, which was, initialed “Cultural Productions” that was also floating in stratosphere…

Agent P, from the intelligence department, was also a super star in the adult film industry, an occupation he took up as a cover up to his core profession.

In 2052, the only culture that survived of human originality was pornography. It was one-thing human beings valued, and the only thing that survived through test of time. And adult movies were made in the original and human technique. Other than that, even human reproduction happened through artificial methods.

Human beings languished in easy life of luxury. And all odd jobs were carried out by humanoids.

But there were people like agent P who followed in unrest of their spirits and sought after improving themselves and people around them.

As agent P got out of his car, he touched his little finger on his dashboard, which was also a computer. In the process, the high profile data encrypted and stored in the dashboard computer got transferred to his little finger.

The human body was used as mass data storage device. The little finger alone could store peta-bytes of data.

When fingers were used as data storage devices, the thumb was known as thumb-drive. And likewise, the little finger was known as the pinky-drive.

After agent P transferred all the top-secret data to his pinky-drive successfully, he got out of his car and entered the studio.

All the (adult-making) film crew was already on the set, ready to start their next much-hyped adult flick “The Last Khar-Shing”. Agent P, in filmmaking circle, was known as Khar-Shing. There at the set, Khar-Shing was welcomed with such vigor and energy that there ran a little tremor across the entire set.

He went to his dressing room, got undressed and entered the set, where more than three cameras were already pointing at him and his member in its complete originality. By and by, his co-star entered the set, and everything was being acted and shot according to the script.

As the acting exercise progressed, things started getting wild and Khar-Shing, out of sheer pleasure and experiment, inserted his little finger into a place where I am neither allowed to speak nor indicate out loud in public writing. As luck would have it, the top-secret data got transferred into that unspoken orifice.

During the break, his co-star went to the rest room and relieved off the top-secret data with her feces and was lost forever.

The shooting went on for two long hours, and when Khar-Shing couldn’t keep up with his acting, the day was called for and the set wrapped up.

Immediately after that, Khar-Shing as agent P reported to his intelligence department headquarters to submit the top-secret data that was critical to national security. At the touch of his pinky-drive to the mainframe, nothing happened. His boss gave him a disgruntled look and ordered him to use his thumb-drive. But he had forgotten to keep a backup of the data.

A special team was dispatched to check agent P head to toe and retrieve the data. But it was a lost cause. Nothing could be retrieved from him.

Agent P, under the direct order of the president, was condemned to be executed in troposphere, where the atmosphere was bombarded by thunders, roasted by lightening and rummaged by heavy rainstorms, the following hour.

As he laid hit by lightening and heavy rainstorm in troposphere, the smelly feces that contained the top-secret data wisped his nostrils and together, they were doomed in good time.

Whiskey Kiss

2010-03-10T00:50:00.005+06:00

There was excitement in the room.

Our hero, in his acts of utmost love, was full of expectations: Expectations that spoke of something undone, that something that hints of perpetual waiting. And, at this moment in time, he was expecting a call, or even a short message text, that we so prefer to call sms, from the one he loved. And thus, time passed on, with a glass of whiskey by his study table.

Well, if I have forgotten to brief my worthy readers of our hero who was a mild drinker that a few glasses of whiskey would have made him feel he had conquered the world, then I would have not done our hero justice.

He sat there, our hero, with his ripened tomato eyes fixated at something he sought to find a meaning and semblance to. His reason failed him, like it always did. But those were strong gaze, but the object didn’t budge a bit. The mobile phone just sat there, with no life of its own.

He took another sip from the glass of whiskey, his second glass for the evening.

No extraordinary thoughts passed through his faculty of thoughts at this hour in time. He just sat there with those commonplace thoughts. He thought about his love: how her hair played with his hands. And how his hands touched them, smelling its scent time to time. The sweet scent of “Pantene” shampoo filling his nostrils, it was a beautiful night. And the kiss, the kiss had so taken our hero that a sea of butterflies had flown into the starless night, rendering our hero with that extraordinary vision for butterflies. So, did the night pass on, with the night so much to offer our characters! But these were thoughts flying wild in our singular hero’s mind.

By and by, the story wont be complete without a flashback into that extraordinary night, when heaven had broken loose, and our hero saw a glimpse of hope in the life and love he was after.

Yes, it was a Saturday night, but the date of which so escapes me; I only hope, my readership forgives me of my forgotten dates, and read on, as I unravel the events of that extraordinary night.

“Can you pass me that? ” was the sentence of the night that had charmed our hero. But the girl who had uttered those words had taken his fancy a long time back, three years, so to say.

And there they sat; face to face, only separated by that “thing” and the disturbing silence that followed.

After having passed “that” thing the beautiful girl had asked for, the warm feelings you get from the inside had started showing on our hero’s face.

Now, with passing time, our hero had blushed to some acceptable degrees.

Two glasses of wine, two glasses of wine had our beautiful girl drowned than she chose to break heaven loose.

“You know”, she started with, “ I love you, but I had a boyfriend then” she claimed, eyes teary.

Wine makes some beautiful ones teary, and others confess their true feelings. She was facing both ends of the ordeal.

Our hero pinched himself twice to confirm he was not dreaming.

She heard her say, “I love you” once again through tears. Joys knew no bounds, and happiness jumped in his stomach so much so that our hero kissed her exactly twice on her forehead.

An awkward silence ensued afterwards. But his dreams had come true.

She was his now. They kissed for rest of the evening.

Back in the room, the mobile beeped just in time. The sms read “ I miss you already” but our hero was too drunk to comprehend it.

2052 (Part I)

2010-03-09T11:13:00.003+06:00

The sky was abuzz and filled with flying automobiles, buildings and factories.

The automobiles in the sky left a trail of water vapor behind them, since they were running on seawater.

In the year 2052, the concern was not carbon dioxide but water vapor.

The little land left on earth after the greenhouse effect was in another great peril.

Due to advanced technology, the automobiles started operating on seawater, producing gallons of water vapor, filling the troposphere with clouds. The clouds in turn produced lightening, thunder and rain in plenty that it rendered the surface of the earth inhospitable for human settlement.

The combined team of scientists, philosophers, engineers and politicians of the world came to an agreement that the future of the earth was in stratosphere.

Accordingly, the earthlings shifted 11 kms above the earth's surface and into the atmosphere. The mission to mars had failed long time back.

The cities existed floating in sky now, made possible by precise planning and execution of works through advanced technologies and usage of seawater.

Well in 2052, everything ran on seawater.

And the atmosphere below stratosphere was a living hell, bombarded by thunders, roasted by lightening and rummaged by heavy rainstorms. This part of atmosphere was used for execution of convicts.

In the year 2052, you no longer saw the clouds above you. As the water vapor, released from automobiles to buildings and skyscrapers and factories, descended below the city, it formed a layer beneath it.

It was an unlikely sight to observe the blanket of white clouds if you looked down from your car, named model H2O, in 2052.

Agent P from the intelligence department flew his car inches apart from the seawater pump tank, and got into a building, which was, initialed “Cultural Productions” that was also floating in stratosphere…

A Sunday Morning Prayer

2010-03-04T02:10:00.004+06:00

My alarm clock beeps at 7 AM on a fine Sunday morning.

A touch of expert snooze puts it back to sleep.

It comes alive at 7.15 again.

Another touch of expert snooze…

When it beeps at 7.30, I can’t take it anymore and decide to reset the alarm at 8.30, which I calculate, gives me another good hour for sleep.

Silence, only broken by random snores and conceited farts, ensues for rest of the morning until the blasted alarm clock wakes me up at 8.30 again, and I feel too lazy to snooze or reset it.

In bed, I challenge my limited reasons on why we are designed to sleep and then wake up. And wake up, and then sleep. Useless, I feel. I could sleep on forever, I tell myself. Half asleep.

Before I get to the tail of the matter, it is already 8.55 AM.

I challenge myself a little longer.

It’s totally useless; I have to get up, anyway. But I let myself trail a little longer; sleep looks more convincing. Even promising, to me.

I grunt under my breath “Only if I hadn’t borrowed that car…” and get out of the bed.

The cold, at once, attacks my unprotected areas.

“Winter” Another muffled grunt.

I am on the verge of another challenge with myself on seasons, but the underwear clenched between the cheeks of my bottom saves the morning of it.

I release the under-garments from the bottom arrest, and proceed to the bathroom, which in a way gives me a sense of unspoken comfort.

Once inside the bathroom, I have to rub my eyes that would have produced a fire in prehistoric age to see myself clearly in the mirror.

It strikes me then that I have to relieve my bladders of its burden.

Why then, I start again; I wasted my time rubbing my eyes! I could have peed perfectly well without looking in the mirror, or with my blurry eyes for that matter!

I position myself beside the western relief pot and start peeing, all the same.

A quick shudder over the spines, and the business is over.

“Mm.. “ I almost say it loud, feeling the total relief in it!

I clutch my toothbrush, which I can easily locate with my clear eyes and nearly curse myself for putting up the challenge, a few moments previously, to myself. Then all over again, I almost have that rare nature to thank myself for having my eyes rubbed first, but I control it.

As I apply toothpaste on the brush, I close the bathroom door, and everything happens behind the bolted door.

I come out of the bathroom and look myself in the dressing mirror.

Two unpleasing hairs are peeping out of my nose at me. Without any investigation and consideration, I pull them out.

I look better in the mirror now.

I apply everything that has to be applied on a man’s face and hair after that.

Another look in the mirror, and I cannot recognize myself.

Promise!

I make some faces before the mirror to confirm it’s me that is in the mirror.

At long length, I smile, and the dimples on my cheeks give away (my identity).

Immediately, I start putting on my clothes. By the time I am done, it is almost 9.30.

I grab the car and the bungalow keys. On my way out, I carry my backpack.

I lock the door behind me, and head towards the car. It is an old Maruti 800.

