(An invocation)
Who is the muse of music?
Who is the muse of music?
Who is the muse of music?
Who is the muse of music?
Oh! bless me please,
Oh! bless me please.
Oh! please, bless me please,
Who is the muse of music?
Who is the muse of music?
Muse is the muse of music,
Muse is the muse of music.
Oh! bless me please,
Oh! bless me please.
Oh! please, bless me please,
Dear Muse, bless me please.....
Happy Song
Mr happiness came around
Mr happiness came around
lets sing a happy happy song
For Mr happiness is around
Mr happiness came around
lets sing a happy happy song
For Mr happiness is around
Two different thoughts, A song in my head
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
I am my only friend I have
I will stick to you
till the end
I am your soul speaking
through you
Listen to your voice
it will
never fail you
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
You might get bored with me
I am your only friend
You might get bored with me
I am your lonely friend
I share my breath with you
We share our laughter...
I share this song with you
I share these thoughts with you
Friends flock to you in times of success
and in sorrow they disappear
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
We live in one house
but
we are
two
different thoughts
And in the end
I am
the only friend
I have got
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
and in happiness they disappear
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
I am my only friend I have
I will stick to you
till the end
I am your soul speaking
through you
Listen to your voice
it will
never fail you
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
You might get bored with me
I am your only friend
You might get bored with me
I am your lonely friend
I share my breath with you
We share our laughter...
I share this song with you
I share these thoughts with you
Friends flock to you in times of success
and in sorrow they disappear
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
We live in one house
but
we are
two
different thoughts
And in the end
I am
the only friend
I have got
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
Friends flock to you in times of sorrow
and in happiness they disappear
In response to famous economist Jeferry Sachs' advise on Bhutan's rapid progress by investing in chemical fertilizers
The article can be found on Business Bhutan at the following link:
http://www.businessbhutan.bt/?p=2521
Mr. famous Sachs can pocket his $£$£ worthy advise, as much as we must thank him for all the advises and analysis done in the few days time he spent searching for happiness (which I hope he did find), we very much appreciate it but thank you. It would be fair to bring to his notice organic 'tasty' food makes a happy man and 'frozen' food makes a man cold (all pun intended). Soil is organic, it gives birth to life not just trees from where bills are produced, one needs to treat it with respect, perhaps the Red Indian's point never got into their ears. With Seattle- Chief Seattle was forgotten and his words buried under bulldozers and fertilizers. Now with all good intentions and far sight I hope, he has put Bhutanese people in dilemma (tried to-failingly so). Organic Vs Inorganic? We talk of substance abuse to our human bodies, what about abusing the soil? Well, soil cannot talk back, I forgot and neither can the insects that thrive in them.
On a scientific note in the virgin rainforests of the Amazon it was found that they were not 'virgin' after all; there were evidences of past human settlement and the presence of tera preta soil was discovered which was then linked to the rich nature of the soil and the growth of the rainforest. Bhutanese have been practising something closely similar for centuries- compost pit manure. Also, maybe Mr. Sachs did not notice the primary forests of the country, perhaps he could have thought nature was fertilizing it because litter fall manure is one of the best natural fertilizers. There are already natural mechanisms at play Mr. Sachs which are beyond your monetary understanding, while rapid development, increase in food production and decrease in poverty are very much desirable, it is a terrible long term strategy to use chemical fertilizers, it results in soil and water pollution among many other ailments. Patience is a virtue we all learn, when your soil becomes sour and food 'production' lesser in quantity perhaps you will remember the Shangrila, till then to alleviate our poverty how about giving us some money for reducing your carbon sequestration in the world. I think you OWE countries like us, US!
I could say a thousand things but to sum it up our value system is different, we as Bhutanese think differently and it is always an environmental friendly thought. Come back in ten years Mr. Sachs or even sooner, or actually, we will come to you- export you some organic Bhutanese food!
If the Himalayas were the Sahara, I would say Mr. Sachs give us some chemical food, but since we are THE Himalayas, I say Mr. Sachs, you need to get back to your roots.
http://www.businessbhutan.bt/?p=2521
Mr. famous Sachs can pocket his $£$£ worthy advise, as much as we must thank him for all the advises and analysis done in the few days time he spent searching for happiness (which I hope he did find), we very much appreciate it but thank you. It would be fair to bring to his notice organic 'tasty' food makes a happy man and 'frozen' food makes a man cold (all pun intended). Soil is organic, it gives birth to life not just trees from where bills are produced, one needs to treat it with respect, perhaps the Red Indian's point never got into their ears. With Seattle- Chief Seattle was forgotten and his words buried under bulldozers and fertilizers. Now with all good intentions and far sight I hope, he has put Bhutanese people in dilemma (tried to-failingly so). Organic Vs Inorganic? We talk of substance abuse to our human bodies, what about abusing the soil? Well, soil cannot talk back, I forgot and neither can the insects that thrive in them.
