In the end

You’re my best friend. Assume it. I had invited you for a quiet dinner at my home.  It was a crispy evening. We nestled in the couch of my heated living room. We sipped hot coffee and bite the warm corn bread as our talks ranged from literature, books, photography, blogging and office works to our relationships and family.

Suddenly, we faced a daunting trip to our conversation. We’re just trying hard to recollect the name for jackfruit in Dzongkha. But we couldn’t. Head scratching. Tempers boiled over. We exchanged frustrating grimaces. In sheer disappointment, we pushed aside our coffee and we were robbed of our noisy conversation.

However, we cruised back to recollecting its name in a crazed hope. We, several times, attempted giving it up. Worse, we could do it for a few minutes only. Yet again we were fighting hard to recollect it for we read it in our school textbooks. You know that even when we were school students we used to do inky mink pong key (check the spellings) while attempting for the multiple-choice questions and the matter was closed. But we’ve never thought so hard before like this. And it’s unnecessarily dragging us into terrible insanity. God help us!

Then, we applied extra efforts. We made countless phone calls to our friends and relatives. Finally, we got the damn name for jackfruit in Dzongkha. It’s dramzey. We exchanged loud sighs of satisfaction, ah!    

We resumed snacking on the corn bread and sipping hot coffee. But this only reminded me to share you a similar incident with you. My friend, you know, each time I wake up from my bed, I start searching. I don’t know exactly what I’m searching for. At times I wonder that I’m stretching out for something that remains tantalizingly out of my reach like the shaft of light falling into my room that comes from beyond the horizon, beyond the reach of my logical mind. But I yearn for it, desperately though.

I search for it so uninterruptedly and so obsessively in my washroom and breakfast. My quest to clinch this missing thing also goes on in my dresses and car. And later in my office, in colleagues, lunch, friends, relatives, parents. All to no avail!

Perhaps this is the question any human can ask themselves most frequently. I go to someone close to me hoping that I may find what I am searching for. But most grownups really are idiotic. They’re vaingloriously engrossed in the triviality of everyday existence. They only talk about unimportant things: money, properties, overseas trainings, kids, relationships, loan, fame and power. They think that the truth can be found only in erecting big buildings, beautiful people, power and money. And they counterattack or always try to give me the ready-made solutions. Some even throw gibberish giggles at me and make fun of my inquiry mind.

I don’t want to be one of those people who take the world for granted. I never want to let the corrupt society to corrode my soul. This is the reason I feel exiled from the real world, rest of the people. Though I feel fragile and quiet, sensitive and melancholic, I never stop dwelling in a perpetual sense of expectation, of longing.

Later on, I return home, tuck a heavy quilt and still hungry for the answer. Bitterness wells up in me and this keeps me up at night, tossing and turning.

Next day I talk to young people, my niece and nephews. I share my feelings with them. Their innocence, simplicity and untainted minds speak that my answer lies in them. I become excitedly curious and spend more time with them venting out my feelings. Even my presence makes them happy. Give them a chocolate, they become happy. Buy them a doll, they become happy. Do them good, they react instantly-they express happiness.

                                                                   Photo: Gayatri 

Oh jeez! I get my answer. Happiness is what I’ve been searching for. Before you leave, oh, let me ask you a few questions. Why do you work everyday to earn money? Why do you settle down with a person you love most and raise children? Why you always want to try for new things, meet new person or accumulate more wealth? Why you twirl the rosary and chant mantra? Aren’t you doing all this for your own happiness?