In Your Thoughts

I read this now and laughed all alone. Don't quite know what mood I was in...

You said hi but I wasn’t sure it was you
You said I knew who you are
And you called when
I said you’d if you were who I thought you were

Oh yes, it began more like a joke
Now we stand more committed than anyone
I asked if you’d like to take an adventure
You said, “I join you for the adventure”

Did I call you honey?
There wasn’t a dearer word
I held you in my heart
And wanted never to part

Many years have passed
The adventure began once upon a time
But here we stand now
As new a lover as the two darling doves

Marriage didn’t have to be spelled
It happened in our heart
And we knew the knot was tied
And promise was sealed

Oh! My sugar! My honey!
I love you
I miss you more than ever
And I wish I could ride the moon to be where you are

Indefinable dream

When I go to bed, I always pray I have the ability to know that I am dreaming. But it hasn’t been successful. I should admit that I am one dumb person and such clarity hasn’t been expected miraculously to come my way.

It was few days back (11th December, 2007) that I saw a very vivid dream that haunted me and didn’t let me sleep.

I watched the movie “The Terminator” where the star is a robot and wouldn’t die no matter how many bullets he had been shot. I think this is what gave way to the dream I had that night.

I was at my home in Menchari. I was inside one of the rooms and there was some sulking fear that was dragging me from looking straight. Whenever I think of or dream of my home in Menchari, it is always associated with memories of my father and it gives me a kind of mysterious, unabated fear.

Some very big fear was tearing me apart and there was my hero to protect me. Funny that it was my sir – sir Phuntsho was the one to hold me at his chest and protect me from this fear that was eating me. I tugged at his bosom like a child and closed my eyes to shut out this fear. But I was suddenly to know that my father has been living there without the knowledge of anyone of us. I was to learn that he had actually been living all this time – that when he was on the funeral pyre, he quietly ran away and hid all this time leading a silent life away from us. I then meet him for real in the smaller room in our house. I stroke his face, and look at him closer and find no scar. I lost him in a fire and I thought there must be some scar, but I find none. But he has lost so much of weight and he looks very thin and tired.

I woke up suddenly still breathing heavy and fearful. My thoughts carried me helplessly to my home in Menchairi and I couldn’t go back to sleep.

My husband was in Punakha and only my mother and I were at home. I was sleeping with my mother – which gives me a secure feeling. But, that night, I couldn’t even touch my mother’s hand. I feared that this would somehow be connected to the dream I had about my father. So I didn’t disturb her. I thought I will call Karma but he must have been in some big slumber. It was dead night that time. I thought I would call my friend Yeshey – but that didn’t seem so good an idea either. So I hid behind the blanket and prayed hard. I prayed for my father. I talked to him inwardly, telling him that he should know that he has passed away from this world and should realize the truth and find peace in a better world. I visualized my tsawai lam and sought refuge.

But no matter what prayers I recited in my mind or what talk I tried to talk, I just couldn’t even open my eyes with the fear of finding an image I wouldn’t want to carry the rest of my life.

I had finally fallen asleep with the grace of my tsawai lam but I still had some vague dreams of my father. This has been haunting me and been thinking of him a lot these days. Such dreams bring reality closer to our hearts than anything else and make us want to drive even closer to find the truth.

The Real Person

Sometimes, nothing exists in your world. There is no distraction whatsoever. And at such moments, you are what you are and there isn’t any trick.

Strangling Silence

Did he say he would be back? He did, didn’t he? It has been two months now.

The cattle grazed not very far away. Yanki sat on a stone by the river. Yes, she had heard great masters talk of emptiness and how it is likened to a river. “There is no substantial ‘real’ river – there is only the flowing” (Be a Lamp upon Yourself, pp.160) She mentally concentrated on the flowing of the river and thought of her life. She knew, nothing lasts forever.

When she fell in love with Lotay, did she think love could lead her forever? Only one thought existed then – that she was in love. Nothing seemed more important. The day she kissed Lotay by that same river, she wanted to live more than ever.

But just that same evening they shared secrets and built dreams, he had to leave. He was on hunt for a dream he said would bring more joy than they could find other wise. But to her, what mattered more was their being together. She would have loved waking up together to see the same sun rise than waking up lonely and wondering everyday where he was.

He had not called ever since he left. He had not even written a mail. She was on her holiday at home with her parents. It was at such times when she was all alone by a river side, that she missed him the most. She longed for him to come back and take her with him.

She thought of him more than her result. She wouldn’t worry if she got a back paper. But she dreaded never seeing him.

It was not like her Lotay to not write to her or not even tell her how he was doing. Was he caught up in some grand scheme of things the world is crazy about? The grand scheme of things that make you think nothing is important but money? Oh, but he was coming back.

How long she might have to wait was unknown. Even while it was breaking her heart to think he had left, probably never to return, she couldn’t think of finding love somewhere else. And now, the same reason that once made her want to live forever was conspiring behind her mind and she was thinking if death wouldn’t be so easy as jumping in a river or a cliff and never having to worry about another day.

Changing with Thoughts

Following is an article by Tenday in www.nopkin.com and my my comment on the article follows:

Changing Thoughts changing with Changing Times


When Sonam was a little girl, she always thought she would marry the first guy she meets in her life. But when she reached her teens, she broadened her thinking little bit for she understood that it was ok to go for a second if the relationship with first one doesn’t work out well, that is, as long as the girl remains a virgin. She crossed her teens and then she didn’t care how many boy friends a girl changes and that too for as long as they didn’t spent a night together. By then living together kind of relationship was not uncommon. And so when she met her first boyfriend, she got very scared when he first asked her to spend a night with him.

She refused so many times because she had many fears as well as so many ‘what if (s)’. She was more worried about what the society might say about her if they finds out. But after being in a relationship for a year, she finally agreed to sleep with him. For few months, it haunted her and she began to worry even more and always said to herself that she should marry him and him only, by any means and no matter what. They are in the relationship for two years and they are still not married to each other. But one interesting thing was that she does not have that kind of fear any longer. Rather, she is able to say what if this relationship doesn’t work out well, she won’t have a hesitation to go for a second and then third, forth and so on. She does not care about anyone. But what has become to her principle in life? What about her morality? And most importantly, where is the civility?

My Comment on the article:

Yes people change with time. In fact, though we say, it is time that changes, it isn’t. An hour always has 60 seconds. A day always has 24 hours. The hand of the second and minute in a clock moves with the same speed.

But everyday a new thought arises in the minds of people. Everyday a new invention is made. Everyday a new commodity is in market. Everyday a new child is born. And an adaptation has to be made to suit that change that is brought forth with new ideas, inventions, and trends. Principles cannot remain rigid rock – but the adaptation to change has to be in the range of reasonable limit.

Her principle might have stood strong in the mind of Sonam when she was young but she changed it when she grew. But you see, though you have portrayed that principle in Sonam changed to the extent of not minding get laid as many times as it was possible, I would argue that the principle of a person doesn’t change overnight from the point of A to Z in a blink of an eye. What a person values doesn’t lose its value with the change of time. If the ocean runs dry, maybe then the pearls might lie bare but its value would remain the same.

Exceptions could be there. But like I wrote few days back, ten years ago you were you. And even ten years later you will be you.

I would say, a person who cannot respect his/her principle with time isn’t really sure if it is what she values.

Oh man, you see, gossip isn’t of how kind you are. Gossip usually is about who you were with for dinner last night, who you were rumored to have slept with few days back, who you were seen going for a movie with last Saturday and so on – and this gossip corrodes every smooth edge of morality. But what you value should remain fixed in your conscience and when you are walking: your destination has to be transfixed before your eyes.

Different Views

I ain't feeling so good today. It isn't the hangover. No, I do not drink.

Did I sound cold to my friend? He told me he thought I wasn't feeling well.
But, well...I was normal.

Some different views. I wasn't angry. I couldn't disagree either.
I thought I wasn't doing wrong by what I was doing.
It was only my interest and there was no harm intended.
No, not for anyone.

Love? I don't know if love shared between men and women and love parents have for their children are same. Ask him. I don't know really. I'm incapable of any thought. I am sinking deeper into some souless dream.

Trip to Gasa (10-13 November, 2007)

In the tent: Getting ready to go to Gasa school for the 11th
November Celebration

With Karma, my husband on the way to Gasa.

