How safe are we, the women?

“Women thy name is frailty,” Shakespeare said. This is something to ponder on. Are the women really frail? In what sense are they frail? Are they frail in strength? Frail in their character? Frail in their emotions? Or plainly frail in the sense of their presence in the world?
A girl in Delhi, gang raped in a moving bus and brutally discarded has led to uproar in many cities of India. This is one incident that has been brought to our eyes, all thanks to media. But we know in our hearts that many such incidences happen every day in the lives of women all over the world but remain hidden in the guise of family prestige and fear of becoming an outcast.
Yet, I am sure still many of us in Bhutan hardly cared for this Delhi incident. Then came in the story about our own two Bhutanese girls who were molested by two BMTC employees in Bangalore. Eyebrows of more Bhutanese raised and we could see people in our country too questioning the safety of women in the world.
But come to think of it, how safe are our own Bhutanese women in Bhutan? As an adult I’ve not taken a ride in public buses and I do speak with my fingers crossed hoping against hope that now the scenario would have changed somehow. I remember, back in my childhood days, private cars were luxury affordable for the few affluent only. So as a little girl travelling to my relatives places I remember travelling in buses. The handy boy would pass lewd comments on the female passengers and the other fellow travelers would bellow with laughter, enjoying each moment of the awkward situation in which the woman in question would be put in. Sometimes, one had to witness ghastly scenes of men touching women in awkward places in these buses. Who thought of these actions as more than a simple game men were allowed to play by the default of being born a man?
Today as we witness more such crimes happening in all pockets of the world, we might begin to question ourselves, is this culmination of such casual pranks that has given birth to such horrendous acts? And the most important question to ask is should we allow ourselves to be a victim or even a spectator of such social evils? Can we let these devils in the guise of humans go scot free? Don’t we think that at some point not just the women but even men have a higher price to pay as a father? As a brother? As a husband? Or even for the simple reason of co- existing in the beautiful world created by God for both male and female?
Maybe, today one Damini succumbed to death as a result of the brutish act of six men but how many Daminis should die to wake up the humans in these brutes? How many such horrors should women live to ultimately be blessed with a space to walk free of fear on the Earth in which they were created to live and flourish in?

Examination Time

As a little girl, I still remember, there was a special charm whenever Exams knocked ‘round the corner. My mom always made it a point to buy me a new geometry box filled with long sharp pencils. Totally rid of the heavy bag pack, it felt good to be walking majestically with just a thin clipboard and the brand new geometry box to flaunt.
If you are thinking of the notes to be rote learned, well I was a sucker at that. I mean who studies at that age? If chased around by my parents, I would slip a comic in my textbook and go on reading as if exams were the best things in my life.
But today is different. I am on the other side of the fence. Overlooking a hall packed with grim looking students, I pace back and forth with a stern look that clearly should spell, I am serious about exams and have always been look. But the kid in me is still prancing about in my heart. I learn that little girl wanting to flip though the pages of the comic I always relished. Yet! The Teacher me yells out “ No! Not allowed!”
So, I get back to my walking with measured steps and roving eyes. A boy in the corner is busy scratching his head. I remember my Dzongkha exam times, how I would have scrapped off all dandruff if I had any during those days. One particular incident never goes amiss whenever I combine Dzongkha exam and the head scratching business. My Dzongkha was always bad and today I say this with my head lowered with embarrassment. But not to forget, in those days, people who excelled in English were kind of happening, not people who drooled out with Dzongkha. Whatever, coming back to the incident I was going to talk about. So, it was during the ICSE time. I was stuck with a question that was more Greek to me than all aliens put together. I was scratching my head looking at the picture of my mom and me and my sister. It was during a warm winter spent at my mom’s place. I stared at our chubby faces and grinned. Two months of mom’s special dishes plumped us up. Had we been pigs, all set to go to the slaughter house. But staring at my mom’s dimpled smile didn’t fetch me the response needed by that question which had me perplexed.
“Are you Ata Tandin’s daughter?” I looked up to see my invigilator staring at my mom’s familiar face on my geometry box. “Yes!” I almost jumped with joy. He was the same man who was supposed to be giving answers to help students in distress.
Following the instruction received as a gossip in the hostel sprang fresh in my agonized brain. Immediately I picked my left hand and placed it on my head to start away with the scratching ( that hideous act meant, ‘Help! I am doomed!’) And gently I placed my right index finger on the question sent with vengeance all the way from Pluto. Meekly, I turned up to face the benevolent messiah but to my utter dismay, by the time I had the whole act put in place, he was in the faraway aisle, walking with a distracted look.
“Tee- hee” before I could help it, a giggle evolved. The nearby students came out of their alien world and casted a glace of “what’s so funny?” look. I moved my eyes with an unsaid apology and turned back to my Hitler walk.

THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN: a book

The Five People You meet in Heaven is another soul quenching book by the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom. This book is almost fable like, telling a story about a man named Eddie, who dies at the age of 83 at his workplace. Eddie is born and raised near a seaside amusement park, Ruby piers and interestingly he spends his adulthood also in this same place working as a maintenance guy till he breaths his last.
The book begins its chapter with The End. Paradoxical. But the whole length of the book begins with the end of Eddie’s life. Eddie, the maintenance guy dies while trying to save a little girl from a mishap at the park. After his death, Eddie walks the unknown path into what the writer calls heaven. Heaven is not the grassy hillock abundant in peace and respite. It’s the same world we live in yet seen in a different context for we look at it with different set of eyes and a different set of consciousness.
One by one, Eddie meets five people who demystify his life before death. The first person Eddie meets is a stranger, whose stark grossness of physical look perturbs Eddie in the beginning but with the meeting the first person Eddie learns that the people he is supposed to meet in the afterlife need not necessarily be his family or friends. From each of the five people Eddie meets, he learns a section of his own life he had lived yet wasn’t aware of.
This book makes you accept death in a new fashion. We think of death as an ultimate phase out thing but after reading this we see death as a door to self- discovery and self- redemption. May be I could connect to this book at this hour when I am trying to combat death sitting in a place where all I see is illnesses and death.
But today, I look at death, not as a foe but an accomplice to that new unseen world of afterlife. Death can be the time machine that reveals our past, unlocking its mystery and giving a new path leading to a known future. This book breaks the cliché- a known past and the unknown future. Ironically, this book shows past is unknown and future can be known.
While I’ve been scared of life after death, this book has opened my mind to a new realization and like Eddie I took a mental journey of afterlife, trying to figure out who I might meet. While I could not give shape to the strangers I might meet, I am pretty much sure of the family and friends I might want to meet and settle the scores for once and for all.
A soul fulfilling tale which makes one ponder on death yet make you accept death in a new limelight. A must read for people who fear to tread the path we all must walk on one day when our business on Earth is done.

Being in a hospital

It is a strange world we live in. Ignorance is bliss. Indeed it is. We discuss death; think of it; talk about it and know it’s gonna come for sure but when it actually comes knocking on our door, ain’t we frightened out of our wits?