On a scientific note in the virgin rainforests of the Amazon it was found that they were not 'virgin' after all; there were evidences of past human settlement and the presence of tera preta soil was discovered which was then linked to the rich nature of the soil and the growth of the rainforest. Bhutanese have been practising something closely similar for centuries- compost pit manure. Also, maybe Mr. Sachs did not notice the primary forests of the country, perhaps he could have thought nature was fertilizing it because litter fall manure is one of the best natural fertilizers. There are already natural mechanisms at play Mr. Sachs which are beyond your monetary understanding, while rapid development, increase in food production and decrease in poverty are very much desirable, it is a terrible long term strategy to use chemical fertilizers, it results in soil and water pollution among many other ailments. Patience is a virtue we all learn, when your soil becomes sour and food 'production' lesser in quantity perhaps you will remember the Shangrila, till then to alleviate our poverty how about giving us some money for reducing your carbon sequestration in the world. I think you OWE countries like us, US!
I could say a thousand things but to sum it up our value system is different, we as Bhutanese think differently and it is always an environmental friendly thought. Come back in ten years Mr. Sachs or even sooner, or actually, we will come to you- export you some organic Bhutanese food!
If the Himalayas were the Sahara, I would say Mr. Sachs give us some chemical food, but since we are THE Himalayas, I say Mr. Sachs, you need to get back to your roots.
Early May Morning
(An attempt at song writing- written in May, 2010 in Punakha)
An early May morning
A black and white bird sang
it circled the green white water
and it danced
it flew three times and laughed
and then it sang
Clouds are hanging gray
leaves are falling green
on this solemn day
this early May morning
this early May morning
An early May morning
A black and white bird sang
it circled the green white water
and it danced
it flew three times and laughed
and then it sang
Clouds are hanging gray
leaves are falling green
on this solemn day
this early May morning
this early May morning
Tales of a Bhutanese Traveller
Surfacing
On early travellers H.G Wells says how impossible private travels must have been in the pre-Alexandrian world during the absence of money but evidences of early travellers date back to third or fourth century BC. I can only imagine what Bhutan must have been like during that epoch given that we had our first roads built in 1960’s. Being a landlocked country, sheltered by towering Himalayas, the world must have been home and home must have meant the world, maybe the world wasn’t even oblate spheroid but just mountainous. Atleast that is what I thought when I grew up, well I wasn’t too wrong, not very much atleast, there are mountains higher than Everest below the ocean in the Pacific. Back in the days, we would have had saints and nomads and pilgrims travelling to Tibet, Nepal, India and maybe some other Asian countries but what would the worldview have been like? What were the stories that were heard and narrated? What did the travellers bring back apart from tradable goods?
I have no answer or maybe too many doubts but I as a traveller, now on my seventh year after leaving home to embark on an unknown journey finally feel ready to share my experiences. I feel the need to share what I have seen through these eyes and mind of mine, where my legs have carried me away from my mountainous abode, to learn, seek, lose and find, to experience this wonderful world, the dancing ball in space. Do not judge me for I humbly share my experiences so that you can feel the world of a traveller, the addict of constant change and motion, the detached being who constantly seeks new adventures in new lands. I know I haven’t really visited the most exotic places in the world, yet, but I know I belong to one. I grew up in Thimphu; eighteen years went by admiring the valley and valleys beyond, growing up and contemplating life, relishing and enjoying those moments in a wonderland with friends and family and now from a far away land, like the sailors did in the past, travellers who came home and narrated the stories of the vast world, I now in the age of technology which you and I are privileged to access, don’t even need to learn how to swim or wait for pigeons to deliver the news. Here is my epistle to you. These are tales of a young Bhutanese woman who was born in the year of the fire tigress with way too much energy and has dared to live the life of a yogin, a modern one or so I would like to think, even though that sounds too fictional!
