Fate

I was a little girl. Often when the moon tore through the flimsy curtain, I would follow my gaze through that single file of blue light and try to bury the squabbles from the other room where my dad and mom slept. I was too young to even link them to a cat and dog; all I thought whenever I heard their raised voices was nothing;I took it as natural as the moonlight streaming into my room. Before I could even comprehend what a family life is all about, my parents broke the walls of family as they decided to part ways.

Salty tears gushed in silent streams each night as I lay in either of my parent’s house. Snuggling in the warm blankets didn’t shed the coldness that enveloped my heart. Somewhere lurking in my ignorant heart was the knowledge of the incomplete home.

Years stomped on another and many blue lights of the moon did I tear with my steady gaze and empty arrows of grief from my heart. However, I learnt to live life in its normal course. I would take in my share of oxygen needed to stay alive and maybe I even contributed some amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Well, that’s what I remember hearing in my science classes. Two decades of struggling to fit into two different worlds, I sat back in the cold room one dark night.

It was a night like the one I had often handed myself to the slumber hours back in the days when my parents were together. The blue light of the moon wove through the stainless glass, partly lighting the corner in which I pretended to surrender myself to sleep. Maybe, although it was a different shade of blue I found it the same for the two souls who had decided to part ways long ago, now sat together in the other room.

Strange!

It’s a strange world we live in and stranger are the ways of life. Cancer had brought my dying mom and my remorse- filled dad together. On the day my mom freed her soul in the arms of the man who had denounced her long ago I fell into a troubled sleep. I tossed and turned like a kite let loose in the strongest of the wind.

“Why did he leave her then? Why was he back in that odd hour?” Many questions flooded the rivulet in my heart. Met I a soothsayer in my dream. “Let me explain,” he said in a voice so calm and regal that I was compelled to listen to him spellbound.

“In their previous life, your mom was a cat,” he paused. I found my eyes grow wide in recognition of knowledge. My mom never left the area around the hearth, hmmm…. So she was a cat after all. “and your dad was a flea living on her body.” No wonder my dad was all jumpy in whatever he did in life. “Your mom, the cat then lost him when she was scratching herself. He was passed onto a passing dog who passed him onto another dog and to another.” “And to another?” I added, not with a questioning tone but a bass voice that put a big fullstop to the number of felines my father, the poor flea was passed onto. That explained why he never stuck to one woman in his life.

As it was in his previous life, he was tossed from the arms of one woman to another. “Then why did he return to my mom in her last days?” The question slipped from my tongue before I could even arrange it as a thought in my brain. “Well, I’ve the explanation,” he said. “As your father, the flea was travelling on the back of a dog, he happened to pass by the body of your mom, the cat who had been crushed by the wheels of a heavy truck on that road. He had got caught in her fur in that last final breath of her body.

Fate!

I opened my eyes and went to check on my dad who was a silent visitor in my house. He slept with a peaceful look on his face as if he had found the place where he belonged.

I knew my journey to the crematorium had once again been planned.

(An old post I had posted long ago in WAB )

River of Poetry

River of poetry flows
Ceaselessly, uninterrupted
From your pen
And I sift through each word
Some rounded with metaphors strong
Some flattened with similes
And yet some more polished with puns
I continue sifting through each
Sometimes I splutter on some sentiments
Sometimes I drown in the rhythm
And sometimes, I float on serious thoughts
The river of poetry flows
Ceaselessly, uninterrupted
From your pen
And I wonder, how many whirlpool of emotions lies in your heart
To keep that river flowing ~

Children's World

Maybe it’s my age, I find myself thinking more about the childhood of the people around me than my own childhood these days. Alright! Age has robbed me of memories of my own childhood; it was way too long ago (I admit!). But seriously, isn’t childhood the cutest phase in a human’s life?

Forget my childhood, it was spent wallowing in the dirty lane of my hometown, nothing grand about it!

I was thinking about the little ones whose childhood phase I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of and save it in my memory file. Since I became a Teenager, I’ve taken care of my little cousins (who hasn’t done that in Bhutan?) and today I can’t help reminiscing and living my life backwards (Yea, yea…I know, Time travel is dangerous!!)