I walk towards the car dickey. “Suzuki” in blue is written in bold letters. I am guessing, the owner wrote it to remind him that the car is a Suzuki make.

I open the dickey and trash my backpack.

Now, I am behind the wheels. I say a little prayer before I start the engine.

A twist at the key, and a promising sound from the engine, but it dies immediately.

I say another prayer, and a longer one this time. I make an attempt at the key. The engine totally fails on me.

I come out and curse. It is longer than the prayer.

I even kick at the tyres!

Useless piece of machine, I shout!

I bring myself to form.

I am thinking I will jumpstart the car. To do that, I have to push the car a little more than 10 meters to take it to the part of the road, which is downhill.

I give a little push to the car and it moves.

Oh, I say, it is easy.

But I think again, like an educated engineer. It strikes me that there is no one inside the car to stop it once the car reaches downhill.

I look skyward. Almost believing god exists.

I wait a few moments more.

Common sense drives me to call the guard at duty.

I jumpstart the car with his help, and I am on my way to Thimphu.

Once I reach Thimphu, the car owner is all set to go to Paro and reach his cousins to school. But, he wants me to drive the car.

He says, “I am driving the other car”. In short, the better one.

I say multiple prayers under my breath. All unheard, but very strong ones!

I drive that car whole Sunday, and go to bed exhausted at night, more from praying than driving it.

Crazy in My Head!

2010-02-23T19:44:00.005+06:00

This is how a boy went crazy in his head. Before long he was done writing the following piece, he had gone bonkers in his head:

Impossible!

Most Dutchmen said, ¨I am crazy in my head¨.

¨We ought to ship him off to Spain¨.

I say he's seen a housefly's brain.

I say, the water that we drink is full of bugs!

He is mad, we think!

¨They called me dumpkopf, which means a dolt¨.

That's how we got the microscope!

On a gloomy monday afternoon

2010-01-21T18:27:00.002+06:00

It was a gloomy Monday afternoon. The sky was overcast with thick clouds as black and diabolic as hell.

Chayphee got out of his bed, lighted a cigarette and ran his tongue along the back of his teeth. It was thick and unclean. And it tasted funny too.

As he smoked from the cigarette, he blew ringlets into the air and observed them disappear.

Finally, he got out of his bed and decided to wash up.

He surveyed around to witness large heaps of clothes strewn carelessly across the room.

Nothing seemed right. Nothing was right.

But, it was not the best of times to judge, let alone clean the room.

Once inside the toilet, as he sat on the pot, lazy thoughts ran but one caught his mind: what next?

He had stayed this way for the past two months. Doing nothing. Just sleeping nights and days away, interrupted only by those few moments for quick meals.

Somewhere, along time, he had lost purpose in his life. Where did I go wrong, he would ask himself.

What is the purpose of living?

Meaningless.

Life was meaningless for him now.

He would walk into the streets and see people laugh with mirth. It scared him: Laughter roaring into the emptiness of living. What next?

On this particular morning, he took a shower, shaved his chin clean and wore a clean set of his favorite clothes.

As he set himself up on the noose, the purpose became clear. But he was too dead to live it.

Along the passage of wisdom

2009-12-29T18:23:00.002+06:00

Please, do not come
To find me
This way
Along the passage of wisdom
You and I
Are drunk
And senseless
To embarrassing beats

But, this life...
At once sweet
Then, bitter
Recklessly we live

along infinite time

2009-12-29T18:10:00.001+06:00

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?

lazy

2009-12-17T20:17:00.000+06:00

when life is easy
you become lazy
no other reason
why you stay
lazy
because it is easy

THE LADY WITH THE LOVELY BLACK HAIR

2009-12-16T16:54:00.000+06:00

"Wait!" called out Tashi, tugging at his young companion, attired in jeans and woolen jacket. "Did you see her?"

"I did, what a beauty, a full moon to a cloudless sky."

"Which one are you talking about?"

"I am talking about that one, the one with the dark hair. And those eyes! My God, what eyes! The entire bearing and the contours! The cast of the face- amazing!"

"Actually, I am talking about the dyed blonde who was walking behind her, in that direction. Why don't you go for the dark one if she so took your fancy?"

"What an idea!" exclaimed the young man in jeans, flushing, "As if she is one of those women who flaunt themselves in Thimphu streets at night; She must be an extremely distinguished lady", he continued with a sigh, "Her necklace alone must have cost her 15,000 ngultrums!"

"You dolt!" shouted Tashi, pushing him in the direction taken by her billowing necklace:

"Get on a move, you stupid, or you'll lose her! And I'll go for the blonde."

The two friends parted.

"We know your kind”, Tashi mused with a conceited and self-assured smile, convinced that there was no beauty who could withstand him.

The young man in jeans set off with a timid and hesitant step in the direction of the sparkling necklace, which billowed in the distance, shining brightly as it approached the street lights, and the next instant moving away to be swallowed in the gloom. His heart pounded as he involuntarily quickened his step. He dared not contemplate the possibility of attracting the attention of this elusive beauty, let alone admit such lewd thoughts as those friend Tashi had been suggesting, he only wanted to see where his beauty was headed, to find the destination of this divine creature, who it seemed, had descended directly from heaven onto Norzin Lam and was floating away to some unknown destination. He himself dashed along so fast that he repeatedly knocked from the pavement indifferent dark-bearded gentlemen.

This young man belonged to that class, which constitutes one of the strange phenomena of our life, which is as much part of Thimphu citizenry as a person seen in a dream is a part of the real world. This unique class is the most remarkable in a city where migration from the rural to urban areas seeking a better life is a common place. Our young man was a class twelve PCA (pass certificate awarded) candidate. But, who was not eligible for further studies. A strange phenomenon, do you not agree? A dropout after class twelve! A dropout in the land of mountains, a dropout in the land of Drukpas, where everything is green, rough, pale, grey, and misty. These dropouts bear little resemblance to their Bhutanese counterparts, as proud and peace loving as Bhutan and its mountains; these, on the contrary, are for most part, kind and meek people, shy and unworldly, people who are quietly devoted to job seeking, and fond of drinking beer with their two friends in a small bar, modestly discussing the subject closest to their hearts and scorning all luxury. They are frequently endowed with genuine talent, and were the fresh wind of new jobs to blow on them this talent would probably blossom as freely, generously and brightly as a potted plant which has at last been brought outdoors into the fresh air. On the whole, they are timid: a star and an imposing desire will reduce them to such a state of trepidation that they involuntarily lower their standard to join some teaching institutes. Such type was our young man, 'the dropout after class twelve ' Yezer, shy and retiring, but nourishing in his heart sparks of feeling, ready to burst into flame at the first appointment as an apprentice teacher in some school.

With a secret tremor he quickened his pace and even marveled at his own daring. Suddenly the unknown creature to whom his eyes, thoughts, feelings were so firmly fastened, turned her head and glanced in his direction. Good God, what divine features! Her exquisite eye brows, dazzling in its whiteness, was framed by a flounce of hair as beautiful as agate and as black as a moonless night. The lustrous locks curled as they fell, and some of them escaped from her head to brush against her cheek, hinted a fresh delicate color by the evening chill. The curve of her lips was suggestive of a swarm of the most enchanting reveries. She glanced at Yezer, and on catching her eyes his heart fluttered; it was a stern look and her face took on an expression of displeasure that anyone should have the impudence thus to pursue her, but on this lovely face even anger was enchanting. Covered with shame and confusion he halted and lowered his gaze; but how could he bear to lose his goddess and discover in what sanctum she agreed to make her destination? Such were the thoughts that flocked our young hero's head, and he determined to continue his pursuit. But to ensure that this would be unnoticed he increased the distance between them, casually looking about himself and surveying the shop-signs, not, however, missing a single step taken by the lovely stranger with the black hair.

The passerby started to thin out, the street grew quieter, his unknown beauty looked back, and he seemed to see a shadow of a smile flit across her lips. He shivered all over, unable to believe his eyes. No, it was the deceptive light of the street lamp that had given her face the semblance of a smile- no; it was his own fancy mocking him. But he suddenly caught his breath, and started to tremble all over, as a burning sensation seized him and a mist settled over his eyes. The pavement slipped away beneath him, and the cars with their speed seemed motionless beside him; buildings turned upside down and the lettering of the shop-signs seemed to be sparkling on one of his eyelashes.

All this was caused by a single glance, a single turn of a pretty head. Unseeing, unhearing and insensible to everything, he hurtled along in the tracks of those dainty feet, vainly endeavoring to restrain the pace of his footsteps, which were keeping time with the beating of his heart. At moments he would be seized by a doubt; was he right to read encouragement in her eyes?-and he would pause for a moment, but the pounding of his heart, the irresistible force and the excitement of his feelings drove him onwards. He did not even notice the building which suddenly loomed before him. He saw the beautiful stranger with the lovely black hair fly up some stairs, look round, put a finger to her lips and give him a sign to follow her. His knees trembled; his heart and mind were afire; his breast was scared by an unbearably sharp pang of joy. No, this was no trick of his imagination! My God; such happiness contained in a single instant! What bliss in a mere few seconds!

But was he not perhaps dreaming all this? Could it be true that this creature, for one heavenly glance from whom he was prepared to sacrifice his life, and to approach whose destination he felt to be an unimaginable joy, that this same creature was now being so well-disposed and attentive towards him? He flew up the stairs, just in moments to wake up to the realization that the building housed a discotheque.

The staircase spiraled upwards, and with it, soared the swift flight of his fancy. The sound of her voice caused him to tremble anew in every nerve. High upon the third floor, the stranger got into a room. He followed.

