PictureLobey Lungten Wangdue
Neither I forget the past nor do I fail to recall those to the peak of my enthusiasm. Everything seemed formal and normal at that point of time. The normalcy in the worn out unpaired slippers and the wounded shoes, the bullet spotted scars on their stockings, the laundry phobic faded ghos and the blackish la-gye resembling that of a retired official. 
At times, when our footwear contradicts the “rule of Bata Slippers”, the school authority usually seizes off from us and few of them even went to the extent of putting plastics to avoid the pain of barefoot walks.
The hostile place frequently shrouded with mists and fogs blur the surroundings most of the time facilitating the comings of unseasonal rains. The puddles on the muddy roads to the classrooms and dining halls have contributed a lot to create perfect dramas in the campus.

If you get to visit the place and feels like to watch and enjoy those 3Ds, I would advise you to make an early entry into the campus before the students head towards their morning study. We have an elevated hill for you in the center giving a perfect overlooks of the academic blocks and I am sure, your presence there will not bring distraction to anyone. Have patience to make a wait and if you are too bored, we too have a chhorten there for your spiritual purification.  

If you are so curious and wish to begin your experiment as early as 3 AM, you will get to know how actually people put hard works and excel in their academics. Apology ‘cause I think I am diverting from the intended points.  Coming to the point, around 5:20 AM there will be a call for the morning study by a bell keeper lasting for about 5 minutes and you will hear few murmurs from the foggy roads to the classrooms walking to the tune of a bell. The beats of the bell would get swifter as it concludes its final call exactly at 5:30 AM.

Though the morning study commences right after the bell ceases to sound but you would still see continuous flow of lazy foxes joining the classes. Now the real drama begins here. Fold your leg and arms, rub your eyes to ease your sight and get ready. Just wait and see, and enjoy it as well.
“….dook….doook….doook….. doook….”
You will see those late comers speeding through the foggy air. As and when you notice them accelerating their runs, you will hear wild voices from far behind them. Just listen to it properly and you will hear brassy commands coupled with extreme anger:
“…kota dhi tshu,… wang-tah lung-tah  ga nyam mi dhi,… keysa keywong mey….”
If you carefully stare at this man, you will certainly come to know that, he is the only one in the campus who takes an initiative to induce punctuality and other values to the students besides classroom learning. He warns us to be on time always, and when he gets violent, he fails to handle the pleas of mercy.

Particularly during monsoon rainy days, an escape from his attack is not just possible. If you actually watch the scene, he would be seen running and shouting at the peak of his voice after those late goers. He would throw whatever appears before him to those poor fellows. As he make closer to those helpless people, a group would get dispersed to various directions each prioritizing their own escape. Sometimes, their slippers get sunk in the mud making them to run barefoot through bushy short cuts. Those days were so funny.
 He did it for us. He placed to this point. His lessons are our morals and we value them a lot. I wrote this piece to celebrate his great contribution to us. He made us what we are. Hat-off to my beloved Lopen Lungten Wangdue.   


 
PictureImage Courtesy: Google
I don’t exactly remember the day but I still hold good memory of the incidents of that day. I was in 10 plus 1 making a tough accommodation with a group of 60s in a room, wherein all sorts of indoor and outdoor cleanings are well time-tabled on an exterior face of our door sanctioned by a room captain with his complex sign underneath. Every one of us had to live bounded by the orders of our room captain and those who are found violating the norms reached by the consensus of the majority were made liable to clean toilet for certain period of time.

Despite being troubled by the strict disciplines in the school, we never failed to maximize the fun. I perceived it more like the family structure- enclosed within four walls, sharing all kinds of jokes and emotions. If anybody is found with a packed- lunch or any kinds of edibles, hundreds of hands would immediately reach to the spot to make a best grab. This fashion of rough sharing is something where I opined it as invisible love and care existed for better solidarity within a group.

The real incident which I intended to make you aware would not bring surprise to you but whenever I cherish the past memory, this incident put me into madness and I couldn't help myself than to write few narrations here.

During that point of time, our school experienced consecutive earthquakes which made us to live alert all the time. Those poorly architected buildings were old and weak, prone to the massive damages even to a mild shake of an earthquake. A strong earthquake in its first attempt showed its strength by making multiple cracks on the walls of every building, crumbling of flags that sensitized school authority to make us sleep in the cold outside. We were also trained as to how to evacuate during the shakes inducing some sense of fear in the minds of every individual. For few days, we continued making nights outside the hostels like the soldiers of World Wars in 1910s and 1930s respectively.

