Appreciate

Appreciate
You are capable of more than what you think

Sunday, February 24, 2013

In absence...


                                 In absence
                           
May be fourteen years is not too long for anyone to forget one’s most beloved person.
Fourteen years has passed by.  I have passed my child hood days, my teenage days and I am now nearing to be an adult yet he remains in my heart and soul. Fourteen years is not a very long time for me now because I had lost one of the most important persons of my life.
Today as I journey through the steeps of Namling, (the steep pass between Bumthang and Monger a dangerous and an accident prone area) whole of my body stiffens, giving me goose pimples and the image of my brother flashes through my mind. As I look down through the vehicle at the steep slope, covered by the thick forest, it chills me to think of the pain people faced that night of the accident.
 People interpret the bus accident in their own way. Most say that the bus driver was drunk at the night of accident. While some say that he was angry with his passenger. Other blames bus being overloaded. Few consider it as the destiny of the passengers. I am neither a saint nor detective to know the cause of the accident. I am a simple human being and I only know that the bus accident had cause the lives of so many precious lives and among them was my brother. As I pass through Namling pass today, I see the image of my distress family.
The summer of 1998 was the most disastrous for my family. I still remember the anguish on my nephew’s face telling me, “uncle Ugyen is no more” The news had traumatized me immediately. My heart beat stopped for a moment. My whole world was at a standstill. I wished the news to be a fake one. I wished myself to be in dream and wanted to wake up laughing at myself for such a dream. However, the reality could not be denied. I cried my eyes out and I cried even more at the thoughts that I will not be able to attain his funeral. I had to travel three days to reach my home town where his body has been taken for cremation.
 After spending three sleepless nights I and my sisters ended the World’s most calamitous journey and reached our home town to attend the rituals. Desolated my house appeared, silently it stood and even the mountains around it seemed to mourn at the loss of my brother. Sight of my parents was even more depressing for me. As soon as I stepped into my house I noticed my mother grief-stricken with flocks of villagers around her. My father sat motionless like a statue.
My brother was placed at the center of the room but not in flesh and bone but only a gema (the shadow) that represented him. The food and drinks were offered in front of him. I ran hurriedly towards my mother. She stood up and hugged me tight. Volumes of tears ran through my cheeks. There was nothing I could do nor did anything left for me to say. My brother was helpless in the battle of fate. He lost the battle of life to destiny.
I could not do anything but pray silently to almighty for his soul to rest in heaven. His body consigned to ashes, his soul no more, only the prayer flags stood in his memory. I was left deserted only to pray and stare at those prayer flags. Never ever did I realize before that such a young person leaves so soon.
 Now, I wonder to whom I should blame, whether to blame the carelessness of the driver or the government for not widening the road or to blame the night of the accident itself. Or should I blame the fate for such misfortune?
But memories can never fade away from me as the word Namling synonyms him for me now.


Emotions....


                                                                                16/10/12 5.55 pm
Emotions   clutched
My teachers and my Gurus have always advised me never to be attached to worldly things.  Never be drawn by the emotions of love, distress, anger, hatred, ego, jealousy etc.  However, my heart aches at the thought of the impermanence, of how life changes so fast, of how time hastens,  of how moments become history.  I look back at past of how people have changed my life while I stay in curiosity to see what waits me ahead. Human life for me  is such a wonder. I really do not understand why I was born. Is  our life meant to be born, get education, become a doctor/teachers etc.. get married  and so on. I wonder if there is any other purpose of coming here other than fulfilling these conventional roles. Are we blinded by the societal roles and responsibilities expected of us. So often I  keep asking this question: what’s the purpose of life?  The answer is ambiguous. All I do is keep following the mass. However, am I right to do that or need  to just find my way.  Most often I am soaked into sentiments of the thinking how people squander their life ignorantly. Once we leave the World, will we be able to come back here? Will humans realize at some point of time the goal with which humans are born?  

There a lot of times when I self-assess and find so funny to think this way. But at other point of time I find it notable to drift my thoughts towards it. I need a spiritual guidance at this point of my life. My emotions are so clutched that I am totally mystified with it.
I  beseech my Guru to show me the way as you always do. Do bless me find my destiny.