But why?

“I want you to know that I don’t want to chat with you anymore…” Don’t want to chat anymore?

Good friends don’t say goodbye like that, do they? I guess it is true that, “Oftentimes we say goodbye to the one we love without wanting to, though that doesn't mean that we stopped loving them or we stopped to care. Sometimes, goodbye is a painful way to say I love you.”

Many years we have been good friends and when smog of uncertain reason came up in his head I had no choice but to retrace my path back and hold my heart in my own hands.
I trusted his judgment and I didn’t want to ask questions about who was right and who was wrong. I thought he chose the path he did because he knew it was good for him. What right did I have to interrupt and put my perception in him? I was only a person who held little brain and human heart. I had nothing else to offer him. Nothing.

Years of friendship ended before my eyes. It came crumbling down and not a trace was left. No we didn’t hold grudge. There was no sense of revenge swelling up in our mind. We simply said goodbye and goodbye it was.

Silent Teardrops

I held his hand and turned my back towards him. I didn’t want to voice my response to his talks. I thought I should just remain silent.

He took his hand and turned his back towards me, hurt. I thought he was only pretending to be hurt, wanting me to baby-talk and love him. Of course I did that – I took his hand in mine and asked him to hold me close to him.

Even as he said “I love you,” tears fell down my cheeks. One of his hands lay on my chest but, sleep was already taking him to a painless dream and he didn’t feel sigh and sob heaving my chest in heavier pain.

I felt the cold teardrops in my ears now. I wanted him to hold me and love me like I was his new found treasure. I wanted him to love me like I was the only one. And I wanted him to need me like I was his only happiness.

There wasn’t anything I could point to as the cause of my tears. But I guess not a single heart is made to tolerate the capacitance of a load that it cannot carry.

I silently consoled myself over the silent teardrops and pleaded sleep to take away my pain.

Design of Life

I didn’t think I would hear of death this morning before anything else – even before I had my breakfast. You mean, my neighbor who I walked with not a month ago is not on earth anymore?

A deer barked at midnight. Was it midnight already? But why was a lone deer barking? Ana Sonam said it wasn’t a healthy sound but plead of an injured animal. As she prayed, she asked another friend if they should go and look for it. The sound didn’t come from very far. It wasn’t barking. It was crying. Each time we heard it, a splinter of pain ran through our hearts. I silently sank in my sleeping bag and caught my heart in my hand and prayed that it wasn’t being chased by a predator or was got into a trap.

We were in Gasa, sleeping cramped in a tent. But this wasn’t life we were leading forever. We had only come for a holiday. But the deer’s bark? The death of my friend? It wasn’t a choice they had made out of fun. That night, I wished life were designed a little way different – like – I wished the food chain wasn’t as it is. I wished the interdependence wasn’t designed in a way of having to depend on another’s life for one’s survival. I wished we (all organisms) were interdependent only in the sense of having to seek help and help others, but not in a matter of sustaining a life. How this shredded my heart in thousand pieces. If every piece were a mirror, you really would have seen the pain of having to accept life as it is.

Yes, this neighbor I know, she was fine just a month back. When I wondered why her car never moved from where it was parked, I knew she was taken ill and was diagnosed leukemia. And now today, I hear that she passed away. What is all this truth telling me? What is it trying to tell me to do? When I talked to my mother about it, she told me that it is the youngsters who have to be aware of death because old people already are and they are always chanting mani. Yes, it is the younger lot who haven’t time to think of death. But when it silently asks for our heart, we have to give it. It doesn’t beg and it isn’t in our hand to say no. It asks and we give. This is how life is designed. Her death left me wondering and thousands of questions still linger in my mind. I haven’t any answer. It had me shocked but I know I will have no time to seek answers when death takes me. So I have only now.

Life isn’t unfair, you are. Fate isn’t cruel your heart is - for you are your own creator of happiness and sadness. (14th November, 2007, Wednesday)

My First Blind Date AND the Metamorphosis

I heard about it when I reached Kanglung in class eleven. Not many of the PU fresher went for this most famous blind date in Sherubtse except for those who came from Yangchenphug Higher Secondary School. Coming right from the heart of Thimphu, the capital city of Bhutan, they were those who have wider eyes in everything they saw around them.

Timid and shy, Sherubtse’s fantasy and dreams of fluffy romance failed to set in my heart any butterflies except that I took away to dreaming a lot and my diary became my best friend. I wrote every small dream, every small event in my diary and I held it dearer to my heart than any person. Oh yes, there was that 83 stuff. Can you believe I was watching that Hindi movie “Dil to Pagal Hai” last night? And I had many romantic dreams. I felt myself getting carried away to those childhood dreams and the belief of a soul mate. I dreamt like that, though there was no particular person. 83 came into picture much later.

Then when I had completed my ISC, I had myself thrown crazy over the band Westlife. If I saw them on TV, I got up even if I were driven sick in bed. I downloaded thousand of their pictures, subscribed to every small links of theirs, bought every single album of theirs and sang their songs. But this soon faded as a teenager’s fantasy. And the girl really became a woman. Oh man, but didn’t they look awesome? When my brother came back from studies, he even brought me their music videos. And my brother’s friend’s girlfriend from Hongkong who studied in Australia sent me their posters. They took place on the walls in my room for a long time. I still have them, though I don’t get carried away like those old times.

I guess it was then that I learnt to talk with the tune of easy flirtations (but purely non-sexual.) When someone talked to you, you had to reply and I needed to learn that I wasn’t dumb. I remember how I still was a person who talked to myself than to others. When we first journeyed to India for our study, I was so engrossed in the novel and hardly took part in the jokes other friends laughed so heartily at. But yes, a person grows. A person learns. I won’t call that change; I would call that growing up. And I did grow up. I think I grew up faster then than I ever did before.

Yes, when we were in first year in VIT our senior girls organized a blind date. It was the Valentine’s Day. There were only handful of guys anyway and we would know each other. I didn’t know my date was Sangay, Nopkin, the CEO of this famous http://www.nopkin.com/, the site that really makes someone’s day everyday. You see, we found that we had very co-incidentally dressed up like twins. We wrote notes on the napkins as we waited for our lunch at Darling Residency. We then went for a movie…a Hindi movie, and I have this disadvantage: I don’t understand Hindi well. Even if there were some romantic conversations, I would have missed to understand any twitch. But the day did go well. I guess he even read some of my crazy writings. (I had my habit of keeping a journal even then and I still have this habit.)

It didn’t set any fire. Ah! Not even a frill of smoke started. But I guess I had had a beginning of a date. Don’t call me a backward person. I had my principles well laid in my mind and I held on it stronger than I believed in anyone’s preaching. And though there were times when people thought I had changed, I knew how closely I still had them intact inside myself. I then learnt that growing up is not so simple as a beautiful butterfly coming out of its pupa but a challenge that involves even your reputation at stake. But I also learnt that if you couldn’t love yourself and know that what you believed was true, you could so easily tumble over the cobblestones of others’ words – because there could be people who could so easily let you doubt yourself.

And yes, that was my first blind date. Am I not lucky to have been the CEO’s Valentine? And that was how I grew up.

Growing up isn’t about changing as people understand. It is about becoming a better you.

Letter to L on her 25th Birthday (2007)

Friday, September 14, 2007

Dear L,

We must have written hundreds of letters to each other but it is a wonder that we have so much to share every time we meet and write. I’m glad some thoughts like the ones we share can be as profound as never-ending. I might not be able to give you the profoundest of riches but I sure have my fondest thoughts and wishes on your birthday.

I’m sorry that though we were together, the celebration wasn’t there. It just kinda became normal. I couldn’t have thrown a party for you last night but you should remember that I did think of it and had my wishes sent your way…even if it was in a dream. And I had it taken for granted that the big event was coming tonight.

I’m so happy that despite our standings in the society as women now, we still have the same smiles and laughter to share when we are together. I’m glad that we still see ourselves through the same thoughts and minds. I’m glad too, that we still are two friends trusted with the deepest of secrets. I don’t think many friends could so lightly talk to each other about matters deep as we share in such ease and comfort. I’m glad we could just hold our hands and smile that we are together. I could go on L…there are many things I should be glad for in having found you and having found many joys together.