I was one person who always claimed death to be my close buddy. Adolescent years’ struggles had me clutching onto the rims of death, trying to pull it my way all the while.

But today is a different story. I don’t know if I am trying to say I can still look at my own death in the face. Haven’t thought in that line yet! But sitting in this hospital ward listening to painful moans; looking at ghastly pipes shoved in various openings of the patients and holding my friend’s feverish hand; I fell a change in my vision of death.

Death is to come to us, all of us. ONE DAY.
But so long as no illness knocks on our doorstep, we ain’t aware of it. Death is a ghostly shadow lurking in every brick of this hospital ward. Hospital- this very term is a big joke of an oxymoron. Hospital is the last place we would wish to be in YET it is the first place we think of in times of illness.
I would like to loath the people who got this grand idea of a hospital where people breathe their last. At the same time I want God to bless these same people for in this same place, people take their first breath of life.

If this is a place abundant in pains and illnesses; this is the place where there is cure. I hate my presence here in this hospital ward yet feel lucky that I’m here nursing my ailing friend back to health.
Call it life; call it death; it is here you’ll find
Call it cure; call it pains; it is here you’ll hear
Call it blessing; call it curse; it is here you’ll feel.

Another Rainy day!

The Heaven above has opened her chest and let down the much awaited monsoon drops. Yesterday was an extremely hot day topped with power shut down for eight hours. Totally baked in oven like hot house I couldn’t help cursing the kind of houses the people here build, I mean come to see for yourself; everywhere you go, you see this box like buildings with limited openings they call house.
Just the other day I had taken my mom out for a walk and I couldn’t help wondering why people here preferred a box life. Had I been some kind of Architect I would definitely have understood the principle behind such houses but being not one it failed my reasoning.

If I ever lived here, I told my mom, I would build a house with windows all around the house. Tall glass windows which I would leave open so that the whole air in the house would circulate and make the house cool in its sultry summer days.Well, picture this..tall window glass, raindrops pelting hard outside, You see the cool drops yet is saved from getting wet(achoo! saves you from the nasty cold that could follow after such wetting!)

But today of all I longed for those tall glass windows. The raindrops pelting with roaring thunder had me watching it meekly from the enclosed small frame of the window. Many a times I dared to go out and once I even ventured out of the gates and looked heavenward with raindrops pelting on my face. I loved the way the drops touched the pores of my skin. It’s simply beautiful the way the raindrops dances on your skin. But I had to scurry back inside when the ear piercing thunder clapped followed by blinding lightning.

Another grand idea sipped in my pores following the raindrops. I made myself a hot cup of coffee and here I am with my laptop,listening to Ishq sufiyana ; the raindrops occasionally lightly touching me. Coffee, rain and a song you live…what better way can you think of to live a beautiful rainy day!

Deathly thought

The Staffroom during recess time is far noisier than any classroom left unattended by the teachers. “If my husband is thinking of getting married after my death, I’ll recommend your name,” Deki says in her high bass voice. Others giggle. “Deki is getting her husband married.” That guarantees some queer glances from the lopens sitting in the faraway corner.
Nonchalantly we resume our topic. “I see her genuine love for kids,” Deki adds trying to sound serious. Deki and serious talk is two different end of the rope. “She would be good to kids even if she is their stepmother,” her thoughts go on multiplying.
I know why she is saying that. She is holding a baby book I had bought for one of my friend who is a first time expectant mother. Leafing through the cute contents of the baby book, Deki can’t help but see through those pages and read my genuine love for children.
Among quakes’ of laughter I drift into my thoughts ( so, like me!). Taking Deki’s cue about her death, I think of my own death. Suppose people are made to talk about me on my DD(death day) ;would they have the same pleasant kin of opinion like Deki?
Well, let me try. I conjure up the first speaker. Some body randomly from the crowd of my acquaintances. “She never looked at the sunny side of life. So darn boring woman! Good Riddance!” I cringed at that thought. My very much alive soul reposted,” if only you knew how I always lived in the imaginary sunny world.” The person left the podium with an air of self- importance, having broken the ice.
Then appeared another friend,” she always brought pickles.” I let out a giggle thinking of how popular my homemade pickle gets in the staffroom. Well, I never held myself responsible for the pungent smell that others who went home for lunch complained of.
“She never beat us!” I heard a group of my students shout. As I was reveling in that line, I heard some of my male colleagues speaking under their breath,” she spoilt the kids that way!”
“Ewww, bad,bad,bad “ That’s what my li’l daughter says whenever she doesn’t like something that’s happening around her. So I borrowed that line from her as this spoiling thing crept in my mind.
I changed the position of my footsie, pulling the one that was crisscrossed to a bent at the knee position. I should have changed my line of thought but that’s what I wanted to do when I changed my leg’s position. But then I heard a distant murmur coming from across wires and cables, “She was so full of herself; in her blog she would write about herself , her kids, her family, her world…” I cut short that with,”hey! I know nothing to write about anything else.” With that line my mind shut all lines for further deliberation.

What am I asking?

Relation of the heart is the easiest and the most complex of all feelings on Earth. You try to solve the complexities of it and it shoves one further into the wider complex nature of it.
I sat watching one of my teenage days’ movie. The hit song from that move was an anthem my best friend and I played every morning before setting off from home to school. The two of us know how the melodious,”mera mann kyun tumhe chahe….” Would send shivers in our teenage heart.
Love has always moved every heart. I am sure this fact can’t be denied by even the hardest of the hardest hearted person (if there exists any). Love has come easily in every heart and the living example is all of us dwelling on this planet. My six years old daughter talks a lot about her classmate,Jigsel. When her cousin who is her senior in school tease her with Jigsel I see a shy smile spreading on my daughter’s face. I know this is just a child’s fascination for the other gender but what I realized is that love has no set age. It can happen to anybody.
But as we grow up love too starts getting complicated in its ways. The mere fascination of having that person as a playmate changes to the immature obsession for the other gender. The adolescent years are the most beautiful phase of this feeling called love (this is my purely opinion based on the assumption that such kind of term suits only the teenagers).
The fantasy of having a fulfilled life of a fairytale ending dissolves every inch of our teenage heart. But now that I’m an adult much deep into the phase after the “…and they lived happily ever after,” I wonder why there are no fairytales that talks about the life after the THE END? We never question that even now when we read it to our kids during the bedtime. We simply end it at THE END.
But if only we had the wisdom of questioning what actually happens after the THE END in any love tales, we would be well prepared for the reality that waits in the fantasy driven feeling we so much worship. But again, sometimes I feel are we unprepared for the phase ‘cause we have never been told about it in the stories?
I look at several marriages around me. I ain’t claiming the institution of marriage to be a failure but in every marriage I’ve seen the best of the lovers claiming complacency to have marred the very essence of the love filled relationship.
Why does the spark of magic of merely holding hands disappear in an aged marriage? Why doesn’t the same kiss turn the prince side of the spouse on? Why does other feelings like anger and frustration become so easy predator to what was once a feeling of love? I ain’t claiming that all marriages end up in such lousy manner. Yet! In all marriages there are disagreements and arguments (although the degree varies). And with every small tiffs the chasm of differences widen.
Some people are wise enough to quickly mend up the walls of their broken heart and change the foundation of the bridge before the chasm eats up the whole bridge. But not all are blessed with such aptitude. There are unfortunate few who give up on the battle of commitment even well before they give a try.
Love turned sour is the most bitter of all kind of negative feeling. While there are people seeking to relive the love they couldn’t in the past there are people who are having difficulty in handling their present love situation. While some are having difficulty solving their current differences, there are people who shed even the complexity of the future.
Yet! Amidst all, my question still remains unanswered…is marriage the alarm clock in the dreamy world of love? Lets ponder!

