A summons for death

Perhaps we forget that death will come to us like a hunter riding a horse and gallop away taking us on with it. Perhaps we don’t want to remember that we must die one day or the other. No matter what, death shall come in disguise and abduct us faraway, millions of hills back. Like the replication of vampires and the zombies, death will have been searching us everywhere, every time. Sometimes concealing in the depth of opportunities; sometimes flowing from the smile and sometimes as an adversity, death shall come.

The greatest philosopher Socrates wrote, “The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows”. One day we bid farewell to the world we have loved to stay, living behind our family, property and the worldly materials. Like a trail of our legs, we fade from the heart of mortals as time passes by and nothing but history remains untold. Whether it is good that we are dying or it is bad that we are living, no one but god knows it.

We don’t want to die yet have to die. “We have no armour against fate” as the great poet James Shriley writes in his poem, Death the Leveler. No matter how strong, how fit we are, we are ultimately the subjects of death. Sick or healthy; giant or tiny; black or white; King or peasant; male or female; Happy or sad-everyone shall be treated equally. “From soil we came and to the soil we return”, as bible unfolds.

 The great Nepalese writer and poet Dr Krishna Hari Baral writes  on death ,which can be translated very roughly as :

“No one has a desire to die,

Yet there isn’t a moment

That slips off without our death.

No matter where we escape,

There isn’t a place mortals won’t die”.

Every minute I am reminded of death, I get a chill run over my spinal cord raising my heartbeats. As I lie on the bed late night, a sad gust of feeling stir my mind and shakes my life. I imagine the times in future when we are on the verge of closing the eyes and squeeze out every molecule of oxygen, how suffocations will prevent us from uttering the words we desire. We will have our near and dear ones sobbing and mourning; some people not even believing we are summoned by death. “Nothing will happen to you, my dear. We will not let you die”. These are the soothing words those loved ones will speak. They give us a new desire to live. We wish, then, we never died. It is at that time we remember millions of things in short time that we might not have been able to remember in our entire life. When we see those healthy ones witnessing as we breathe last; we wish we were once again alive. There will be dreams, hopes and desires that remain raw and unfulfilled. There will be people we would love to meet for the last time yet as fate desires, so shall it be. We die but with a desire to live long.

No one likes to leave the one who have given us so many things to remember. Sometime I wish we could also say like the people living, “We will always remember you”. Of what good will that serve? Wheteher the dead ones are remembered or forgotten what difference will that make? I wish when we on the dead bed, we could say, “don’t worry, I will be back soon with lots of eatables. Until then take good care of yourselves”.

My only concern about death is whether I will be able to see my parents and loved ones when I breathe my last and I wish I could say, “I will be back soon”. As I think of that day, tears fall off and I suffocate. I am afraid of death. I want to live as long as I wish to.

Ode to the parents

It is a dream of every parent to have one’s son live upto one’s expectations. Since the time we were born to them as an innocent baby to this day as a grown up man with beards and moustache, their dreams have been tickling them. When we were just toddlers, they have saved us from getting into the fire. They have saved us from hurting with knives or bruising the knees by a stone. Holding our hands along the footpath and the terraces of the paddy fields, they have taught us to walk. When we stared at them while chewing corns or fruits, they have shared it with us. The time we uttered some alien words, they have hoped with joys, smiled with delight and taught us further with sweetness.

Then, time came for us to get enrolled into the school. They have fought hard to get us enrolled in the schools. Running through headmaster to the Gup and to the Home ministry, they helped us stand among those privileged ones. They have helped us stand on the same queue the privileged ones stood. From Preprimary standard to until today, until this time many things have changed yet the love of our parents haven’t. We are grown up today with our own ability to survive through life. We have become capable to walk alone. We have grown big, infact bigger than what everyone expects. We have forgotten how we were brought up. We now take things for granted that whatever we are today is just what had to happen.

This is the time we forget where we have come from. We forget to take ourselves in thought where we have come from. We don’t even bother to look back how we have been able to come this far. Time flies swiftly and we are indulged in the present so much that we hardly remember to recollect the past. Were we to be such damn idiot to forget how tough things were to help us grow, I suppose we never grew.

Who cares to make a call to the parents even once a week? Are we so busy that we can’t even steal a second to ask about the health of our parents? Or is it that we have become bother less about them? If we wish to call, there is time when we go to toilet; there is a possibility to call when we go to kitchen; there is time to call when we walk. We have times for facebook, twitter, Gmail, Skype and so on, yet we say we have no time. Is it for that we have been brought up?

