I have loved and I have sinned
If you ask me to sin again,
I shall break your teeth!
I have cried and a sea of tears I have shed
If you want another sea,
I shall poke your eyes out!
My heart has been broken and stitched,
trampled and crumpled,
If you want to tread on it again,
I shall take your heart out and eat it with spices!
Now, leave me alone, there are 6Billion people in the world,
go make yourself useful- to someone else,
leave me alone!
The Water in Us
We are but water in a bag of leather,
there is a sea inside like the sea you see,
drops of water in this vast canvas,
gel of water dancing as waves,
together but seperate,
a drop inseperable from the rest.
The blue sea flirts with the shiny shores,
frothy beer and bubbles so alive,
errupt and erase,
exist and cease,
the creases of the sea,
lines of beauty wrapped by the sky.
The ball in space
still says
I am turning.
There is light there,
it is night here,
but I can still sight the sun.
Now run and walk the sand on your feet,
feel the ground beneath the sheath,
dip your feet,
and let the water meet the water in you!
Mysteries.
Enjoy the beach for it is so out of my reach.
Zangtopelri
Secrets hidden in eyes,Shyness on the lips,
and the look could melt a thousand hearts.
She had nothing in her house,and I knew she had everything that she needed nothing.
But in a corner in a colourful altar were the Buddhas.
Mountains dear Mountains Oh Mountains Lovely Mountains
How beautiful you are
Somewhere above
beautiful cats purr
elegantly in snow it walks and drifts with the clouds
A long tail swinging in the cold breeze
As it walks the majestic rugged ridges
once considered a myth
the snow leopards still lives
and these are where the Bhutanese leopards live
on the edge in Bhutan's hinterland
Road
The road is my home, my home the road, I love your curves, your smooth rides, your meandering coasts, the passing bubbles of air, my hair splashes on my face and I smell you, thousands of miles I can see and ten thousand more I envision, vision and season, seasons of visions, colours of darkness, darkness of light, green clouds and pink sky, purple rain and blue trees, red water and fluorescent humans, no I ain't imagining, it is the passing colours that changes its shades, dreams are real and reality a dream, life a screen and I the drama queen! a dharma bum some hum and hymns you hear merging with sounds of the the passing passerby, as I pack my rucksack again, it is time to move on!
Climbing the Himalayas
For ages you have stood like sages
A curve up and a bend down
A point to the sky and drop down the valley
slowly and swiftly you rise
high high you are high
higher you shall rise today
clouds shroud you in a warm floating blanket
rivers adorn your ankles
shhhhhhhhhhh it flows and wooooshhhhhhh sings its rapids
the sun is invisible and its light high and bright
sight sight oh beautiful sight
mountains dear mountains
shine bright in early morning light
for eternities you shall stand like sages
my lovely Himalayas........
A curve up and a bend down
A point to the sky and drop down the valley
slowly and swiftly you rise
high high you are high
higher you shall rise today
clouds shroud you in a warm floating blanket
rivers adorn your ankles
shhhhhhhhhhh it flows and wooooshhhhhhh sings its rapids
the sun is invisible and its light high and bright
sight sight oh beautiful sight
mountains dear mountains
shine bright in early morning light
for eternities you shall stand like sages
my lovely Himalayas........
Rebirth
Sitting at the banks of Kholong Chhu
earthly brown the river flows
mother monsoon's breasts have swollen with milk
ferocious and gushing
rushing without pausing
glancing and dancing
white currents laughing
smiling and smirking
ferociously flowing
crickets cracking and birds calling
moths fluttering and spiders weaving
Oh! the sound of the green white water
heavenly blissful sound
shhhhhh shhhhhhhhhh woshhhhh shhhhhhhhhhhhh
the fish swimming and the pebbles struggling
cleansing and cleaning
the boulders are shining
monsoon delightful tears
clean and clear air
bare and naked smell of nature
green evergreen
screaming rejuvenation
R E B I R T H
earthly brown the river flows
mother monsoon's breasts have swollen with milk
ferocious and gushing
rushing without pausing
glancing and dancing
white currents laughing
smiling and smirking
ferociously flowing
crickets cracking and birds calling
moths fluttering and spiders weaving
Oh! the sound of the green white water
heavenly blissful sound
shhhhhh shhhhhhhhhh woshhhhh shhhhhhhhhhhhh
the fish swimming and the pebbles struggling
cleansing and cleaning
the boulders are shining
monsoon delightful tears
clean and clear air
bare and naked smell of nature
green evergreen
screaming rejuvenation
R E B I R T H
Sorrow of a Swallow
A broken wing is all a bird needs,
bleeding feathers and flightless wings,
how does one swing?
The sting of the wing
doesn't let me sing.