There are times when I give in to the flaw of human gossip but I have never forgotten that we are friends and we share deeper understanding that surpasses this flaw. No matter if someone says something bad…we know it cannot kick us. We always have this strong gut of saying “Why not?” and that is what puts us on the ground.

I know we don’t have to lie under the stars and wish it would fall. We don’t have to sit in the sun and wish it would never set. We don’t have to sit on the beach and wish we could swim to the other side. I know that we have come to appreciate life as it is…as a series of birth and death; as a mixture of happiness and sorrow.

What more do we need to be happy? All it takes is life…and we have it.

L, I’m so glad we could still call you and say, hey, I need your help. I don’t wish we would never die but I wish we could forever be this way. It all depends on us and I guess it reassures that we are gonna be friends frenzied with the idea of laughing our hearts out.

L, my dear, a very happy birthday and may you have many, many happy returns of the day.

Warmest hugs,
K

Impermanence

Looking at the world outside with a smile
Trying to understand what life means

Lunch with L

L and I sneaked out an hour for lunch together...We found we still have so much to share and we can talk just as much.

The Nopkin Gatherings

Almost every weekend, we have a dinner together at one of our houses. This is a picture taken after a sumptuous dinner at meritocean’s house. He stays in Changjiji…he had to shift on some urgent note and he is going to be there for just 3 months again. I’m sure he is on the hunt for a house again.

From Back and Left to Right: Kyangsom, Tenzy, 5457, Luzee, OcOp and Kuenza

Yes, you got it right! This is my husband and I...we were just kinda dreaming of our first date and there our friends were, capturing us in a picture.

Meeting After Seven Years

(From Left: Sangay, Me and Tenzy)

It was one such yesterday that we met and created fun and laughter. We did not know that life would take us further away from each other. The shore remained where it was…the waves moved as they always did. The sea did not look troubled a bit. But there we stood, trying to understand life we might make.

There we sat together to watch a movie…to have a meal, or listen to a music. We shrilled out our voice and made faces that only we understood. We hadn’t seen the harsh world. It was a cushion-soft bench. No, we didn’t believe we would be in a different house after seven years.

Tenzy and I met often because both of us were in South India. But Sangay seemed to be sinking in sorrow in a place called Durgapur in the North.

We had given our exams for class XII and we had nothing much to do. We felt like we were flying for the first time because we didn’t have to study and anxiety had a way of creeping inside us giving more excitement than worry. As we waited for our results to be out, we floated in more fun than we ever thought possible. We stayed with my brother – my brother stayed with two of his friends – Ata Yeshi and Ata Karma Dendrup. Good God. We now realize that we might have driven them mad by our childish shrill of fun and the way we nagged them. My brother was in Japan. That made ata Yeshi our victim. One day he was taking a nap and we wanted to go for a ride. But we couldn’t ask him. So we made the alarm that had the sound of a cock wake him up. We had to do it several times and finally he opened his eyes and said, “mo mo…” and we won. We didn’t bother if we disturbed his sleep. We just wanted to get out of the house and have some fresh air…and that evening, we went to Hongtsho for the sheer fun of having ‘Bathub’. My brother Tenzin was there too. On the way back, each one had some ghost stories which made us turn half way back from Dochula. Night had fallen already and none of us wanted to risk seeing a ghost.

We never had the like of that time, ever again, until this Saturday. We met at Sangay’s place for lunch and the minute we busted inside her house, we were our old selves again. Her husband might have wondered what bunch of mad people! But who cared? We had missed it for seven years.

We rattled over lunch as soon as we reached. Sangay asked us, “juice or coffee?” and we said we would go for lunch. We waited long enough for Tenzy (she works in the hospital and that makes everything untimely (hehe…no hard feelings honey)) and it was past two when we finally reached there. Though I told Sangay that we would be there at 11:30, we reached there when it was past two. Sangay was her cool self. Not even the sound of a thunder would budge her. It is Tenzy and I who are jumpy. Oh GOD! We reeled the house for two hours and we rushed back to my place: three of us. I understood later that Sangay’s husband didn’t really want her to go because he misses her so much…but we oozed out the door before he could say much and we were lost in the middle of pictures and albums and memories…We had missed so much in the pursuit of a job. In trying to find an education, we have lost this aura for seven years. I never thought seven years was that long.

We are finally back in Thimphu. No matter if it is just some occasional meeting…we still bring up those memories of our 12th summer and we merge back with the past and we are young again.

The Meeting for Second Cleaning Campaign

These are women in nopkin.com...we gathered on 11th August for dinner to discuss about the second cleaning campaign.

We decided to have the cleaning campaign in Changjiji area on 25th August, 2007, Saturday. We have expected to have at least 30 volunteers. For detail, see this: http://www.nopkin.com/blog/blog_details.php?id=239

Defining Beauty

Beauty is not something that arouses desire, but something that arouses admiration
It is not something that fakes charm to win praises but a gracefulness of a person.
It is not the heart that opens on an instant desire but the heart that dwells on a promise
It is not the person who winks you with a signal for the night but the person who holds your sight beyond your eyes.

L’s Letter on my birthday (2007)

5th August, 2007

Dearest K,
I have thought of a million ways to start this letter and each time, I had to dig out some words unrepeated in our accounts over the years we have corresponded and told each other about everything. But I know no matter how much I tend to confront the presence of your good self in my life, I seem not to be convinced with the perfect words to choose. Anyways.

You know, as such days approach and I like to look back and wish to see those two naughty girls walking lost on the platform of Bangalore station, the same two girls playing water at Mysore, the same souls traveling to Calicut in a bus full of men, two perplexed creatures boiling with seamless tears at Chennai Central Station and many more to account for. I feel funny, I feel good, I feel weird and I feel stupid. But above all, I feel simply thrilled to have met a person who knew exactly how to read my heart. K, you still occupy that same status in my heart. I find it hard to replace, more because no one has even been so good to me like the way you were/are.

The other day, I was just trying to accept we are now two different people trying to make two different worlds. I know this you may not accept easily but then dear, we need to be practical and realistic. I understand we still stand as we were except for few changes here and there which may/mayn’t be evident. Yet the harder truth remains that gone are the days of sheer fun and joy, carelessness and I-don’t-care life. Gone, they are gone.

In all these rummaging thoughts, I always find myself smiling at the fact that my life has been tremendously happier because of a friend like you. I owe you not one but many thanks. You were truly one soul K, one soul who would show me the stars in the darkness, that silver lining on the clouds, that drop of unfallen dew on a leaflet.

Friends walk in for a reason and remain for many more reasons. I can completely agree you came in to teach me all the beauties of life. It’s even amazing that some can make more differences than the rest and you for one truly do irrespective of who or where.
I would not wish to see you changed, you are good enough already. By and by, may be I could afford to see you grow more matured with time, more responsible and further happier. Remember what we believe: Happiness is a matter of choice, not a matter of chance. Make your choice. Live it. That is happiness, that is life.

I know now that you have entered a life of responsibilities and me too, we are threading on almost different paths. But this doesn’t really encourage me to believe we won’t be there when we need each other. I may be selfish, excuse me but then I can’t help counting on you when I need someone to tell me, ‘Hey L, you can do it!’ K, you make a difference.

So, as this beautiful day dawns on you, I’m wishing you all the best of everything you can hope for. I pray your year passes with so much goodness that you won’t realize the difference of tears and joy but will also pervade the same all around.

I would have loved to hand over the same to you if I had not gone out of station. Anyways, you know I would have done it!

You keep praying for the world. We will pray together as we always have been doing.
Will miss you more on the day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

L

PS: When I write to you, I feel the whole dictionary of vocabulary needs to be rephrased to convey the right message. You understand it right?

Un-fallen Dewdrops on the Leaf

This is an article I wrote on nopkin.com after I received the above letter from L on 9th August, 2007

L had left a gift and a letter with Karma (my husband) last evening. I called her earlier but she didn’t hint me of anything. It brought me immense joy - not because she has taken pain to give me a present but because we have still kept this custom of ours alive. I remember how we both love writing and how we wrote thousands of letters when we were in first year. We always had around four or five letters to post...we even came to be friends with that woman at the post office. We always had something to write to our friends and that relieved us of our sorrows. Grief-stricken, we still found joy in the small ways of finding joy in writing down our thoughts in our journals.