The Shattered Dreams


The shattered dreams
Nobody wants me home.  I am the reason for them to get societal criticism.  My Ama hit me when I shared about it. My mother was silent and helpless because she too was dependent on Ama like me.
Now I live here at my Apa’s village with grandpa. I lost my dad when I was very young. Until then my mom and me had been staying with Ama, my mom’s sister. Life has never been easy on us as I felt I was a burden to them. I worked during my vacations. Thanks to my Ama she supported my studies until my graduation.  Though she is very strict, I know she has a reason to be strict.
 Now, I have hurt her, which I never intended to.
I loved him so much and beyond that, I had trusted him. Never in my life I have imagined that he would betray me to this extend.  My heart aches not that he has left me but because he refuses to accept our child.  I remember the trust and the dreams we had built for our future. Now, that the life is grown in my body for so long, I don’t even want to pursue him to accept it. May be it was my own fault because I trusted him more than myself.
I have lost all hopes for him to return. It hurts me badly because I have ruined my relationship with my Ama. She is so sad that she does no longer want to see me. I have left Thimphu.
Life is difficult with no support from family.  I have no job and no person whom I can trust. I have lost faith in him and the only reason for my existence is my child. I wonder why he does not accept our love.
Should I blame myself for trusting him? Should I blame him because he is denying his responsibility? Should I blame my Ama for she is angry to support me?  
I am afraid to approach any of the women organization for I know he would get angrier and never return to me. The little chance of his return may be shattered. I feel helpless. I only wait for the time to change everything, for things to improve and for my life to be beautiful again.

Note:   This is based on true story. I know the girl but I have not seen her personally.  Many of my close friends have shared about this to me. We have been discussing what can be done to help her but since all of us are also young, nothing materialized. and I really wish we could help her out in some way. I really did not know how to put up this issue so I have put this in the form of story. I even do not know  if I have done justice to her story but it brought tears as I wrote this.

End of the World


End of the world?

The streets are empty, the once crowded vegetable market is deserted, and there is not a single person to be seen in the area. The people move to the plain areas as the greatest of the Earthquake is going to hit the place. The epicenter is the mountainous regions so everyone leaves for the plain.
Before that, I go to a very big vegetable market located on the mountain, there are  lots of people there, some shopping, some looking at the great statue of Buddha on the huge cliff. From the Buddha’s statue the holy water flows. There are few people who have come there as a pilgrimage and they drink the holy water. I too go there and drink the water from that place.
 To my utter dismay, I see the people swollen with wounds, deformed due to that holy water they drank. I am confused, ‘How can these happen?’ My thoughts are drifted to the coming of end of the present Buddha and the start of Future Buddha. ‘So that’s the intermediate state.’ I think. Everyone pray and I too join them. I close my eyes and when I open it I find the wounds disappear fast. Then I move to the plains of Paro to save myself from the greatest of the Tragedy that befall Humans (or should I say Bhutanese?).
On the Day of the catastrophe, the earth engulfs the huge mountains, the houses and everything of the mountains. The air swirls the earth’s component like a Tornado. It is the biggest of this kind I have ever seen. I felt like watching it in a television. I see how the mountain and the structure being consumed fast by the angry earth.  I hear the roar, ‘Boom !dung!,   and feel the shaking of the earth. There is the bombardment of the structures. To me, the earth looked extremely wrathful, as she had no mercy upon her inhabitants and their dwellings. People struggle and  run so fast from this disaster.
Thank God no person is killed.  The only death was of a woman who gets short circuit after she returns from the plains to her home. Her daughter takes off fuse from the main circuit and the woman is thrown due to shock by the current. She dies as the girls try to put off the electric fire by water.
After the disaster, I go to vegetable market once more. But this time there is only one Indian vendor selling vegetables. I ask him where other has gone. He does not answer. He says something I do not understand. I leave him.
I return back to my village. I find two of my sisters and my mom grief-stricken. As I go into my storeroom, there is not a single grain left; there are no vegetables and no fruits. Everything we have stored had disappeared.
To Guru, the one borrn from lotus, I pray hard to him.  I seek refuge in him for the catastrophe that has taken place. ‘Dhe Sum Sangay Guru Rinpoche….Sampa lhuenge Drupa Jinge Lo,’ ‘Hu Ugyen Yue gu Nub Jnag Tsham……Guru Padma Sidi Hu…..’ I continuously chant these prayers. I see everything return, the grains, the vegetables, all the things we had stored.
As I open my eyes, I  still find myself chanting those prayers but drenched in sweat. There is complete silence  and it is 4.30 am in the morning. I am still in my bed. But that BOOM and DUNG sound is still echoing in my head. The image of the present Buddha on that huge cliff is still vivid.
Is this the way humanity is going to come to end? Will we have a place to run away if we encounter such catastrophe? Or will we be simply engulfed by the angry mother earth?