A Huge Talker

A "huge talker" is someone who talks excessively. I had heard about such people many times, but I never encountered one until recently. Then I met him—my new Bhutanese friend in Bangalore (name withheld to protect his lungs, and my sanity). He talks too much. So very much. Grossly, honestly, painfully much. He opens his mouth the moment he wakes up and only closes it when he falls asleep—and even then, I suspect he mumbles in his dreams just to keep the streak alive.

We say a good talker is a good listener. He is not. Not even close. He listens like a fish listens to a lecture on water.

Let me share an incident from his unending stream of words. Once, we walked to buy vegetables at the market. He started talking the moment we left the door and didn't stop until we returned—two hours later. "I was this… that… when I was young… I would like to… my life…" Everything about him. Every single detail. I learned things about his childhood I didn't even know about my own childhood. Many times, I felt ashamed just listening to him—not for him, but for myself, for not running away. I wanted to sprint. "Ya, ya" was all I could manage. That was my entire vocabulary for the afternoon.

The return journey was all about vegetables: their shapes, their textures, what they could be mixed with, the cost per kilo, his personal likes and dislikes (he dislikes bitter gourd with a passion usually reserved for political enemies). Again, "Ya, ya" was all I could say. I think I said "ya" about four hundred times that day. My jaw still hurts.

He talks about his family, his wife, his studies—everything good about himself. Talking about oneself is not always good, I imagine. It doesn't interest others. But knowing oneself internally is important—more important than others, I insist. Still, I should note that he is not an empty vessel. Sometimes he speaks wisdom beyond what life itself could offer. Buried under an avalanche of words, there is occasionally a nugget of gold. You just have to dig. With a shovel. For hours.

Anyway, I am happy that I only have to stay with him for two or three days at a time—not a garrulous future forever. If this were permanent, I would have already applied for a monastery. A silent one.

The opposite of him is perfectly me. I am mostly unspoken. Taciturn. The strong, silent type—if the strong part is optional. I have something like babyish tantrums inside, but I keep them to myself. I listen, and I can listen as much as anyone. But his talks break my nerves. I simply cannot. It reaches my limit, and it begins to sound like a barking dog—or worse, a yapping dog with a megaphone. Now I worry that I might grow tired of listening to anyone in the future. He may have broken my ears permanently.

The climax of all his talking, however, comes from social media—Facebook. Very recently, he opened an account. And now he talks through that too. He comments on every post. Every photo. He sends hundreds of friend requests to strangers and chats with unknown people online. I squeak with a peal of loud laughter every time he messages unknown girls. And surprisingly—shockingly, even—he sometimes gets replies. He becomes good friends with them. That is how this seemingly insane person satisfies his talking desire when I refuse to give a damn about his words. He has found an infinite audience. God help them all.

Communication is complete when the listener can decode and encode messages. The exchange of information is effective only when it is worthwhile and appreciated. That, I believe, is understandable. But when one person talks and the other just says "ya, ya" four hundred times, I am not sure communication is happening. I think that is called survival.

Temporary Ties-a story

"Ask! Ask if you don't know. Inquire, if you want to know. Ask Zangpo why I drink so much. Zangpo knows all. He sees what I see. He does what I do. He cares for me like nobody else."

Once upon a time, flowers bloomed. But the fruits fell before anyone could pick them. No one could eat. Hope and desperation hung in the empty spaces. Everyone was left alone.

Alone. That is how I was then, and how I am now. I need to survive. But how will I survive when I have given part of my heart and my life away? It takes a long time to mend a life that was once so full. My broken heart sinks and cuts like a knife. Why did you do such things? Our friendship was pretentious all along. "Rich friends have rich hearts of love"—that sounds foolish to me now. I see clearly now that you only showed me the duplicity of friendship.

"Birds of the same feather flock together." I read that in seventh standard. So it was with Pasang (name changed) and me. We became fast friends in a distant school in the capital. Similarities attract each other. We were both silent. We were both away from home for the first time. We had innocent parents who trusted us.