No sooner had Yezer stepped into the discotheque than he was swept up in its endless summer: he encountered a hundred inscrutable characters and phenomena. It was as though an entire sea of butterflies had suddenly taken off into air to hover in a shimmering cloud above the black beetles of the male sex. Here he encountered waists the like of which he had not seen even in his dreams: slender, narrow waists no thicker the neck of a bottle, on beholding which he respectfully stepped aside lest inadvertently he should jostle them with an impolite elbow; his heart was seized with timidity and fear lest a careless breath of his might snap those most exquisite work of art and nature. He concluded at length, for lifting ladies into the air was as simple and agreeable a task as raising a mouthful of beer to the lips. And no where did he find youngsters greet one another with hugs of such noble unconstraint as they did at discotheques.

Likewise, Yezer thrust himself deeper into the crowd trying to find the stranger with the lovely black hair. Here, he discovered such fine collections of feet, thumping hard on the floor beneath, with such vigor and rhythm- the clumsy boot of a boy, shortly retired from the bar, whose impact seemed to splinter the very floor below, and the tiny slipper, as light as a puff of smoke, of the young lady, who turned her sparkling face to every passerby as a sunflower to the sun.

Slowly, it dawned upon Yezer that nothing could be livelier than discotheques, at least in Thimphu. He not only saw teenagers and young fellows of twenty, sporting splendid hairdos and a remarkably well branded pair of shoes, but also the old gentlemen with hairs jutting from his chin. Ladies.. Ladies were more enamored by discos and had a place higher in priority, most of it all, to them. He let loose his mind to think, without fear of contradiction, that discos provided the one pastime in a city starved of entertainment.

But Good God, where was she? At first he would not believe she was lost in the crowd and he set about studying the objects with which the room was filled with: mirrored walls at parts to give a spacious impression of the room, hanging jackets on the railing, slumping figures on the coach- out of breath, couples kissing and fiddling each other, and the dancing heaters which eliminated a global warming in the room.

At this hour, the air was vibrant with a sense of purpose or something rather like it though not so easy for Yezer to pin down.

He left the room at long length without a hint or sign of his lady with the lovely black hair, and repaired to the adjacent bar, where he learnt, there was one.

Lord! What strange characters he saw at the adjacent bar! Many of the people he met at the bar at once lowered their eyes to his shoes, and should he walk past them they looked back to observe the kind of clothing he was in. To this day he is unable to comprehend why they should do that. And the people in the bar, like every self-respecting Bhutanese, were frightful drinkers.

The bar proved less spiteful, whence Yezer headed downstairs and then reluctantly, home-wards.

Midnight had long since struck, and his digital watch beeped once, but he sat motionless on his bed, not asleep and not properly awake. Drowsiness crept over him, taking advantage of his stillness, and the room began to fade away, until only the light from the street-lamps penetrated the dream which overtook his senses, when suddenly a knock on the door jolted him awake. The door opened to show the face of his friend Tashi.

"The lady with the lovely black hair”, announced Tashi excitedly, "whose presence you were trying to make a few hours previously, requests that you be invited to her party. The lady who so took your fancy so happened to be a good friend of that dyed blonde I went after."

"No, there must have been a mistake...", Yezer thought.

"Listen man, "he said timidly, "It would seem you're talking to a wrong guy. That lady with the lovely black hair must clearly have sent you for someone else, not for me."

But then, Yezer got dressed anyway, and followed his friend down the hallway.

Sure enough, there was a car in the street. They got in, the door shut behind Yezer, and shortly the illuminated facades of the buildings with their bright signs flashed past his face. All the way he pondered, unable to make head or tail of this adventure. They stopped in front of the building housing the discotheque. They took to the stairs and Yezer flew up in a swift.

Now, once inside the hall, he longed to be as far as possible from the beauty with the lovely black hair. In fear and trepidation he raised his eyes to see whether she was looking at him and--God! She was standing in front of him. Meanwhile she raised her eyelashes and cast a radiant look about her.

"Mmm..., how lovely..." was all he could say, catching his breath. She looked around the entire circle, all of whom longed to draw her attention, but soon she turned away from them with a bored nonchalance, and her eyes met those of Yezer.

She gave him a sign-but not with her hand, nor with a nod of her head: this sign was expressed in her compelling eyes, expressed so subtly and imperceptibly it was seen by no one but our hero, and he alone understood it.

The dance went on for a long time; the weary music would appear to be dying away and then would burst into life once more, shrill and strident, then at last! It was over. She sat down, her bosom heaving underneath its fine dress, her hand (Lord, what a lovely hand!) fell on her knees, crushing her silk dress, which seemed to tumble with the music.

--Oh, only to touch her, and no more!-He wished for no more, it would be foolhardy to ask for more....He stood near her bench, not daring to speak or breath.

"Were you bored?" She asked, "I also was. I observe that you hate me....." She added, fluttering her eyelashes.

"Hate you! Me? Why....." Poor, confused Yezer was on the point of saying, and would have surely blurted out a stream of the most incoherent words, but at this moment, a friend of her, with his hair swept in a superb wave on top of his head, stepped up with a number of witty pleasantries. He smiled agreeably; displaying, rather, a good row of teeth and with each of his witticisms drove another sharp nail into Yezer's heart. Finally he was saved by another guest who turned to the good row of teeth with a question.

"Oh, it is unbearable!" she said, raising her heavenly eyes to look at him.

"I'll be sitting at the other end of the room: be there!" She floated away and disappeared. He frantically elbowed his way through the crowd and was soon by her side.

"Here you are, "she said softly, "I'll be sincere with you; no doubt the circumstances of our meeting stuck you as strange. But surely you did not think that I....." But at this moment a man, fairly advanced in years, came up and she was stolen away, again! But, before she left, she gave Yezer an imploring look, signaling him to stay where he was and wait for her to return, but he was in such a flurry of impatience that he was unable to obey any orders, even from her own lips.

He could no longer see the one silk dress; he wandered in agitation from one room to another, remorselessly shoving people out of his way. He scuttled into another room-but she was not there. Into a third-not there either.

"Where can she be? Oh give her back to me! I shall die if I don't set eyes on her again! I must hear what she was going to tell me."

Alas, all his searching was in vain. Exhausted and agitated he squeezed into a corner and stared at the crowd; but the scene before his overexcited eyes started to grow dim. Finally, he seemed to make out quite distinctly the walls of his own room. He lifted his eyes; Gloomy and cross like a rain-drenched cockerel; he sat down on his bed and wondered what to do next...

So he had been asleep! Good God, what a dream! But why had he woken up? Why did he not wait one minute: She would surely have re-appeared!

The bleak, unwelcome face of dawn appeared at his window, shedding its cold, dull light over the disorder of his room. Oh, how repulsive was reality! How revolting! How could he face it after his dream? He swiftly undressed and got into bed, wrapping a blanket about him, longing to recall his lost dream if only for a moment.

Sleep indeed wasted no time in answering his call, but the visions it brought were very different from the ones he wanted to see: First his friend Tashi smoking a cigarette, then his old school teacher, then a pot-bellied high officer, then his hostel warden who had once struck him several times and suchlike rubbish.

He lay on his bed until midday, longing for sleep, but she didn’t come to him. Casting all other thoughts from his mind he sat there feeling utterly dejected, filled with thoughts of his dream. He had no desire to do anything; his eyes stared dully and listlessly out of the window.

--If he could only for one moment glimpse her lovely features, her lovely black hair, or hear her dainty footsteps, or sense her naked arm, as dazzling and white as snow, flit across his eyes---

For a week, he lived only for his dreams; everyday, he impatiently waited for evenings to fall and hurried to sleep: each night he dreamt of the school night watchman chasing away dogs, then his warden striking him several times, then his friend smoking....and never his lady with the lovely black hair..

One night, she came in his dreams. Her lovely head and hair....She was about to say.....Oh, how soon it was over! Again, a mist settled over the scene and another stupid dream took its place…

After living one week of stupid dreams he took himself to the same discotheque, not predicting he might see her a second time. Nothing notable took place in the early hours of the evening at the disco. But around half past midnight an event took place which cannot be described by any pen.

Holy ones, you should have seen how she, the lady with the lovely black hair, was dressed. Her eyes sparkled like the sun, just like the sun, Yezer swore.

No earthly thought passed through his head; He was not fired by the flame of earthly passion, no, at this moment he was pure and chaste. He saw the beautiful stranger close into him with a knowing purpose, as if, she had read his eyes, and the eyes alone had radiated all he had to say.

He froze before her and was once again on the point of forgetting himself. But the girl grew tired of this long silence and gave a knowing smile, looking him straight in the eye. It was a smile full of shameless invitation, as unsuited to her face as an expression of guilt to a "trulku" in company of beautiful girls, or karnaugh map to the hand of a poet. He shuddered. She opened her pretty mouth and started to say something, but it was all so stupid, so vulgar, and so full of ashes...

"....Nu.1000 per throw, and 5000 for a night's luxury......"

It was as though a person should lose his mind with his virtue. He desired to hear no more. Our hero was quite a ridiculous person, as naive as a child. Instead of availing himself of such a favorable opportunity, instead of being delighted at such luck, which would undoubtedly have delighted anyone else in his place, he rushed headlong out of the disco like a startled deer and ran into the cold streets of Thimphu…

Strange Phenomenon

2009-12-15T21:01:00.003+06:00

This young man belonged to that class, which constitutes one of the strange phenomena of our life, which is as much part of Thimphu citizenry as a person seen in a dream is a part of the real world. This unique class is the most remarkable in a city where migration from the rural areas to urban centers seeking a better life is a common phenomenon.

Our young man was a class twelve PCA (pass certificate awarded) candidate. But, who was not eligible for further studies. A strange phenomenon, do you not agree?

A dropout after class twelve!

A dropout in the land of mountains, a dropout in the land of Drukpas, where everything is green, rough, pale, grey, and misty.