A Promise

Holding her frail hand I mutter silent prayers. No particular image of God comes in my mind. I just see her face and the pain written on it. I stroke her hands lightly wanting to put my hands across her temple and kiss it lightly. But I want her to sleep, so I just keep my hands on her and say silent prayers.

I stare at her little frame of body and try to remember the nine months of my stay in that warm womb inside her. I try to visualize a tiny dot that became me in that womb, I fail miserable. But I know I must have spend my time inside her kicking her. She throws her feet in a slight kicking motion in her sleep. Can she actually hear my thoughts I wonder. Maybe!

When I was inside her did I hear her thoughts? Maybe!

Today watching her gives me a different feeling. Just few days ago we were in the hospital ward. I was busy with my word game when I heard the shrill cry of the nurse on duty,"zangmo, you doing my work?" I lifted my head to see my mother extending her hand to pull the tangled IV line of the patient next to her. Although the Nurse meant to rebuke her I heard a soft reproach that sounded like affectionate cooing. I was proud of my mother. Although in pain herself she could think of helping her neighbour.

For five nights, I spent my time ferrying patients with dangling urine and other bags to toilet and for their usual walks. At times holding on to pus filled bags of strangers and holding their hands walking to the toilet, I wondered why don't I cringe with yuck! this is dirty feeling? But looking at my mom, I knew where that helping nature came from.

Its bath time. I am scrubbing her lithe body and I ask her about the first time she gave bath to me." I was scared the first time I put you in the tub," she smiles weakly. I understand what she is trying to explain. First-born is always a difficult task. But giving bath to my mom I felt a sense of fulfillment fleet, the same one that you feel when you give bath to your first born for the first time without fear.

We sit silently yet reading eachother's thoughts. We sit talking to eachother, sharing basic dreams shared by a woman with another woman. We watch TV shows wishing it would make our hearts merry. We eat dishes that has been seasoned with love we feel for eachother. We finally put our heads on the pillow for it's dark outside. I curl beside her and imagine my tiny body curled up in her womb. I uncurl myself, stretch my limbs, hold out my hands and gently place it on her wishing every pain from her body would come to me with my hand touching her.

A warm trickle reminds me I need to make a promise, sincere and genuine...So, with my hands still placed on her hands, I silently divert my attention from my prayers and make a promise,"dear mom, I shall always strive to be like you, truthful and good to all." I allow the tears to mingle with the silent vow so that it seals the honesty with which I make this pledge.

Women! Women!

Quite a long time ago I was an ardent follower of the saas-bahu serials. It always was a yummy thought provoking half an hour of the grinding relationship between two women in a single man's life, his mother and wife. Teary eyed I would cry at the plight of the poor daughter in law who always had to submit to the whims of her always in the arrogant role mother in law. And in another hour, in a different serial I would be scoffing at the vamp of a daughter in law who treated her mother in law with sheer disrespect.

Indeed this relationship between two women can be really tricky. Only a woman can understand a woman is what I always feel but when it comes to a mother in law and daughter in law I guess the case gets topsy turvy. Weird!Maybe it has all to do with women and their role as a home manager. I guess there can only be one queen in a beehive, what else could be the reason for the tussle for power.

I was cleaning dal, squatted on the floor facing my three friends. Deki who lives with her hubby's family remarked," let your mother in law be the boss.Always!" she said the 'always' too loud. Maybe she wanted to put stress in the importance of that word. She narrated an anecdote of how she lets her mother in law be the boss:

She was watching Druk star and seeing her enthusiasm in it I went to cook the dal that she had soaked for hours. I started cutting the onions, garlic and ginger. My style of preparing dal is to fry all these first and then add the dal and then put it to cook it in pressure cooker. I had been in the kitchen for about twenty minutes when my mother in law appeared in the kitchen. "Mathang, pressure cooker tey jik mala ko"

Seeing her dal still drowned in the bowl filled with water, she exclaimed,"yala, why didn't you put the dal on stove yet?" I explained my recipe. "No, no.." she shook her head. "you have to cook the dal first in the pressure cooker. Fry the onions and garlic in another pan and add at the end. "I see," I nodded and walked away to watch her unfinished Drukstar while she started putting the dal in the cooker.I allowed her to cook it in her own style.

"That's how you give the upper hand to her" Deki explained. But the way she explained had us , her audience, rolling on the floor.
"I never come on her path," another friend added. On my way back from the office, I always make sure to take one glance of my mother in law, if she is sullen, I walk to my room quietly and stay there. If she is smiley then I quickly change and sit with her." Roars of female laughter filled the room. "ong ni, on the days when she is extremely happy I even take my tweezers and uproot her grey hair!" Tears started streaming down our cheeks.We laughed holding our aching tummy.

Definitely this is one relationship that will never be understood or interpreted in plain terms. Who knows while we the daughter in laws sit talking about how not to cornered by our big boss, somewhere in some houses there might be team of mother in laws plotting how to keep their daughter in laws in proper shape.

Well! Women! Women! Who can understand them??

It's a strange relationship

He was nine and I was nineteen when we met for the first time. Wearing specks with lens as thick as an old man's, he would smile at me from under it. Sitting right under my nose he won my heart with the first ever comment he made. In all my glory I was delivering a speech on how I am gonna be a different kinda teacher for my li'l ones and inorder to ensure they synced with my idea, I told them to take me in whatever form they wanted," a friend, aunty, or mother!" Too much for my glorious speech. This li'l guy put an end to my speech with his cute innocent remark," stepmom miss?"


Since then he has been very close to my heart. Somehow I always felt that motherly love for him. Now, don't get me wrong here people, I never intended to become his stepmom, not at any cost. But every morning as his smile greeted me I felt that exulted feelings only a mother is capable of feeling. I was his class teacher for two years. In those two years we got very close. I wasn't biased, I was good to all my students but this particular li'l boy somehow took a larger chunk of my heart for his home.


Occasionally I visited his mom and sister too and his li'l sister who was barely a toddler developed instant liking to me. Even she would squirm," Miss, Miss!" whenever she saw me. Such was our love.


After those two years, we drifted apart. I left that place. After joining that new place I never got any mails from him but I knew he would think of me for I thought of him a lot. I would talk about him to anybody who was all ears for my blabbering.


