The mismatch in our dreams

The mismatch in our dreams

Many of us, who we are today, are not the realization of what we have dreamt ourselves of. By defaults things just happen and we just become ready to get adjusted to it. At times it is like, closing the eyes and pointing at the place on the map randomly and claiming it was that we pointed at. Or rather like playing a game with “Inky minky ponky, father is a donkey” technique and whoever would be counted as doom would be the one who would serve as wished by the players in the team. Perhaps, what we have achieved must not be what our goals were. Perhaps what we have now must not be what we desired for. Somehow things happen in life. There are some things that, no matter how much we want to get it, we never get. There are, also things that we have never heard of but land up getting them easily.

Due to this, “the randomness of phenomenon”, our act and what others expect us of, do not match.

There have been great doctors, with vast knowledge but they have no patience. They deal harshly with the patients and land up getting bad feedbacks from them. The one who qualifies for medicines doesn’t necessary mean that it was their dream to b a doctor. Just because they obtained high marks in the some subjects, they are selected as medical students. Their desires and dispositions do not match with the employment they are taking up. This is the reason why many doctors in the world do not deserve to be it by their manners and attitudes towards their patients.

Even there are teachers, who land up being one, just because they had no option but to go for teacher training. A teacher needs patience in dealing with the students. Just knowing how much two plus two or “A-p-p-l-e is apple” doesn’t make him or her, a teacher. A teacher needs to know how to inspire and encourage others. Frightening the students with sticks or marks-sometimes saying if a student doesn’t do this, his/her mark will be deducted or if he/she argues with teacher, he/she will be expelled. A teacher is someone who can make a student feel guilty of a mistake but not make him feel violent.

Similarly there are many other professions that recruit wrong people. Just having a big head won’t bring success. There needs an interest in doing what we do.

Since my childhood, I always wanted to become a doctor. Even in the school, when the teachers asked us to introduce about ourselves they would scold us if we said we don’t have any ambitions. I used to proudly say that I wanted to become a doctor. Unfortunately, my dreams were shattered .Profession of doctor was beyond my imagination. I landed up taking sustainable development course. It was not my choice but was a chance when I failed to get what I wanted. Had I not chosen for this, I would not have made it for other courses. Today as I graduate with a good mark, I wonder what my interests are. I know I am not at all interested in what I have studied so far. I don’t know if I had a dream once but now I have lost trust in hopes and dreams. I don’t know what I like but I know that I don’t like what I have studied. I am poor in environment conservation, poor in public policy or crop production. In the search of identity, I lost myself. If I am placed as an environment conservationist as per my course, I am sure I will not make a good conservationist. I am lost within me. I am also like what many people are in this world.

No rule can bind a man if he desires

During my High school days. we were not allowed to use mobile phone in the school. We were not even allowed to bring it in the school. This situation added further up to the worst one when one day my principal read a circular from the secretary for Ministry of Education, in the assembly. Such news came to many of us, who had just seen mobile phone, as an Import sanction by India to Bhutan. I had just started using phone, then. When I qualified for class eleven, my parents bought me one phone. Until then, I had just seen how mobile phones were but never had an opportunity to use much.
It was announced in the assembly that if anyone of us possessed mobile phone, it would be ceased. Yes it happened that way. Even some phones were broken on the spot by the principal. Those phones which were ceased remained a mystery? Wasn’t that cruel act? How can a school’s Bye-law forbid the constitution rights of a citizen?
I feel the school could have framed a flexible rule in which phones were collected on weeks and allowed to use it on weekends? What harm would it do if it was done that way? After all how can the human right be violated to that extent?
However, despite such restriction could school stop people from using phone? Never! It couldn’t! There were many students-friends of mine who used phone every day. Among them was I, who used phone almost every day. I took it during the assembly time also. Such rules were there, but it never could touch a single strand of hair of mine. Similarly there were many who escaped such harsh consequences if seen. I browsed facebook, played music and made calls at my own will. Such rule made me feel the specialty of phone. It was the sweetest moment ever in life .No rules can ever forbid if we desir

A tribute to parents

The first happiness we give to our parents is the time when a mom after nine months of pregnancy delivers us to the world. How a couple will have been waiting for a child to call them mum and dad! A mum, as she carries a child in her womb undergoes a vigorous health problem-at times feeling nausea, at times giddiness and at times succumbing to sleepless nights. How painful that frame of time would be, is beyond our insight and realization. The time when a mum struggles to deliver us is not more than the death experience.