It is impossible for me to forget those days. We might have come across differences but we always had a way to solve it. I remember how often I wilted my mind in front of those complicated subjects – and she was always ready to help me. There were those girls who lived in the same flat who got shit-worried that I might flunk. And they thought I was a careless girl who didn’t know my responsibility. I had my responsibility engraved in my mind, just that I thought I didn’t have to give my life for it. What is the use if you have to struggle and find no joy in your life? But here we are today: grown up and more matured. I feel good sometimes to think that we always live forward and learn. I also feel good that there are times when we can go backward in time and catch those moments back to give us joy. No matter how hard the times, there was always something we could look forward to, and it was our hope that we could really walk out the door one day as independent women. I remember how we ardently read Dr. Schuler’s books and opened our eyes in dealing with people and in being positive in life.

In life we come across such people who can remain a life-long friend and they are the un-fallen dewdrops on the leaf - the dewdrops that don’t dry at the mercy of the morning sunrays.

L wrote, “Remember what we believe: Happiness is a matter of choice, not a matter of chance.” And yes, happiness is a matter of choice. Wouldn’t you be sitting at the porch with a smile, looking at the sunset, if you have made it your choice? Take your chance and make it your choice.

With My Mother and Nephew

Innocent Children

Children at Play

Life's Journey

With Karma Wangdi

With Chhimi..

Being There For a Friend

Letter written to a friend in June, 2005.

Something surfacing in your life after what seems like a forgotten decade

I want to tell you this as the foremost point: what you have is always better than what you don’t have but long for as it seems good. Ask yourself the question of whether you can start everything all over again. You have known him for long years now. I’m sure you have never known someone as close as him.

Now my question is, will you be able to start everything from the beginning trying to know that guy as close as him? And do you think when you are with him you can feel as comfortable as yourself as you are with X? Just cuz X tells you that you can choose your way, do you think you can forget all those moments you have known him and cherished so far? Do you think you can walk away from him to get sth. that you have no knowledge of what will bring? Now, my dear friend, I want you to think everything over. I understand that feeling where you get carried away and feel you love two of them the same. But what you should not forget is that the 2nd guy is not even near you. You cannot see his face when he speaks what he urges you for. You cannot hold his gaze when he makes a promise. Can you be sure that after all these years he is still the same guy? What if you lose what you have in the quest of what you don’t?

From the little you talked about him, I didn’t feel like you had so much of a time together to know him. I don’t know if you know him well to love him. Love is blind sometimes but love that is for lifelong keep is not. Love that is blind lives in memory but love for a life lives with you.

I feel it will be better if you stay with X but choice is for you to make. I (only) don’t want my friend to regret later and look back over the years where she could have lived so much happier. No matter what, it is YOU who is gonna be the reaper of your decision – do that best suits you.

LETTERS L and I EXCHANGED IN THE COURSE OF OUR LIFE

14th September, 05

Dear L,
I’m at a loss of word at this moment not cause I don’t have anything to say but cause I don’t know how to begin and from where. We indeed traveled a larger part of the world than I can put right out here. Days then were brighter and our laughter more lasting. Life indeed was more than a living. We really lived cause we knew the essence of ourselves and the futility of words uttered at mere envy and leisure.

Now, how far have we traveled? And for how long? Can we really count? I know days were more than countable and happiness was simply infectious. We did cry but tears never left us shattered. We always had a way to smile and a reason to laugh. Things never were too bad; and this was all because I had a friend walking beside me who saw nothing but the better side of life. You did make me see many things hidden behind the cloud of life and made me realize the meaning of being an individual.

I probably failed you for more times than I can remember. I know I couldn’t always be at your bedside every time you wanted me to be. I guess I overlooked matters that were in fact essential. I’m sorry for them. I know you have a human heart that can forgive than I can imagine about anyone else. So lemme assume that I’m forgiven for all the unlikable circumstances caused and you thus stood by me unshakably firm as the best of friend.

The journey we had had. The fun we created. The havoc we overstepped. The laughter we shared. The smiles we spread. The life we enjoyed. They were more than any beautiful adjective can describe. Our definition of friendship evolved into being able to see the projection of other person’s view. And that is how we were always ready to accept and ready to talk out and listen to each other. If there were not many things we enjoyed, we had the share of life we can never forget. As we sat and talked into the late night (esp. in 1st year), we came to understand broader reasons and meanings of life and we in fact came to believe more than ever in the reason of having to be good. It was an achievement we will carry throughout our lives. Do you remember how we used to sit in the physics lad wondering why we had to study all those things which didn’t make up the cause to liberate? Somehow we went through them all and today we stand here with something to name. We would not have built rockets and planes but if we had more of such classes, we really would have sent our minds too far to come back and sit in the class the next day. Days were still beautiful cause they gave us time to talk and analyze. It was greater fun and more meaningful, the friend being you.

Now, now…we have so much of a history and too long a story. Lemme on your birthday, not narrate our history but wish you very, very happy birthday. May the years ahead be even more fulfilling and joyous. May you live hundreds of years achieving the goals of your dreams. Your birthday gave me an opportunity and a reason to tell you a portion of my thoughts about our friendship. Likewise, taking the same opportunity, I pledge my friendship and thank you for being there for me and for being a wonderful friend.

A very happy birthday!!!

K

3rd August, 03

Dear Kuenza, “In true friendship, a friend knows all about you and still likes you.” Thank you for being a true friend despite the person I’m. Your friendship will be cherished for ever and ever…!!!
HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY. Always, Luzee.




Dear K,

The world is at her heights, when people tend to forget everything…and new year is just another chance to relive the gone days…how was yours? Mine turned out to be quite good, despite the vacant feelings of people being missed, including you!!!

I always feel good to make resolutions, which I may or may not follow. Likely, for the year, I have drawn just few and I think I’m determined enough to give a try…lets see if I keep my word.

Looking back to the roads I have covered, I see myself having been so different…in the sense that my shrewdness has overtaken my nature many a times! Conclusively, I feel I’m this only, ain’t I? and fortunately, I have been destined with people who took me for myself, not for my nature…they accepted my humane form despite hurdle I have been for them…they laughed out the best in me and corrected my foes…they taught the best side of the coin…and did almost everything for me!!! And amongst them, I have one prominent figure who is always the foremost character. Would you be surprised if I declare that as “YOU and you only”?

Thank you for being the most tolerable friend…and don’t forget, you still have 2 and ½ more years to bear me…Ha!

C’mon…draw some hopes for the year. Live them…make them come true. You will love it!!
Always, Luzee.






5th August, 04
Dear Kuenza,

Six years with you. What could I account that to? Another phase of my life?

1999-2001: Sherubtse. Then we were hi-bye friends, barely saving ourselves from little knowings. (Little did I expect to journey another four years with you)

2001, Aug: We came to India, some 2000 miles away from home. I was as new to you as you were to me. Yet, we threaded along somehow.

Now, 2004, Aug: see the speed of time. I feel as if I’m getting to know you. Hey, that’s true. Because, in every corner of you, there is something new and interesting to explore.

Your friendship is invaluable to me, and yourself priceless. You are someone at whom I can lash airs at, because once the blows are all over, you are evergreen in your heart. I love this patience in you. Forgive me for all the misdeeds I have casted upon you. Like when I talk my secrets, you feed-back gives me the assurance, ‘Yes L, she is on your side’. Thank you for everything dear.

The best part of our friendship has been our quest for spiritualism. Thanks to you I have come an inch closer to knowing myself. Hope you remain eternal in your nature, you are simply great.

Have a great day. I shall wish that your year be wonderful as you want it. and anytime you need me, remember I’m just next door. I would be waiting for your call, be it at midnight. (Hey…no bad intention mey! Ha ha!)

Happy Birthday.

L

Conversation with a Friend

Buddhism
Buddhism doesn't shun, it doesn't differentiate - it encompasses everything in its rich vastness.

I have always believed that Buddhism is not a religion. It is more than science of mind: I mean to say that it doesn't only tell us how of many things in our lives but it tells us the basic thing of how to live. I have it in my mind, the desire to really feel the realization of the nature of mind and I feel that this will let me be more moral and this fact reassures me that I won't turn nasty - not in any way.


Why Killing Animals is a Sin

Killing animals is a sin according to me. It is not because Buddhism tells us that it is a sin. It is because, I can feel it inside myself the wrong in it.

