Letter from Dordenma Buddha

Dear Thimphu people,

I’ve thought long on where to begin this chit. For this is the first time I’m ever doing so, that too for a painful reason. By the way, I’m pretty sure that you all know about me. I’m Buddha Dordenma of Kuensel Phodrang.

You know it better - very well - I was birthed here to commemorate the centennial of the Bhutanese monarchy and to bestow blessings, peace and happiness in the world. However, I daresay, you people have regrettably malformed Kuensel Phodrang or in your own term “Buddha Point” into a sinful place.   

So to begin, after the dusk enfolds Thimphu valley, the road below Buddha Point rises up eerily. Every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night, I see about 20 stalls emerging at roadside. These stalls, sparely lit, sell a lot of stuff - wine, whisky, beer, cigarette, tobacco, doma. Also, momo, thukpa and puri.

Surprisingly, the stall owners are very enterprising. Because the stalls have so many facilities like bonfire, chairs, disco lights and music blaring from car’s stereo. Moreover, it has got enough rituals to keep you up from midnight to early morning.         

As I stand 169 feet tall, high up here, I’ve a clear view of all the activities down there. One after another, cars, both big and small, jerk to abrupt stop at this illegal market of Buddha Point. Almost instantly, hundreds of drunken post-party hoppers flock here. Indeed, I am quite surprised as I had expected the Buddhist devotees to come and pray here, not drunkards at odd hours. I meant no disrespect here.

Most visitors are dispirited youth, aimless and adrift. Adorned with give-no-damn receive-no-damn attitude, you have no faith in me, even in yourself too. Your prayer beads are those cigarette tucked in your fingers and your mantras those wine-instigated non-veg words. This makes me feel like crying for humanity.

Amidst the crowd, every time, I see a handful of old men, seemingly rich, fondling around with a dozen of strikingly attractive young girls, as young as 15, in sleazy dresses. As usual, you start flinging from one embrace to another, and brush your cheeks one another’s. It’s in English that everything happens here.

But for me, to tell you rather honestly and frustratingly, you are a bunch of pathetic people, pseudo modern Bhutanese who are lost in transition. Sorry though for I used crude terms.

It shocked me when I find there isn’t a single security personnel. This market is of its own, on its own – no laws, no authority, and no regulations. You do anything here. You talk dirty, foul, and fart loud shamelessly. You trade tobacco and drugs. At the same time, you have to smoke grass, inhale liquids and fill your tummy with countless bottles of alcohol.

You are so much cruel to me. Because of you, my mind doesn’t quiet, but grow restless. That’s why I don’t get enough time for meditation to pray for all the sentient beings and bestow peace and happiness around the world. 

A group of angry and grudge-filled young men picks up fights and starts exchanging punches and then breaking one another’s cars. And there, those victims heave with sobs and howl and scream seeking justice from me. Actually I have given you everything needed to build a beautiful life, if you choose wisely. Remember, dear sentient beings, you have got only one life, you ought to do what’s right.

Then, up and down the road, couples make desperate love - your bodies mud-stained, bushes crushed, and condoms litter everywhere. Oh, I have to stay here blushing. Sometimes, it is too much that I’ve to bring down the lightning and rain rumbling low to chase you away.    

I prophecy so much grave incidents are going to happen at this place sooner. However, these misfortunes can be prevented if all the relevant agencies of Thimphu take up immediate measures. Thus, I decree all the concerned agencies (BAFRA, MoEA, RBP, and MoHCA) to react to this issue immediately.

There is still more to say, but so little time. For I need to take a month-long meditation and to look after the welfare other sentient beings around the world.  

(Dordenma Buddha)

Kuensel Phodrang, Thimphu

Some pictures of the stalls at Buddha Point below:

Have a wonderful day!

Thimphu has just opened for clear sky after a rainy week. It’s a beautiful day here! I hope you all are enjoying the bright monsoon day as much as I am here. So, to treat you, I bring to you, once again, pictures of a handful of flowers that I took recently from my office garden. Have a wonderful day!   

The photography lesson

I don’t know exactly since when I’ve nurtured this passion. Photography. To tell you, I just love taking pictures of almost everything. One clarification here though; I’m not a certified photographer. But hey, should one be certified to take pictures?   

I don’t know.

Initially, I began taking pictures of nature. Snow-capped mountain, cerulean skies, the sunset, rain, prayer flags, leaves, trees, and flowers - so much more. Perhaps all the beginners do start shooting nature. It could be, at least in my case.

