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.

The eye in the skY

I perched on the sky
saw the world getting by

Many melted into the earth
Many were thrown off the womb

So calm it looked the blue
So serene the clouds that floated, bloated and cried

I saw the birds flapping and the Gorrilas yawning
Orangs swinging and ants working
Humans dressing and snakes undressing
I saw the Polar bears walking and pigs snoring
I saw infinite sights
Unending music of sounds
I heaved a sigh!
Are there not enough reasons to rejoice?

I flapped my mind and descended back on earth.

Grains of Sand

Countless
Passed
All
Faded..

Many
Paused
All
Disappeared

Beneath the ocean
on the top
floating with waves
drowned in it
Present but absent
visibly invisible

Till it came to the shore
I was unaware
of life's duality
With time sails memory
With waves sail sand
this is the end
my beautiful friend
the end ( In Morrison's tune)

Another passed.
Another disappeared

But there curls
another wave

Infinite.

The beginning of the End

As my lament amplifies to a horrific howl, Wordsworth seems too subtle, Edward Munk's painting evokes imageries of placing my hand on my ears and reciting Ginsberg's HOWL, the best minds of my generation thought it was best to be inSane. As I read about 'economising' air we breathe and water we drink and everything else on this blue green planet, I shudder in fear for capitalism now wears the mask of market based instruments and mechanisms- selling carbon like popcorns and trading species under the umbrella of legality, I am glad I am insane for sanity makes no sense to me. Pulls and pushes, north and south, east and west, all created, constructed and construed to perpetuate dependence, polarization of power and income- a slow leech sucking all the blood and when there remains no core nor no periphery, no more dancing in space,all that will remain is the silence of pungent death brought by invisible hands of greed.

I see stars in daylight

I see stars during daylight,
it takes an extra eye to see them,
the eye of the mind.

I see the moon during daylight,
It is round and full always.

I see the sun when it is cloudy,
just behind but there.

I feel the dance of the earth,
the same move everyday,
the sun and moon are testimony.

I see the same face in the mirror everyday,
but the light in my eye changes,
my eye is my mind, my mind is my eye

Mystical mystique universe,
ask and thou shall receive,
listen and thee shall hear,
look and thou shall see.

I see stars during daylight,
do you?

6th Mass Extinction

The ball in space,
had once flaming dragons and veggie dinosaurs,
all left only in memories of fossils now.

The ape that once scratched its head,
walked on dangling limbs,
today wears a black tie and carries a suitcase.

Five times before,
from the Ordovician to the tertiary,
death reeked from all corners,
death but caused by nature,
regenerates

The sixth is underway they say,
the ball will silently float in space,
no human cries, no roaring tigers, no cuddly Pandas,
nature will shrink, does that make you think?

7 Billion heads, 7 billion mouths, 14 billion hands,
grab and waste, kill and taste, throw and go,
cling an animal on your neck, your ears,
all but to please the eye, but what says the bigger eye,
the third eye?

Kalyug

No More

I want to hide my head in the shell of time,
pause it with my tiny paws,
tick tick no more

I want to lick the dripping cream from ice,
my red tongue and delicious white cream,
drip drip no more

I want to lie down and stretch my back,
heave a sigh of relief and let you hold my hand,
appear disappear no more

I want to play with buttercups and tear fine green leaves,
face my chin up and soak the sun-shine,
fade behind the clouds no more

I want to sleep with open eyes
savour every moment of being alive
blink my eyes no more

I want to enjoy the silence
let my mind sleep and tuck my brain
learn to think no more

I want to stop writing unpoetic verses
waste words and digital ink
write poems no more

I wrote a note in a coat

I refrain
from pain
to be sane

I laugh
just half
to laugh the other half

I sing
to ring
tring tring

I fly
to flee
in glee

I sit
on seat
to eat

I pray
to stray
every day

I think
to brink
and sink

I sank
in a tank
that rank

I drank
and drank
got drunk!

Anju

You are eighteen today,
I was five when you were born.
I have held you as a baby,
seen you grow up to a beautiful teenager.
We have fought and quarrled and belittled each other,
but despite all I love you and I know you feel the same.
Common blood binds us and common ancestors combine us,
common roots connect us.
We are sisters, two branches of the same tree.

You will soon embark to see the world,
a world of much people, ideas, spaces and places,
of much death from history and hope from technology,
of much destruction, evil and love,
of much self disvovery and recovery,
of much exploration and adventure,
all I can say is enjoy it, savour it,
for they are all yours,
live it and love it,
for they are all become memories.

Have fun.
Follow your heart and you will be fine,
live like yourself and you will be you,
on a dark night when you do not know what to do,
read my poem and know that I love you,
I am always there for you.

Happy Birthday, enjoy your last birthday home.

Mindfullness

Let me share a secret
that everyone knows.

Happiness comes from being happy.
Being happy comes from being content,
content comes from appreciation,
appretiation comes from compassion
compassion comes from love

Awareness and thankfullness for moments
live in 'here and now'
don't make it then or when
enjoy the water in the tap, the food in the shelves,
the clothes on yourself,
enjoy enjoyment
joyfully
happily

Future you can't predict so why try?
past you can't erase so why brood?
Now is what you have, live it.
Mindfully love it.