1. It is a sin to take lives of other living beings - and it is a simple fact that needs no justification.

2. Humans were not born to make balance in the ecosystem - other animals do that because they are not equipped like humans to have other means.

3. Humans can't be equaled to other animals because humans are animals with brain who can think, judge and assess.

4. Humans don't have to kill animals to balance the ecosystem because what humans can bring through it is already there in the food web. If humans are meant to bring balance by killing animals in the food web, then there should be someone eating humans too.

5. If it were all natural to kill animals, or eat meat, why doesn't someone who does it get satisfaction? Have anyone felt good after killing an animal?

Ask those who feel it is OK to kill animals to kill and rest in some mental discussion with himself. Ask them if they get any satisfaction or peace from that act. Then, probably he will know what it means to kill. Also ask them to contemplate someone killing him and what thoughts he might go through when he sees his murderer before him. Would thoughts be beautiful? Would he think, 'oh here is my death coming. He is gonna kill me and I am glad someone is going to end my life'?

Special Person

We aren't rich couples who laze in the luxury of wealth but simple, honest couple who try to grasp small meanings in life and not the bigger riches that vanish in moments. We were both raised in the farming family which makes us more mature than other people of our age. We have seen more than those who are raised in town. We have seen hardship they haven't. He is special because he understands me more than anyone else. Sometimes, even more than myself. He stands by me and give me time to realize my mistakes, if ever there is one. We aren't at that tender age where marriage is taken as some kind of a relationship that can be broken and replaced with a new one. As we move along in life, we together come to understand that marriage is a function of a lifetime that cannot be repeated in the same pattern and that nor can we feel the same for another person in quite the same way we do with that person who hold our hand for the first time.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

"If we're going to make it work between us, we're both going to have to give a little. I'm not asking you to believe. I'm asking you to come with me to church. Marriage is about compromise; it's about doing something for the other person, even when you don't want to." ~ From "The Wedding" by Nicholas Sparks

Moments in Silence

To me, life isn't about pursuing dreams and forgetting its small subtle things that give happiness.


Happiness comes from realizing your dreams

Actually what we desire most in life is love and all great people in history have accepted that.


The emotions that come in the simplest forms are like ambrosia to the Gods. The sweetest nectar.

Love is so eminent in us.....it is like a wave. Rises and falls.

That is what I’m saying...actually the basic need for human isn't accomplishing high dreams and ambitions but having what our heart desire.


I feel everyone who has got some titles is one who have worked for it

If only u knew...love can encompass a whole galaxy in it.

I’m sure when two people think of each other; they can really feel each other

You are like a rainbow...I can only see u stretch above me with your splendor

It’s a longing that a child has for his mom. It’s longing...a craving for the stars to fall

There are times when you meet someone and though you hardly know him/her, he/she kinda get struck in your mind...and you can't just seem to let go.

Actually that is what complicates me you know. I can't just not love the person who loves me.

Love doesn't have to be divided. Love just the same.

You will be that dappled light in my dark empty night.

You will know that every evening like a kid lost in thoughts, I would sit by the steps and ponder.

Loving you would be like loving the spring for the charm and beauty. Well, I can at least fall in love with the flowers, even if I don’t own the plant

Love isn't remembered through a gift of something. It is remembered as a gift in itself.

Me with my friends

From Left: Kyangsom, Kinley & I

From Left: Tenzy, Leki and I

With Phub Dem (she is one on the Right)

With Lungten (L on the left)

Conversation

From M: Dude, you know what, you’re such a special friend of mine. You don’t know that somewhere sometimes down the river once you were there for me.
Dude, may the coming anniversaries in your life make love between two of you stronger and have a beautiful life. Dude remember that your lover is the best person in the world and nothing should lessen your love for him.

To Bro. Tshering: Persistent practice is what your course demand and I know you have quite the potential for it. A brother’s word resounding in my mind, it even made me feel a little emotional. It carried me way back to the early days of my childhood when I had fun as a kid…and you invented games to keep us all gay.

To Karma: I’m sorry for being too idiotic, not even sending you a message. I was bit worried but I thought nothing wrong would come to you. Not because sickness can’t inflict you, but I’ve this faith which says you are strong and would be through with anything. It may seem that I don’t care, but your wellbeing matters to me as much.

Like a torrent of rain, my tears fall. Each time I think of you, the pain of missing you kills a part of me.

Saying ‘I love you’ isn’t so easy. When you really feel it from the depth of your heart, it takes more than just words.

You will find exam ain’t a great knocker. As your exam nears and you get busier, I miss you more. At times, I even feel lonely. At times, I miss you to the extent of breaking down. Yet, I know, you’re there for good.

When the day shines brighter and the moments dance in the sweet serenity of day’s warmth, may you have a fabulously wonderful day.

It was yesterday. Today is a day ahead, nearer to our future.


It is nice to hear you after such a long time and it is even nicer to realize that our friendship stands on the same ground of surmounting beauty despite time and distances that separate us into long silence.

Just know that somewhere in the bosom, this dumb guy got a heart.

Thoughts of possessiveness comes when there is the fear of losing the loved one. It’s not because they don’t believe you. It is because they don’t have faith in others who might take advantage of your sweetness.

I’m not in a position to know anything so crisp.

What I feel, I cannot explain. Neither do I feel like putting them into someone’s head. Because each individual is a complete entity entitled with unique way of thinking, viewing and understanding things. No one can really make anyone thin in his way. But I don’t like this crude thing of human ego.

People can talk, share, and listen, not necessarily curb the way one thinks.

Complex as humans are and different as they are from one another, they have this so called thinking capacity to adjust, accept and take in other’s feels too. we are lucky that way.

To Thinley: You sure have time, enough to make hell a heaven. All days aren’t gone with the wind. And neither are your best times spent. You have what you want, only when you are ready to receive it.

Row and Tips (with Wiseman)
--Hear with the right ear and let it out from the left rather than swallowing.
-- Dear wiseman, if I were at least three steps below you, I would have tried letting it out from the other ear. But really, wiseman, I’m imperfect human and I don’t like people who can’t mind their own f**** business. Thanks for the tip. I hope I can climb a step or two in the future and practice it.
--I cannot tolerate you doing this. Sometimes, try keeping such things within yourself. Bringing out wouldn’t do any good. Did it reduce anything in you?
--Please, if I could, I would. I’m telling you, if I were at least three steps below you, I would just say, oh forget it, what the hell? But I’m not way near your level. And me being me, I couldn’t leave it as ‘forget it’. Anyway, he really goes f****around other people’s territory and he gotta know that it is not taught in your text.

My Thoughts

I was sitting outside on a bench, thinking over life; the many small things that constitute life and the inconsistency of our thoughts…the moment was beautiful. A moment where I could just close my eyes and dream beautiful dreams.

Life without seriousness sometimes becomes like an undulating waves.

You really make things interesting. I say one thing, you say another…and everything just about negates everything. But like it as it is.

Maybe you deny your feeling finding them interrupting your principles.

The breathtaking scene of the sunset over the sea and the deep blueness of the sea itself, with a romantic song in my heart, and a sight frightfully romantic, I could feel nothing, think nothing and do nothing but miss you like never before.

Friendship, love, trust…these are some of the beautiful things in life. I have them because I have you. My love shall last so long as I do…and even beyond that. Love is forever.
Some say it…some think it. Some know it.

Extracts From Books and Others

He expected love to make life complete and had never expected that a relationship might be two difficult people trying to become one.

She thought guiltily about how being in love made you so committed; you couldn’t go with other people for long period of time cause, you missed the person you loved and knowing he missed you made you feel like a rat.

There were so many things going on in her tone that he couldn’t begin to think about it. If her words were glass and shattered on the floor, in a hundred pieces, each one would be an emotion.

It was sad to be by yourself on a sentimental night like this, especially when there was a man you cared about. Cared about….a man you loved? She really did care a lot about him; she wanted to protect him and cuddle with him and be with him, but was that real love? Love should be your heart turning over when you saw him, a melting feeling when you had sex, being willing to die for him if you had to.

She trusted him completely. Yet there was something missing in him, spaces she couldn’t figure out.

When she called as he promised, she started to cry. She cried because he was so good and faithful and kind and she didn’t deserve him.

Out of breath trying to call out and finding no voice. He could never run fast enough. His legs would ache and he would ache and he would sink to the floor, drawn inexorably down like someone with wasting disease.