I found divinity and beauty in nature, and felt feelings, warmth and hope. So I intended to capture and relive these things on my lens as briefly as possible.

Sometimes I would look at my own pictures and like anyone of you, I marvel at it. And to my own amazement, I stand in disbelief. Because some of my pictures seem unreal to me; it’s as though I had made it up.

However, photography and writing really complement each other. The digital lens does write stories, photographs do tell stories – sometimes better than my handful of words. So incapable of writing forward, for my blog, I look at my pictures and do I derive inspiration, get stories.

Quite wondrously, it is through my digital lens that I started to see the world around me differently. And ultimately I became a nature lover. Most importantly, it helped me to learn to find beauty and pleasure in the simple things. It changed my life’s outlook, for better.

Someone rightly stated about the photography and our life,

The greatest of inspiration, isn’t it? 

I can add here a few lines, but my own lines. You can, in life, fork out your problems like the way you crop out the unwanted parts of images. And if you want to make your life more attractive, learn to apply effects to images of your life.  Whew, it’s that simple!

As I’m still learning to take good pictures, so do I still learning to understand the life’s essence. 

Note: Second picture downloaded from google

Thimphu all set for Modi’s visit

I went around Thimphu City this evening for a casual walk. And wow, I am hugely impressed with the new looks of the City. The Street and Town look strikingly beautiful and dazzling.

Thimphu sets all ready welcoming Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, who will be arriving in Bhutan tomorrow. The highway and the Street all dressed in the flags and posters of both the prime ministers flaring on the poles and buildings.

Everything - in and around the City - looks perfectly organized and clean. Flowers well watered, and all blooming. All waste and trash disappeared. One feels as if you were in the City of Tokyo and Singapore.

The security personnel are everywhere. I hope the Indian PM’s visit would be a successful one and the Indo-Bhutan would last forever, ever stronger.  

The shopping mecca

Whenever I travel here in Bangkok, I do this again and again. Shopping. Quite a lot. Actually, I’m not a shopaholic, maniac. But once I’m here, in the shopping malls of Bangkok, I become a different person. As I shop like crazy.

Quite surprisingly, this capital city has quite a huge number of popular shopping malls, centres and complexes with over thousands stores. Very convenient and attractive, they provide all kinds of shopping opportunities, plenty of entertainments and artwork.  

The amazing thing about the malls here is that they have almost everything you could possibly want. From fashionable garments to footwear, home decorations to foods, jewelries to electronics, craft items to entertainment (cinemas, karaoke, 4D, games, bowling alley).

Like you or any visitors, I also spend most of my free time running from one shopping centre to another, exploring new items, trying on different schemes and of course buying. Only once you are in here, ah, how you wish that you were a rich man.

Interestingly, here, you can bargain like hell on almost everything and you would be just shell-shocked at the rock bottom prices they offer you.

Moreover, the city provides very convenient transportation services and delicious street foods. I just love travelling by the skytrain and tok tok, always new experience for me.

 First picture courtesy: googlesearch

Meet up with a fellow-blogger in Thailand

Yesterday evening, I met up with blogger Dumcho Dorji here in Salaya, Thailand. As you all know, he currently studies at Mohidol University and blogs about his life’s experience in Thailand and Bhutan. We knew each other through our blogs; in fact, very well. But we never met before in person.

However despite his busy schedule, Dumcho found a time for me. He took me around his beautiful college campus for a walk. And he did treat me with dinner - some juice and foods - on the street. 

It's quite surprising and nice to have met a Bhutanese blogger in a foreign soil. More so happy that one could get to sit together over the dinner and talk about our life, love and aspirations, as bloggers and writers. 

I am ever so thankful to Dumcho; it is one moment that I can always cherish in my life.        

Thai situation is improving

When I landed here in Thailand last Saturday, the authority of the capital was cleaning and clearing the litters of the protests at the downtown Bangkok. I was quite nervous of the political unrest in the country. I was even afraid to wear my red shirt. Moreover, the Thailand Stock Exchange has been falling everyday. The whole situation of the country was worrying.

However, as I stay here longer, I slowly understand the situation, more clearly. And I am happy, enjoying my stay here, trust me. Though the curfew begins from 10 pm to 5 am, everything runs as normal - businesses, public services, transportation and airlines. The movement in the country is not restricted as portrayed in the media.

