Friday, June 19, 2015

A Heaven in the Soul



The place I live is called heaven;
And they called me the God
Who is the God?
I said, “Everyone is so.”
Unrelieved, they shouted at me
“Who are you?”
“I am just like you.”
“No.”
To live and to be
To LIVE in the world is different
As every individual is, so.
We live a hell-like;
I have no fog in the mind
Not a cog in the machine,
I go for clear and virtuous mind and heart;
a soul of heaven;
A soul to proliferate this.

Monday, June 15, 2015

My House


My house at my village in pemagatshel is almost 60 years old. It singularly stands near a forest in Labar. This is the house where my parents are living, and we were all brought up. It is a huge house with three-storied stone, wood, and mud built. Though, there was no iron pillar as such in it, it stood against any kind of natural calamities like earthquakes and soil erosions just beside the house. Earlier than, the soil erosion tried to erode beside our house many times, but after having built layers of wall and planted trees; it is now a matter of talk. My father said that it was also struck by an earthquake several times, but not a stone came down. It is as it was before. I like my house. I wonder how my parents could have built a huge and strong house. It must have been very hard work for them during the 1960s. My father was said to have brought carpenters and workers from Assam. I guess this is his engineering and design as it looks like one of the best Bhutanese houses. Because of this house, my father was known to be the wealthiest in the Gewog, and is also known to many people in the Dzongkhag. He was and is. Now I look back at this house with lots of pride and respect. This was and is my house, my temporary house, just like my late brother Sonam, who left this house, I too have to leave…to my permanent house…where? Too sad.

Here are some photos of my house which I clicked last time from my mobile.


Front view

Side view

Thursday, June 11, 2015

When Rains Come, it Come in Battalions



So many graves things are happening in our school these days. First of all, our school vice principal’s wife has been hospitalized for several months. The subject he was given in the school to teach was in shamble. For more than a month, the classes V A, B and C science have been bolted in the bags; students thirst for a teacher to teach this study of scientific knowledge. When there was no hope of his return, and when the exam came knocking, our science department took an initiative to teach those classes. You know but our science teachers in Bhutan are loaded; loaded not with money but loaded with periods, they somehow agreed to adjust and spare their already compressed time. When I asked my class V students now, I heard that one period is enough to cover a chapter. This is how sciences are taught when everyone shares teaching; because it’s like nobody’s cake. They try to munch all at once.

Secondly, the school had to remain for a month without our principal, and which too saddened every one of us. The principal’s sister has a severe kind of trauma and further, she had a birthing complications, which kept both of them in Thimphu hospital ICU for many weeks. Life is difficult, I heard him saying.

Thirdly, two of our students were now behind the bar. Their sentences were up to three years. I feel pity about these two students from class IX and X who are locked up in the dark, who will miss their education, and their lives are blackened now. What, if it happened to a rich or noble group of people?  It won’t be news to be shared. These two boys committed a fourth-degree felony, it could have had settle before it got everything punched. That’s the cruelties of law enforcers sometimes; they don’t study behind the offense and nature of the crime as they should. These two boys were said to have entered inside a shop in Rinchentse and burgled some food items and some money. I heard that they didn’t even break a door or anything; they simply went inside the already unlocked door to survive one of the boys. I heard that one of the boys was staying himself in the rent and he had some difficulties getting enough ration to eat. It’s a pitiful story to be told to anyone.  That boy was the one to take that class x boy with him to that shop. See, bad minds infect and change other’s minds. I heard that they have taken the worth of nu. 8000/- or something.  The question now is that will they think good about life once they are released from the dungeon?

Fourthly, Bhutan football team was hammered by the Hong Kong team. What a disgrace? Bhutan must now focus on some very necessary developments like road, drinking water, poverty, not just some routing playing. Don't do what we can't do. Do what we can do!

Anyway, I pray that this mid-term exam gets over before another misfortune strike here. There is a plan that our school is going to conduct a small ritual to drive these evils from here. The last review meeting was a fruitful one as everyone agreed to contribute nu. 1000/- for some months to lay the foundation of our school’s chorten. That meeting also decided that there is a need for ‘Threma’ rimdro in the school, to which the house unanimously agreed. Our national assembly will continue in the next session!