Life has many twists
and turns, and these twists and turns are the facts and figures of realism. For
every curve, there is a bending and for every bending, there is a curve. For every
significant day, there is an insignificant day. Because of this so-called not
important day, a notable day is there in our life. There are moments in life,
there are thoughtless days in our life, and there are unforgettable days in our
life.
Pema too has this
moment; an unforgettable day.
Pema, the celebrator
of the day is a brilliant boy of ten. Brilliant; yes, he is the topper from his
class. Teachers gasp at his artwork. “What a beautiful drawing Pema?” And in a school drawing competition, the first prize is booked for him, always. And that
is Pema. Pema Tashi.
He is ten now, but he
would never forget the day that shaped his life forward, blissfully. That was
when he was eight years old.
He would care, recollect and muse over the day; the most
important day of all his days in his life. It was a day when he heard that he
had won a poetry writing competition at the National level. He got the news on
12/11/2004. He was cherished, and one of the happiest persons in the whole world. It was the most
important - the turning point in his life. Because of that particular article, he became a recognized figure now. The enamored day had encouraged him to continue
writing from the heart and from his hand. It was not only that winning, but on
that day something bizarre, unexpected, special sort of things happened to him.
It was greater than his winning.
On November 11/2004, he had a dream; he was trudging in a dangerous
cragged of rocks and was sweating to cross over this, his whole body sweated,
and a moment later, from nowhere, there came a bird- he couldn’t name that
bird, it was a white bird. The bird got beneath him and carried him to his said
to be home. It was such a beautiful home with the radiance of candles and butter
lamps. In front of him was the Jampelyang-
the god of wisdom. He bowed low. And soon, he was awoken by a piece of music.
He couldn’t grasp the lines. That was just a dream! To hear the music, he slept
again, but his sleep was gone. It was already dawn. Knocks were all that he
could hear.
Pema opened the door. And he was surprised to see a bunch of
friends near the door with newspapers with all smiles and claps from the
morning. He was down –to the earth! What happened! Without any delayed, those
friends told him, what he wouldn’t forget throughout his life. They showed him
the newspaper; his poem and his name there. Last weekend, he had sent a poem to
the newspaper for the Kids’ Poetry Competition. He wrote about a tree in the
treeless land. How a tree had changed the lives of many people? How the tree
had helped to shelter many lives? A single tree was it. He described the shape
of the tree and the surrounding picture of land and weather conditions of the
place. It was a good poem, he thought at least.
The poem was nominated as the best in the country. He had become
a single lonely tree to be thronged by so many people within a short time. This
day had changed him as his tree in the poem had changed many lives. In a
struggle of his life, there came a white bird, this bird was his poem. He flew
high. He was elated with the hived of life. The day was made more elated when
his English teacher read his poem and set him as an example to his fellow
students. Miss. Dema read it three times! His teachers were proud, his mates
were proud. His school had something to be recognized. It was uplifted.
Everyone congratulated him; the whole teachers, a bunch of friends, a bunch of
girls. His mother, brothers, and sisters all were over the moon. His tree had
brought changes too. His whole life had a U-turn. Life had no twist then, it
moved straight; no crooked and no hooked. He was to stay here; writing and awards.
The day was swift, there was merriness everywhere, but one
thing always hinged on his mind; his father's returns. He was said to have gone
far for further studies or some sort of training in the USA. Pema had been waiting for
him for more than six years. His father left him since he was two years old.
His father sent letters. He sent photos. And it was only those photos, Pema had
seen his father. His father sent love and hugs but never came. Pema’s mother
expected him to return any time for his children, if not for her sack. “The
hope of my papa will remain as my dream”, Pema said to his mother one
day. She always made him think of other things than his father and always told
him that he will come someday.
If Pema was to divide his mind into parts; about seventy
percent of his mind was in a merry mood. He felt incomplete on that day. The sun
was moving and was touching the tip of the mountain. His heart melted down with
the sun. His happiness began to meltdown too. He was sitting in the entrance,
reading his poem ‘Tree.’ Lost. There was a rush of wind and a sweet aroma
from the door. Pema looked. He saw a gentleman, standing tall, looking at him,
and smiling at him. It perfectly matched those photos. Behind the man, his mother beamed
and came with a sudden outburst, “Here’s your father.”
Pema ran towards him, his happy tears ran down too. “What a
coincidence of happiness,” Pema blurted out.
If his happiness was in volume, it would measure the whole
space of the earth’s happiness.
From the long-awaited father, Pema had expected something
from him; his expectation did come true on that day. His father gave him a
white laptop from his black suitcase, where he could do more writing. Moreover, his father promised that he would stay his whole life with them. Pema had reached
his happiness to the brimmed and that day had chosen him - the life had chosen
him, the god had chosen him. He was the chosen one, the most important one, the
most important one on that day, the day was unlike, and unlike was because of
the series of momentous events of the day. Pema soon narrated his day’s events
to his father and concluded with the remark, “This white bird is my white
laptop.” The mother laughed out saying, “This white laptop is not a white
bird.” And the father said, “This laptop is a white bird.” All laughed.
And that day was his important and the most colorful day in
his life. If he ever had remote control of his life, he would rewind and
pause for there to have a slow enjoyment. And he wondered if he had a better
dream like the dreamt he had on that day, and one day he hoped that the white
bird would take him to the real world and hear that beautiful music.
