Small things in life

So there I was, yesterday, driving up to Buddha Point to collect top soil for my flower pots, so I could plant the begonia bulbs which has been lying around in my car for over two weeks. I've been thinking  to plant it on a weekend- but what do you know, weekends are one of the busiest days.
So yesterday, I promised myself that I'd plant it, and for my own sake, for when it blooms I light up like a candle. Not sure, though, that I light up the place where I am at, at that moment.  

Chrismas cactus blooming last year

Small pretty flowers opening up and swallowing all the darkness. I've planted it - 6 bulbs- and watered it too. Can't wait for it to come out of the soil and begin blooming. Right now I am content with Christmas cactus (blooming late since Christmas is long gone). The orange buds have been here for over a week or two. I am waiting, patiently, for it to open up.
These are little things in life that matters.  Hopefully, amid the chaos, I'll remember to do a little thing or two, for others as well as for myself, each day. 

Thank you for the music

Being born in October I am an autumn child and perhaps for that bond I find inspiration in melancholy.
I can delve in my thoughts until it stirs and draws out sadness from every bit of feeling, even happiness.
Yet there is a music in me, one that stirs from happiness in a happy sort of way.
It's like the time I am so caught up in something that I don't have time for melancholy to sit on my lap for me to nurse it.
This is spring, and exactly like the season itself.
It is so much about hope and things coming alive. It's nature coming alive and even though I may look worn out and sapped from the outside, I feel like I am blooming within.
 If only if I could renew like the peach trees and the gardens, then I'd bloom from the outside too. Spring is the beauty one feels inside.
It is the uplifting music. It is the answer. There is no end to life. It is the music that musicians leave behind to be heard again and again and again, to be re-generated and revived. So thank you for the flowers, the reawakening, inspiration, for the music I feel inside and for the music that you are.

A step back

For each step forward, take two backwards. That's the logical thing to do in life. 

mama

mother & son

mama it's your lil' son 

I've grown up

I am sure you'll be pleased to see me 

healthy and strong 

mama I'm sad 

you're not keeping your words 

It's been years and you're still not home

I miss you more each day

mama I cried, 

cried several times

I was at cousin's home and it was fun 

but when dusk came and artificial lights lit up rooms 

I cried 

mama I hid underneath a bed

and cried my heart blue 

they found me soon enough

and looked at me with pity

oh mama! how I cried 

mama I hear your voice over the phone 

but that's not enough 

and I can't speak 

mama, I wish you could hear my heart 

each beat waits for your return 

mama I miss the way you smell

I can't recall 

the last fragrance from your shirts 

faded as the machine beat it into pulp 

and what remained vaporised in the sun

mama come home

 have me in your arms 

and I'll forget all that you missed

 my PTA 

the concert where I danced like a star

and more

mama I'm hurt 

you're not listening

I'm entering a dark alley,

inside a bar no one seems to bother

 for I look old enough

a man at the counter hands me a shot 

I gulp it down 

the acidity burns my throat 

but cocoons my heart 

its no longer blue 

and it no longer beats for you 

aromatic memories

I was dressing up for office, when something in my cupboard reminded me of times in my college dorm room. I picked the kira, dug in my face and took a deep breath. It was sweet yet tangy smell.

I was back in the dorm room, amid posters of models, actors and bands, and REM's imitation of life was playing on a box like stereo, borrowed from a senior.

It was a flash. The short but powerful time in my life, of a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly. I held the kira for few seconds longer. My heart radiating into a perfect smile on my lips. The good friends, the tiny town, the village folks, the evenings at their impoverished homes,  sitting near the crackling fire and chewing on corn on the cob. Then there was this foggy narrow road leading to college where I'd meet my classmates and the crushes. All were all contained within that one whiff of fragrance.

I stood a second longer, unable to tear from the memory and sniffed for more. But I was running late for office. The day turned out to be perfect. It was raining but nothing could shroud the glow and the contentment I felt inside. I was living a life which made so much sense. The traffic did not matter, the song on the radio was melodious and I was singing along. I had the key to happiness.

Another time, it was spring and healthy green bushes in the office garden along the path to canteen were bursting with flowers. Another whiff of memory. I couldn't resist it, so I bent down and took a deep breath and lingered for a second longer. The tea, for which I was visiting canteen, was forgotten.