There are some of us who has enough balance to call lovers, yet have nothing to give a missed call. We have times to write poem about the lovers yet we have no words to describe our parents. Our time to think about life had come. We choose partners who parents think should not have been chosen. We think our parents have no say on it but we are forgetting that this is not what parents want out of us. There is a virtue in listening to the parents on what they recommend us. We may make ourselves the happiest person with our choice but we won’t rest in peace after we die. Each drop of tear that fall from their eye will have to be paid back. If we go against the will of our parents, no one can stop us from going to hell. This isn’t what we have been brought up for. We have responsibility to be a responsible sons and daughters of our parents.

Ode to the parents

It is a dream of every parent to have their son live upto their expectations. Since  the time we were born to them as an innocent baby to this day as a grown up man with beards and moustache, their dreams have been tickling them. When we were just a toddler, they have saved us from getting into the fire. They have saved us from hurting with knives or bruising the knees by a stone. Holding our hands along the footpath and the terraces of the paddy fields, they have taught us to walk. When we stared at them while chewing corns or fruits, they have shared it to us. The time we uttered some alien words, they have hoped with joys, smiled with delights and taught us further with sweetness.

Then, time came for us to get enrolled into the school. They have fought hard to enroll us. Running through headmaster to the Gup and to the Home ministry, they helped us stand among those privileged ones. They have helped us stand on the same queue the privileged ones stood. From Preprimary standard to until today, until this time many things have changed yet the love of our parents haven’t. We grown up today with our own ability to survive life. We have become capable to walk alone. We have grown big, infact bigger than what everyone expects. We have forgotten how we were brought up. We now take things for granted that whatever we are today is just what had to happen.

This is the time we forget where we have come from. We forget to take ourselves in thought where we have come from. We don’t even bother to look back how we have been able to come this far. Time flies swiftly and we are indulged in the present so much that we hardly remember to recollect the past. Were we to be such damn idiot to forget how tough things were to help us grow, I suppose we never grew.

Who cares to make a call to the parents even once a week? Are we so busy that we can’t even steal a second to ask about the health of our parents? Or is it that we have become bother less about them? If we wish to call, there is time when we go to toilet; there is a possibility to call when we go to kitchen; there is time to call when we walk. We have times for facebook, twitter, Gmail, Skype and so on, yet we say we have no time. Is is for that we have been brought up?

There are some of us who has enough balance to call lovers, yet have nothing to give a missed call. We have times to write poem about the lovers yet we have no words to describe our parents. Our time to think about life had come. We choose partners who parents think should not have been chosen. We think our parents have no say on it but we are forgetting that this is not what parents want out of us. There is a virtue in listening to the parents on what they recommend us. We may make ourselves the happiest person with our choice but we won’t rest in peace after we die. Each drop of tear that fall from their eye will have to be paid back. If we go against the will of our parents, no one can stop us from going to hell. This isn’t what we have brought up for. We have responsibility to be a responsible sons and daughters of our parents.

The tale of a true man who had a faulty fate-This is a true story that happened in my village.

Human kind is tough to fathom: We dig our won grave and claim we have been cheated by fate. There were marriages that lasted for centuries and oaths taken once lasted but this is a story that deviates from normalcy.

“Ama,I want to sleep with you. I feel afraid to sleep with my sister. She always beats me”. The innocent post- toddler boy sobs suffocating with a long thread of phlegm from his nose.

“No, you can’t: See baby, I have to sleep at home to guard out properties. We have rice to be guarded. Who knows many people walk just through our house and they might pick up our knives and even steal our rice. Sister will take care of you”. Said the mom Lal maya that looked lost in the absence of her husband.

Drought had hit the crops hard. Adding to the limited land holding, it was tough for the family of five to earn cash for buying clothes and expending the children to school. As a head of the family he was the sole bread earner. In search of a better job to raise his wife and three children, Mr Baudha had travelled to Thimphu.His aptitude in carpentry and masonry inspired his going and he joined into work. One, two three months passed and even two years was on the verge of ending. Except for sometimes, he sent money home. Not once did he try calling home to ask if they were living. Worse so, it was the time when Telecommunication was something it was present in the capital only. Even if they wanted to contact, there was way no possible for them. Even the thoughts of sending letter was impossible to have, for black letters equaled buffalo.

What might have happened to Baudha,no one knows, except the almighty god. Silence sang back there at home. In wait of his return, many months passed and half a decade went by.Lal maya had a life nobody could imagine. She had to send her daughter to the school and she had a 4 years old son to feed. Life was hard for her. Every now and then she used to visit my mum and pour out her tension and stress. I remember her asking me to write a letter. A known person from our village was going to see her son in Thimphu.

I was then just in class three. Her daughter was my class mate. Those days, to spill my pride and blow my trumpet used to top the school. I used to know how to write letters. This I learn from her own son who was then somewhere in the boarding school of Wamrong.In an academic field I used to be brilliant and fast learner. By the way those were the days when my brain was tender and had a lot of space.