The situation has become alright now. The locals and foreign travelers enjoy all freedom to walk around, do shopping and sightseeing. I observed that protests were well organized; it engaged only the protest groups and their members in the designated places.

As the Thai military junta Chief received royal endorsement as Chief of the National Council for Peace and Order, most Thai people are hopeful that the unrest could be solved. Moreover, they are showing support to military deployed to enforce martial law and maintain peace.

All the community leaders agreed to comply with order of the Chief to remove all signs of red shirts from public places. The leaders and members of different protest groups have been summoned and put under trials.  

The people of Thailand are wishing sincerely that the political unrest be settled soon. If so happened then the national election is going to happen very soon, possibly within next four months.       

Photograph

These are the pictures of Taksang, the majestic monastery of Bhutan, that I took during my last visit to the place. I hope I’ve done enough justice to this splendid monastery by clicking it in my lens. Have a good time, fella bloggers!

Mystery of my favourite poem

When I was in my high school, I came across this famous and magical poem for the first time. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot”. And ever since, it had become my favourite poem, indefinitely. Ever so gracefully, it remained on my mind, too gracefully though.

Still I do remember those days, of my classroom where I used to sit on my desk, so attentive, in excited and radiant smile, reciting the poem. If I’m not wrong, this is the first time I fell in love with English literature and of course started liking my English teacher.

This is one poem that I held dear, and its lines, I knew by heart. Again and again I would read the poem. To put it precisely, it’s crafted in perfect words and emulates overpoweringly breathtaking images that one would never forget in life.

And the way Tennyson starts out the poem is simply splendid. I can’t help myself from pulling out those starting lines and putting down here,

On either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And thro' the field the road runs by

To many-tower'd Camelot;

The poet portrays the scenes so magically. And it made my heart lurch, all the more. This is the only poem that I read not for the exams, but out of the pleasure of words. In fact, that’s the time I realized the power of words, what the black and white letters can be.

Above all, it’s the protagonist of the poem that had absolutely hypnotized me. The Lady of Shalott. She is described as an absolute angel, “lovely face”, “fairy”, pure, and beauty who “weaves by night and day/A magic web with colours gay” in a four-towered castle. She is like…ah as if I had met the love of my life, my soul mate. The more I read it, the deeper I fell in love.

Moreover, I felt hugely heartened when I had the opportunity to learn the poem once more when I joined Sherubtse College in 2005. We read the nineteen century literature and we analyzed this poem too. However, the analysis shocked me; left me shaken.

The poem suddenly turned dark. The Lady of Shalott is restricted and imprisoned in the tower under a terrible curse. Subjugated and lonely, she is considered as an invisible object, ghostly. Second half of the poem becomes bloody and mournful. The Lady is doomed for going against the norm. She cries. She dies.

I couldn’t believe that the love of my heart, the Lady’s life is one long unspoken sadness and accursed. It’s unthinkable; it penetrated me deeply. I couldn’t take it. It aroused such sorrow and grief of the loss of the Lady that I almost burst into tears in the classroom. I was angry at the poet, I started hating my lecturer, and I grew disinterested in learning literature.

After almost a decade, today, I read the poem once more. To tell you…it was a decade of my life filled with difficult obstacles and decisions, unthinkable loss and fear, and countless tears and anxiety. But it was also a decade of humbling realizations and experiences – of love, of joy, of emotional growth, of mental maturity, of understanding the true essence of life.

As I am already halfway to this bumpy ride of life; and today, as I read the poem, I have come to understand it. Its true essence, its beauty, its purpose and the love and grace in the poem. This world, this human life is all temporary. Vulnerability figures large all time, and that falling apart happens continually. Accept it or not, all is not fair or perfect in this world, similarly this favourite poem of mine.

I am excited here that I may understand the poem further as I grow older, in my old age. Learning never ends, and this poem never stops giving me new lessons. “The Lady of Shalott” is a poem for lifetime.

Photo courtesy: google

Photograph

You are the apple of my eye!!!

And of course litchi to my mouth!

He-he...spotted this little boy on my way to Takshang on the last Zhabdrung Kuchoe. Have a wonderful day, dear readers! 

The joy of planting a tree

The tree above? 

Believe it or not, this is the tree that I had planted as a student of Norbuling Primary School in Gelephu. It was June 2 in 1995. I was very happy to see my plant growing so strong and tall during my visit to the school last February. It made me dizzy with excessive pride.