You will never have any life at all if you are always protecting yourself against some future disappointment. Life is risk. Loving somebody makes you vulnerable. That is the way it is. But it also makes you feel alive. If you don’t make commitments, you will miss half the fun. Commitments can be broken. And people can die. A lot of things can happen. But you can’t hide because the sky might fall down. After all, suppose the sky doesn’t fall down? What a waste, huh?

If was good to make sacrifices. Worldly pleasures only weighed you down on your difficult travels through life. (From the novel “Mazes and Monster” by Roma Jaffe)

I’m aware that on the periphery of life unexplained events and hidden disasters occurred.

My frivolity is recurring distress to my children. My seriousness equally perturbs them; revealing as it so often does, the moral failures of prejudice or eliticism or laten authoritarianism.

I find it hard to respond with suitable modesty.

Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather
I need solitude as I need food and rest. And like eating and resting, solitude is most healing when it fits the rhythm of your needs, a rigid schedule alones does not nourish me. Solitude is perhaps a misnomer. To me, being alone means together – the recoming together of myself and nature, of myself and being; the reuniting of self with all other selves. Solitude especially means putting the parts of my mind back together, unifying the pieces of self scattered by anger and fear, until I can once again see that the little things are little and big things are big.

Sands of Time by Sidney Sheldon
It was a voice filled with longing and desire, a voice that sang of loneliness and despair, of lost loves and dead dreams.

Striking rather than beautiful. Voluptuous, full lips, and dark knowing eyes. If her face fell just short of being beautiful, her body more than made up for it.

Body of a woman that moved with sensuous promise.

Crowds can make one lonely. I always feel like an island in a sea of people.

I promise to make it up to you if it takes me a lifetime. I know that the only place I can find my happiness is at your side.

For the sake of the rest of our lives together, I beg your forgiveness.

I was not running to God. I was running away from the world.


The difference between a patriot and a rebel depended on who was in power at the moment.


To my surprise she goes without demur.

This conventional gesture of courtesy gives an odd twist by her nakedness.

It occurs to me that he is gazing at me with a flattering air of intimacy.

You are the whispers in the late, late nights, you are symphony in my sunsets, you are splendor and glory of the dawning of my life.

I will be the same guy when you wake up and look at me.

Even when you knew that there had been no choice at all, the human psyche quails before the reality of unnecessary death and punishes the survivor for being alive when his victim is not.

There is too much disorder in my world for me to come to an end of my wishes and I’m left with a vague unease which lasts throughout lunch.

Once events occur, they’re no longer unacceptable.

Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
Don’t count her love for you. You look upon yourself and see how much you love her. The amount you love her is how much she loves you even.

I’m nothing special. Of that I’m sure. I’m a common man with a common thought and I have led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to my name and my name will soon be forgotten. But I have always loved another with all my heart and soul and to me this has always been enough.

Lady on the Burning Deck by Catherine Heath
Against all my expectations.
I grow lonelier as I grow older. People die. Children grow up; friends become more absorbed in their own increasing difficulties. Nora has learnt early to trust to affection. I cannot adapt. I understand her contempt. I dislike her but respect her.

I’m crying with a grief for a lost past; for despised tradition; for a dead man no longer valued. If I’ve to choose between the man who made my rosewood table and Marlene I’ll not choose Marlene.

I’m shocked not at her impending death, but at my own failure to be shocked, at my self-absorption, at my own intellectual reconsideration of the truth of general confession.

I feel murder already done in my heart and it would be a pity to have guilt without the deed.

My anger dissipated, my fury no longer threatening to ignite my world.

I’m grateful, for answering services do not evoke dutiful reverence. They’re purely expedient.

The moments I felt otherwise are the dreams of last night, no longer even frightening enough to hold the quality of nightmare. I am awake: new problems face me.

Roger’s simplicity of heart is admirable but inconvenient.

She betrays no distress. Her smile does not flicker.

A daughter with superficial responses. A promiscuous young woman with no heart.

I will keep these fragile moments unbroken.

I cherish these moments of feminine gossip.

It takes sometime for me to understand Caroline’s plans for they seem so natural to her that she sees no need to explain them.

Life doesn’t work like that. I’m not something in the Kinsey Report, you know, or part of the registrar-general’s statistics. It’s not something you need to be clever about.

I’m momentarily silenced by the childishness of the response.

It is sad to see even the nices of our young people so cynical about society.

As long as they’re happy and don’t hurt anyone…that is all I ask.

We’ve learnt to recognize our defences.

The phrase trips readily to my tongue.

Has she not noticed his streak of vulgarity? Perhaps I bring it out in him.

…as if the emotional demands made on them by their relationship were just such that they could fulfill without fear.

The whirlpools of moral paradox confuse me, swirl me round and engulf me. Drown me.

Nobody but me seems to think that there might be some point, something worthwhile to be saved from the wreck of life. I shall grow old and dried-up and lonely, and the children will say it is my fault: the craze for self-sacrifice, this deliberate and neurotic withdrawal from life, this narrow distrust of sensuality. And then friends are not so easily to be cast off. Nor can relationships so easily be altered.

For no one, in our long decline, so dusty, spiteful and divided had quite such pleasant friend as mine, or loved them half as much I did.

From RD
The most common mistake unfaithful spouses make is to get caught up in the fantasy of a paramour who seems flawless. Affairs are based on illusion and wishful thinking. The unfaithful spouse has a romanticized version of his lover. They’re living in a kind of bubble. That bubble will inevitably burst if the affair replaces the marriage.

Runners don’t race other runners. They race against themselves; to conquer their wills, to transcend their weaknesses, to beat back their nightmares. And while a runner cannot actually beat himself, he can beat his time.

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so happy.

If you ask me to give you what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.
Wanting to show your man your best side is only natural but giving him a chance to love the rest of you is what true love is all about. Your man should love you as you are and if he doesn’t, then that makes him the loser, not you.

It is better to have a broken heart now than nurse one forever.

There is something about spiritual people – an aura of peace.

I was by nature blind to the faults of elders. I’d learnt to carry out the orders of elders, not to scan their actions.

Man of truth must also be a man of care.
I was silenced but not comforted.

Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.

Today well-lived makes every tomorrow a vision of hope and every yesterday a dream of happiness.

We didn’t make it this far because it was easy.
Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull. It is the sex instinct which makes women seem beautiful, which they are once in a blue moon and men seem wise and brave which they never are at all. Throttle it, denaturalize it, take it away and human existence would be reduced to the prosaic, laborious, boresome, imbecile level of life in an anthill.

A chronic lack of pleasure, of any enjoyable, rewarding or stimulating experiences produces a slow, gradual day-by-day erosion of man’s emotional vitality, which he may ignore or repress, but which is recorded by the relentless computer of his subconscious mechanism that registers an ebbing flow, then a trickle, then a few last drops of fuel until the day when his inner motor stops and he wonders desperately why he has no desire to go on, unable to find any definable cause of his hopeless, chronic sense of exhaustion.

Beyond the Sky and the Earth
Here again is the mind, leaping from emotion to speech without reflection.

I don’t know where to draw line between cultural sensitivity and plain old cowardice.

There is an intensity about him that I find very attractive.

He is unsettlingly good-looking.

The burden of keeping silent is killing me

I want a love that lives in the plain light of day.


Snatches of Sentences
In curt but not menacing voice
Sexy in a trite-looking way
One vice for another
On my way back to you
Want to belong
Proffering invitation
I’m not at my brightest at this hour
Irritating interruption to routine
Greeted with a bland coldness

Breakfast at McDonald's

My Note: Following is a very beautiful story forwarded to me by one of my friends. I couldn't help but cry. I could feel the depth of love that woman showed to those men. I could feel what real heart of a human is. And what we can do to make someone's day in a simple way. We don't have to be very rich or influential but we can as we are, make someone happy just as we are.

This is a good story and is true, please read it all the way throughuntil the end!

(After the story, there are some very interestingfacts!):

I am a mother of three (ages 14, 12, 3) and have recently completed mycollege degree.The last class I had to take was Sociology.The teacher was absolutely inspiring with the qualities that I wishevery human being had been graced with.Her last project of the term was called, "Smile." The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and documenttheir reactions.I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say helloanyway. So, I thought this would be a piece of cake, literally.

Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to McDonald's one crisp March morning. It was just our way of sharing special playtime with our son.We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a suddeneveryone around us began to back away, and theneven my husband did.I did not move an inch...an overwhelming feeling of panic welled upinside of me as I turned to see why they had moved.

As I turned around I smelled a horrible "dirty body" smell, and therestanding behind me were two poor homeless men.As I looked down at the short gentleman, close to me, he was "smiling". His beautiful sky blue eyes were full of God's Light as he searched foracceptance.He said, "Good day" as he counted the few coins he had been clutching.The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. Irealized the second man was mentally challenged and the blue-eyedgentleman was his salvation. I held my tears as I stood there with them.

The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted.He said, "Coffee is all Miss" because that was all they could afford.(If they wanted to sit in the restaurant and warm up, they had to buysomething. He just wanted to be warm). Then I really felt it - the compulsion was so great I almost reached outand embraced the little man with the blue eyes. That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me,judging my every action. I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two morebreakfast meals on a separate tray.I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot. I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue-eyed gentleman's cold hand. He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, "Thank you."I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, "I did not do this foryou. God is here working through me to give you hope." I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son.

When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, "That is why God gave you to me,Honey, to give me hope."We held hands for a moment and at that time, we knew that only becauseof the Grace that we had been given were we able to give. We are not church goers, but we are believers.That day showed me the pure Light of God's sweet love.

I returned to college, on the last evening of class, with this story in hand.I turned in "my project" and the instructor read it. Then she looked up at me and said, "Can I share this?"I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class. She began to read and that is when I knew that we as human beings and being part of God share this need to heal people and to be healed. In my own way I had touched the people at McDonald's, my son, instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student. I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn: UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE. Much love and compassion is sent to each and every person who may read this and learn how to LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE. There is an Angel sent to watch over you. An Angel wrote:Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friendswill leave footprints in your heart. To handle yourself, use your head.To handle others, use your heart.

God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest.

Dreaming away the moments

Back to the class. My strength seems to slip away. The enthusiasm seems to falter. As I sit here, good reasons fail to make me believe. The inspirations fail to inspire. I find no use whatsoever to sit here and pretend.


As I sat comfortably, letting out my breath…I felt a calm flow of energy within me. I didn’t know what was really happening but I was perfectly happy and I wanted it to last for a long time.

In the midst of laughter and fun I stood back in total surprise. What were we doing? I thought we were wasting our time like that. I knew then that it wasn’t the way to live life. It was either to be true in our heart or risk our whole being.


I was walking by the street when I saw a cat passing the road. Suddenly a car swooped over out of nowhere and killed the cat! Do you think a notion of getting killed passed over in its mind? It wouldn’t have (like anyone of us) thought of dying that instant but it did. We bask our life in an enchanted pool of unceasing desire. Our life is uncertain as that cat’s life and it is a wonder that we could dare to risk it.

Did you ever in a while think of your death? What thought do you get when you hear someone’s death? Does it ring a bell? Does it reflect something of your life too? It is like sitting on the edge of a stiff cliff without any thoughts or fear of falling over it. Do you think you can sit there calmly? Sit there calmly? I’m sure you will find a way to get away from there or at least try finding a way to prevent from falling down. We are in much greater danger and yet, we never try to do anything about it. Don’t you wonder why? Do you think you can avoid death? Or bribe it somehow? Oh man, no we have no way to get away from it. We can only be true in our heart.


The gift of nature…if we can really find time to look closer, you will see how beautiful they are. The sun, the moon, the trees, the butterflies…the beautiful rivers and seas….everything.

Friendship is something you can’t put at stake. You live and make sacrifices but you don’t just throw friendship into fire.

Why bother him? It may not be ridiculous to him. If he wants to do this, he has the right to.

It is hard to understand how some people can be so self-centered. I mean kind of a narcissist. They cannot just hold that what is good to them may not be of the same value to others.


I was standing all alone and the world stared at me. I felt so lost. I was blank. But as I kept walking I reached a beautiful meadow with a stream flowing by its side. As I sat down, closed my eyes and let beauty sink in, I felt peace dawning on me like the first sunrays of the dawn. I felt all my worries slipping away from me.


I looked at the open door on an impulse and caught an eye of a passerby. He was all smile…such a happy face! I felt a flippant rush of guilt for not taking life seriously. I realized life is not worth mourning for. It is short and we must enjoy within that limit.

Struggle of your conscience and reason; dilemmas as to whether you should give in to your pride or be humble; whether to act yourself with grace of importance of bow low.

Never judge the other person from your viewpoint. It may be wrong because you haven’t gone through what he has and you don’t know what he is suffering from even to judge.

People gathered around me and as they stared at me I couldn’t hold their gaze. Am I a coward?


I say that I’m living…and I ask again if I am. I realize that it is not just mere survival, mere existence in this world. We aren’t really living if we aren’t serving the purpose of our being here.

It was just one magic glance and answer came in a rush.

If you can’t practice what you preach, don’t preach. You don’t have to show anyone that you know everything.

I sat there like a helpless child craving for mother’s love. I saw nothing but a bleak future. As the darkness loomed over me, I was drowned in limitless sorrow.

An innocent child sat by the roadside begging, hoping for a penny some kind heart would drop in her bowl. But she had pain written all over her face. I couldn’t wonder what made her suffer such big afflictions. What karma! What burden! What ironic fate. How could the world be so cruel not to spare the innocence to last with its beauty?

As I sat by the ocean, listening to the soft murmur of its waves, I couldn’t help wishing I could lie there forever. It was enchanting and beyond earthly existence. The feeling was more of joyful happiness than of loneliness.



Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her…I tried to hold her but it was a vain hope. It was but a dream. It was a tragedy for she was never there.

It was more of happiness than sorrow. More of joy than pain. More of love than hatred. More of light than darkness. More of understanding than ignorance. It was more of many good things.

I thought life was just that – the sheer passing of days. But a pang of regret tightened my heart for not looking deeper.

A person crazed over life can’t see beyond himself.

I don’t forget my friends. The nice things they are. Even if they turn away from me and hate me, the good things they have done always remain good. It doesn’t change. Make the little time with your friends beautiful. If they leave, you will still have those beautiful moments.

Forgiving someone isn’t letting him be. It isn’t trying to forget what someone did to you. It means trying not to mind what someone did to you.


History clings on with the present but the person changes. He no longer remains the same. If he makes a mistake, he doesn’t forget it like that. He learns from it and becomes a better person.


You make a mistake and people remember you. If you do a good thing your name last only for a moment on people’s lips. Even if it becomes a history, it doesn’t vanish. Sometimes its weight is more than you can hold. Sometimes it destroys even the dreams you once had. But it cannot destroy your inner self.

He wasn’t near but I felt him.

“Knew more; understood less. Gained skills, not wisdom.”

She buried her face in her fragile hands and cried. No one knew what was wrong. She didn’t speak.


You cannot hate a person you once liked. Love can’t let you hate or even forget him. You can’t just pretend; truth cannot be denied. Love and hatred are two different entities.

Some strong person survive through the hard times. But the really emotionally weak people find drugs as their means because that is the only means he can grasp. They can lie high up in air forgetting the truth for a while but the reality is harder. Harder and more painful. They then get killed by the force of the original suffering and self hatred and regret.

Everyone carries his own worth. You can’t take him for granted.

Not many people like to be cared. They feel they are being bothered.

I didn’t want to live with the seemingly OK reasons.

I can stand it. I have been through more.

Me and The World

Doing Things the Way I want

I want to do things I want to do in the in the way I want to do. I care but little about what others think. To me what matters is what I’m gonna learn in the process and not the stagnant result that would yield but a momentary joy.

My Character
The flippancy of my mind could be attributed to the very nature of myself. It is not something I’ve got to do with. If people don’t understand me, what have I got to do with it? I can only be myself. The way I’m.

I can be talking to a group of people like I’m one crazy idiot. But there always is something more inside. That good, loving, gentle heart. No one is bad in himself. I talk because I feel I need to. It is a pleasure and no hard task.

Extracts

To train yourself to be an efficient human being, you must first prove it in the work you are dong that you can do the best.

What the eye doesn’t see and the mind doesn’t know, doesn’t exist
~from the book “Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence

This was one of the fleeting patterns in the mirror.

She was too feminine to be quite smart.

Pushed his way by sheer instinct.