When we were small kids, barely able to crawl on the ground, our mum used to watch us and applaud to herself for our growth. When we were thirsty, we just would cry and the mum would understand it. Be it hungry or sick just screaming loud and crying was enough for her to care for us. At time, when she used to be in deep slumber after a heavy day’s work, we would cry and disturb her. She just would sacrifice her sleep and let us suckle her breast. When we would urinate on the bed sheet at night, she used to change it and make us comfortable. Just because of us, our mother had to change her dress every now and then.

We would visit markets and shops holding the hands of our parents. When we wanted to eat something we would point at it and jerk our legs until our demands were met. That moment when we did not have to carry a purse but just ask parents to buy what we saw as we walked through the shop used to be the best one. Those times when we liked to play see-saw or swing, how our father would make them ready for us!

As we grow up into adolescent, we tend to drift away from the reality of life. When our legs and hands are able to function independently, we set out for a journey of our choice. We don’t need our parents much then. Some people want to chase their own dreams. I know there is no harm in chasing our own dreams but what if we go against our parents in an attempt to fulfill our selfish dream?

Mine is a custom where caste system plays a great role. My parents expect me to marry a girl among our won caste. I know, dividing society based on caste is not good. I am not for it but what about our parents who have been waiting for us until today? Is it an acceptable thing to trample the dream and expectations of our parents just for the sake of our desire? I know falling in love isn’t a problem. We could fall in love with anyone. It is a human right. Nonetheless, we will be blessed only when our parents are happy with what we do. Love is blind they say, but we should not be blind for a love. Caste system harms no one until we mind our own business. If we atleast remain alert and try to be better son, I know we will never fall in love with someone our parents would never accept. We will never  be against our parents.

Contrasting features of life

How lucky today's children are. As soon as they are born, their parents make all kind of efforts possible to give the best to their children. Toys, dolls and what nothing! Video games, PS  and other innumerable stuffs that I have not even heard of keep their lives so advanced.

Times were different in those days when I was a child. It was even worst during my parent’s time.

I am among those generations that have undergone livelihood that the mere imagination would make today’s youth vomit. We were not different from today’s children except what time had presented a unique design of life style.

The cradle made of roughly chopped woods dangling on the bamboo piece slid under the ceiling gave the sweetest sleep. No matter how we slept, no matter where our head rested, our parents wouldn’t mind. (That’s why back of my head has an irregular shape that many people notice). I have been among those children whose mother prepared food in a ladle (Daru,zaru) and fed with the hand washed with plain water. Countless time toddlerhood has grazed the knees on the floor plaster with cow dung. Picking the butt of local cigarette thrown by grandma and grandpa and putting into the mouth was a fun. We never knew what it was not to swallow dried cow dung that was at our disposal. Playing with the pet like dogs and cats for an hour and taking meals without washing hands was never an odd thing in life. I am among those poor children who, as soon as winter vacation would start, used to turn socks into a ball. I have also the experience of taking chewed doma that my dad would keep on the table.

Bon betta, Horlicks and so many supplementary nutritious foods that I have never heard of, never saw me. I did not know that they existed nor do I know now. (Even now I don’t know name of many food items whenever I am to do shopping).What would make us grow healthy was never a question of nay parents. Simply feeding carbohydrate rich food like rice and curry of potato which of course is carbohydrate only, would satisfy mum and we. External micronutrients intake was never thought of.

What was Iodine salt then? Crude mustard oil and stale food laden with flies and cockroaches made our ingredients. We were not aware how important hygiene was.

On the other hand, today’s children fear of cow dung. They hate the mere sight of it. Outworn and torn cloth is immediately rejected. It is just the otherwise of what I have experienced. (I used to stitch pocket on a thin shirt and wear.

The distancing of two ones

“Fate cheats”, they would say,

And yes it did to them

To me,

To us

And few others.

What prophesy has to unfold

In a silence of our life’s movement;

What almighty directed the innocence

Of greedy convictions

Of thousand souls that abandoned

The land that they were born

Give birth to stupid children of curiosity.

Into their departure from their cradle

Dwells my hopeless hopes

That preaches me their perpetuity of departure.

Of one parents

Of one family

We were the children

Of the country

Yet we are no more ones,

As time goes by, our distance lengthens

And the road we are connected with

Loosens into stretchable long one.

When at times, I miss those souls

Whose history no one wants to read,

I look for them into imaginations

And there they gather:

Into family

Into groups

And into hopes.

Thus our distance fades

And they are born to the nations again.

An evening walk on CNR road

As I trod through the blacktopped road

For a walk as I used to, often,

I was disturbed by some sentiments:

Gone are those souls, who I used to see:

Walk in group,

In pair

And alone.

Gone are those times when I would see them:

Walk in cap,

Headphones

And earphones.

Gone are they who used to walk in:

Half pants,

Full pants

And skirts.