After a decade we met again. Well, not physically. We met in FB. He had somehow found me. That proves he had never forgotten me too. Chatting for the first time, we caught up on the lost years. He told me he is in an Engineering college in South India and told me about where all he had been in a decade's time. I told him about my kids and the schools I had served. We promised to meet when he came for vacation. That was agreed.


Call it our destiny, he is currently in the same place I had to be in owing to some untoward circumstances. Again we meet in FB and too excited to know we are in one state,we exchange our phone numbers. He calls me immediately after I punch my numbers. "I don't know what to call you, Miss or Madam?" is the first line he says in his not the voice that I remember. And we both feel the connection that we have always felt.

Dear Ugyen, this is for you. I am immensely happy to have talked to you yet at the same time deeply sorrowed by the present state you are in. My li'l one, this mother of yours mothered you before I mothered my real kids. I know God knows my motherly love for you and this love will turn into sincere prayers to get you back to the Ugyen I always remember, smiling cutie pie, as I always called you.

I just want to cry.

What do I write about? What is my imagination cooking? what thoughts are running in my blood?

Well, I pinched myself!Ouch! that surely hurt! But Why am I feeling so dead? I walk outside in the sweltering heat and try to sweat out all my numbness. I return red in the face, stinking like a pig. Now let me take a bath. The cold water might do me good. I soap and scrub all the last bit of sweat and grime yet I don't feel the freshness I want to feel.

Illusions of emotions is what I need I think. I pick up my book and start from my bookmarked page. Nope! I can't relate to the character. The characters are dull puppets, they evoke no feelings in my heart. I throw the book with a vengeance. Thud! it lands on the floor. I don't even give it a second glance. There is no guilt in discarding my favorite book.

I turn on the TV. Some songs might do wonders I wish. The music blares loud, yet it doesn't touch my soul. I put off the TV but do not throw the remote, can't risk breaking that.

I switch on the laptop. Click on some friends. I find the same coldness from my friends too. Either they are too busy with others or I have suddenly turned invisible I am yet to learn. Not wanting to tax anybody for my deathlike numbness; I clank on the keyboard.

But what do I write about? What am I feeling? Surely i must be dead already for I feel no emotions running inside me today. Suddenly I feel a warm tingle down my cheek. I find myself crying. I see my tears. It makes me cry more. So I cry.

I think I badly need to cry today...so, maybe I should stop typing this and get back to my crying. Atleast I know I am not dead, not today, for I am crying! Yes I am.

My mom

My mom, every time I looked at her, I have always asked,"why didn't I get your face?" But she smiles at me and never forgets to tell me,"girls who take on thier father's look are lucky ones."
Not that I despise my father's look, he is a handsome man indeed. But the way people still cast a second glance as she walks in the street I surely could do with a tiny bit of that fascination(not to be taken seriously!wink!)

"I remember your mom, fair skinned and the pink lipstick she wore always made me think she belongs in Hollywood," an acquaintance from my village remarks. Meeting this person at workplace was a pleasant surprise and I was more pleased knowing she remembered my mom in such beautiful way. I raised my face up and replied," she is still the same."

Few days ago she had come to Thimphu and one of my friend who heard about it texted me,"How is she?" Without wasting another second, I replied," Beautiful!" It is a thing of pride to have a mother who looks younger than yourself. Wheneever we walk in town together, people never think of us as a mother daughter duo. Thank God! Till date nobody asked if I was the elder of the two of us! Actually a close look at us warrants that statement.

I am of heavy built stature while she is skinny. I am tanned and murky while she is fair and glowing. I am more of junkie fan while she strongly believes in healthy diet. I would prefer a nook of a bed and laze around whenever possible while she would stick to her yoga asans and move around to keep herself fit.


(Ssshhhh! She is snoring peacefully beside me as I am typing this). Let me say a quick prayer to God before I take my place beside her and get lost into oblivion. Dear God,give me the same mom in my next life too and please, I don't want to be lucky, just give me her looks in my next life.

Help! My mom's out to make me a model!

I’m just into my second mug of coffee; my mom’s eyes follow the coffee jar to my nervous hand pouring it. “Look at that color; you want your skin to become black like that coffee?” I hate Baba Ramdev for instilling that notion in her mind.
Ardent fan of Baba Ramdev and his yoga treatment; my mom wakes up each morning twitching her tummy with the loud inhaling and exhaling of her breath. I wonder how she could see my coffee mug with her fingers covering almost everything near her nose and eyes area.
Silently I pick my coffee and head out on the verandah. “Did you put on your sunscreen?” she shouts over her respiration exercises. I head out turning deaf ear. What would few minutes in the early morning sun do to my skin?
I return inside to find her sitting cross-legged and with her lanky limbs flapping like a helpless bird. I pull my laptop, wanting to just look at the pictures of my daughter. She gets up instantly. Baba Ramdev’s asans do work I think, look at the vigor with which my mom got up. “Don’t you dare open that thing!” she warns. I pout and crease my forehead but do not reply.
“You people are turning into lazy pigs with those gadgets keeping you hooked for hours!” I don’t know if she is more angry with me for spending hours with the laptop or angry with the people who designed laptops making people using it ‘lazy’ as she calls it. I shove it away and look at her, a look that says, “you are busy with your breathing, what am I supposed to do?”
“Let’s go out for a walk,” she pulls me up from the corner of the bed, where I’ve made my niche. “Walk?” I almost spit out the last dreg of coffee I had just put in my mouth. “What’s wrong in taking a walk?” she snaps. Reluctantly I drag myself to cover my face with sunscreen lest she find another verbal missile to attack me with.
The dirty, smelly lane is filled with bovines she is too pleased to see. “Cow’s milk!” she smiles happily. “I think we get a lot of cow’s milk around here, look at all these cows.” Before she replaces my early morning coffee with her milk, I stop to talk to a lady groped in front of her doorstep making a design of a sort. I ask the lady the meaning of her design but inside my head I hear my mom telling me, “Milk will make your skin healthy while your black coffee is making you dark, just like this lady here.” I chuckle at the last phrase. Indeed the lady in front of is as dark as the moonless night but I know for sure that coffee has nothing to do with her color.
“Ama, lok dekhey,” I plead. My bowels longing for the hot seat back in our room. I find her eyeing the coconut vendor. “Bhiaya, two coconuts,” she hands over thirty rupees. “Drink this instead, this is healthy.” There she goes again.
Finally after consuming much dust and dirt she decides it’s time for our return but not before venturing into a shop nearby. “Let’s buy a toner and bleach.” I follow her in without any argument. “Maybe we should also take this coconut oil to massage our hair.” She has already picked it out of the shelf. I raise my eyebrows to ask the shopkeeper the amount. I dread the ordeal I’ve to go through with these products.
Oil massage, cleansing, toning we do all after a drink of the coconut milk. “Are we preparing for a modeling project?” I laugh at my own joke while my mom just stares blankly at me. She doesn’t find it funny. “The more we age; the more we have to do all these,” she reasons out.
“Let’s go to that Punjabi dhaba we saw yesterday,” I suggest my mouth watering at the thought of sarson ka saag with makhe di roti. “You want to look like a pig with all that dripping ghee?” Another attack. I silently go out to buy the cucumber she had planned for the healthy salad for lunch.