I’m reliving some of the funny things I’ve been hurled at by the little ones:

This particular incident is one of my favorites and come what may, I can never forget this incident and I never forget to narrate this repeatedly.

My cousin was a toddler whose tiny lips were yet to be able to form words that would match up with the adult world around him. We used to live in Samdrup Jongkhar then. My aunty always used to stock up all necessary items in the house from her shopping trip to the Dantak canteen. My toddler cousin and I used to spend a lot of time together and when you stick together, you tend to irritate each other. I don’t remember exactly what I had done to irk him, but the firing I got from him is worth remembering. I still have a good laugh thinking of what he said in (cute little) Angry tone: “Chalambo, nan ji gi yekpa nalu mala may. Ji ni nan, apa ga yekni, apa yanan epped ga phani, nan peth than, shen than, chat ni, chat ni, tanteen nangka jan than, tshong thalay!!” (Was that a difficult dialogue? Let me give few clues: ‘Chalambo’ was his version of my full name. ‘Apa yanan’ is his apa’s car. Epped- speed. Tanteen- canteen. Now, read again! ;) )

Another time, I was on a holiday after completing my class twelve. There was a talk about enrolling my other little cousin in school that year. I guess I was trying to do my bit by preparing him for school mood. So, it was one evening, I had the little ones gathered around me and I was singing, “A..B…C…D” (yes, the alphabet song that we all know). I made them repeat after me for like, three times after which my smart little cousin quips, “oww ana, Boring showa, om ‘dari ngima’ jak khey lay!” Did we sing dari ngima after that, oh yes!!! And more than thrice!

Then they started school and knew their ABC’s well enough. I had just reached my uncle’s place in Phuentsholing and my little cousin who had returned from her kindergarten school eyed me, seeking attention. I just sat looking at her, wondering what she was up to. She then fetched her book and started reading, “A..P..P…L…E…Apple.” Pleased to hear her read so perfectly, I turned my whole attention to her. “C..U…P…kup,” she reads proudly. “Thawk” a knock lands on her tiny head and that’s enough of the showing off game.

My friends and family say that I live frozen in my past, and I have set up my permanent dwelling place in my past, well, they don’t say that for nothing.

I have many such anecdotes about my cousins but before they see this (but actually, none of my cousins follow my blog! So, no worries) and kill me, let me share an anecdote or two about my own children.

My eldest daughter was four years old when the Earthquake that wrecked havoc in Mongar happened. Both I and my husband were in our respective workplaces and my daughter was at home with the babysitter. When I came running home after the massive Earthquake, My daughter runs to me and says, “Mama, earthquake level two ga ofa na!” She was a huge game monster and all her talks revolved around the games she played. She had even measured the level of the Earthquake!!!

Another time, the whole bunch of our family were travelling together in a queue. My Apa’s car overtook our car and my daughter shouted, “Papa, increase your speed or we’ll be gameover!” So much of this Game Monster!

Let me narrate an anecdote of my other daughter too while I’m on that spree. My daughter had gone to play with her new friend. We had just moved to Bumthang then. Her friend, seeing her Ama coming home for lunch had screamed, “Ama ofa, Ama Ofa!” My little darling, thinking that her friend was telling her that her Mama is home, looks out of the window and religiously tells her new friend, “That’s not my Mama! My Mama is fat like a drum!” Oh my! Children! Save us from their words!!!

Coming to my son now, he just turned three yesterday. He pulls out his book and forcing himself on my lap, asks me to read it. That day, he had brought out his wordbook. So, we were flipping through the pages, he would point out to the pictures on the page and I would say the work aloud to him. We reached the page on ‘Food’. We began from pizza and fruits and then reached the picture of a fish. I pointed my finger at the fish and brought it to his mouth saying, “Fish…yum…yum…yum.” He grudgingly took my finger out of his face and yelled, “We don’t eat Fish. Fish pani ma tshorak..” He makes his ‘tshorak’ sound land in the imaginary water in front of us.

So many memories! So many children! So many cute things said………