Gone are those souls who used to walk in:

High heels,

Myriad type of shoes

And  slippers.

I visited the nursery

To see if anyone lived,

But a silence of the site

Scared my sentiments;

I gave binoculars-like look

Down the gate

Towards the junction

And almost everywhere;

I saw those people in the emptiness

Of their presence.

Feeling the loneliness of air

In thoughts at once

I missed those people who resided

Among us through a brief time

Of life.

In memories shall they live,

In memory  now shall I live,

And when flashback flashes

There shall we all meet again,

With the lovely moments

And to see you all

Walk on the black road of the CNR

 In the same manner I used to see.

Meeting-a parting in disguise

Life is just like that; it isn’t a new phenomenon nor can we change how it should appear. Meeting is a departure in disguise. Meeting is the end of beginning of parting and, parting, the hope to meet again. In life, I have seen meeting, union, reunion and parting but of all, I used to fear meeting. While parting just would leave me sad, meeting always made me fear. Each minute, each hour and each day, I count time left as soon as meeting. Parting has sorrow leaving its presence to rule the aftermath, while meeting has a restless peace and hopes getting faded with each dusk fall. It is always better to have a sorrow alone than to have fun that disturbs the inner peace with each passing moment. The moment of meeting, I compare it to imprisonment of an innocent with delicious meals and lively facilities while dying within of the inability to prove he is not guilty. Of what good does it serve that kills us from within? Parting leaves sorrow, but disappears as time goes by. Time heals the wound that leaves us injured.
My life has this feeling: I like the moments when I just get excited with the feeling I am going home. Like a sparrow that weaves its nest in the corner of a roof, I weave dreams, make plans and fantasize of what I will do after reaching home. Reaching home and being with parents do not give as much pleasure and excitement. A soon as I see them, a pain starts knocking me now and then. The pain that would someday, as day and night alternately roll over each other push me away from heavenly feelings and experiences. I can’t withstand the detachment that takes my half soulful self. Perhaps, I often forget to live in present. Perhaps, this is a mistaken phenomenon of life. I am like this with life, forgetting to grasp pleasure from present. I tolerate parting in life. May be because I believe in, ‘out of sight is out of mind’ philosophy at times, I appear absolutely opposite to what the reality should have been.

"I will serve my country"-another hypocrisy

Often times we hear some people say,"i want to serve my country". Do they really mean it?Perhaps they are misguided by their thoughts.The people who say they will serve the tsa -wa -sum are the real parasite who feed greedily upon the government money.They claim for TA/DA and high salary.If they are to serve the country,why don't they just let their fake TA/DA go as money to the poor?Can they forgo it?Never!And still you think they are patriotic?Infact those who say this statement want to get a Bigger job and thus land us having country serve them.
The ones who really serve are the people in the lower position-Road worker,sweeper,technicians and caretaker.They don't get much salary yet survive the way big people do.They stand where those people who claim for TA/DA do.They have children and wives like the people in the position do.

Religion and Economics(My personal opinion)

If we look at how the marriage of economics and religion has ruled the attitudes and beliefs we have today, we will know how superstitious we have been.

1.Incense sticks and its business

Why do we use incense sticks? Is it to have better fragrances in the hall? Yes it is! Infact it is to please oneself. God is enlightened and does not have materialistic desire for anything.
In the attempt to please god, we have been destroying environment. Incense sticks have the following impacts:

Destruction of forest: Incense sticks are made from plants materials like resin and gums. Resins and gums have protective functions in plants. Bamboo is also exploited for this purpose. For further history visit this.

Pollution: The incomplete combustion of plant materials emits carbon that react with a molecule of oxygen to produce carbon monoxide and then slowly carbon dioxide that is harmful as per climate change. Infact, the quantity alone from incense stick isn’t a big issue but it become issue when we are degrading the forest for the raw materials, machine for processing and emission from other sources.

Health issue: Carbon monoxide and other gases I don’t have no idea of will also affect health. People usually burn this in a closed room to have better fragrances.
Notwithstanding to the aforementioned result, the trade of incense sticks keep on happening and yearly substantial forest degradation happens. Forest degradation accounts for 20% of emission as per UN-REDD. People have been brainwashed by religious sentiments and acceptance and thus become high purchasers of this. Here religion is used as the tool to make use of economics.

Statues (Murthi): “They enter darkness those who worship natural things (for e.g. air, water, fire, etc.). They sink deeper in darkness those who worship sambhuti i.e. created things”. (Yajurved 40:9). Those whose intelligence has been stolen by material desires they worship demigods i.e. idols. and Deuteronomy 5:8-10
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. (Exodus 20:4–6)
Veda also says there is no image of god.
Therefore, Inspite of the statements in the scriptures many industries around the world sale statues and images of god .Who has seen god? And also in different times, different image of god is seen. The sale of image and statues has become so much that people earn their living by doing so. In disguise of religion, economics has played its cruel role in the society.