It’s like the weather…the sort that will have to be…for the time being.

To take notice of other’s privy.

It is utterly senseless and pointless; a matter of misplaced curiosity.

Everything hinges on the instinct for success. That’s the pivot on which all things turn.

It is great fun to have him reveal his mind to you than have him kiss you.

If to love someone is a crime, I won’t attempt it.

To love someone is to feel no difference between two people. It means to remain one.

Conversation

From Jimy
An unexamined life is not worth living.

Greater task requires greater plans and thoughts.

A decision of life cannot be bartered within seconds. Love is painful…love hurts. Gladdened am I that friendship doesn’t.

“FAINT HEART NEVER WON A FAIR LADY”



Kavita: You know you can spend so much only when you love the person. It is not that money is so important. But you see, money is for us and we are not for money.

Brother Tshering:
No matter what, you should never forget the purpose you are here.

Buddhism

Buddhism

Taking refuge in Buddha – being awakened and not deluded.
Taking refuge in Dharma – having proper viewpoints
Taking refuge in the Sangha – being pure and not polluted.

One should not rely upon the person of the master but rather rely upon the teaching, the substance of his or her teaching, the message of the Buddha.
~Buddha

Many who are indifferent to any form of spiritual practice are materially well off in some developed countries, but even then they’re completely unsatisfied. Although they are affluent they are not content. They suffer the anguish of wanting more, so that although they are materially wealthy, they are mentally poor.
~H.H. Dalai Lama

Whether I’m exalted or condemned, I will still be the ordinary Buddhist monk and I find it very comfortable. People call me the Bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, but that does not make me Avalokiteshvara. The Chinese call me a wolf wearing a yellow robe, but that doesn’t make me less of a human being or more of a wolf. I just remain an ordinary monk.
~H.H. Dalai Lama

Whether you become a monk or not is a matter of personal choice, but after having chosen to lead the life of a monk or a nun, it is naturally better not to be disgrace to the doctrine. Otherwise, not only is it bad for you, it also causes other people to lose their faith and unnecessarily accumulate non-virtues.
~H.H. Dalai Lama

Instant Reflection

Life is a journey.
We begin life with a step and the beauty of it lies in the people you meet and the fun you have with them

I was lying on a bed (in the hospital) when I came back…I looked around in wide eyes…he was sitting beside my bed. God knows for how long! I fell back into another long hours of drowsiness and unconsciousness as I felt him holding my hands. I was happy that he was there with me. Friends – aren’t they beautiful? They are there with you no matter what.


Life is not always beautiful but the few beautiful moments are too remarkable to forget…and it all centers on our friends. Without friends life would be a darn hell…you agree with me? I know you do. Who loves to be alone and lonely?

Friendship bridges two hearts into a harmonic rhythm of their beat such that they can feel exactly the same. Friendship flowers but never dies.

I accept equally the love and pain, the joy and suffering, the truth and faults, the guilt and remorse…life is not always as you expect. Life is not a bed of roses. I take pricking of thorns as part of life too. I won't run away from life – I would live through it and survive. The beautiful part of life when you look back is the hardest difficulty that you’ve overcome, the biggest tragedy that you have faced and the greatest thing you could do about them; not running away from it and hiding away from the sensors of reality.

“It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.” If I didn’t have something to face and learn, my life would have been without savor.

The world and me: I’ll have my own way and they will have theirs. They will say that is not and I won’t listen. No one knows who is correct and the suspense lies…but the one powerful almighty sees the truth. Truth shall remain the truth and I shall go on doing what I know is true. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t reconcile with what the majority think.

At the most poignant situation, you are my beacon of hope. You have proved to be a very true friend.

When you love someone, you trust him so much that you share everything – secrets of hearts to the desire of passion. That’s the secret of love and beauty of being one.

When a person gives you so much of sweet words, watch her face. If she is trying to steer you and encourage you with your plans, she is trying to dig information. Turn your back and you will hear what she has to say. She would have become a hypocrite – a kind of a traitor. She burns your trust.

Love is staunch affection that never looks for smoothness of time and circumstances. It understands and accepts.


We are no god or some super human. And I’m just some girl. When someone’s expectation is so high, we just can’t live up to it.

Our life is like novel and movies…they are creation of human mind and we are creation of ourselves.

I appreciate their hard work and determination but I don’t envy them. If I were like them, I could never have been what I am.

A person can’t deliver himself to you at your convenience. So be happy if at all he turns up

Don’t call everyone a flirt. Differentiate the degree of involvement.

Love him for what he is. Do not wish he were someone perfect or better so that you could love him more. If you haven’t learnt to love, there is no one called perfect to fit your prototype.

If a person has the right to act cold to you, you’ve the right to let her be.

Don’t be surprised when someone asks you out-of-way questions. I do that too and when I do, I have reasons to ask and rights to know.

Life just doesn’t center around one person. So don’t always expect others to do everything for you. Do something for others too.

It is not always you meet a nice friend. When I met my friends in Vellore, I couldn’t call myself more lucky.

Beneath the exterior, people are people and those who dare can take the risk to care…and it is truly special.

Words given and promises made are sealed forever. You don’t break them to become a fool.

I can smile off the blues when you are down. I can make you laugh when you are on the verge to break down.

I call spade a spade. So when someone says something, I take it that he means it.

Reciting something written down as prayers ain’t called prayers. I call that good wishes you hold for someone a prayer.

There is nothing like someone is too good for you or you are not good enough for him. It is always mutual…

I live moment by moment…and if it later turns out that it’s no longer how we felt, it will still be okay for, we felt it then.

I’m here in my bed…eyes barely open, music in my heart…feeling alive in the dead world, thankful that I’m living.

To dig your nose into anything so far is too dangerous a risk.

At such a silent hour, though I can’t feel the move, I know the world is not still…I get an eerie feeling that I’m living when so many are not. (Referring to the dead hour of the night when I was awake with so many thoughts)

If we are to be young forever; if we are never to grow old, there will be no charm to be young.

It’s become so reflexive now…whatever I do, I find myself thinking on the futility of it. The unrealistic reality, the deceptive phase of life and virtual visions of materials and objects.

Sometimes it is better to act deaf and dumb than try to pull through with the facts and reasons.

I may be anyone to the eyes of others but I’m me to those who can see me.

With true love you feel an inner lamination of beauty and joy; you sense a unity of oneness, merging of two souls. You feel an intuitive connection of hearts and feelings and unnamed unity of instincts and spirituality.

As life flies off, I cling to the credit card of life…I tell myself to wait because there has to be another time. But sadly, inevitably it slips out of my hand. “Next time I can try,” I optimize but next time goes away to another next time.

If love were to scar me, it couldn’t. I would be happy love happened, even if for a moment.

Some questions in life have no answers and some deeds, though you know is right cannot be explained its nature of righteousness.

When you know you have things to do and responsibilities to shoulder and yet procrastinate, the time itself tightens your neck and you find yourself drowning in unhappiness.

When you don’t do what you should, you just can’t be at peace. Doing what you want gives pleasure but doing what you should gives peace.

When you are responsible for something and you have failed to see that or simply ignored you will find yourself eaten up by that something and you will be doomed so low.

If you know how to speak, make sure you know how to act too. when your action doesn’t fit the definition of your words, you become a liar, a hypocrite, and an untrustworthy person.

What do you call that? It follows you like a shadow…you can’t shed it and you can’t even understand it. It’s there in your eyes, in your voice and in everything you do, giving a shade of unnatural sadness and blue. You can’t sit peacefully. You can’t talk without pain. You are followed by this shade forever and in its clutch you cry.

You expect something so much and when it never comes you become frail with depression and riddled with thoughts of curse and sorrow. Why can’t your expectation be true?

You play with your life to an extent of destroying the lucidity of its nature and you pay your frivolity with a price of your own blood.

In life we meet lot of people but make friends with few. Few of them touch our life in such a way that their presence is felt even in their absence.

No one is a bad person. I understand you more than you think I do. A man speaks sour not because he is so, but because he is forced to.

I wouldn’t pose a price like that on the expense of others…

I know, the way I live is not soothing, nor neat. Neither suitable nor beautiful. But I don’t like people making a leap at something without knowing the core.

Dreams can come true. I live a day everyday.

Friendship is no big time favor, nor a courteous duty but a gift. Not a small hurt, nor a big one can shatter it.