Soon the hostile weather-foggy and drizzling cold could not help us further our outdoor sleeps, forcing us to seek protection from those old weak buildings. We even neglected the mild vibrations of the earthquakes thereafter.

It was during an unfortunate night for one of our friend, yet luckiest and happiest night for the rest of us. We conspired to create a dreadful nightmare to him. When he was out of the room, every one of us came to the finest means to further our conspiracy. By 9:00 pm, we had to turn off the lights, and we did it. Every one of us tried bringing normalcy in the room, though big laughs and smiles were hidden with much difficulty behind our lips. He couldn't notice our plans. As planned, we all slept with opened eyes eagerly waiting for him to fall into deep snores.

Then we all rose up from our respective bed with light still offed. Then, one of our friends alarmed in the peak of his voice breaking the serene silence of the room and immediately, we all rushed out of the room. Every one of us shouted “NA KA,..NA KA,…NA KA,…”  (a typical word used during earthquakes). This really made our poor fellow to jump out of his bed with horrific prints on his face. He wasn't bad in responding to such an uninformed warning and he could vacate the room in a strike of lightening defeating few others. He looked so helpless and we could not help laughing to his surprise reactions.
This memory still resides in me and I loved those days with my friends. We lived burdened with studies; nonetheless we could find our own ways to make our stay worth memorable.
Love you all. :)

 
There was a guy who always wished to share his heart to her. The girl was surprised that this guy would talk to her. He began to talk in the calls and after a while, he ended up falling in love with her.

Boy- I love you. Do you love me?

Girl- I really don’t know who you are and it is too early to accept it.

Boy- You don’t love me at all?

Girl- I do but just not fully yet.

The boy and girl kept talking to each other. One day this girl [REALLY] fell in love with the boy.

Girl- I love you.

Boy- You love me?

Girl- Yesssssss.

Boy- I love you too.

The boy and girl fell in love over the most little things. They wouldn’t stop talking to each other in the calls and Facebook. They would always talk and talk, until the balance in their call debars their conversations.

About two years later.

Girl- I don’t feel the same way anymore.

Boy-What’s wrong?

Girl- I just realized that I’m not fit to be yours. Though, our relation stands null, we would still have fun as close friends in Facebook. Please, forgive me for everything.

Boy- Common. Are you going mad???? [Shocked]

Girl-I am sorry but I am just going to have to say good bye.

Boy- No, wait. Reasonssssss?

The girl hanged up the call and walks away. The boy’s love filled with pain, dropped himself on the ground crying his eyes out. The boy went to his room and looked at himself in the mirror. The pain in his [HEART] kept building inside his chest. He joined his friends to take a bottle of healing liquor- that he didn’t taste since birth. The pain in his heart was unbelievable. He never had this much pain in his heart before.

A half hour of crying, he gets back up and takes another look in the mirror.

Boy- It’s because I’m not handsome enough. I’m ugly. Ewww.

His mobile started to ring.

Boy- Hello?

Girl- Hey I am sorry. I didn’t have any other way to explain to you. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I lied, no one is after me. I didn’t do anything.

Boy- WHAT??? I am in so much pain right now. :(

Girl- I care about you; you will be in my [HEART] forever. I was making the CONFIRMATORY TEST of your love.

Boy- Love test??? Huh. I love you and I thought you loved me too.

Girl- I just don’t feel the same way anymore. My feeling to you is getting better now, and …

Boy- And???!!

Girl- I guess, you won’t betray me. Let’s be forever now.

Boy- OK fine……  Everything is fine now...

 
Picture
Tashitse Higher Secondary School, Wamrong
A guy was in a class of forty-four pure science performers struggling for the best entries in the tertiary education in the following years. Though, smartly equipped faculties were available 24/7 to the young aspirants, the consolidated outcome of the school in 2010 was found to have diminished a bit in contrast to the previous and following performances of the school.

A guy as I mentioned earlier, was somehow responsible in bringing the unexpected changes in the statistical figure of the school. When other hard-workers were growing weak with the weights of heavy KL-Chugh and Avtar Singh books, a guy- referred simply as ‘HE’ hereafter, never misses to further his discoveries of the beauties in the school.

After visiting entire grade sheets of the past twelve years, the Principal of the school would remark his academic trends and make frequent study inducements to him. He was supposed to glorify the school along with few other stars but he – a lazy dog who always entertained the break- dances of a clever fox over him, never lived up to the expectations of the others. To him, the word ‘hard work’ sounds like a hammer on his forehead. There was confusion as to whether he failed to work hard or the failure was due to his non-compliance with the words of the institution heads.