As the days moved, I observed that Pasang was too conservative, hardworking, divinely religious, and self-praising. He did not drink any kind of liquor and had the best habit of always volunteering to be class captain or something similar. In this sense, I was quite different. I was always a silent observer. Sometimes I sneaked out of class and drank alone in melancholy moods.

As days and months passed, other classmates regarded us as close friends. So the chance of making other friends became less. You can't befriend everyone in school. If you do, you have no true friends. That happens in school life. You cannot befriend time itself.

The seeds of our friendship were planted spontaneously. Our surroundings said so. We shared food. We studied together—sometimes at my house, occasionally at his. I believed we had become true friends. He was our volunteered captain. We were in a different class then. Many of his classmates cursed him for being so authoritarian, and they refused to have him as captain the next month. I guessed he lost that future chance.

Life rolled on. Youth is the age of rupture. Everything ruptured in no time.

After two years, we were again together at NIE, Samtse, as training mates. He was different then. I had always considered him a friend—anywhere, everywhere, whatever I did. But he was quite different. He ignored me simply. I didn't mind much at first. As the days passed, he began to win respect from elders and lecturers by polishing their shoes and volunteering for them. He volunteered to be a house counselor in the first year. The story was the same: many classmates hated him for being authoritative and using his power wickedly. I always thought he was a bad leader and a bad counselor.

Our friendship became so thin that whenever we met, he talked little or ignored me. Like flower petals falling one by one, our bonds broke one by one. Still, I thought he would help me when I needed him. The truth was, I was under him in his house captainship, and he made me do SUPW work right in front of his eyes. I didn't mind it so much.

Then came the beginning of the death of our friendship. I remember it vividly. I took this incident very seriously—what he did to me that day. Without any reason, he turned against me completely.

It happened on the NIE football field. He was one of the judges of the football match—such a sycophantic person. He threatened to make me the ball retriever. If I refused, he would report me to his other sycophant lecturer, and that would create enough problems to make me lose marks. The ball retriever's job was to get the ball when it went outside. Taking part in games and sports as a ball catcher meant marks to pass our course.

Half the match was over. Resting time. I was about to sit on the empty chair near him. And what he said next I will never forget—and never forgive: "Go, don't sit here, ball boy. Go there." He pointed to the sewage drain. It wasn't even his chair. Ball boys sometimes sat there. I remained silent and sat on the muddy-smelling tank. It wouldn't have been so shameful if not for the crowd of girls who had heard him and were looking at me with pity—or worse, disgust. I had never had a single girl in my life. My face would burn if I ever talked to one. The match started again. I went to talk to him, but he was damned.

The match ended. The players came for refreshments. They brought out fruity juice. The juice distributor was about to give me a bottle, but Pasang came and snatched it away. Then he turned his back and announced to all the players and judges to drink every single bottle. I tried to say something in a comical way to lighten the matter, but he was damned. At that moment, I couldn't resist. I was about to hit my best friend. But I controlled myself.

I was deeply ashamed. What wrong had I done to my true friend? I couldn't understand. Behind the curtain, I knew something was in his mind—something that made him hate me so much. I asked myself: real friends don't exploit or ridicule each other in front of others.

Now I know: some people are like dry leaves. They fall without any use to their own tree. They move here and there for a while, then get blown away, unseen from the mother tree. So are many of our friends.

That was the last thing I ever wanted to see or hear from him.

Five years later, I wished for the dearest death. That devil-minded friend lost his wife. He had loved her so deeply. She ran into the jungle and hanged herself.

A few months later, I received a devastating letter. I did not look at it with surprise.

"Why did no one tell me? It has become clear now that you, my best friend, kept me going all these years. I lost my wife because I was mindless. I treated her like I treated you, Zangpo. Now I drink my life away."