Me, My daughter and the Moon.

“I wish we could sleep the whole day long,” my daughter says near my ears. I gaze in her eyes about to rebuke her for turning into a lazy fox wanting to sleep the whole day long. But before I can open my mouth, she points towards the full moon peeping through the partly open curtains. “…so that we can watch the beautiful moon throughout the night,” she says dreamily.
I gaze in her eyes for yet another time. But the second time I look at her, it’s with unbelievable surprise. Never knew she had the fascination for moon, just like her mom. “Mama, I just love the full moon and the twinkling stars,” she says as if reaffirming what my heart is feeling.
Never knew a daughter could inherit a mother’s love for objects too. I got up, discarding the tiny emerging sleepiness in my eyes. I opened the curtain a wee bit more and we sat silently staring at the moon.
I looked at my daughter and saw her lost in the moon. I wondered what she could be thinking of; looking at the moon like that. I took her tiny hands in mine and wanted to tell her about all the times I have had secret rendezvous with the moon. The moon had been my close confidant when the complexity of a teenager’s life riddled me. But I skipped that for it’s too early to have her on that plane.
So the mother and daughter duo looked at the moon and I wondered, could there be a father son duo somewhere on the face of the planet Earth sharing such close moments like me and my daughter?

How does baby get into mommy's tummy?

“Mama, how did I get in your tummy?” my li’l one questions me showing me the video clip of my pregnancy days I’ve in my phone. “Let me see,” is all I can mutter feeling my cheeks burning under the gaze of my in-laws sitting beside me. Had it been just me and my kids I would have explained in detail, wait a second! How does one explain to three years old about babies and how they end up in their mommy’s tummy?
I know my li’l one has reached the WHY STAGE and she is bound to have a lot of queries but I wasn’t prepared for this particular question; especially not at dinner time when everybody in the family is gathered together.
“God plants seed in mommy’s tummy,” my all-knowing ten years old Niece comes to my rescue. She always has answer for every query and all her responses revolve around God, saints and ghosts. I scold her for bringing in Gods and ghosts in our conversation most of the times. But I was happy that she at least had that ready answer to fill the awkward silence I offered to my li’l one.
“Akhai, it’s not God!” an angry retort from my elder daughter leaves me dumb founded. I turn my attention to the bukhari as if hoping the crackling fire to help me provide me a reasonable response. I truly wish they would forget the talk or at least go to another movie clip. I have a lot of other interesting movie clips they can watch rather than the one they are stuck on.
“Mama eats a lot of food and her tummy gets bloated, “my elder daughter gives her reasoning. She looks at me to seek my approval and not finding any hint of it in my abashed face, she meekly adds,”…and out comes baby!”
But my li’l one doesn’t buy her elder sisters wise cracks. She further probes,” mam…ma…” I pull her closer and snatch the phone and show her the movie clip of her sister singing hindi songs. “Ana gi chuma yekcha gothcho na,” I add a forced laughter to get my li’l one’s attention.” ong ni ong ni,” she adds and quickly gets engrossed in it.
Baby and how they get into the tummy is forgotten. Thank God for giving kids short attention span.

The Magic Hug

Shrill screams, creaks of tables and chairs being pushed almost blasts my ears. “Is this what I wanted in life?” I question myself with my nose and eyes playing a race in who gets to shed most water out of each. The dusts from the floor boards send another round of sniffling snot down my nose. I quickly reach out for a tissue to wipe it before the screaming kids stop their monkey business to laugh at me.
It’s back to school time yet again. But this time with the change in the school, I start doubting my own interest in being a teacher. Walking in a classroom filled with mature students is a totally different experience from being in a class filled with li’l kids screaming all over; some with complaints and some just screaming for the sake of their age.
With His Majesty’s B’day celebration just round the corner, all of us are busy with preparations. My li’l group jumped with full alacrity when they heard that we have to perform a dance from our class. Seeing their interest I was relieved that my old limbs are going to be free. But their interest and ability ended with the choosing of song. “Ngesem, Ngesem, madam!” and before I could even provide another option I found them lining up for the dance. But when the music actually started, there were only coy giggles.
All eyes on me, they pleaded for steps. Ensuring that the classroom door was latched, I stood up and started the one-two-one-two according to the beat. After two hours we had the steps ready for the entire song. “Madam, kho gi lab shey mee tubay la!” I hear a li’l girl complaining. Never knew boys had apprehension in holding hands with girls. Well, maybe they get ready for that only with age (kidding!).
Agitated after repeated order to hold hands, I scold the li’l boy. Tears flood his cheeks and his snot follows suit. The mother in me stirs. I pull him in my arms and say sorry. His snot wets my tego but I don’t wipe it. I let him go only after his tears stop. The others look at me as I let him go. I see love in those tiny pairs of eyes looking at me.
After that he holds the girl readily (Magic hug has done the trick).
I repeat my previous apprehension about my career in my heart. Looking at the innocent faces dancing to my steps I shove that thought away instantly. No! This career choice shall never be wrong.
“Ngesem, ngesem,….” I dance with my twenty tiny tots.

Walking back in time

“Can you believe, we are still friends, I mean after all these years…” Dechen pauses, as if trying to thread our eighteen years of friendship in one single neckpiece. “I told my office friends that I’m meeting the three of you today and they were surprised, I mean, people hardly remain in touch after High School.” She added with her bass voice. I giggled remembering how the boys in our class gave her the nickname, ‘soundbox’, back in the year 1994.
“What, you mean we shouldn’t be in touch after school days?” Rinchen spoke clearing her nose. I let off another giggle with another anecdote hitting my memory. Dechen ( not the same one mentioned above) always had a problem eating with Rinchen and her stuffy nose.
“But this whole length of time proves that we have always been true friends,” Dendup smiled and spoke at the same time. Dendup always have been all smiles. It was always her easy smiles that made her an easy secret box among all others. I giggled, yes! Another reminder from the good old days! Rinchen and I would always fight for our right over Dendup during our three years of stay in hostel.
“…And look who is doing the ‘mute’ role today!” all three of them snapped at me.
I giggled. Back in the High school days I was the most talkative and had that confidence of carrying myself high and among the achievers. But eighteen years, and how different life had molded us all!
We laughed. We shared stories from past. We filled in the present. But most of the time was spent in going back to past.
“If I am given an opportunity to go back in time, you know what?” Dechen laughed before she could even present her hilarious wish. “I would definitely want to go back in time but…” she eyed us with a naughty smile playing around her almost visible fine lines under her eyes, “…with a Hair straightener. I wouldn’t share it with anyone of you. I would enjoy my sleek straight hair while you guys go back with your copi hair.” She roared with laughter.
We shared another roar of laughter remembering our hairstyles back then. It was those 90’s punk bulk of hair cropped at the ears and amassed on the top. We loved our hair back then.
Rinchen wanted to go back to those days with the present day salary. “We can live the present lifestyles in those moments!” she reasoned out. Fair enough.
“I just want to take all three of you back to those ICSE days,” she smiled again, perhaps thinking of some of the naughty things we learnt for the first time during that time.
“Cooked! Let’s eat,” I emerged out of the kitchen.
All of them looked at me with their questioning glare. I knew they were waiting for me to add what I wanted to take back in time.
“Well, “I heaved heavily. “ I don’t want to go back to past, I want to take your time machine and go to the future and would love to seek revenge for all these years you guys made me cook for you all.”
“Teach us,” they grinned.
I laughed back at them. They know that they can never master my culinary talent no matter how successful they might be in life.
All four of us roared with laughter!