These dropouts bear little resemblance to their Bhutanese counterparts, as proud and peace loving as Bhutan and its mountains; these, on the contrary, are for most part, kind and meek people, shy and unworldly, people who are quietly devoted to job seeking, and fond of drinking beer with their two friends in a small bar, modestly discussing the subject closest to their hearts and scorning all luxury.

They are frequently endowed with genuine talent, and were the fresh wind of new jobs to blow on them this talent would probably blossom as freely, generously and brightly as a potted plant which has at last been brought outdoors into the fresh air.

On the whole, they are timid: a star and an imposing desire will reduce them to such a state of trepidation that they involuntarily lower their taste to join National Institute of Education.

Such type was our young man, 'the dropout after class twelve ' Yezer, shy and retiring, but nourishing in his heart sparks of feeling, ready to burst into flame at the first appointment as an apprentice teacher in some school.

A Future Of Our Make

2009-12-07T18:39:00.001+06:00

Do you hear, hear that
Train, train of life?

Can you see, see
People undone so many
In bars and drinks?

Do you feel, feel that
Pain, pain of love?

Can you touch, touch
Hearts drowned so many
In hope and intoxication?

Do you dream, dream that
Star, star of destiny?

Can you realize, realize
Life made so many
In Oblivion and rush?

Rise...
Rise now my spirits, and
To that horizon tread, away
From that star, another
From pain, and
Into that engine dwell
A future of our make
May life treat us kind...

I was ten years old (from the diary of one certain girl)

2009-12-06T17:19:00.007+06:00

I was ten years old, and the sun, with
Father had set that day
Mother had breathed her last, long ago
And, the gaps around, attacked me into emptiness;

“The attack of emptiness is not merely painful, but
Like every pain, also a lonely experience”

My parent’s memory filled me
With suffering and solitary pain;
Yet, this discovery of pain too, passed away

In such moments of discovery, I took a stroll
Along the bank of a river
I wanted to dissolve in, but everything hurt;
Even my muted reflection, in it.

Back home, the air was liquor,
Liquor mixed with pain, but
They found a recess in its blatant highness

A girl right after a strong attack of bareness
Is a human rag, but
I found a way to cheat grief at the age of ten
Now, at the age of eighteen,
The same means cheat me
I am shattered everyday, and
I make easy money near Lugar Theatre;
I spend my nights with possessed dreams

But, effects have changed lately
My mind has cleared, with
My liver still alcohol
Something strange is happening to me,
Then the stars wink
And the distant rainbows settle
Full, colorful

Down the wayside puddle

2009-12-03T12:04:00.000+06:00

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…

Fear

2009-12-01T12:05:00.000+06:00

Fear is:

A monster that reaps through you

A bird that flies fast in darkness

A drink that goes well with it

A song that sings of horror

A trick that plays your mind thick

Doma that spits authority

2009-11-28T14:27:00.000+06:00

The village magistrate sat on a throne, which resembled a miniature hilltop, and him like some proverbial deity, on it.

Somewhere below, which probably would remind you of a vast valley, stood, similar to a dot, our hero with his kabney on.

On this particular day, our hero had a frightful back pain, and in an ill-fated turn of events, our deity on the hilltop noticed it with no uncertain terms that our hero was not bowing to him in a way of respect.

This triggered the wrath of the deity on the hilltop that our hero could literally count the doma spits liberating out of the hilltop deity.

This doma that spits of authority now lay all over the place.

Of course, the distance between our characters was some light years away, but our hero had that gift of an extraordinary vision that he could account for all the remains of doma that came out of the doma-stained mouth of our hilltop deity.

For the first few moments, he exactly counted the doma dregs to what we usually refer to as number thirty. As the world has it, upon continual repetition, we lose interest on even the most interesting things in life that; our hero stopped counting the fragments emanating from our deity.

“So, it was your cow?” fumed our hilltop deity.

Before our hero could answer, a few doma spits landed safely on his extended forehead, which had receded harshly over time.

“Yes, your honour” was all he could manage than a new batch of doma had landed on his nose, which accommodated quite a hefty amount of it.

From the corner of our hero’s eyes, he saw the hilltop deity refill his authority, this time with a bigger nut and a large leaf of pan, on which, lime was carelessly spread over.

“Why is your cow without any manners?” our magistrate challenged.

“Didn’t it pay you its respect, my lord” came at the tip of our hero’s tongue, out of his innocence, but he calculated not to speak it loud.

Sometimes, it doesn’t pay off to be stupid.

Instead, he humbled down with “I deeply apologize for my cow’s ill manners”

“Yeah, ill manners! You say it right! Shitting all over the place!”

The cow had started acting weird and erratic in the last few days, our hero agreed, with it shitting all over the place.

Just a few days before the magistrate had issued orders to summon our hero in the court, the cow had shat frantically all over the place in the village.

This, in a way, had challenged the hilltop deity at length to his doma-spitting expeditions!

“You shall clean the village of your cow’s excretion within one day” and the court was adjourned abruptly.

The hilltop deity, with doma spits that came shooting at our hero, employed fewer words with more authority again.

Our hero walked out of the courtroom with more cleaning to be done on his bearing than the village of his cow’s shit!

Memories of Love

2009-11-27T18:46:00.000+06:00

Do you believe in things you can't have?

I had those rare feelings of knowledge

The first time I saw you, but

How cruel 'that' knowledge seems

If I hadn't promised 'that' one thing

No, you wouldn't want me still...

I wonder...

Is this coincidence?

To mix my thoughts and life with love

This love for you, those rare feelings..?

But life of coincidences, prevails

I took my time this morning

I didn't want to be early

Someone asked how I felt

I said I didn't feel anything

There was a stone in place of my heart

The shortcoming of looking for love…

I walk in, feel the same loneliness

But nothing will ever be the same again

I want to identify love

I am not sure I am short of that

I am not even sure if I like love

But it had to stop for sometime

Pain is easy to write

Joy, yet harder to express somewhere

And love never ends

Does it?

This has been the cruelest month, mixing

Love with failure, but

In autumn, I may feel free

If it is real love,

I may find an answer...

Marriage, GNH and Democracy (From the dairy of ¨Nobody¨)

2009-11-27T18:39:00.000+06:00

I am a pretty normal bachelor, for the most part, in the capital city of Thimphu.

However, a few days back, my father paid me a visit, traveling two nights and three days from village. And he has claims that the village Gup gave a sermon (But what I feel is that it must have been one of those Gup talks) on Gross National Happiness. Now, my father urges me I should get married right away reinforcing it’s a matter of the state—an advice that I am never able to take in favorably, along with GNH. Blame Thimphu girls for the former, Gross National Equal-ness for the latter. (To be happy, everyone should be equal, once my colleague had pointed out, which still rings in my head frightfully). The Gup had convinced the villagers that to achieve the philosophy of GNH, every bachelor should be married.

My father thus had the wisdom to say, “I don’t understand how you keep yourself happy without a girl in your life”.

“In my time, young man like you would be fathering a few kids, equally happy each night!” Later I learnt it was this point he was trying to drive home. (A man has to drive home points!).

Fathers!

Talking about happiness, “Thank you, thank you!”, a girl had blurted out so many times, crying happily over the spoils, during one of those nights, and during another night I had seen policemen outside discotheques being conducted with beer (for free), since they were cold and angry with the club proprietor for not letting them take a few girls with them (for GNH?). I even heard one of them say,

“Only that we are on duty, we drink this fast, but if time had allowed us, we would have enjoyed the luxury of sipping the beer at the most minimal speed”. I sympathized with them after they had made their point with the beer, drowning it in a big gulp. Later I learnt it was a genuine issue. An issue of time is the greatest of issues! (And a man has to sympathize).

“You have to get married before 2008, because I don’t have any power over you after that. We are going democratic”, my father said.

Well, this gup guy really has sensitized the people on GNH and democracy, not to mention the institution of marriage!

The Gup has torn me between marriage, GNH and democracy now. A man can handle two, but three massive concepts and implement them? Close to impossible or not at all!

I have finally decided to write to the gup and appeal to him. I will try to talk him out of this marriage thing till 2008. And I have plans to read on GNH and Democracy too. (A man has to try!).

God-Fearing, Self-Respecting Thimphu Citizenry

2009-11-26T18:27:00.001+06:00

It was seven O’clock and at this time of the evening, the streets of Thimphu were illumed by different colors of light and the Thimphu populace moved in a zombie trance, the purpose of which was hard for an average intellect to pin down coherently.

Our hero, Tashi, resembled the crowd in the respects of zombie movement but he moved past the only movie theatre in the city with quick steps. The legendary movie hall is said to house Nilkamal plastic chairs and mosquitoes enough to suck a single viewer down to skins (keeping in mind, mosquitoes are not interested in bones). Rumor has it that a doctor while watching a premiere once remarked “The infesters here in the theatre could put the blood bank in the national referral hospital to shame!” And the doctor never went near the theatre in the future, not because he disliked the movies shown there, but for the fear of mosquitoes loitering freely in the hall. (I even heard he drafted a letter requesting the people responsible for traffic rules to make stringent laws for the traffic to be followed by the mosquitoes there. The responsible people are busy discussing this issue at the policy level, which is consuming most of their waking hours. The traffic issues in Thimphu can wait).

And thus, our hero passed the theatre unhurt. He heaved a sigh of blatant relief once he approached a nearby Pan Shop. As is the trend, he pulled down his voice to a mere whisper and snorted, “Four pieces of Wills cigarettes please” handing over a twenty ngultrum bill.

The tobacco business in the country has shot up since the ban on tobacco was imposed by the government. And even, the ban on tobacco has made the public more gentle and whispery. The twofold upside of the ban- good business and gentle citizens!

The flip side of the ban on tobacco products is best left un-discussed here.