Teary eyes and melancholic voice
broken wings and a stitched heart
blood I see and blood I weep
let it seep to the hole of my soul
Swallows come and surround me
but I wallow in my sorrow
low low swallow
in a gulp I swallow my sorrow!
bleeding feathers and flightless wings,
how does one swing?
The sting of the wing
doesn't let me sing.
Teary eyes and melancholic voice
broken wings and a stitched heart
blood I see and blood I weep
let it seep to the hole of my soul
Swallows come and surround me
but I wallow in my sorrow
low low swallow
in a gulp I swallow my sorrow!
Woman!
A woman.
Complex.
A girl within, desires and secrets hidden beneath her bosom.
Her stomach she feels knowing someday a seed will blossom.
Blood flows, period.
Hormones- blame all tantrums on it.
Soft as cotton, rough as coral reefs, strong as a boulder, weak and meek.
Complex.
Layers of butter...
Cascading hair, tiny hips and luscious lips, men she attracts and men she dispels,
God she plays and devil she becomes
Utterly confused.
Women are hard to understand they say
that's true, all we want is love anyways
who wants to be understood?
And who the hell claims to understand another person anyways?
A woman- just bored!
Rants! (grunts)
Complex.
A girl within, desires and secrets hidden beneath her bosom.
Her stomach she feels knowing someday a seed will blossom.
Blood flows, period.
Hormones- blame all tantrums on it.
Soft as cotton, rough as coral reefs, strong as a boulder, weak and meek.
Complex.
Layers of butter...
Cascading hair, tiny hips and luscious lips, men she attracts and men she dispels,
God she plays and devil she becomes
Utterly confused.
Women are hard to understand they say
that's true, all we want is love anyways
who wants to be understood?
And who the hell claims to understand another person anyways?
A woman- just bored!
Rants! (grunts)
Waking Dreams
Endless cigarettes killed to death,
Your fingers and the golden ashtray,
A shot of brandy on another hand
rocking in your chair black and fair
A sip a gulp a ring a puff
Huff Huff
Hupplepuff
As the brandy slides down your throat
I can see it swim to your boat
your face a tinge of red
and lets hear stories well said
As you narrate I am all ears
while my ears hear
My eyes are lost
My mind near and far
A knot in my stomach
A flutter in my heart
let the earth stand still
as I walk on starry grounds with land above
hugging the moon and kissing the sun
I burn hot hot in the heat
While you drink I burn
While you think I sink
While you speak its music
while you smoke I breathe
I am high
on my Karma!
On Age
What is fourty and what twenty, twenty more new-years apart, numbers to scale and measure, more memories to treasure?
Angay
Enlightened.
Her nails tell the story of her toil,
Her wrinkles of many creases of memories,
Sans teeth a second childhood,
Her silver hair old and bold,
Her calm eyes balm my soul,
Her expression, just priceless~
(ps- This photograph is not mine)
Wai
I read Kinga's blog today, I don't know her as such but in Bhutan everyone hears about everyone through someone and knows that someone somehow; brushing memories of that someone being the neighbour's cousin or cousin's neighbour or some bizzare relationship fostered through chain of connections. We Bhutanese have an innate ability to network and have an immense understanding of public relations of which gossip is like grated cheese on datshi. So Kinga, an engineer and blogger, mother and writer, thinker and sinker- a friend mailed me about her blog and asked if I knew her and had heard of her blog, immediately I googled, there she was all decked up in her neat little blog and pinned by a clip her articles lay neatly arranged. I loved the look and I dug the writings, nostalgia of home couldn't have been supressed in a better way, her writing is in everyway very Bhutanese with a twist in the end of every story which reminded me of Tolstoy. The name rang a bell somewhere so I did some research and dug my memory. Whose neighbour? Whose friend? What connection, and bingo! Kinga happens to be my ex's friend from his workplace that he quit after he joined the job for a month,
I have been living away from home for a long time, writing in a language that you are reading and somehow I had lost the familiar sounds of "alawai" "gachilo" "kay haray" "hazur" "anta" "hang an cha ya" " chi beydo"and the like, the colloqialisms of everydayness in Bhutan. This is exactly what makes Kinga's writing special, the 'everyday' element, the moments she presents truthfully, realistically and beautifully. Kadinche (thank you) for bringing me back on track.
I am leaving for Bhutan dayafter, the past year my journeys have been meandering like the rivers and the countless ripples form and disappear but the river keeps on flowing and moving, never does the same droplet of water flow at the same place. Shifting between Wang chhu and the Thames- called Isis in Oxford, watching the Cherwell next to my college and people punting, I smile at the still flowing rivers. For me rivers make sounds, gushing sounds like our whitewaters back home who warn you from miles away saying " wai nga na bab do mey" (hey am flowing here), we need those warnings, who knows some drunk person at night with no light might not sight the river!