Nights and Nursery rhymes

It’s night time. The Doreamon lamp lends its faint light while we prepare for our ‘honing the singer in me’ session, I call it. My li’l one starts, “mama, what does the sun say?” I wonder why she doesn’t like the beginning part of this nursery rhyme. So I’ve to begin from “when the blazing sun is gone…” and then only come to ‘Twinkle Twinkle li’l star.”
As soon as I finish that, my li’l one looks at me with her eyes squinting in the dark. That’s my cue to begin the next one which is always “hush li’l baby, please go to sleep…” But before I can continue further, I am interrupted, “tatu ban na,” or if she is in the Shizu ka mood, she would say,”shizuka ban na.” So I have to repeat from the beginning to alter the address from ’baby’ to either ‘tatu’ or ‘shikuza’. So I go, “hush li’l tatu/ shizuka please go to bed…”
“Arko,” she nudges at my chest. Its “On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed,” I have to wait for my li’l one to actually sneeze, Achooo. Then she giggles in the dark. I complete that with the meatballs growing on the trees. Some children songs can be really silly, I tell you.
“Row, row row your boat…” Both of them wait for the new addition part at the end. “If you see an alligator, don’t forget to scream.” Both of them join me with a shrill “a..aa…aaa” and the three of us giggle like three teenagers. So much for an aged mother and two tiny girls trying to lull themselves to sleep.
“Doctor Foster went to Gloster in a shower of rain,” I sing. Before I can end that line, my elder daughter adds, ‘splash!splash! splash!’ There is another bout of giggling in the dark.
More rain songs motivate me and the next in line is, “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring. Went to bed and bumped his head and couldn’t get up in the morning.” “Mama, why does he bump his head?” my lil one asks with concern in her voice. I drag her closer to my bosom and kiss her lips and continue,’ rain rain go away, come again some other day…”
“The ennsy weensy spider went up the water spout…” I know sleep is still a faraway dream so I walk my fingers shaped like a spider on their arms and make it slide with,”..down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain and the eensy weensy spider went up the spout again.” Again my fingers travel up their arms while they wriggle in glee.
“Oh when the saints go marching in…” My li’l one loves the second line better so I quickly finish off the first line and jump to, ”oh when the band begins to play….”
“arko,arko,arko,” she pouts like a spoilt brat. I pretend to be fast asleep ‘cause all these singing makes me drowsy. “owww mama,” both of them nags at the same time, pulling my arms from each side and tickling me. Well, what option do you have when you are outnumbered?
“Jack and Jill went up the hill… and don’t you dare ask me why jack fell down,” I warn my li’l one before she can open her mouth to ask me the same. Mothers need to have patience like the most elastic rubber, for the kids can stretch you off limits at times.
“Sing that song about the bird taking the nose,” it’s more of an order than a request. I start grudgingly, “sing a song of six pence, a pocket full of rye…” I almost look at them with angry glare for making me a singer for so long into the night. Sometimes I wonder, “What would somebody listening outside our window think of all these crazy singings?” Not that anybody would be there outside the window, listening, but suppose there is somebody listening?
“Wee willie winke, runs through the town,” is next. The song should end with,” …are the children all in bed its past 11 O’ clock, instead of 8 O’ clock.” I look at the wall clock ticking with a vengeance against the wrong timing I’m singing about.
Knowing they simply adore my singing (that’s a lie!) I clutch one tightly in my arms and pull the other with my other hand and sing the last song,” Hush a bye baby, on the tree top, when the wind blows…” I add if you don’t sleep you are gonna fall off the bed just like this baby. That silences them. I repeat the refrain,”…and down will come baby, cradle and all.” Softly, softly , repeating it in whispers until Their eyes close. I see them closing their eyes like a magic with this refrain. I am left with my eyes wide open watching the two princesses already lost in the dream world while I lay awake feeling a faint flicker of admiration at my own mirror images lying on the either sides.

Where's the party tonite?

TGIF!TGIF! ah! So happy for the weekened! Alright where are we gonna go for this weekened? What plans do we have for the weekend? Maybe, hmmmmm, lemme think, a secret rendezvous at some pub? Or maybe shake a leg at some club? Or maybe dine at some exotic hideout?

Well, maybe one can do any one of the above in one weekend but I get this rare opportunity of doing all the above in one evening. My elder daughter drags me out of my book, “mama please come with me, please… please… please.” There is some kinda excitement in the way she says those three pleases. So I play along and walk with a feigned reluctance. She puts her tiny hands over my eyes while leading me away from the bukhari.
“Tah-dah!” and when my eyes are let free I have to set my mouth open to show surprise at the location of our weekend eatery. There are three plastic chairs neatly placed around the coffee table and their toy plates and cups adorn the table. My li’l one is mixing a wide range of toys in assortment of shapes. “what’s cooking?” I ask jovially. “Cakes, yummy chocolate cakes,strawberry cakes,” my li’l chef answers with her mouth almost watering with the thought of real chocolate cakes.
The elder one puts on the TV, Norling channel, my li’l one’s favorite.Ata Youngba’s trailer is on. Then some students of Choden school are seen dancing to the song,”dhari gawai nima.” My li’l one immediately leaves her chef’s role and starts dancing. I simply love the way she tries to copy the dance steps from the TV. The song ends but her love for dancing doesn’t. She continues dancing even when there is advertisement for Kezang driving training school. So I switch the channel and stop at Mtunes channel, Danush is singing why this kolaveri kolaveri di. I simply love this song.So I let the song play. I stand up too and move with my li’l one. My elder one loves the fact that I am dancing too. She comes up with a plan. “Mama, this is going to be a dance competition between you and Tatu, I’ll be the judge,” and she starts preparing her judge sheet with my name on one column and Tatu’s name on the other.
Endless dancing frevour starts with Tatu and me grooving to different music, from Singlem singlem to Ma da ladla to ek main aur ekk tu back to ngesem ngesem. Our judge stands when there is a song of her liking. She forgets her role and dances with us. Three of us laugh like hyenas on the roll and dance with so much of mismatch of steps that had some choreographer chanced to see us would have named a new dance form out of it.
After almost one hour of dance we decide the coffee, juice and the cakes are getting stale. So we sit and share the tasty morsel out of eachothers plate. The plate that was named as pizza turns into spaghetti suddenly and none of the three mind the change. We talk about the food like it’s really a yummilicious treat!
It way past ten PM and I coax them to get into our nightly ritual of brushing and washing which doesn’t come with easy grace. Actually even I am so much charged with energy after that dance that I feel we should continue for another hour or so. But the mother in me has to draw the line when it comes to the schedule for the kids so I reluctantly pull them into bed and then begins another session, of nursery rhymes of lullabies.