The aum in the Pan Shop did a ritual latest to its fashion but in such dexterity that Tashi wouldn’t have noticed it if he was a new buyer to the product. The aum, pulled from under her armpit a packet of cigarettes, chanted “Om Mani Padme Hung” which came so naturally to her; pulled out four pieces and handed them over to Tashi nonchalantly. The natural chanting of the aum raised doubts in Tashi if it was a holy-day. But then, he waved away the doubt keeping in mind, Bhutanese are god-fearing people and those “Om Mani Padme Hung” should come naturally to the Bhutanese citizenry.

From the corner of the town where he bought the cigarettes, Tashi moved into the main street, lighted a cigarette and started smoking near some policemen, already having forgotten the aum in the shop and her chants. And such is the quickness of man’s forgetfulness which can only be attributed to too many things looming in his thoughts. And his thoughts were full of beer- and many bottles of them too.

The next moment saw Tashi negotiating a traffic, nearly hitting a car in Brownian motion but he was glad enough to hear someone in the car just shout “Jedha, Watch where you are going!” and he disappeared into what looked like a bar. In the bar, like every self-respecting Bhutanese, he took to frightful drinking long into the night!

Tenzin's Peach Trees

2009-11-26T18:16:00.001+06:00

Peach trees blooming everywhere;
I fell asleep on my desk;
Not a darn thing to worry about;
I lay there, like a dead log
Lumbering over my work desk;

Spring is here, at last!

Sin Is Moist- A Moist Song!

2009-11-24T11:24:00.000+06:00

These moist chops of sin: the receptor of egos, of sizes huge and small, agape yearning for more.

You started with one and, following one, more.

You have tamed self-esteems, waged wars, disjointed nations, crushed globes and played moist, of all…

A man is born from one, and dies hunting after one.

You come in all aromas: one that is delightful, and the worst that smells of brimstone and lime.

You reek of death.

The world has lost many in your lips.

You give lives…

The globes at your base have suffered much…

Grinding lives, sweating at their very roots, have men burnt their midnight toils.

Hermits’ give up their robes, brewing sins, to your moist throbbing,

Save alone a few high incarnates!

Ordinary men-folk diabolically kills them for you, you that sin is moist!

You come in all sizes, floppy, tight and ones, which is not floppy and not tight.

You manifest yourself in pink, dark and blue hues.

The worst comes in pale insignias.

Some bestows warmth. Rests are as cold as death.

You perpetrator of breeding necessary to humankind-

That you are

Sin is moist!

Sweetness piece of silk!

2009-11-24T11:20:00.000+06:00

Oh sweetness, you piece of silk, chipped between these banks of proud bottom.

What have you done? Why have you punished yourself thus?

Going through the wrath of unearthly scents, taking the strong clinches of those unthankful bottom cheeks; you look down, and can hardly see those pair of fine legs.

You stare across those fiendish heaps of flesh and finally settle, what seems to be your senses, on a pair of school children with their sympathetic eyes on you.

You deprived piece of silk, people so speak proud of, now doomed between those fetish cheeks!

The school children have you driven out of their little wits.

They’re that their teachers in their classes of wisdom have punished them.

“You little ones of the wisdom that sits in you shall realize of its existence one day. For now, you should make me proud”.

And the very next moment, these children are like this piece of silk, disfigured between the confusions of life.

What of wisdom, and what that of pride? Can we just play in the fields?

Were we better off stalled at the cocoons of silk worms?

Were we better off sticking to the womb of our mothers? Where being is safer, where the wisdom is humanity itself…

The scratch is already tickled and here we are, doing what we do weaving cocoons out of our pride.

Only if we had envisioned our end in each day of our lives, had we learnt to better live this life?

This piece of silk trapped between these inglorious foundations!

Fie, fie

This life, this living…

Great Wall of CHina

2009-11-23T19:12:00.003+06:00

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great-wall

2009-11-23T18:58:00.001+06:00

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Somewhere in China

2009-11-20T16:12:00.000+06:00

Beijing Sun

2009-11-20T16:03:00.000+06:00

Love and a cup of ara

2009-11-20T14:55:00.000+06:00

Alone

And deep into the night,

When reason meets insanity,

You long

For times gone.

A face draws beautifully

To your imagination;

Your sorry solace.

A cup of ara on the table

And memories of a beautiful past.

You take a sip from the cup;

Only to burn your inner self.

Another sip, another thought...

You draw semblance in love and ara:

Its funny how you try forgetting

Only to remember

And miss it more...

You retire

To a reverie of the most exciting thoughts: -

Thoughts of a singular lovely face.

Love and ara,

Locked in a dead grip:

Your weakness.

A tear drop grazes your cheek,

The joys of heaven,

You reason.

Deep within,

Chained to your nature,

Your thoughts in trains are

But

Just a subject,

Subject to your delusions of love.

You love

Only to employ feelings of indifference.

You drink

Only to thrist for more.

You see

As far as your dreams.

The rest

Is oblivion .

Slowly

Your senses draw a vague picture

A picture of you

And a picture of her

Now,

Silently and surely,

You drift

Drift away

To the other side.

Life is beautiful there,

Love abundant.

There

She is yours.

Here,

She is

But just your dream

Another sip from the cup

Heaven sweetness

This ara in a cup

Drift.. drift..

Dreams...

For the love of fine tradition of doma-eating

2009-11-20T14:53:00.001+06:00

It was an autumn’s Tuesday afternoon, dry and brown. The leaves had started falling in great numbers. The chirping birds had moved south. And the graduates of 2005 were moving their base to lunch, served outside the building, where the Graduate Orientation Program was being held.

Our half hero, half loser noticed a creature, one among many, most unlikely and charming in the crowd: She was compared, but nothing that could be described by this pen, can define her beauty; On such a dry day, our hero had fallen in love for the first time, and there was not a soul undisturbed- everyone was hungry and bored from the graduate oriental program in progress.

In a way of feeling great love, he blushed silently to those degrees, that the effect of doma he was eating took charge of his pale counter without any delay, and he succumbed to one of those common diseases termed, love sickness. He ate little at lunch, but talked at great lengths about the beauty he had then discovered, previously. One could easily have mistaken him for a crazy little orator of love, if he had not limited his talks to few of his closest friends.

Love is one such thing, a real thing, indeed!

And, in so little a time, many things had happened- a thousand leaves had fallen down, hundreds of birds had moved south, 670 graduates had eaten their lunch, and our singular hero had discovered, blushed and fallen in love…not to forget that peculiar effect of doma, which changed the whole course of his life.

And so, a man’s life moves on, truly red and in love. The afternoon session didn’t interest him much. His eyes kept drifting away, locating that beauty in ‘sky blue’ tego, who had carelessly worn a neck-length black hair. “What a lovely hair”, was all he could say, when he had entered a state, half defined by words and felt truly by fools.

Like a true dreamer, he dozed off, and he had almost attained that role of a modern Bhutanese film actor, where he sings such melodramatic songs to the girl, in a way of wooing her, then had the minister’s anger reached his ear, piercingly! He was darting such fingers at him, that he nearly lost a sense or two, which took alarmingly long duration for him to regain his form in love.

Thankfully the session was called off for afternoon tea, by the organizers.

But, how could our hero just sit there, as if, nothing had happened? He pulled himself to a good corner without tea, and enjoyed the full view of the living, walking goddess, and as luck would have it, she just passed by him. All his strength gave in, his knees gone weak; he maneuvered the most hapless effort in his whole life to stay up. He pressed at the walls a great deal, and a million years flew by, yet everything moved slow-motion… just his knees felt the age, the tego of sky-blue disappeared among the crowd and finally his first ordeal in love was over.

A man knows exactly what to do in such situations: Getting a phone number was not hard, but it took a team of few to finally get the right one. He wasted no time in investing a great amount in the technology-enabled services, called her up every evening, finally made appointments, and met her, often. The beauty finally agreed to be his girl on one condition: if he stopped eating doma, which, by the way, our hero, was an avid lover of!

Conditions, and in love, are too taxing and tricky.

But our hero, being one, immediately tried giving up doma, the age old tradition of the Bhutanese. First, he cut down his daily consumption to a few tens. Then, it decreased to a few khamtos.

But, over time, his efforts also decreased to a mere trail: he couldn’t stop any further from taking five khamtos of doma, everyday.

His very first love was in question… but he couldn’t stop eating doma, being a passionate doma-eater he was!

Time swiftly passed by, and with it, his dilemma grew- a man in the making…

Two years had since passed with his indecision, and he kept on reasoning to himself that there were more elements to love than quitting on doma…

One day, our hero, ran into his first love; hand in hand with a man, who was also glorifying the fine tradition of doma-eating.

Time can really change the taste of girl in men… but a doma-eating man.. prevails!

Cherry Blossoms Of My Thoughts

2009-11-20T14:47:00.000+06:00

Down by the river
On, and across the dark rocks

Drops of life
In full beauty,
Now with spring
The cherries blossom

In the thickets of the streets
Along the hopes of time
I walk…
Looking for a familiar face
In the crowd, you stand
Among the cherry blossoms of my thoughts

Now, beside a barren tree,
I rest
Basking in your love.

Cherry blossom in the air
Beauty against the wind of times

To love is transporting

Beautiful, but hurting
Painful, yet not lasting
Here, but ever changing

Will we ever die?
And forever live?

Passing thoughts, pressing moments
Moving crowds, falling blossoms
Rising hopes, dying reality

But, for now

In the spring of hopes,
In the blossom of flowers,
In the dew drops of mornings,
In bosom of your warm thoughts

Life moves on, ever beautiful…

There You Go Again...

2009-11-19T18:17:00.000+06:00

There you go again...
With that murky face
Have you no respect for life?
For fun, of smiles?

There you go again...
With that murky face
For the love of mirth;
Gently, peel off your face

There you go again....
That you have lost your face;
I smile...

Where Are My Knees?

2009-11-19T18:06:00.000+06:00

Where are my knees?

