Show me your visa.

Discrimination, a cuss word it is, I must say. Just at it's utterance, all the peace and tranquility that one had summed up for ages drains out. Every single hair on your body suddenly becomes alert. So now how would you feel if I say i face it everyday?

Studying in a soil away from one's own is completely different than the kind you imagine it would be. Given the kind of experience I had upon my year long stay here, with a heavy heart i say, India is not the place you would love to study. But again many factors, I believe, is involved. We are just four(Bhutanese) in our college, three men and a lady. The other two guys are my seniors and the lady my batch mate in the same department. We are neighbors as well.

Folks at college, most frequently and of course jokingly ask us with sarcastic smile and with a hidden intend(i suppose) to show their dislikness, our Indian visa. "Or you came here from underneath the fencing wire(demarcating the national boundaries)" they say and laugh hysterically.

Once, a fellow with an unkempt hair called one of us in a group discussing football tactics, 'refugee'. I looked around and saw that non of us were refugee. Three among us in the group were from Arunachal, two from Manipur, and I from Bhutan. Only when he pointed to me and said "You, you" I learned he was calling me a refugee. I was taken aback as to how ignorant he was that he didn't know Bhutanese aren't refugee.

Well, should i narrate you more incidents, you would be bored, but remember, its time we make an image for Bhutanese in a global community, after all i believe you wouldn't want to hear them saying "we feed them. Close the supplies and their population will be halved to 400,000 people within a week." I have heard them saying it and more and I must tell you that in no way it sounds rosy. They know we are too dependent and that's an evil tool in their hands that can cause colossal damage to our nation.

HBD

smiled she, and asked,

"do i look all right?"

how couldn't she, for have i ever met,

or seen, all the awesomeness included, 

in a little tiny soul?

and how dare i even forget? 

the day the angel above cried and wailed,

for they were to lose,

the best of them. 

and on the day, i pray

may she be blessed ,

with nothing but prosperity, sound health, 

success and happiness. 

Happy Birthday, Dear friend,

or sister i shall call. :)

The familiar mountains.

As the familiar mountains rose from plains, he wanted to point his finger and cry out loud like a child, "Look! There at the base of it is the town. My uncle lives there." But he shook his head to clear this thoughts invading him afterall he wasn't a little child anymore for he was returning home from a year at college. But he was helplessly smiling and he could do nothing with it. He couldn't stop his lips stretching into a smile. He thought, the familiar mountains and its air stimulated the smile.

Just as he entered the gates to his soil, he wanted to open his arms wide, face the sky just like he had seen the hero doing in one of the bollywood movies he had watched and breathe in the cool air for a long long time with his eyes closed. He couldn't do that too, for the crowd would think going to college makes one insane but little do they know how it feels to be home.

When the taxi dropped him to his parking lot, as expected, his kith and kins had gathered and waited patiently since the morning for his arrival but they didn't turn red when he reached a few hours before midnight. Instead just as he set his foot out on his soil he was greeted with lots of love and hug. His siblings offered to carry his bags to their house. And who was to be standing there in the balcony? It was his most dearly and the sole reason to come home; his parents. His mother ran her soft palm on his cheeks to believe it wasn't a dream. He looked right into her eyes and there he saw how these eyes had waited to see him in person. He could see how hard those eyes were fighting to keep the tears in. Just then his father pulled him and stood beside him. "See?" His father cried out. "He has outgrown me. My son has grown up." He declared. His aunt and her daughters who were as dearer as his siblings stood there with those lovely smiles.

Finally when he entered their little palace, a sumptuous dinner had been set on the table. They sat down around the table and unlike other nights ate with laughter and joy.

That night, when everyone retired to sleep and lights were put off, he smiled to himself in disbelief that he is home again. I am unsure what others did that night but i saw silent tears rolling down his cheeks. I couldn't say why was he silently weeping that night but assumed that the ema datsi that was served to him was spicy for it was long time since he had tasted ema datsi, otherwise he only knows why.

A Lame Day

I look at my roommate sleeping at this density of night. It seems there's nothing else as blissful as being drifted into the realm of tranquility and blissfulness. But I just remember how a frantic day I had. It was the last date for me to pay my examination fees but none of the nearby ATMs were in sound order. The ones that were working were out of cash. I had to go to the neighboring town to withdraw money. And I murdered the thought of walking several kilometers to the ATM in the neighborhood that too at this magnitude of heat which I assume is more than enough to get oneself fried and despite my father’s constant reminder that I should not ride bike, I borrowed a senior friend’s scooty and rode it to the ATM and returned safe and paid the fees exactly on time. I wonder how my father would react if this news of act reaches his auditory canals. Perhaps he would understand that there exists in nature some unseen forces that compels us to do things that are not expected to be done for if thing turned out as expected and planned I wouldn’t have been here in the first place.

To be continued….

An Indian friend of mine speaks a fluent sharshop.

This might come as a little shock to you if I say i know an Indian guy who has never been to Bhutan and had spoken very less with Bhutanese but knows sharshop fluently. Well he is my classmate and he is from Arunachal Pradesh, from Tawang to be precise. My jaws completely dropped in amazement when he spoke in sharshop in the class today. Later i went to him and asked him about his whereabouts and found out he is from Tawang. He said it is this language they use as a medium of communication back at his village.

Then, it was his turn to be speechless when i replied in sharshop. The talks that followed between us was in sharshop.

Two people meet in a classroom somewhere in India , one is indian the other is Bhutanese and they speak in sharshop. Common man, its interesting!

To be continued....

Dear Bunu

Dear di,

I just wonder how proud Phupa must be to drop you to your work place and drive off to his with a contented smile. And the smile that glows Phupu’s face might not have dropped for days now. In fact I have a feeling that she smiles even while asleep. And you should know that you are the reason behind those smiles. Despite all the odds in your life you moved forward and brought those smiles. Congratulation!

And now there will be queue of people waiting outside your chamber waiting patiently for you to treat them. They would come to you hoping you would ease their pain and when you actually ease their pain you bring smiles on their face as well. You will be the reason behind their smiles.  That’s how great you are now.

But I am greatly disappointed of the fact that I couldn’t be your first patient and I shall blame the time for time has placed me somewhere miles and miles away  from home that I can only imagine myself being your patient.

Anyways, I pray that you have successful years ahead and that you be able to maintain professionalism in your work.

Hope to see you soon.

A Caged Bird's Home

A bird I had caged

And why wouldn’t I ?

For it had the silkiest of feathers

And oh, how lovely had its tail.

And all day it sang

Sweet melodies of songs.

Caged it was

Not for many decades, I must say

For it must be cruel

And of course inhuman too

To cage a bird for long

But I recall, and distinctly

It was caged

Not more than half a decade

And then I set him free again

For it to fly,

And to spread its wings

For the rest of its life

For you know, I have a heart of an ocean.

But then, a day the heaven chose

And I found again

The same bird and of course in the same cage

But it did not sing today

For it had turned, lifeless and cold.

Then I look at haven,

And I curse it

For of all the places on earth

Why it had to die here?

And trouble an old man of my age.

But then I assume again

Why wouldn’t it want to die here?

 For the cage had become its home

And home it is, where we take our last breath

And lingers our smell, and our songs

Even long  after we are gone.