I am writing this to you from London, I have been living here for a month now. I live next to the highway in East Acton. As I write this cars are whooshing past, I can hear the sound of the wind left by flying tyres, some music blasting from next door, compared to my lovely quiet house in Changidaphu, this is way too noisy but you don’t really get to live next to the highway with beds shaking from tremors of the passing underground trains, this is a new experience for me. Welcome to the world of underground and over ground. This shifting land dichotomy is an everyday part of a Londoner (which I suspect is true for all big cities in the world). Three long staircases down the trains and tunnels excite me and when the underground tunnels open with interesting adverts plastered on the semi circle like metallic arches, I feel like a character in a fictional novel, rooted deep, underground smelling soil above my head. I love wandering around in the underground, to me it is like toy trains zooming by, the sound of an annoying English woman who announces the arrivals and departures of trains with an emotionless voice blaring through the speakers, the fading music usually from electric or acoustic guitars played by street musicians who I absolutely enjoy and as and when time permits, I pause and enjoy the hanging sound of music floating in the tunnels of the underground. I often drop a coin in the not very filling empty guitar cases and smile at those musicians for making my day; I am crazy about music and have all the respect for all who can play some sort of an instrument and on the streets is where most artists begin their musical career.
I live on the central line, there are many lines in many different colours when you look at the tube map. Red is central, black is northern, and green is something else and you can imagine all the other palatable colours. Each line is associated with a series of tube stops following a pattern, there are places to change and interchange and exchange and finally get out, get above on the ground. The other day a friend of mine who has always lived in London was saying how artistic the underground is. It sure is another form of modern art; the art, the architecture and the way people experience and interact with it. It is a place where I could sit and look at the characters who get in and off the tube (very well dressed since London is the fashion capital) people who commute and people who make a living in those shiny steel dungeons playing music, or people who lose their phones or their lives in the everyday hustle bustle of working class London. The lines are so much important that when you ask a friend for his/her address it isn’t below the hospital or above the picture hall but on the lines! The lines also tell a lot about your social status and class, the further away from central London that you live the less posh that you are and areas like in any other place in the world are designated to classes, ethnicities and whatever else division you can muster. This is the place where the industrial revolution began (now England is a declining economy and there are no industries on the island which was strategically thought about since the English are very fond of nature, colonial memories might disagree) but England is still pretty and green and clean.
If I was a fish in an ocean would I remember all the fish faces? I see thousands of people in a day, they are mostly very good looking, very well dressed and the shoes, as any woman I love shoes too! I can keep looking at a feet or two and on and on. The strappy sandals for the summer, the dingo boots and those suits, colours and clothes are enough to keep my eyes moving. Other times when I am travelling in the tube, am stuck listening to my music player with Beatles playing only to me while I stare at the face facing me, stare through the person into the darkness of the underground and the wires whizz by and darkness fades into light and soon my station arrives. We are such evolved species, smiling to a stranger isn’t really a practice here. I sometimes see people voraciously devouring their books, some sleeping and dreaming, some with wrinkled foreheads thinking and worried, maybe it is the recession, I can feel England depressed and declining, money is worrying everyone, jobs are being lost, new jobs seldom found, after the great depression, this is another history in the making and I get to be a part of this. Is the sun setting in the English empire?
Once a well known Bhutanese writer once told me how terribly I write, ever since those words keep ringing in my ears, I had a mental block for a long time. I would crumble papers and erase written documents; the writer in me was slowing regressing, words failed to become alive, feelings expressed seemed like non sense, I have finally been able to slightly lift my shell, all I want out of my writing is for you to enjoy as much as I enjoyed living those moments and writing to you, judge me but gently. I wasn’t born to English parents, nor do I claim to have mastered the language but I do know that if you have stuck with me this long to read this piece you will eagerly wait for the next because this is a series you will love. Borrowing from Margaret Atwood, I have finally surfaced.
Till then I remain your humbly,
Manju
On early travellers H.G Wells says how impossible private travels must have been in the pre-Alexandrian world during the absence of money but evidences of early travellers date back to third or fourth century BC. I can only imagine what Bhutan must have been like during that epoch given that we had our first roads built in 1960’s. Being a landlocked country, sheltered by towering Himalayas, the world must have been home and home must have meant the world, maybe the world wasn’t even oblate spheroid but just mountainous. Atleast that is what I thought when I grew up, well I wasn’t too wrong, not very much atleast, there are mountains higher than Everest below the ocean in the Pacific. Back in the days, we would have had saints and nomads and pilgrims travelling to Tibet, Nepal, India and maybe some other Asian countries but what would the worldview have been like? What were the stories that were heard and narrated? What did the travellers bring back apart from tradable goods?