I try, I try... Hem of my skirt-length dress drops at the top of my knee is all I can see, but I cant feel a thing. My knees are non-existent, by feeling.

Some blame the wintry Thimphu cold, some their ancestors. But we take the blunt of it all, the anger of the seasons and the mistake of our ancestors.

How long, before we can keep our knees warm without shame? How long, before we can feel and see our knees in winter?

The answer still awaits my bleating prayers and ice-cold knees!

Words- Whipping and Nurturing

2009-11-19T17:22:00.000+06:00

Building blocks of language...

The articulatory speech of thoughts that defines me, you and the environment so well is communicated through these building blocks.

In words, we live. Without them, we are fading shadows.

Beauty be words;- whipping and nurturing at our wits!

MY PLACEMENT WAS A CITY NAMED DURGAPUR

2009-11-01T16:15:00.000+06:00

A letter of placement at the then Regional Engineering College, Durgapur, came through the office of the Royal Civil Service Commission in September, 2001. It was quite thrilling to learn about the confirmation of placement after having waited for a long time. It was learnt that nine of us were placed at the same Regional College. The prospect of reaping unfathomable experience over the next four years in the college, learning newer knowledge and skills, amongst new friends and environment kept us fully occupied during our journey towards the college.

The very first trip onward the reputed college at Durgapur via Kolkota without proper itinerary, guide and schedule was not so pleasant, though memories would languish itself in funny recollection of our destitutions. Moreover, none of us had traveled to the city before. The endless hours of waiting at the Howrah train station was more menacing than being cheated by the taxi drivers.

Having waited for more than five hours, we left Howrah for Durgapur, a new home to the new scholars and the whole new nine of us. The change of transportation mode from bus to train said it all! Life in India would not be the same as in Bhutan.

Night was falling like dark shroud over the unfamiliar and unfriendly landscape as we reached Durgapur train station. We reached the college clothed in strange darkness. It was not the darkness that petrified us. Darkness is so trivial at times than having no place to bask our tiredness after the much needed rest. At long length, we succeeded in requesting the warden to adjust some rooms for us, since it was not possible to allot any room (officially!) on the simple ground that we were not admitted to the college (formally!).

So, the eight future Bhutanese engineers were literally dumped into a seemingly tiny room that would not even accommodate the three of us under normal circumstances. Soon enough, the alien Indian heat started taking charge, making us sweat like guinea pigs! Everything passed on, we still sweated. Experience was taking an unusual twist.

There was a solemn feeling that the next day would usher us into our own rooms, which was not to be! Our admission was yet to be formalized. Our letters of appointment had not reached the college, which was supposed to be forwarded by the Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India. Much to our bewilderment, the aspiring scholars were as good as tourists to the college until we were formally sworn into the Durgapur alma mater after three days. It took them another week to decide on allocating us rooms with creaky beds and fans that seldom worked. But, it was an experience of relief, joy, and of fulfillment in having finally formalized and officialized our admission into the college.

Food would have inspired any poet and writer to praise the taste and nourishment it provides besides the glutton to be greedy. However, the food at the deemed University did not provide delicacies worth the taste let alone the inspiration to the poets and the gluttons their greediness. None of the Bhutanese were used to mixing sweets and sugar into any of our menus, let alone tea and coffee.

As days and weeks and months and years rolled by, experience piled up in our memories, trimming our knowledge of how we know the world and how it should be known.

The heat that surrounded us, the putrid air that we breathed, the mosquitoes that we nourished, the creaky beds we slept on under the defunct fans, and the sugary food that we nourished on…brought us closer to reality, making us more humane. Every experience and difficulty that we underwent brought us closer to ourselves and to our country. Patriotism would only be experienced at its height away from home. Realization would only be drawn from suffering and endurance. Knowledge would only be acquired in times of adversity.

Indeed so, the difficulties that we faced and endured during our stay at the college have paid off well. We saw the Regional Engineering College grow with us, becoming one of the best institutes in the state of West Bengal. It was upgraded to the National Institute of Technology, a deemed university, ranked as one of the lead institutes of the state, second only to the famed and reputed Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

As we acquired newer knowledge, the Institute itself was undergoing progressive changes. With a total grant of more than 50 crores by the World Bank, new and sophisticated infrastructures that would meet the modern amenities are being developed. It is my hope that more Bhutanese would be placed in the institute, and continues producing the makers of tomorrow.

PRAYERS

Having gained a little experience in a neighbouring country, it is my hope, wish and prayers that the quality of education of our country would not deteriorate with the new breed of scholars and intellectuals sprouting in our emerging education system. It is my hope that the future citizens of the country would gain equal or more access to quality education, whereby the future of our country must ultimately rely on.

REPORT ON DURGAPOREAN GET_TOGETHER

2009-11-01T16:03:00.000+06:00

(Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past!)

Date:14^th September 2007

Time: 7 PM-

Venue: Lovely Bar

Present, in alphabetical order:

Chabilal Bastola
Deewakar Chhetri
Heruka Zangpo
Singay Dorji
Sonam Phuntsho
Tenzin Dendup

Guests:

Nar Bahadur
Sanjay Gurung

The evening of 14^th September 2007 had started drizzling and the graduates of 2005, Durgapur, had slowly started gathering, one by one, with Chabilal and Deewakar having reached the venue before everyone, shortly joined by Singay, then Tenzin and Sonam. The last one to come, Heruka was late, defying all managerial sense of timing!

Nar Bahadur and Sanjay Gurung were the guests of honor.

For the ones who had reached on time, they had started the night off with a cup of tea, save for Sonam who had kick-started with a cup of coffee. Hardly had they finished drowning their cups of tea and coffee, Singay suggested to starting with the “drinking session”. So, bottles of “Hits” and “Fosters” were ushered in, glasses filled, Tenzin had to be coaxed into drinking his portion. The bottles that followed were smoothly drained, but Deewaker and Chabi were in no position to be negotiated with any form of intoxicating drinks. Instead, they took refuge in Frootis and hot water to great lengths throughout the evening. As we look back, Chabi had really wasted his muscles, shying away from strong drinks, when in fact; other members of the group were willing to take his bites, miserably!

The group started talking in earnest and as the conversations got more serious, the graduates started talking about politics and someone graciously decided he would vote for a party named PPD. The other members of the gathering had to loose a sense or two, before deciding the other guy had meant the party, DPT. Since politics was as strange a thing to this group as a sheepskin to a cow, they decided to talk something more close to their lives for the finer parts of the evening. So, the group began talking about “Management”. But people soon found out that they were equally good at management as they were with politics.

The group carried on with the night, keeping their stomachs safely placed, amidst delicacies and drinks!

In a sudden twist of events, as time itself should have projected and picked the topic, the group started talking about girl friends! Man! Who would have thought about that topic? The group figuratively bowed down before the inventor of Girl Friends! This topic, though freely discussed and, and the group having freely seen people enjoy the fruits, was undoubtedly, a nightmare to the group. Each member present was equally a loser as he was to the one sitting next to him, separated only by a glass of beer.

Finally, the graduates of 2005 decided to bring down the monster, pin down the WHYs and HOWTOs to availing a girl friend, through a step-wise procedure. They got down to framing the procedures immediately, with haste. The points following this paragraph is the report of the true accounts of that was discussed and decided during the night of that fateful 14^thSeptember:

1A. WHY Sonam doesn’t get Girl Friends:

Goes after quality girls
Daddy Figure
Bad memories of a famed dirty prick
Arrogant
Spiritual Connection

1B. Sonam’s recommended HOWTO:

Make a threshold (Don’t try for MoWHS/BoB…)
Be more romantic
Don’t be a dirty prick
Don’t be arrogant
Go for the peanut rather than finding spiritual connection

Consolidated Report on Sonam

The group pointed out and argued that Sonam was proposing to girls way past his caliber. He was recommended to devising a threshold whereby, he could adopt simple girls as his girlfriends.

The other pressing flaw the group found in him and why he failed was the very fact in him having no romantic expressions. So, as a quick solution, he was mildly forced to practice the popular expressions of romance in front of the group. After several facial expressions he tried, one qualified to be termed romantic and was immediately translated into a photograph for the record and general consumption that Sonam was capable of romance.

Rest of the points were treated personal and recommended accordingly without much explanations and are as reflected above under clauses 3, 4 and 5 of recommendations 1B.

2A. WHY Chabilal doesn’t get a Girl Friend:

Uses strength
Shows Muscles in the public
Shy with lovolical approach
No changes in feet
Egoistic

2B. Chabilal’s recommended HOWTO:

Be more romantic
Shed Muscles

No public demonstrations
Wear Full sleeve shirts

Act stupid indefinitely
Wear Expensive shoes
Don’t be egoistic

Take some girl out by the end of September 2007, failing to do so will result in him treating the whole group to a dinner

Consolidated Report on Chabilal

Chabilal was treated as a special case on muscles. Everything revolved round muscles with this man. So the group had choices but to recommend, placing special emphasis, on his muscle management. A general consensus was met, whereby Chabi had to strictly adhere to the recommendations of acute muscle shredding and to refrain from any public demonstrations of his proudly possessions, in-short, muscles!

Although, this man of muscles was found very fond of muscular displays, he was found equally poor in his displays and approach to love. The group wisely recommended him to gear up in spheres of love and be more romantic, which involved such purchases as expensive shoes and in the lower realms of expenses, acting stupid!

The muscle man was also advised to be less egoistic, the ways around which to play, was left to the man himself.

3A. WHY Deewakar doesn’t get a Girl Friend:

Mummy’s boy
Attacking person
Dependency/ No personal initiative
Too many purchase of pondis
So choosy

3B. Deewakar’s recommended HOWTO:

Be a girl’s boy, especially at night–> Deadline: End of September
Leave and let live
Don’t hire services to find a girl friend
Don’t go to Siliguri
Be less choosy

Consolidated Report on Deewakar

This man was found way into third degree corrosion, and the group had little choice than to refrain him against too many pondi purchases.