A funny incident

It was in 2007,during the annual funeral rites of my grandpa.In pour custom,the sons are to shave off their hair and fast for a day until the rites are over.
In the conclusion of the rite,purhoits (a bramin who perform puja) serve gahunt(urine of a virgin cow).It is to to get purified by sipping in a drop by all the people who have gathered.Just a small drop is to be taken.
There was a man,my distant uncle who had just retired from the RBA.(We know how stubborn and silly army are when it comes to logic).My father said,"please serve gauhnt(cow urine) to uncle".
To this,uncle responded,"i just took a cup of tea before i came here,so i cant take gauhnt"
He must have thought gauhnt was a drink served in a cup to quench thirst.so denied.

Difference between true love and manufactured love

Have you observed the following in yourself or the other?

When you don’t call your mum or dad for a week, they will be worried. But if you don’t call lovers for a day, they will be angry.
If you say you are busy to you lovers, they will misunderstand you but if you say you are busy to your mum or dad, they will understand you.
If you call a lover late night, they may get disturbed but if you call your parents late night they will be worried.
If you don’t receive the call from your lover on time they will say they will never talk again but if you do to parents they will ask if you are fine.
If you meet your lovers after a week and say you are tired; they will kick you away from food. If you say the same to your parents, they will pick you towards food.
Even if you enough balance to call your parents, you will just give a missed call but even if you don’t have much balance you will say you have enough.
Therefore, conditions are required in manufactured love but reasons are required in true love. Our parents are the best example to look for true love in life. Rest diminishes with time.

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 to us.

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? Whether 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.

Lines adopted from Nepali Song

Often times when hiccups attacks me,
do you remember me?
Or just have i faded from your memory
together with our parting?

Everywhere until the edge of dreams,
i see you existing;
Do you also cry as i do
when i wake up to see you fade?

As i trudge through hills and walk through forest,
whistling and panting endlessly,
and at times debating with songs
Have you forgotten that we loved?

What are we up to, as a son and daughter?

I know it is never bad to follow one dream. It is, indeed, the best way to prove our worth. However, it is never good to go against the dreams of our parents who, for ages have shed rivulets of sweats just to see us follow the norms of the society. I don’t know if what they think is against humanity, but they will never have bad plan for us. They will never plan anything for us that may become detrimental to any human.

In life, we always will have been blown by unseen, unheard and aimless hurricane, every day. To it neither can we see nor stop, yet our life will have been enslaved into the movement of this unusual cyclone. Perhaps, we will have been taken into the right destination. Perhaps, into the wrong one. Perhaps to the end. We never attempt to know, either. As we grow up into adulthood, a strange force bribes us to deviate from the norm. We are made to forget we once walked grasping the hands of our parents. We forget that we once took the food which mum chewed for us. How selfish are we to forget that we used to ask mum, dad and siblings to chew corns roasted and boiled for us! Those handicapped times when mum would hold the glass of water and gently place into our mouth; the times when she would push safe food into our mouth and then say soothing words to help us take enough amount-‘my son will eat all this and then become a great man’; the times when no matter if she was tired we cried and demanded to sleep on her lap and suck suckle on her like a hungry demon. How could we ever forget it? How easily, man?

Since the childhood to this day, they have been sewing each and every piece of dreams to realize a time when reality would emerge beautifully. They never went to schools yet they knew the value of education. With each threshold of age we crossed, they would stare at us and must have been whispering within their heart that we are growing. They also have certain dreams that they want to share with us, give them legs to move and breathe to exist. They want to live in the society with good comments and feed backs about their children. They want to prove to rest of the world that they have given us the best etiquette and discipline as a legacy for life time. To hang loose their head low among st the people in the crowd, they never expect.

If we were to grow into a selfish moron, I wish we never were born to them. If we ever go against their will in life, I know they will forgive us—because they are forgiving—but we are never forgiven. The guilt of the act shall loom on like sad clouds over us. To them the most desired thing they want is to see us get a good job, have their grandson and granddaughter to play with and help grasp their hand to walk as they age.

Therefore it becomes a responsibility of every son and daughter to align his/her life along the wishes of parents. Some noble souls have rightly said, “It is good to be important but is very important to be good”. Life would go by, but deep down into our heart, we will always have a corner of sin if we don’t wait to remember we are their offspring, the result of their sweats, and the testimony of their selfless dreams.