You know what? I felt so excited that I spent my entire afternoon, beneath it, under its shade. I hugged it, ran around it, climbed on it, held its branches, and felt and smelt its leaves. More excitingly, I remembered my childhood days, a part of my life, in this school.  

The Joy that only a teacher knows

It is the hardest month of my life. This year’s April. To tell you, I’ve initiated and been giving art lesson in my office for 17 children, mostly underprivileged ones. Every day, from Monday to Friday, after school hours, I teach them drawing, art, painting and also designing craft items.    

I’m not a teacher, by the way. As a supporting staff, my job responsibilities are to assist my managers in the office administrative works and projects carried out by my office. However, I conduct this art class (with support from my office management) to help children to inculcate in them skills, creativity, confidence and good values through art lesson.

Besides my daily office works, I’ve to find out my own time to prepare art lesson. The class starts from 4 pm to 5 pm. After two weeks of teaching, I felt the actual demands of work. It was very tiring, stressful for me. Every evening, after the class, my legs and back ached, and my throat pained. Also, I had to forego all my leisure time and comfort. 

Moreover, most of my students were slow in learning. A few didn’t understand anything at all. Others reacted fast, but never hit on the point. So they always put me in a foul mood. I felt muddled-headed, and gradually I started losing my patient. I scolded them too.

At one point, I wanted to stop the class, but something dragged me on. I don’t know what it is. So today, it has been exactly a month that I’m giving the class. And the class will continue till this year’s end.        

Yesterday afternoon, I received handmade cards from my students. It shocked me, as it was unusual for me to receive cards on teacher’s day. Also, they wished me, “Happy Teacher’s Day!” The way they said it, the way they emphasized it, melted my heart. I looked at my students; they all stood in beautiful smile, grateful and proud.

  

I took a moment, and ran my eyes up and down the cards. And to my own amazement, tears welled up in my eyes. Maybe that’s the nicest thing ever happened to me in the recent years. It is, to put it more precisely.   

On that day, I asked all my students to design cards for their favorite teachers in their schools. It is to honour them on teacher’s day. The cards also contain special messages for their teachers. It took us more than two hours to complete making the cards.  

This is the pride of a man who teaches art lesson one hour a day. So you just can’t imagine the pride and achievements of those teachers who teach their entire life.

Let’s salute all our teachers!

New Bhutanese writers

I came across a handful of books by the Bhutanese at the Book Fair in Bajothang. I was very much surprised. Because that I’ve not heard of and read before about these books and authors. But those books are written and published by our fellow-Bhutanese, and they are there in the market for sale. More surprisingly, most of the writers are very young teachers. I’m very happy for them and have bought some of the books as personal copies. The books are: 

Photograph

"An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth."

                                                      - Bonnie Friedman

Creating a little more space

Not long ago, I wrote here about how thrilled I was to visit my friend Sonam’s apple orchard at Khasadrapchu to pluck apples there. Last Saturday, again, I visited this beautiful orchard along with my friends Pema and Sonam. This time, it’s not to pluck apples, but to nurture the orchard.

The entire noon, we weeded the orchard, and added manure and water to the plants. Like a group of peasants, we toiled in the orchard, digging and weeding. Our limbs were mud-stained; our faces profusely streaming with sweats.

Meanwhile, we whistled, in a rustic way, commanding the wind to bring us fresh air. As expected, a strong current of wind gusted around the valley. Magic works, ah, it really does! The apple plants started to bend and twist as if they were dancing to the song of the wind. As they danced, the flower petals of the plants were blown away in the air, over the valley. The bees, sucking nectars, were also brushed away. It all appeared to me so truly surreal.

Beneath a handsome tree, we lied down, talking and observing the loveliness of the countryside. We admired the lone farm road that climbs way up into a tiny settlement on mountaintop. We listened to the mysterious sound of the wind too; keenly observing its flow. We felt it deep inside, breathed it deeper. It’s very peaceful.   

We continued working. We continued talking. It’s all about our lives, our little aspirations, our ideologies, our beloved ones and families, and not so much about our works. After a while, we felt sublime, peaceful.  

However, the beauty is not that I could spend my weekend away from Thimphu, but it’s this small moment of working and sitting together with my friends in such a lovely place. I’m happy that I’m creating a little more space for them, my soul friends.

My little world, my writing

I feel very lucky to have found a love of writing. Here, on my blog. Quite surprisingly, this writing has become part of me, my daily life. As I spend a huge block of my time on writing here, almost everyday.

