Thank you teachers

How great teachers are, can be accessed through different praises that literature holds sacred until today and beyond.

A timeless Indian Edict goes: “Mata Pita Guru Devam”, translated as, mother, father, teacher and god-a sacred list of the most revered relationships in a strict order. First, comes, the mother (Mata), who gives birth to the child thereby bringing us as a child into the world. Next, comes, the father (Pita) because, it is the mother, who knows about the father points us towards   him. The mother and father, then, take us to the teacher (Guru) and it is through his/her teaching points us to the god (devam). A teacher, thus, stands at a higher stand, at a higher pedestal than the almighty omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnifarious.

Buddhism says, the ones who attained enlightenment after much struggle are the results of a teacher’s guide.

The bible says: “You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am”.

“It is easy to make a buck but is a lot tougher to make a difference”, says, Tom Brakaw. We stand today, like never before and as time passes by, we realize that we stand still longer than what we used to, yesterday. We are not the same person of yesterday, wearing attire of ignorance and surviving. Thus:

In desperate struggle for some words,

Hither and thither, I rushed,

Seeking what I ought to do,

And as I plunged my hands into the heart

I found some divine words to utter-

 “I thank you my teachers!

 Henry brooks Adams once said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops”.  Across time and bound, I offer kudos to your profoundness and the influences you have brought in my life.

Thank you teachers.

Death shall come

I have not lived enough,

Perhaps I wish I was an immortal,

Like a bird soaring high,

Visiting each dreamed point,

Resting and testing its beauty.

Someday, all of a sudden,

When summons of death knocks me,

My soul shall walk towards it

And I shall be gone.

Many secrets are to be revealed,

Many oaths to be made

And many dreams to be dreamt,

Before death swallows my presence,

Before I fade into nothingness,

Yet when death comes like

And uninvited guest,

My life shall stop like

Stopping a pen on the comma or semicolon,

Never being able to reach the full stop.

I fear death, yet I talk of it

They say, a person who talks a lot of dying becomes dear one of the death soon. Perhaps, it is true. Perhaps it isn’t. I know everyone fears death and fears talking of it. I fear as well. At times just a mere thought of dying sends chills through my spinal chords yet I know nothing will stop us from being a slave of death. I fear, as I see someone die. I fear facing a dead body. I fear somebody talking of death, yet can these phenomena stop us from dying?

I wish i lived long. I wish my dreams were materialized and that I walked the path many successful souls on earth have walked. My parents who have brought me up, expended their life and sacrificed their comforts have dream about me. They think more about my future than I do. They are more concerned than I am. Perhaps will have a time to serve my parents the way I have planned for. Perhaps, like a fading ink in the midst of a sentence with a comma or a semicolon, our life might have to stop. Where the full stop is or the end of a sentence is, in our life, it is tough to find.

Sometimes as I lie down on the bed and lights are off, a big question mark blinks on my head. Will I survive the next day or will I not know I am dying then? I know our life has no guarantee and certainty is certainly absent as to when the death would drag us. I have dreams in my heart-some wild ones while some pleasing ones. I have a desire to be a man. I want to see the world better yet, who knows the secret plan of fate? I fear to close my eyes. It said that, at times what the open eyes don’t see, the closed ones do. I don’t know if I have seen death closely in life but when I close my eyes to sleep I certainly do visualize how it would be.

I fear the time when I might have to lie on the dead bed and go back in flashbacks. My dear parents, siblings, and relatives-will they be with me? Will I have a chance to die an easy death? That time when I will be suffering with  a pain of not being able to see the people I want to see, the things I have not achieved, I fear that my breathe will not stop easily. The unfinished dreams, unturned stones and the unmet people will hold the breath before it fades. I wish I died I death that won’t give a second to think of anything.

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!!