Leave and let live, was a motto, the group thought he should be wearing around his neck for the better benefit of himself and others alike in the spheres of love. The man had, under his sleeve, damages done to his fellow-mates, who were generous enough to be dining together with him during the get-together.

But, these very fellow-mates grievingly felt for him and recommended him not to get the services of others in the courtship of love, as the middleman partook of the future he was anxiously trying to live in.

He was also advised not to visit Siliguri as an anti-corrosion measure, and was advised not to be choosy and to be a girl’s man by the end of September 2007 failing to do which, would result in his throwing a gracious party to the group, and were expecting!

4A. WHY Tenzin doesn’t get a Girl Friend:

Shy
Too many Cartoonic fantasies
Resersations in his approach. Quote “Hang aley ni, nanga charo ghita call ra philu mala wai…sob…sob…”
Poor initiatives in the hemispheres of leadership qualities
Too clever for girls

4B. Tenzin’s recommended HOWTO:

Break the ice/eggs! Labda!!
Watch less cartoons and more pondies!
Call girls frequently. Get a landline connection
Be a leader in proposing to girls/Don’t be a chicken
Act stupid with girls/ Be a donkey in shrek!

Consolidated Report on Tenzin

Tenzin was crowned the Cartoon man, and was refrained from speaking out any Cartoon related talks. The group even went to the extent of controlling his Cartoonic fantasies and thoughts! And boy! Was it hard!

It escaped the group’s thought, so did his, on why he was shy in his approach and initiatives when he was trying towards the ultimate truth which involved losing something that was dear, only, to our female counterparts. All the more, he was advised to act stupid in front of them indefinitely, if he was to lose something of his, and become a man in the process.

In his laconic protests against the group naming him a reserved guy in his approach, the group gave a vivid account of him not calling the girls, where the girls were dying, even for a miss call from him. So he was advised to get a landline connection for the same purpose.

And thus, it was asserted, he would turn up in the next get-together with a girl, arisen from the landline connection.

5A. WHY Heruka doesn’t get a Girl Friend:

Remoteness of location
Past “bitter” experience
Concentrating too much on bikes than girls
Begs too much
Commitment problems

5B. Heruka’s recommended HOWTO:

Urbanize his location/Don’t hire T-shirts to Sonam
Forget the past, enjoy the present and think for the future
Propose KC seriously rather than self starting bikes—> Dateline: End of September
Don’t beg, be a real man!
Be committed

Consolidated Report on Heruka

This man was remembered for his daring acts of transporting bottles of beer from Hotel Sam and taking unto himself the task of drowning them, all in the name of forgetting that bitter experience. The beer bottles are gone, so are the contents, but something which should have gone with the purchase and drinking of beer, still haunts him. That lovely face, those intimate times still renders him a bad experience. So much for the bottles of beer!

And the group’s wise solution to this was a one-liner: Forget the “bitter” past!

Other prominent aspects of this man was his begger nature, which came easily to him and made commitment a problem to him.

The group found in their wisdom that Heruka shall propose KC, the ultimate begging matter he should woe. Failing to get her by the end of September would result in him throwing a grand dinner to the group, and were expecting!

6A: WHY Singay doesn’t get a Girl Friend:

Daddy figure (Dominating)
Past “bitter” experience
Got style, but poor finishing
Poor Resource Management
Friend to everyone is a friend to none. Generalist

6B. Singay’s recommended HOWTO:

Be submissive

Be stupid indefinitely
Don’t rooster up your girlfriend’s time

Forget the past/ Be brave/Plunge into the future/Learn some arithmetics to be more calculative
Give smart finishing touches
Starting from 18th, no lifts to guys, only girls!
Focus on individuals in the field of Lovology

Consolidated Report on Singay

Singay, as the group argued to call him a father-figure, the term had to be changed into something understood by everyone. Dominating. And he was advised not to prepare a rooster for his forth-becoming girlfriends, if he got any along his future!

This man was found to be having all the resources that takes to getting a girlfriend, a car, all the styles needed to woe a girl which sadly, had only worked against himself due to his unyielding finishing touches.

As these things were spelt out loud, the man was seen flashing back into the early 2000s, labors being borne by his poor cycle, and numerous transportations to and fro on it, yet with a jaded past he sipped his glass of beer. This all summed up to a “bitter” experience, and the Pondi-man was remembered on this day for his harming actions.

But the great group’s advise was a one-liner “Forget the past/Be brave/Plunge into the future/Learn some arithmetics to be more calculative”. And the man bought it!

After HOWTOs

Throughout the framing of the HOWTOs, Sonam’s “Thank Yous” were smeared all over the conversations with such un-easing effect to the ears that, people had to stop nuisansing and continue with their discussions. This was a drill Tenzin picked up immediately after two hours.

After framing the HOWTOs, the group succumbed to such hunger, which was cured only through intake of food in plenty, termed wisely as “dinner” by some wise-one.

After dinner it was discussed and decided that:

There will be a get-together at the end of each month
During the get-together, individuals are “required” to come with their girlfriends

And there was more drinking.

Usually after dinner, people liked going home, and thus, some of the group members didn’t even try deviating from that popular thought. As the population of the get-together started thinning out, Heruka, Singay and Sonam decided to go and party. Deep into the night, the infamous trio were seen Bongku-dancing at Space 34 amidst so many pretty faces!

Translations:

Bongku-dancing=Donkeydancing

REPORT ON DURGAPOREAN GET_TOGETHER II

2009-11-01T14:58:00.002+06:00

(Nothing is permanent, not even broken hearts!)

Date: 6th October 2007
Venue: Lovely restaurant, Thimphu

Present, in alphabetical order:

1. Chabilal Bastola, ICT Officer, DIT (Single)
2. Deewakar Chhetri, IN Engineer, BMobile (Single)
3. Heruka Zangpo, Manager, CMTD, BPC (Taken)
4. Karma Wangchuk, Engineer, DCA (Devdas)
5. Singay Dorji, Chief Electrical Engineer, HTMTI (Single)
6. Sonam Phuntsho, ICT Officer, DIT (Single)
7. Sonam Tshering, Trainee Engineer, Druk Air (Engaged)
8. Tenzin Dendup, ICT Officer, DIT (Totally Single)

Missing:

1. Hari Prasad Kafley, MBA Student
2. Sangay Dema, Engineer, Bhutan Telecom
3. Tsheten Dorji, Lecturer, CST, RUB
4. Yam Bahadur Chhetri, Engineer, Bangalore

Guests:
1. Dechen Yangzom
2. Kesang Norden Deker
3. Dr Kezang Dorji
4. Tashi

Binary (On-Off) Guests:

1. Jigme Lhendup
2. Tseten
3. Tshering Wangchuk

Special Appearance:

1. Dr Phub
2. Dr Kelex

There was no rain this time, at least when the group started gathering. But later into the evening, the rain of flowers started, indicating Heaven and Earth were in perfect union, for the graduates of Durgapur 2005 and 2006 had gathered.

And, in so wet an evening, the room where the graduates had gathered was so dry that everyone could feel the crappiness of it on their lips that someone was screamingly found hissing, “Satan damn-it! Lip guards!” in a way of searching for an antidote in complete serpent-ness (what ever that may mean!). On further investigation (by a team of three), the dryness was tracked down to have emanated from, and administered by the Sofa-men (so named by the virtue of their ass-on-sofa settlement), Sonam Senior and Karma Junior, brutally known for their never ending slapstick dry talks, named Dry Gadpus, in short.

By then, the group had gained momentum, keeping in mind one of those famous Newtonian laws which is forgotten for good, saving me from quoting it here.

Like the previous gathering of that memorable 14th September, the innumerable bottles of “Fosters’ and “Hits” had already made their presence, only difference lying in that, no one had growled down to those suggestions. Only when the suggestions for “Spy Juice” cropped up, then were the real presences of the two lovely ladies felt, sweeping the faces of the crowned lusers (dictionary spelling “losers”) warm and leaving them pink for a few hours that followed. Heruka and Singay were saved of that pink hue, since the ladies came in their capacities, either as their dates or guests. So had the evening progressed thus, shy but equally entertaining!

After an hour of the gathering, Sonam Senior attempted to deliver a welcome speech, but so hopeless it turned out that he was found delivering the speech in quotas. And these quotas were executed every next hour from the first. In between these quotas, Heruka found in his managerial wisdom to exercise his speech-delivering prowess since he had a shaming experience back at his office in the audience of his Managing Director, where his thoughts bounced back to its basics, and the poor Manager was found mumbling those famous tooth-in-mouth lines “I believe…..” followed by that welling effect of the tears in the eyes, since his mind was observing emptiness! In line to this, Singay was picked up by the group to deliver a “Vote of Thanks” speech to reiterate that of Heruka’s, since he was absent when Heruka delivered his speech. Poor Singay couldn’t figure out head or tail of the situation, and was duly forgiven for his ignorance.

In an attempt to add meaning to the entertainment, Heruka discovered a game which, he thought, would make the grave of the inventor shake, and the heart of the players’ crack, which indeed did, for someone! With its simplistic rules, “Truth and Dare” was the game of the evening.

“Truth or Dare?” pleaded Sonam Junior with Deewakar. “Truth” blurted out Deewakar and he was fired with questions! “How many pondies did you watch so far” was the bullet of the minute. The man under fire mumbled “One Thousand…” the accuracy to which was further drilled and doubted, and the next shot was fired in the likes of “Which one is the best so far?” “Recommend me a good pondi flick” and so on and so like. Soon Sonam Junior was found obnoxious with his questions. Finally when Deewakar heaved a sigh of blatant relief, he had chosen the next victim for the game.