I wrote:

“Dear srimaam(Husband)

It’s me Your Lal maya all the way from Talabasti.How are you? I hope you are very fine.

By the way I am also fine here with everything going smoothly.

Thankyou

Your wife

(Sorry I don’t know her name).

Poor me I did not know what I was writing. I used to copy the way my brother would send me back then. When it came to writing her name, I didn’t know and I even didn’t dare to ask her for she had left our house.

She waited and looked forward to seeing his reply. In such expectant wait, 5 years passed yet there wasn’t any news of his return. Time was really passing hard and dasain and Diwali went by. In the due process of time, son grew up and grew 9 years then. He was admitted into the school. Summer was over and winter started.

Those chilly winter nights, when the moon would open its eye, darkness would be afraid to flourish. Night was just like a dim day and it was lively. People walked, screamed and made the night lovely. When everybody was happy, she wasn’t. To understand how a lonely soul would feel like one could ask this lady. To assess how burden life must feel with the mouths to feels, one could ask this lady.

No one can remember when turning point in her life started. It was the least expected of her. A man, every night would visit her singing under the moon. Mr. Tobgay had been habituated to make love with her. Nobody knew of that until one day when her daughter and the son visit her late night mistaking the cross of cockerel in the middle of nigh to be morning. As a child one can imagine how early we would wake up. As we grow old, even if no ghost comes and shake us no one would wake up. This was the climax point of her life. The door wasn’t latched from inside for it seems Mr. Tobgay was in a hurry. They caught her on the spot making love with her. They screamed out of fear. Hearing them scream, paternal uncle of the children arrived at the scene to find them together.

Following week, wireless message was sent to Buddha to come home as soon as possible. Getting the message, he rushed home and the case was taken to the village head man.

A committee of five members was gathered. Baudha begged for the punishment of the culprit and his wife to be back to his life. She denied and said she would marry with Tobgay.The fact she married Tobgay was that she was pregnant and was carrying a baby of 4 month old.

Following the settlement, the man felt like everything was lost. He had no better home nor could he afford to make one. Life became like a dream. He never had expected such a tragedy in life. I don’t know what must be transpiring in him but I see him lonely and lost today.

These days I have seen Lal maya with three daughters with Mr Tobgay but her life is like in hell. She works so hard with him and frequently gets bashed up. I pity her life more than I do Baudha’s.One in leading lonely and single life peacefully while other is leading a family life horribly. At least if she had stayed with Baudha she would never get beaten.

Today even her son and daughter hates her. Son has become 18 years and passed class ten. They remember how she had abandoned them just for the sake of other man.

Whatever happens, happens for a reason .Life is difficult to understand at times. God shall weigh whose fault measure how much!!

Death shall come

Death shall come

One day you shall hear the news;

Perhaps it will be good for some heart

Perhaps it will be bad for few

Yet there certainly shall be one.

Expect it not through the radio or TV

Not even through news paper

For I am not a celebrity

Or a politician

Nor am I a business tycoon.

Normal man like me shall exit

From this world where I entered.

Ask not if I am sick

Ask not if I am old,

I am normal like you

Active

Dynamic

Zealous and

 In me is a desire to survive for long,

In me is a reluctance feeling

Yet there will come a time,

I shall bid adieu forever.

I wish to exist and

Be part of you for some time,

For I have dreams to fulfill

I have destination to reach

Yet I shall not be held back

For what is greater than fate?

Death shall come and drag

And fate shall sing my valediction.

My love letter to her

Dear  concerned

I wanted to let you know this before  yet I couldn’t do. I want to let you know this, today, before anything happens to me that will make unable to reach this message to you. I know whatever I did to you- the extent of abuse was beyond the limit yet you never told me anything. You never responded in a harsh manner. Overcome by the intoxication of infatuation and sense of possessiveness, I was spoilt. I thought the feelings that I had for you was love and accordingly tended to trouble you day and night. At times I have disrupted your peace by my presence. In one way or the other, I have caused you all sort of inconveniences in your life.

I also would like to let you know that I had an immense feeling for you. Time to time I had let you know that, too.I always thought about you. In whatever work I engaged in, there wasn’t moment I didn’t think of you. My life was spoilt. I couldn’t concentrate in my studies. I was all the time with your thoughts. Each night before I went to bed, I used to look at my phone waiting for your goodnight wishes. At times I used to wait for the response of my message. You know, you would just never respond. This expectation would kill me hard and gradually I became weak. I used to wake up early in the morning and get indulged into your thoughts.