Punctuality wasn’t a big issue to him. As early as 9 am, he would make the first entry to the class with few other sensitive pupils, exerting a weight of 50kg over a weak wooden chair placed next to the window that overlook the mingling spot for all the classes. After flipping few pages of the text, he would raise his neck and peep through the window just to capture those beautiful girls in motion. His protruded eyes on girls would blind his pages all the time.

After considering various conditional aspects and zakar za-ngens, he would commence his serious learning of the subjects, which eventually get breached with the frequent visits of the guests in the campus. Most of the time, he was found well-coming several guests with a piece of paper in his hand, while other mass of bookworms in his batch would have already dirtied the pages of BHSEC. In one occasion, he was privileged to have received handshakes from his Excellency Thakur Singh Powdel eight times in a single visit and he was greatly flattered of being able to speak Dzongkha fluently as his Excellency’s accent wasn't smart enough to handle Dzongkha sounds.

Most frequently, he was found among the crowd addressing a cultural functions and co-curricular activities in the school besides usual goings of his BHSEC preparations. Moreover, his interest in art and paintings always made him alerted to those advertised competitions in the newspapers.

These were my few moments in the past and I value them to the extent of diamond. Whenever I recall my memories, I cherish them with proper thoughts, so as to give better attempts in the future. This reveals my seriousness of preparations of BHSEC 2010 but I never fail to appreciate my faith. Life keeps on going, so I do as well. 


 
“……..Nachhung Bumoi Losem Thrue Mi Thrue…nam tok mey pai du ngye…….”


Slowly, a crooked right hand of him would reach to the cell, just above his head to mute it off the tone so as to further his number –four sleeping poss. His semi-conscious brain is said to have conditioned to such ringing in the early hours.

It is 6 O’clock.” He would whisper to himself, and he would pull on the blanket to step into another brief sleep.

After a while, the rays of the bright dawn would peep through the windows to alert him for the day’s journey. He would jump off from the steel bed and without much delay; he would head towards the bathroom holding the green toothbrush and GARNIER face wash, with a dirty orange towel over his shoulder.  After a brief shower, he would spend a minute or two with the cosmetics. Then he would hurry out of his room exactly at 8:30 with a blue pant and Fila T-shirt.

Without a proper breakfast, he finds himself amongst the group of 80s in the lecture room. This is the space where he lives in the illusionary world of dreams and fantasies. The spoken words of the professors in the class bring no sensation to him and he would be physically present in the class exerting a weight of 60kg over tiny chair just to respond his name in the register.

As soon as the classes get closed at 4 in the evening, he would lead the queue out of the Accad-block. Rare was his engagements with the games but he would never miss the dates with the number of people online. His routinized appearance online would begin immediately after his return from the class and it gets extended to late nights.

Beastly look is his face, crooked is his figure and rudeness is his character. But he would not reveal any bit of these tastes and everyone online sees his edited images, plagiarized status and messages, and many more. He feels himself a celebrated star, yet no single fan. He takes different egoistic stands on the social media just to receive maximum attentions from others and this is something that has nothing to do with his real existence.  This was a kind of monotonous practices led by him. Not only his time gets wasted but also the endless conversation via Facebook chat box diminishes his spellings and structures of English to the large extent.

Without much realization of his mistaken path, he kept on moving on and on. It continued like one and half year after the commencement of his course.  He was subjected to various kinds of people online and most of them have left negative impacts on him whereas few of them took a chance to help him get out of the mistaken path. One such person who assisted him to make fruitful use of the time was the celebrated voice of Bhutan. He heard her voice on-air since he was a kid and her voice was his best company when he was busy after the cows in the jungle. Now she became his source of inspiration and motivation.  This is how he decided finally to write some shit in this format to keep away from the previously habituated useless works.

With the commencement of the Bhutanese New Year, I sincerely take oath to keep updating my simple blog once a week or a month. This could be my New Year resolution and happy LOSAR to my readers.

 
Picture
The protagonist in the story
He was a SHEPHERD- A Commander Indeed

A guy was brought up to manhood by his socio-economically handicapped parents survived in remote jungles of East-Bhutan. Inherently, the family has neither hegemonic status nor valuable assets from their ancestors and the hand-to-mouth existence on the small plot of barren soil coupled with ever green rocks in abundance defeated the very purpose of the living of a young man.