“Truth or Dare?” and Karma dryly chose to tell some truth. “Tell us the full-proof truth of Devdassic journey you are embarking on these days” “Tell us the name of this beauty you so gave into becoming a Devdas” “Is this why you jumped into poetic hibernation and musing?” so on and so forth…

Karma, full name Karma Wangchuk, or infamously known as Zala to the greater public, had traveled some 50+ odd kilometers from Paro to attend this get-together with Chindey Sonam Tshering (referred to as Sonam Junior) and their guest Tashi. Tashi was favorably chosen as their guest by the virtue of his owning a car, which made transportation way easy than they fathomed. Realities apart, Karma got down to giving answers to the truthful questions which sounded to the ears of the gathering as follows:

The name of the beauty is Yangchen, and it was few months back that this beauty screwed up my sanity. If it was not for her getting married with someone else, things would have been much easier; I would have tried my zala-best to earn the name of a serial rejected! As the way was clearly paved for me to stand as the candidacy for the next abbot, filling in for a post of a Devdas, I happily drank my days to desperation. Yes poems, the curator of a broken heart, are the only good things that is left of a man, who is deserted with marked rejections!

And the man was happily seen covering his face, out of respect for the seat of the abbot.

Rejections!

“Truth” demanded Sonam Senior. “Why did you go to Taba yesterday?” “Tell us this story between you and Dawa, in detail!”, and he was found hunting for cover!

Sonam Senior had to take a few paces back in his memory lane to gain complete control of the matters at hand. Before that, he answered the simplest of questions:

“I went to Taba because I think I have a girl friend there”, and the gathering bought it, albeit the loser-nature of this specimen.

Regarding the dear Dawa question, he told stories that had its roots in the year 2004. He informed the gathering of that fateful year, of challenges he had undertaken, where he had dared dear Dawa that he would make her fall in love with him, by the end of December 2004 failing to manifest which, would accrue him in buying her a giant teddy bear as a bet.

Falling in love never happened, so didn’t the buying of a giant teddy. Time moved on, even Sonam couldn’t stop it! He proposed. She rejected. The trend carried on. Even dear Dawa couldn’t stop him from proposing. It flowed like his blood, these proposals!
The failure nature of this man had been long proven in his Engineering days with a first semester Physics paper, PH101, where he had attempted, in his acts of clearing it, four trudging times! So this new failure in love didn’t come as a surprise, but it was more of a testimony to his success in serial failing. This man was sworn in, in the hard disks and processors of the gathering, as a sack of failures and, that boy, Tenzin respected him in the form of a root Guru!

This Tenzin!

Singay had decided to vote for “Truth” keeping in mind the political developments in the country. But the questions that followed were far removed from it (Politics) than he had expected! “How did you feel when Sangay Dema left you?” “How did you feel when Sangay got married?” and suchlike questions.

So many HOWTO questions and the man felt as if a few quintals of bad memories had been dropped on his back. The weight was too much for the man to take that, he had to release it one after another.

He truly confessed that he went through a bad patch in his life when she left him, but it was all over now. And by the time Sangay got married, he had become insensitive towards the feelings he had for her once.

Life is a Brute!

Sonam Junior, who also had traveled those 50+ odd kilometers from Paro on Tashi’s Alto horse to attend the gathering for the first time, was all chindey. No community of society was residing on his head, which is commonly known to humankind as “hair”.

In the run-through of the “Truth” questions, the man was drunkenly heard answering “I am not gay, but I am gay!” whatever that meant, the ladies present didn’t seem too impressed! And people doubted if he had cleared the top floor in observing his hopelessness in the matters of love, but to the utter dismay of the gathering, he said he was engaged to be married. What ever the reasons may be, the light really reflected strongly on his shaved head. In his final attempts to impress the ladies’ present, he was seen throwing two fingers at the ladies and shouting miserably “I am not gay, but I am gay!” Such intoxications of drinks can really waste a man, and he was really stoned to misery!

Gays!

Dr Kezang rode on “Truth”. Sensitizing the gathering on Aids, he educated the group, that it was caused due to three infamous acts of humankind: Drugs through syringe penetration, rectal and normal sex. Although, normal sex contributed to only 10%, he refrained the gathering from indulging in any rectal acts since it was the surest way of getting Aids.

Who would have guessed our rectums were already inflicted with Aids!

Aids is rectal, people!

And Sonam Junior left the room excusing himself by saying he needed to pee like a horse!

Somewhere between the gathering, as soon as Jigme and Tsheten had entered, they had gulped down a bottle of beer and had disappeared without any trace! People wondered if they really had made their presence but, they were saved from more investigation by the empty bottle that they had left back.

The choice “Truth” followed questions like “Tenzin, if you were to die tomorrow, what Cartoon movie would you watch?” “What Character in the movie would you be if situation so demanded?”

And that boy Tenzin so wanted to watch that animated movie “Shrek” before he died and he wanted to be a Princess in the movie, if fate had so favored, since he liked that ogre of a Shrek so much! He even flipped his eyelids so daintily, and my Frog(!), people nearly mistook him for a Princess!

“Truth” and Norden was inquired about the welfare of her heart. And she confirmed the gathering that it was fine by and by. One saw her eyes twinkle, and Tenzin’s long said words metamorphosed something close to : Nothing is permanent, not even broken hearts!

“Truth” “Truth” “Truth”. Everyone was in the truth that it seemed the whole world had truly conspired against the liars! As an administrator of the game, Heruka found in his wits to promote people take up more daring acts, and a round of “Dare” demands were implemented.

Heruka dared, and people demanded of him actions!

“Heruka, kindly drain that big glass of beer” and down went the beer along his beer pipe. He turned a pitch darker in complexion after that.

“Heruka, kindly turn to the lovely lady sitting beside you and propose your true feelings” and left-turned Heruka, and blurted out “I can do this!” and said “I really love you” focusing his eyes on the ceiling which nearly bore a hole there, followed by a change in his complexion from pitch dark to a mixture of bluish hue. Too much for the “Truth and Dare” game, it would seem, but the man already had disposals of glass of beer in his contributing stomach, and a pretty face by his side!

Proposals!

In a string of daring acts, Karma was found demanded of a poem recital by the group, portrayal of true Devdas nature, a song which he succeeded in pulling out a line from his blasted memories and he finally ended up proposing the beauty residing by Heruka’s side, Norden.

Next was Sonam Junior in line, and he made such noises from his beer fed mouth and his light shining head, he ended up having to marriage propose to the pretty lady residing by Tenzin’s side, Dechen. Sonam’s act of proposing someone to marriage was so unique that, no one remembered to translate it into a photograph. He walked like a stiff stick to the pretty face in the waiting, placed his hands on her shoulders, squeezed them, and snorted “Will you marry me?” and walked back more drunk to his seat.

Norden was made to propose Karma due to his incessant requests of requiting the proposal thus called on some moments previously. She blessed him like a dove, and Karma ran out of his skins with joy! For a few moments, he forgot he was the serially rejected subject of our times.

Tashi was duly ushered to propose miss pretty parked beside Tenzin to exercise his daring acts! He did, and he really had dared!

Now, it was Deewakar yet again. He was pressed so hard to dare sing a song. It took him almost ages before he sang “I am a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world. Imagination; Life is your creation…..” And the song faded away. He had forgotten rest of the lyrics. Boy! Who would have imagined Deewakar in the Barbie world!? Not me, at least!

“We dare you show us your muscles!” and Chabilal Bastola, that man of a muscle shifted his place lest people failed to see his hairy bulk! He was really at his acts and people were starting to appreciate the bulk of those muscles when someone suddenly announced, “Eating time!” Unfortunately… he had to wrap up the show and fall in line for dinner. In fact, the whole gathering had to!

Dinner was self-served, and people like Sonam Senior and Chabilal Muscle found in complete favor to exercise their freedom that they were seen helping themselves to plenty and having dinner of a lifetime!

After dinner, that boy Tenzin so wanted to continue with the “Truth and Dare” game, but time had run short. It was Deewakar’s medicine time, and way past baby Chabilal’s bedtime. So they left home and rest of the gang proceeded to party the night away!

The gathering split into three groups, since there were only three horses at disposal, and headed towards Buzz Club. As they passed through Hongkong Market, car-eating dogs chased them like hell. The car nearly jumped out of its skin, and Dr Kezang was in due time to bring it back to form. It still gives the group goose bumps when they think about it but, luckily, no damage had been done to the cars… We promise!

Once they reached the Buzz Club, they had to negotiate hard with a lady there, who was strict to the bones! In the midst of it, it left members of the group wondering who had paid the entry fees. Some of the group members were pretty sure it wasn’t God who had paid, for sure.

God doesn’t party!

Once inside the discotheque, than were the group swept up in its endless summer. They encountered a hundred inscrutable characters and phenomena. It was as though an entire sea of butterflies had suddenly taken off into the air to hover in a shimmering cloud above the black beetles of the male sex. And this was too much for boy Tenzin to take in, for it was his first time; he had to gulp in great amounts of saliva to capture his monkey mind back to form.

Once he regained form, he encountered waists the like of which he had not seen even in his dreams: slender, narrow waits no thicker the neck of a bottle, on beholding which he respectfully stepped aside lest inadvertently he should jostle them with an impolite elbow; his heart was seized with timidity and fear lest a careless breath of his might snap those most exquisite work of art and nature. But he danced on, his baby steps!

Sonam Junior, Dr Kezang and a few others tried jostling the fat moths but they were being roughed up so bad, they fell back to their dancing zones. Heruka executed few of his shock dance steps to no effect, and Sonam maneuvered his age old century steps, and Singay, his R ‘n’ B steps. Everyone danced on. By the time, the gang had almost implemented “in the mind” best dance steps, the party had gotten over and they had to leave for home.

And deep into the night, Tenzin was found tossing on the bed, frightfully shouting in the mind “No more Linux, only girls!”

The thought was singular, he had just entered puberty…