There was little satisfaction in my mind that he still remembered those bad days. I replied to him: "In life, we remember only bad things. Let's try to forget those bad happenings and remember the good things instead."

I hoped this small, universal lesson would help him.

But deep down, I knew—some friendships are not meant to be nurtured. Not with selfish people. Not with those who drain you, shame you, and only remember you when their world falls apart.

Note: The above article is a somewhat true story of the author's life, though some details have been truncated for the brevity of the story.

Being Patience

Within a year of living in Bangalore, I have learned one thing above all else: patience—an ability to wait, most presumably. I have learned that life is not all about me. I have learned to look inward, not outward. I have learned to be patient with impatient people. I have grown up—horizontally and diametrically, probably. The horizontal part is undeniable. The diametrical part, I leave to your judgment.

I have a few friends who are impatient, arrogant, insensitive, and impulsive—traits that even affect their relationships altogether. Maybe it's also that I am not getting any younger. I tend to resist everything now. I get angry slower—or often never at all. I have the patience to wait. I am patient before opposing points of view. Previously, I was a patient of patience. I was in emotional upheavals, trying to change others before I changed myself. Now I have submitted under patience. Everything changes me, bringing me into the circle of the best humanity. I feel I am following one of the principles of the Buddha. To have patience is to have respect. And lately, I am viewed positively by many friends. Either that, or they are just too tired to argue with me.

I feel patience can be controlled by letting go of troubles and impatience completely, absolutely, totally—with no lingering feeling, just moving forth. If there isn't anything to resolve, just let it go. It's possible, and it's the only healthy thing to do. Accepting the twists and turns of life gracefully keeps my dreams realistic. Life is not always a race but a journey to be watched every step of the way. Patience works wonders with anger, nervousness, tension, and anxiety—though it does nothing for traffic jams. I'm still working on that.

I have changed my attitude and the way I look at life. I have always tried to have a positive outlook. Being positive is very imperative, as is possessing a sense of patience.

Once I was like a horrid river, rushing through hills and plains hurriedly, not listening to anyone. I was on my own way. My students tested my patience so many times, and the result was that they got black and blue. I vividly remember picking up a log and raining it on their backs. I regret that now. I feel sorry for losing such control, for being so crude and wild—wilder than hot dogs. "Sorry" seems to be the cruelest word now, because it can never undo what was done.

My child has also tested my real patience. But my anger changed into passive observation. I let him do what he liked and let it go. I have developed an ability to tolerate and persevere when things get tough between us. I have become a little anxious about how to keep calm. And I kept. Thank you, my dear son, for teaching me forbearance and serenity—and for not breaking anything too expensive.

My wife has also trimmed me down to a better person. A sort of passionate person is what I have become. Otherwise, I used to rant and rave and nag more than many women would have done. Now I am a cool lover of everything. Even cold coffee. Especially cold coffee.

I can now tolerate many things. I have learned patience through many means: patience in anger, patience in sadness, happiness, loneliness, and through every person who has walked through my life. This patience has helped me endure any tribulation, no matter how long-lasting or difficult. On the other hand, it reduces my stress levels and improves my health and wealth—I feel so, anyway. My bank account may disagree, but my blood pressure thanks me. Being able to have patience makes me happier. Thinking about the positive effects of patience kills impatience. Or at least puts it in a headlock.

So, patience is persistence. It takes time, and it takes effort. We are so accustomed to anger that we find the natural state of patience quite strange. However, impatience is an outside value we have adopted, but patience is an intrinsic value within all of us. We can change. Slowly. Very slowly. Patiently.

I would like to let loose my patience to write further, but instead I will leave you with this thought from Lao Tzu:

"I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures."

And if you ask me, the fourth treasure is a good cup of tea while you wait.

The Truth Is

From Google

Dear My Beloved

I asked you to care for me.

But the truth is:

I care about you more than anything in the world.

I asked you to love me.

No—I didn't ask.

But the truth is:

I love you more than anything in the world.

Dear, you are my all.

My everything.