Names and Roles

“Jarim du sa ,jarim dusa , who is that girl?” I sing teasing my almost three years old daughter. “A..aa…aa..” she snaps at me, “ I am Aunty!” Her toys lie sprawling all over the rug.
Well, what role she is playing at what time is an interesting guessing game I have picked these days. If she is seen with the kitchen stuff toys, she is either playing ‘mommy’ or ‘aunty’ and is miffed if we call her by any other names.
But on many occasion it’s very difficult to guess what she is playing. “Ta..tu,” I call out lovingly but there is no guarantee that she would respond with the same love in her tone, I have to be ready to hear lines such as, “ I’m not Tatu, I am Shizu ka or I’m chutki.” It depends on her mood and none else gets to choose who she is.
But she definitely won’t ever take terms such as ‘madam’ or “girl”,even when it has the prefix ‘beautiful’. When she asks me things I say,”lasla madamji,” and that sets her into a foul mood. “Mama, I am not a madam.”
Sometimes, she goes out of bound to get a role to play. I mean just two days ago we were sitting in the sun when she decided she is Jigsel, a boy from her elder sister’s class and her sister is Patuli, another boy in the class. I wonder what makes her play those roles. I can understand the characters from the television but real life characters, such as these boys leaves me spell bound.
While she plays these various roles, even the others in the house have to be ready to play the roles she confers upon us. When she is Shizu ka, her sister has to be Doreamon and I have to play Nobita’s Mom. When she is Chutki, her sister has to be Chota Bheem and I have to play Dholu while their papa gets to be Dholu’s partner Bholu. When she is mommy, her sister has to be either aunty or papa, while I always get to play her baby.
But when we put off the light and after she turns on the Dorea mon night lamp, I have to play mommy, always. “What does the sun say mommy?” she asks me. That’s my cue to start our nightly lullaby session which I always begin with,
“When the blazing sun is gone
When he nothing shines upon
Then you shine your little light
Twinkle twinkle all the night.”
And there are endless rhymes I sing in my hoarse sleepy voice, smiling at the two angels all set to step into their dream world with my tunes. Life is beautiful! Truly remarkable!

Ball games and Birthdays

It’s 9PM but my two busy beavers seem far away from sleepy mood. Doma and ema have never been good combination for our tummy. My poor tummy is growling and grumbling about this odd combination that I have made a continuous supply of in the last few days, I sit beside the bukhari hoping the heat to do me a big favor by pleasing my upset tummy.
The restless duo, who have been playing cricket (the bat never touching the ball and the ball bouncing off all over the place save the rims of the bat) pops in and out of the kitchen to fetch their runaway ball. On one such ordeal, my little one comes singing, ’Happy B’day to you,’ joyously. I am all ears all though I pretend to be deeply engrossed in my book fearing they might drag me in that silly ballgame.
My elder one asks, whose B’day it is and before the li’l one can answer she quickly realizes that her li’l sister’s birthday is just two months away. “What do you want for you B’day?” My elder one asks religiously.
“Cake!” pat comes the reply.
“Arrgh! Cake is always there on Birthdays! That’s for all to eat,” my grumpy elder screams with her nose crinkled.
“Everyone gonna eat my cake? I don’t get my cake?” The li’l one is almost ready to shed her tears.
“No,Tatu, mama will get the cake, what do you want ana to get for you?” she asks exasperated but adds,” A gift?” with a practiced patience.
Their conversation has made me swerve my attention fully out of my book where a 34 years old man is back to his old hometown and reclaiming his life. I see my two kids, one dressed in black and the other in red, standing near the kitchen door, their task of retrieving their ball all forgotten and now deep into serious Bday conversation.
“Tell ana, what do you want?” she coos to her li’l sister. I see the change in the tone and as expected I see her patting her li’l sister’s head which reaches her waist. My elder daughter has this peculiar style of patting her sister’s head, which translates into her role of a big sister.
“Momo,” my li’l one replies with no time lost. Knowing full well that her almost three years old sister can never conjure up a perfect wish list for her B’day, she comes with her own suggestion,” Do you want a teddy bear?”
“ong,ong,” the little one replies with no attachment whatsoever and is seen bending near the bukhari to pick up the ball. And the next instance they are back to their ball game. Birthdays all forgotten!

Memories are made of these!

A dash of HOPE
seasoned with something you desperately covet
turns into WISHES!

These silent Wishes
baked with mixture
of prayers and longings
turns into DREAMS!

DREAMS lived in reality
no matter how short-lived
registers as MOMENTS!

Many such moments
entwined in wishes
and fulfilled dreams
lives to become MEMORIES!

Quarrels and Names

I try to think of names that my mom called me as a kid and I think of all kind of weird names. I mean if you take the names literally, one would feel that the moms those days didn’t love their kids. Just come to think of it, who would call one’s own kid ‘yongmin’ or ‘yongba’? There are countless names like tsumpi, pentang, kapchi, kaptong, etc.
I grew up in a household filled with cousins of all ages and both genders. A house full of kids is never free of funny incidents. But back in those days, it would have been serious business of hurting eachother’s sentiments. Kids can never cease to be kids I guess. In my household we had this whole system of name calling things whenever we had quarrels. I remember a particular incident that happened between my cousins, a male and a female.
My male cousin (in foul grunts) to my other cousin(female): Towmo
They were fighting over the Tv remote control and my female cousin retorted: Tow po
Male cousin: Girmo
Female cousin: Girchung
M.C: Tirmo
F.C: Tirpo
(by then both were fuming in anger and were totally into name calling. Can’t list all the names they christened eachother with but the ending had us all rolling on the floor).
M.C: kokti (sorry for using this term….literally translated it doesn’t sound good. But I guess they were too angry to notice that their foul mood was hampering their language too. But just listen to my female cousin’s answer to this. Having been born and raised in the southern part of the country her sharchokp was poor, so I guess she took this heavy bulky word as lightly as any other female names that she was being showered with, so here is her answer:
F.C( in full retaliation mood): Kokta!
I was the mute spectator to their name calling quarrel till this. My ears couldn’t help it, I roared with laughter. Both of them gave me dirty looks for having brought an end to their dirty quarrel but amidst laughter when I explained to my female cousin what set me into that bouts of laughter she also joined and we all had a hearty laugh.
Well, for someone like me, as my friends say, ‘One who is trapped in a particular time zone’, I can’t help but think of incidents such as this from my childhood days and still laugh like it’s a brand new incident.

My Fate was sealed !!!