But I’m one person who often writes about my own little life - my world, activities, philosophies, hopes, and dreams. Because I feel that all other things are being written amply by pens far mightier than mine.

I absolutely love to write about these itsy-bitsy activities of my life. They are so little, tiny, mundane, small, and naïve. Yet, they are part of me. All this together make me, this very self.   

I live a simple life with a handful of friends. And what I’ve owned and done in my life is little. I know that no one else would ever write my story. So I write it myself, with thanks, as ever to e-blog.  

My stories, blog posts, are mostly about my home, my heart, my family and friends, my village, writing, good books I read, walks, photography, and nature. For, they are what I focus on the most in my life. For, they are my creative muse too.

And each post I write, there’s still more to write. That’s the indisposition of my little world, my writing. Insatiable. Never-ending. Writing here helps me to explore what life is all about, and I’m always delighted in the discovery and contentment.

So much wrong happen each day. But writing is transformative, peaceful. As I sit for a small moment thinking and writing, it’s like I put pause from the routine and busyness of my life. Sometimes, I put down my feelings and thoughts to get answer in my writing. 

  

Above all, I write to remember, and to be remembered. Through writing, I intend to relive each moment of my life on these pages, briefly, though it’s only about small things.

It’s through this blog that I hope to live on for a few generations after I die. When my friends, family members and readers go through this blog, I live on. When they read my stories of the memories I’ve made, I live on. When they remember my name, I live on.

I am not sure that I could ever write in the future. I don’t know. I don’t know what pages of my life would unfurl for me. I don’t know, at all. But I know this…that I am writing here! 

Pink Thimphu: Instagram pictures

I started loving Instagram so much, lately. It seems like this online photo-sharing and video-sharing social networking service has been designed especially for me. Seriously. For, photography is one of my favorite engagements in everyday life. So much so I love doing it that there isn’t a single day without my camera clicking pictures.  

What I like most about the Instagram is its photographic filters that we can apply to our images. And of course, it confines photos to a square shape. For a person like me who doesn’t use Photoshop, Instagram is simply comfortable and fun. Just capture a picture, choose a filter to transform its look and feel, use frames if you want to, and share it with my friends and family. It’s very simple, enjoyable, and beautiful.

So today, I offer you some of the pictures that I took on Instagram this spring. These pictures are all the pink peach blooms of Thimphu. Enjoy much!   

In its own way, the nature’s way

It was already late evening. And that I was still in my office. But hey, I’m not an “over-sincere” civil servant. In fact, I was waiting and just hoping that the rain would stop so that I could walk home. But it didn’t.

So I pulled out my umbrella and marched into the downpour, toward my home, clutching my bag to my chest. The moment I started walking, the rain poured harder. Even the air became damper, chillier. To put it simply, the March rain is pretty uncomfortable. Because it retains the cold, that of the winter, unusual cold, isn’t it?    

It was almost instantly dark, starkly though. Actually Thimphu doesn’t become so dark this early in the spring. But that evening, it was. Maybe – just maybe – it could be because of the heavy downpour, or the dark clouds that hung so low and held the entire valley in its bosom. To me, it all appeared like the heaven was kissing the first spring blossom of the year.

The road that I walked was virtually empty. All shops closed and the people returned to their homes. And as I walked, I could feel the fresh aroma of the spring in the air, its fragrance all exuded, fluxed with the rain. I became so intoxicated. I felt as if I were in the company of a beautiful woman, walking together. Honestly speaking.   

The endless droplets of the rain splattered against my umbrella and against the road. Some drops big, others tiny. And they produced a rhythmic beating sound with different uneven beats. I stopped walking, abruptly; however, not to listen to the rain sound.

I started watching the rain tapping on the pink peach blooms and green leaves that was perfectly illuminated by the streetlamps. They met so gently, almost playfully. Ah, it looked so passionate, so sensual, and so surreal. Instantaneously, I was hit by a wave of something – a few questions though.

Is this how nature mates?

Does nature really make love?

Sorry readers, I’ve no idea what really aroused me to think about it, but there I was asking these questions. As I continued walking, the sound of the rain enfolded me and the darkness too. But deep inside me, it’s these questions that enfolded me overpoweringly.

As I write this post, right now, these questions still buzz beautifully in my head, my heart. I was and still am very much sure that I can’t get the answer, anyway; not even in my writing. But now I can, at least, console myself that all I could see was the mystery of wild, the wonder of nature. Perhaps heaven can make love with nature, in its own way, the nature’s way.