I miss being in Bhutan everyday, but it makes me appreciate what it is like to live at home, how lucky we are, how lucky that for me I can just go home for a 'vacation'. Few decades ago if you told some Ap Dorji about where he had gone for vacation he would probably tell you ' Gasa Tsha Chhu' or 'Bodhgaya' if you had the money or maybe he would have asked " Chuuti ya- gachilo" ( vacation- what? ) he may muster an answer of that sort but these days we have some fanciful people flauting their tan? saying " nga Bangkok jui ba" and they would propbably have been circiling Bo-bae the cheap market where lots of shop keepers go. Sometimes I really wonder if its worth saying I was in NYC when you barely had a tiny room to sleep in and come back home to exaggerate that you were almost in the Ritz but in reality were next to the tiny house opposite the small lane! Good we should travel but don't bring back stories that are just falsely woven!
I feel the pinch everyday I go out. I am calculating and converting in my head all the £ into Nu and thinking, Oh boy, I should be grateful for the cheap bus and taxi fares and stop arguing with people if they charge me Nu 5 more. I am in Oxford, I think its more hyped than what it is but the Oxford experience is definitely something I cannot put into words, anyways the point being, even here I am reminded of my origin everyday. I am unique (we are only two of us here), I know that you have never met a Bhutanese before and I also know you will tell me " my geography is bad but where is Bhutan" and I know if you do know where I am from you will say " measurement of happiness!" so there I go on my usual rant of happiness happiness and happiness, oh Boy! the world really is unhappy, happiness has become like a far fetched forlon medieval or stone age idea. We are on the way of becoming robotomised! slowly but surely. "Happiness is chilling out people", do we need to teach you that? I have a masters in it, its been granted by laziness academy and seconded by the department of enjoyment. :)
This is just a random note based on nothing in particular, started with Kinga and her witty write ups, definitely worth a read. Go check it out.
I feel so Bhutanese. Loving it.
I have been living away from home for a long time, writing in a language that you are reading and somehow I had lost the familiar sounds of "alawai" "gachilo" "kay haray" "hazur" "anta" "hang an cha ya" " chi beydo"and the like, the colloqialisms of everydayness in Bhutan. This is exactly what makes Kinga's writing special, the 'everyday' element, the moments she presents truthfully, realistically and beautifully. Kadinche (thank you) for bringing me back on track.
I am leaving for Bhutan dayafter, the past year my journeys have been meandering like the rivers and the countless ripples form and disappear but the river keeps on flowing and moving, never does the same droplet of water flow at the same place. Shifting between Wang chhu and the Thames- called Isis in Oxford, watching the Cherwell next to my college and people punting, I smile at the still flowing rivers. For me rivers make sounds, gushing sounds like our whitewaters back home who warn you from miles away saying " wai nga na bab do mey" (hey am flowing here), we need those warnings, who knows some drunk person at night with no light might not sight the river!
I miss being in Bhutan everyday, but it makes me appreciate what it is like to live at home, how lucky we are, how lucky that for me I can just go home for a 'vacation'. Few decades ago if you told some Ap Dorji about where he had gone for vacation he would probably tell you ' Gasa Tsha Chhu' or 'Bodhgaya' if you had the money or maybe he would have asked " Chuuti ya- gachilo" ( vacation- what? ) he may muster an answer of that sort but these days we have some fanciful people flauting their tan? saying " nga Bangkok jui ba" and they would propbably have been circiling Bo-bae the cheap market where lots of shop keepers go. Sometimes I really wonder if its worth saying I was in NYC when you barely had a tiny room to sleep in and come back home to exaggerate that you were almost in the Ritz but in reality were next to the tiny house opposite the small lane! Good we should travel but don't bring back stories that are just falsely woven!
I feel the pinch everyday I go out. I am calculating and converting in my head all the £ into Nu and thinking, Oh boy, I should be grateful for the cheap bus and taxi fares and stop arguing with people if they charge me Nu 5 more. I am in Oxford, I think its more hyped than what it is but the Oxford experience is definitely something I cannot put into words, anyways the point being, even here I am reminded of my origin everyday. I am unique (we are only two of us here), I know that you have never met a Bhutanese before and I also know you will tell me " my geography is bad but where is Bhutan" and I know if you do know where I am from you will say " measurement of happiness!" so there I go on my usual rant of happiness happiness and happiness, oh Boy! the world really is unhappy, happiness has become like a far fetched forlon medieval or stone age idea. We are on the way of becoming robotomised! slowly but surely. "Happiness is chilling out people", do we need to teach you that? I have a masters in it, its been granted by laziness academy and seconded by the department of enjoyment. :)
This is just a random note based on nothing in particular, started with Kinga and her witty write ups, definitely worth a read. Go check it out.
I feel so Bhutanese. Loving it.