It was a beautiful day; all the Gods had gathered for a celebration but in a corner there was a small gloomy cloud where sat the young apprentice God. He was not to take part in the celebration for he had unfinished task on his table which he had to complete if he was to enjoy the merry celebration. The flying banners and crazily spread streamers did not subdue the foul mood he sat with.
The apprentice God was left with the task of writing my fate for he was studying to become the God of fate. He looked at the empty desk filled with clean white papers flooding. “I could have been dancing out there with that beautiful Angel instead of writing this dull person’s fate,”he grumbled eyeing the Sun God shaking sideways with the Angel he had his eyes on. His hands went on scribbling with no care whatsoever for the person who was to go to Earth with what he was scribbling.
The early part of my life was written with so much anger and grudges that when I ultimately came on Earth I was also filled with his grudge and anger. Maybe now that I think about it, that young apprentice was also filled with so much love in his heart that he had my fate sealed with ache for the same too,sigh!
And owing to his youthful age, my fate was sealed to have the heart of a young person. No wonder even when I choose to act my age, I land up being childish. I need to remind God, whoever they are, to keep some sensible, aged and ripe with wisdom person for this task. (Tsk!tsk! Can’t even trust Gods to be mindful at times).
Maybe, then that young guy was mesmerized with the dreams rather than the reality that all he gave me was dreams, illusions, hallucinations and delusions.
Sometimes he was so filled with so much of sadness for being left out that he wrote tears but his agile youthful heart overcame the tears in a jiffy and he sat, eyes dreamily eyeing the thing he coveted while sealing it in my fate paper. In some paragraphs he pressed the letters very hard that try as hard as any other God may, they could never lighten those moments in my life.
Sometimes, it was careless scribbling that meant nothing but sheer frustration and nothing else. In some places, he wrote some of his ideal dreams, the kind of life that happens in movies and books only but I was to live those moments too for he was sealing it tightly affirming it with his grip on the quill.
For bad or worse, for good or best, Now that I’ve pondered up on it for sure, the person writing my fate was that young apprentice who had to forego the jubilation of celebration of life while dreaming of the same. Hence, I live with my life with so much of frustration yet I let go of these frustration as a young lad in his frailty would.
(Note: not to demean any GOD, but written in jest for all the crazy things I need to live in this lifetime, unable to explain my crazy life, the best I could do was this, all in good fun!!)

Sheer joy of being home!

daughters are truly remarkable creations of God, I like to believe so. Can't help falling in love with every word that they utter. After uniting with them I have been left with my mouth agape in many instances and I am sure I have gained weight, if not from the diet at home,then from all the laughs I get to laugh.
Two days ago my elder daughter approached me with her book and she was showing off her reading skills. There was an exercise at the end of the story where she had to circle the things that we can purchase from market. She perfectly cicled all except turnip. Awestruck by the flawless reading I stood smiling beside her. She was almost rushing to the next page when I realised that she had left out the turnip. The teacher in me emerged with a sound reasoning in my head,"she doesn't know what a turnip is." So as not to offend her I took my finger towards turnip and said,"baby?"
"No,mama, we don't buy that in market," she spoke in effortlessly flawless sentence in English. I almost went to the extent of explaining with a picture what a turnip is when she added," Silly mama, Bajey doesn't eat turnip so we never buy that!" I was left stumped by that. Just the other day my mother in law had told me that owing to his illness my father in law doesn't eat any of the roots( potato, carrot,raddish or turnips.)
Indeed silly me!!
Then my little one joins us. I don't understand her fascination for the National dress worn with full accessories (pearls and other neck pieces). After fully clad in kira, wonju,tego and matching juru(I like the way her mouth pouts when she says 'juru,mama').She is ready for her role of a MUMMY. "Baby,baby," she calls out to me. I am still admiring her elder sister's skills,unaware of the fact that her little heart with mighty ego is inflated with pure jealousy. "I'm going, won't ever come back," she snaps and is seen leaving the room. I am too engrossed to notice that she hasn't returned. Then my Mother in law tells me with a gesture,"Tatu(the best her infant tongue can pronounce her name "samdrup' is 'tatu',so we all call her that) is upset!" I go to the other room and find her standing all alone in the dark room.
Well!wonders!wonders! A two year old with such pride. "You didn't say sorry," is her first sentence while I lift her in my arms. "I am sorry mummy!" I coo and kiss her winter- sun- kissed rosy cheeks.
She giggles and the role of mummy is resumed. While I have to be baby to my Li'l one, I have to play a student to my elder one. So much of wanting to play the role of a perfect mama after getting back home. Home! Ah! Isn't this a heaven!

I Miss my MOM

Mom! I’ve watched movies on the kids crying for their mom and I’ve equally shed tears with those kids but little do the people around me realize that I am crying for my own mom and not the mom missing in the movie.
I am ten years old this year, officially a ten years old this coming September but I’ve no kisses waiting for me as I enter into the wider world of girlie life. No hands to guide me into my adolescent years. No knowing heart to share my teenage secrets. No soft cuddles to comfort me as I shed my first tears of broken heart. No shield from the coy realities of ‘girlie world’.
Seven years ago, suddenly I found my bed cold. The newly purchased thick tulip comforter didn’t comfort my cold heart. Instead of hearing,”Hush little baby, please go to sleep” during my nightly hours, I had to listen to the silent sobs of my dad, trying his best to stifle his sighs. I remember questioning my dad about the whereabouts of my mom, but all he told me with tears in his eyes was that she is gone for her further studies. I believed him for my best friend’s mom, our next door neighbor had also gone across some big ocean to study. I don’t remember the details but I do remember that when her mom returned, she was filled with goodies that she found a week too short a time to show off.
Unlike my friend’s mom, years gave way to another new year but my mom never graduated from wherever she had gone to study. I waited more for the goodies than my mom (honestly) earlier but as years gave birth to another year I forgot the goodies I could show off and waited eagerly for my mom to return. But she never came.
During the day, I stopped casting sideways glance to the dusty road climbing uphill towards our rented house that my dad and I called our home whenever I heard the roar of a car. For none of these car brought my mom. At night, I closed my ears that wanted to hear the soothing lullabies that my mom sang for me. My father never tried to learn any of the nursery rhymes but I learnt to fall asleep to his rhythmless “resem ferrere,resem ferere…”
A year ago, my deceased mom’s elder brother too decided to join him and it was on that unfortunate moment that I realized I had lost not one but two very important branches from my family tree. My Grandma sobbingly broke my already scarred heart by breaking the news about my mom’s departure to the heavenly abode where she would be joined by her brother.
Time moves with a slow dance mocking my very existence. I laugh watching various characters in the entertainment channels meant for kids of my age but seriously, I don’t follow the clownish character. I rather prefer the serious movies where kids my age cries for their mom, for I can openly shed my tears yet let it remain hidden from my dad that I am actually crying for my mom and not for the kid in the movie.
Mom! I’ve watched movies on the kids crying for their mom and I’ve equally shed tears with those kids but little do the people around me realize that I am crying for my own mom and not the mom missing in the movie.