I was back in the remote village of Sibsoo in Samtse and I'd just started school. We'd put on dangling pink earings made from the flowers. In school we'd sneak in green hot chillies and hoard it, along with salt, under the wooden desks. In the midday sleep-inducing sun, when the teacher was busy up in front, we'd simply sweat at the back, eyes wide open and attentive to salt melting inside the tiny but super hot jitsi ema. And to think we were only five or six years old.

Catching Raindrops!

Then there was the Nepali class which taught us a song about a crow and a sly fox. An earthquake shook us out of bed and had a manic elderly person shouting naka, naka, naka... prancing about on the ground, as I rubbed off rest of the sleep from my eyes.

The memories offered no names or faces but only forms. Yet the fragrance unlocked memories of green chilies, the scorching sun, the blackboard illustration of fox and crow and dusty wooden floors on which we sat. 

And today as I get a whiff of rain drenched earth from my office window, I simply wonder what I'd be reminded of later in life when I smell the rain and earth again. Perhaps this story I am sharing. Perhaps the children's book with earthy tones, which I am reviewing, or the leaves of the ivy vines dangling from the window grill, or the editor playing when the children cry on guitar. Or perhaps it'll remind of my son trying to catch raindrops with his lil' paws. 

I have no idea. The fragrances seem to box in and lock bits and pieces of life on its own will. But I am sure if I ever remember these bits and pieces they will turn into a particular scent, which I can call my own and no one can ever smell it. It is my happiness.             

Corporal punishment

I've never given the controversial corporal punishment as much thought as I did when parliamentarians discussed it passionately while deliberating on the Child Care and Protection Bill recently. It made me remember that one semester in my entire schooling life, which was the most torturous of all.

I was twelve years old and, from what I gather, the teacher picked on me and it wasn't on disciplinary grounds. Coming from the capital and a better-rated school was the reason or so it seemed.

“Why did you transfer to a primary school in the south, from a junior high school in the capital,” he would ask.

Did I answer it? I honestly don't remember. But I remember the thin bamboo sticks that would splinter away on my palm. The cold pinching slap on my palm, which instantly became pale and, a few seconds later, turned red and hot. I'd never cry. The students would watch in fear.

Every morning I'd watch out for him. But he never missed a class. The mental torture was what got me the most. Maybe that's why I failed in almost all subjects, including English, that semester.

My parents transferred me to a different school but it wasn't because of the teacher, which is the most ironic part. The devil in disguise was the best math teacher, at least according to parents. Not once did any parent in the small community complain against him. Rather they'd side with him.

Now when I reflect on it, I still feel I was a victim. There was no way I would become a math whiz that way.

There were times when other teachers flogged me for forgetting my homework and I felt I deserved it. But in the maths teacher’s case I did not. But I never complained. Who'd listen? I accepted it as it is, especially because we'd hear stories from adults about how worse it was during their times.

Things are changing. Children know their rights now. The education ministry's code of conduct for teachers prohibits corporal punishment. But, like the discussion during the national assembly session, there is no consensus among the different laws related to child care and protection.

The penal code provides that loophole, which gives teachers, (who fit under person responsible for general care and supervision category), the right to use force and on disciplinary grounds.

Some parliamentarians have qualms over spelling out corporal punishment in the childcare act.

The pro-corporal punishment parliamentarians feel abolishing corporal punishment is a western concept and does not fit in a society where it was a tradition to use force to discipline children. The furious manifestations of the deities were evoked at the parliament. For the good of the people, the gods take up force and fury, said a parliamentarian.

Yes, I still do fear my math teacher and the dzongkha teacher, but it is the one lesson that my father taught me which had a greater impact in making me a better person than all the floggings that I received. I was only nine years old then.

The kitchen and toilet of our home were located outside the main structure. At the break of dawn, I was up with a terrible stomach-ache. Everybody was sound asleep. I was scared to go out in the dark. So I simply stepped out and emptied my tummy outside near the door, and went back to sleep.

When my father got up and went outside, he saw it and shouted who was responsible for that. I thought I was up for a beating. But I went up to him and explained why I did it outside. He simply grinned, patted me and said, “Good. Honest is what I expect you to be.”