I have no answer or maybe too many doubts but I as a traveller, now on my seventh year after leaving home to embark on an unknown journey finally feel ready to share my experiences. I feel the need to share what I have seen through these eyes and mind of mine, where my legs have carried me away from my mountainous abode, to learn, seek, lose and find, to experience this wonderful world, the dancing ball in space. Do not judge me for I humbly share my experiences so that you can feel the world of a traveller, the addict of constant change and motion, the detached being who constantly seeks new adventures in new lands. I know I haven’t really visited the most exotic places in the world, yet, but I know I belong to one. I grew up in Thimphu; eighteen years went by admiring the valley and valleys beyond, growing up and contemplating life, relishing and enjoying those moments in a wonderland with friends and family and now from a far away land, like the sailors did in the past, travellers who came home and narrated the stories of the vast world, I now in the age of technology which you and I are privileged to access, don’t even need to learn how to swim or wait for pigeons to deliver the news. Here is my epistle to you. These are tales of a young Bhutanese woman who was born in the year of the fire tigress with way too much energy and has dared to live the life of a yogin, a modern one or so I would like to think, even though that sounds too fictional!
I am writing this to you from London, I have been living here for a month now. I live next to the highway in East Acton. As I write this cars are whooshing past, I can hear the sound of the wind left by flying tyres, some music blasting from next door, compared to my lovely quiet house in Changidaphu, this is way too noisy but you don’t really get to live next to the highway with beds shaking from tremors of the passing underground trains, this is a new experience for me. Welcome to the world of underground and over ground. This shifting land dichotomy is an everyday part of a Londoner (which I suspect is true for all big cities in the world). Three long staircases down the trains and tunnels excite me and when the underground tunnels open with interesting adverts plastered on the semi circle like metallic arches, I feel like a character in a fictional novel, rooted deep, underground smelling soil above my head. I love wandering around in the underground, to me it is like toy trains zooming by, the sound of an annoying English woman who announces the arrivals and departures of trains with an emotionless voice blaring through the speakers, the fading music usually from electric or acoustic guitars played by street musicians who I absolutely enjoy and as and when time permits, I pause and enjoy the hanging sound of music floating in the tunnels of the underground. I often drop a coin in the not very filling empty guitar cases and smile at those musicians for making my day; I am crazy about music and have all the respect for all who can play some sort of an instrument and on the streets is where most artists begin their musical career.
I live on the central line, there are many lines in many different colours when you look at the tube map. Red is central, black is northern, and green is something else and you can imagine all the other palatable colours. Each line is associated with a series of tube stops following a pattern, there are places to change and interchange and exchange and finally get out, get above on the ground. The other day a friend of mine who has always lived in London was saying how artistic the underground is. It sure is another form of modern art; the art, the architecture and the way people experience and interact with it. It is a place where I could sit and look at the characters who get in and off the tube (very well dressed since London is the fashion capital) people who commute and people who make a living in those shiny steel dungeons playing music, or people who lose their phones or their lives in the everyday hustle bustle of working class London. The lines are so much important that when you ask a friend for his/her address it isn’t below the hospital or above the picture hall but on the lines! The lines also tell a lot about your social status and class, the further away from central London that you live the less posh that you are and areas like in any other place in the world are designated to classes, ethnicities and whatever else division you can muster. This is the place where the industrial revolution began (now England is a declining economy and there are no industries on the island which was strategically thought about since the English are very fond of nature, colonial memories might disagree) but England is still pretty and green and clean.
If I was a fish in an ocean would I remember all the fish faces? I see thousands of people in a day, they are mostly very good looking, very well dressed and the shoes, as any woman I love shoes too! I can keep looking at a feet or two and on and on. The strappy sandals for the summer, the dingo boots and those suits, colours and clothes are enough to keep my eyes moving. Other times when I am travelling in the tube, am stuck listening to my music player with Beatles playing only to me while I stare at the face facing me, stare through the person into the darkness of the underground and the wires whizz by and darkness fades into light and soon my station arrives. We are such evolved species, smiling to a stranger isn’t really a practice here. I sometimes see people voraciously devouring their books, some sleeping and dreaming, some with wrinkled foreheads thinking and worried, maybe it is the recession, I can feel England depressed and declining, money is worrying everyone, jobs are being lost, new jobs seldom found, after the great depression, this is another history in the making and I get to be a part of this. Is the sun setting in the English empire?
Once a well known Bhutanese writer once told me how terribly I write, ever since those words keep ringing in my ears, I had a mental block for a long time. I would crumble papers and erase written documents; the writer in me was slowing regressing, words failed to become alive, feelings expressed seemed like non sense, I have finally been able to slightly lift my shell, all I want out of my writing is for you to enjoy as much as I enjoyed living those moments and writing to you, judge me but gently. I wasn’t born to English parents, nor do I claim to have mastered the language but I do know that if you have stuck with me this long to read this piece you will eagerly wait for the next because this is a series you will love. Borrowing from Margaret Atwood, I have finally surfaced.
Till then I remain your humbly,
Manju