Most frequently, he was a shepherd of some capitalistic men commanding their flock of sheep to various directions-the only platform where his superiority of being human is recognized.  His day’s destination with the animals would be briefed by the concern owner and, the transfer of rights and authority to guide the animals happens immediately after the orders ceases to flow out of the host’s mouth. Wrapped with ragged robs, a young man would make a start by sounding a buffalo horn hung diagonally across his weak shoulder – a melancholic sound that cherishes the emotions of his innocent animals. Then, he would lead the marching animals in a perfect line like the disciplined cops in the guard of honor.
Gradually, his visibility in the village campus diminishes as he goes further and further, and his few neighbors never misses to watch him disappearing in a dusty air of the faraway horizons. They would still prefer to spend a minute or two regularly; enjoying the serene scene of a young boy marching away with his disabled cops to win an unknown war, which eventually reminds them the famous non-fictional Bhutanese tale of “Pemey Tshewang Tashi”. The half melted neighbors would gaze his tragic departure every day like a modernist watching 3-D movies at climax, and they would not resume their works till he disappears among the woods and grasses.

He would love to reach the animals as low as to the extreme bottom of the valley and as high as to the mountain tops that kisses the blue sky. The varying tones- blaaa--- me-ley-ley- typical choruses from the grazing creature induces an emotional urge to sing a lonesome classical song, when he wait to make his animals enjoy the taste of morning grasses.
Sometimes, this nomadic group encounters with a pool of little green shoots freshly rooted over a gentle slope, by matter of luck. As a result, there is a sudden retardation in their tireless movements whereby his poor creatures get sunk into the meadow for a considerable period providing enough time for a young commander to locate a perfect elevated rock, that overlook those hundreds of horned heads immersed in a sea of grasses.
By the time he ascended on the rocky throne, he would have already switched-on his ash-coloured Philip electronic- an only device where his true happiness is celebrated irrespective of his emotional variationsSharchop layrim  to him was only the comprehensible program at that point of time and he never regret to spend few hours with the program, which otherwise he could have accomplish some  other important works
The electronic- his only non-living friend would sound;
“…kuzu zangpo. Thimphu druk ga jangdra thrue khang nang kai, Tshering Dema gi neytshil dhang chhabdra, nee zakar za ngen zhu wa tshing gey, thuk tro ngang bak rim pa zhin dhu ani omey chhutshey sey sakpa zhu ley...” It goes on and on and on. On and on to a peak volume breaking the mundane silence of the surroundings.

For the mean time, he would exercise his authority sanctioned by his BOZZ at home to those violators commanding them to get back to the group. He yells to the maximum pitch, to enable the beatings of the eardrums of those stereotyped creatures repelled from the rest of a dignified group so as to make them bounded by the Code of Conduct of the sheep as enacted and amended by their super Head. Disobedience to his oral commands would soon be followed by the rigorous storming of stones on their heads.

After bringing peace and order in the area, he would further his hearing to the program on air, only to realize that he missed the entire news and other stuffs. Now the host at station declared, “…..thuk tro ngang ba key bu, go ma rang,… Duptho Zangmo gi jang pa ngang, ‘tabu chho ley mawa…’ nyen sen nang sho ani zhu ley…..” He was so pleased to enjoy the melancholy of the said song and he immediately raises the electronic high above the ground to locate the most efficient frequency, as the radio-coverage in his place was weak at that time. He was so engrossed with the song and he was much carried away by the tune just to find himself driven into a deep sleep.
The awesome woven white clouds of the day began to condense to the summer rain at dusk and his sudden consciousness comes into force when a first droplet of chilly rain hits his forehead. Then he would jump off the rock in a strike of the lightening to be only saddened by the scattered animals. Immediately, he would run to every direction to gather his subjects, making them ready for the evening march towards the palace where their ultimate authoritarian BOZZ resides.

Now their King would question as to why they made the late return. The commander of the group would come forward and apologize him with proper justifications and he would slowly find the way to his home. This was his ‘childhood’ days and he still recollects those memories to see his past journey. Now he thinks that, those hardships had really compensated him to elevate to the present height. 

Thank You.   

    Author's Corner

    JIGME GYALTSHEN
    A tough daydreamer, an enthusiastic music lover, a regular face-booker and a passionate photographer keep writing his thoughts and perspectives to cherish his memories and to keep his exciting life going with the sense of much contentment accrued from the stupid narrations of the world around him.


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