Sometimes when you talked to your friends while visiting our block, my ears would curiously wait to eavesdrop you. I waited you to visit my room sometimes but you hardly would do so. I remember you coming twice and then never. I felt so happy at those two times of your visit. I would expect more of it. Many a times I asked you to make dinner for me. It wasn’t that I wanted to trouble you but I wanted to be with you at least for some time. My intentions were never to cause you inconveniences but to feel you sitting just next to you. You must have observed that I never could take much food. It wasn’t that I was ashamed but just to have your presence was more than enough. That way I was crazy upon you and wanted you to know that. I know you must have known that yet you never showed a sign of reciprocating my feelings. I waited for a day when you would say you started feeling for me.

In wait for that day, a year passed yet you showed no feeling for me. I wasn’t angry but felt hurt. I knew that my feelings were one-sided and that to wait for you was like expecting miracle to happen. You must not have known how toughness ruled me then. Before I let you know my feelings I tried taking pills. I was mentally disturbed and suffered from depression and OCD.I was constantly thinking of you. I approached my uncle who is a Psychiatrist for the treatment. I took pills for two months and still that didn’t make me alright.I had to confess you that I fell for you. Other than you, whom could I say this? So I told you about my feelings.

One day around October 10 or so, I showed other side of my reality. I abused you and hurt you with vulgar words. I never intended to do so but it seemed to me that you had turn off chat for me. I sent to you several messages but you never responded any. I saw you chatting with my friends while bothering me the least. I was literally hurt. I couldn’t control my tears. I was alone in my room and having so many kinds of feelings and thoughts. I became mad. Once you’re responded me and then I started chatting with you that led to abusing you. I thought I better abused you and earned hatred because your goodness and silence were causing me trouble. Once I abused you with vulgar, I knew you would hate me and point out my  weaknesses. I knew you would block me from face book and delete my phone number. I knew you would tell me not to contact you and message you,. Our distance would be fading and would become longer. I predicted that and yes even wanted that to happen. It happened and you started hating me. I wanted it. Yet did you ever know and even try to know how guilty I felt. That night I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking of our good times and your goodness.  However my abusive words had already made you hate me, you would never come towards me. Our closeness faded and the way you thought of me changed. I became villain in your eyes. Later that night around 1 A.M or so when I checked to see what I had written, I was already blocked and that I couldn’t view any messages. Gradually we became once again unknown and strange yet I could not hate you. My feelings were the same yet once  when I wrote  a message to you, you asked me  never to try messaging you . That held me back from contacting you. I tried calling but the time i dialed your number I would remember your warning and dared not to. Adding to being silent were the busy schedule of my life, Lots of assignments and research proposal made me indulged. Soon winter vacation started. You went away and I went away never to have you in my life.

Today I feel my craze and infatuations are squeezed off and I am a normal man now. I have become a love-phobic man yet I never have hated you. I don’t know if I can talk to you now but I definitely will make an attempt to talk to you after I go from here. Then, don’t expect me to disturb you but to appreciate your humanness. I never will propose you for I have no such worldly desires. I still admire you but i am sorry  for my time to think of life has come. If I wanted I could force you to listen to me by crying and troubling you. I can blackmail you sentimentally. When  i say  so, please don’t take it negatively. This is what just happens to many lovers. I have watched a good number of movies too. Our caste system comes in between and bars our union. We are different and thus I would never want to make you uncomfortable again.

Lastly but not the least, I ask you for the forgiveness. Please don’t take me wrongly in life.I shall still treat you the best person of life yet I shall change the angle from where I used to view.

Thanking you

Phenomena

I walk the road surveying each step,
And deep within me thoughts play.
Buds sleep sound on the lap of the plants
Blossoms dance grasping the pedicels:
As my eye sight strikes this phenomenon,
I remember one thing,
That i easily relate to the life:
Like the flowers,
Like the buds
Like the tender leaves
That disappear in Autumn
Come back in spring
Get matured in summer and
Embrace death in winter,
Our lives too have such phenomena-
Seasonal changes of partners,
season changes of car,
seasonal changes of the feelings
And when winter of life comes,
Embrace death.

into the past

I sit and mull over the past;
No!I am not thinking of you
Nor i hate to see you in my imaginations.
Playing with the thoughts that grow within
And see them die within,I recollect the past and summon the memories-
Like a repeated lightning ,they sparkle
within and the thunder of regrets
Rumbles over the night of my existence.
I see you in glances,
Slideshows,
And snapshots
of my thoughts
yet i find no reason to smile
For the roads on which my innocent feelings
trod and mired upon the puddles of circumstances,
are demolished-
Lichens and weeds
Boulders and thorns
Thickets and bushes
Of imaginations have taken over
And all i can do is sit down on my chair
Take each small sip of memories
And nourish my poverty-stricken heart.