The CHOLAs Chorus – free & random thoughts!!!

Seated cross-legged on a yak-hide mattress, Angay Lemo, a sexagenarian, mutters “Om mani pad me hung”, with a rosary in one hand and a mini, hand-powered prayer wheel in the other. It’s Saturday. And she’s been all by herself. Her only son, a middle-aged officer, and her daughter-in-law are away, holidaying in Bangkok. Her grandson and granddaughter are away in the discotheques. As is customary they are not expected until three in the morning. She has little or no inkling about what they do and are up to in the discotheques and beyond. Even little does she wonder about their whereabouts. (more…)

All because of the hole the pole goes unruly and awry. “Ah, they rhyme, don’t they?” he asks laughingly. “What? It’s not funny – don’t laugh!” I warn him. Bees fly from far and wide and flock to the flowers to collect nectar. “And that’s alliteration,” he barges in again. He’s only being humorous so I brushed off nonchalantly. Some do not fly back but their wings flutter; they are trapped in the petals and dead. Who would you blame: the killer petals or the killed bees? ‘Disabled 17-year-old raped’, read a Kuensel headline dated 06 June 2010. Once again! (more…)

Here’s my take on the ongoing “beautiful game” in the form of limericks, written in their usual rhyme scheme and meter. I was almost through with it this evening when Brazil crashed out unceremoniously, and I had to change some of the verses. I am posting it before there are any further upset, forcing me to re-write my lines!   Enjoy! (more…)

Pause for a while in our fast-track lifestyle and think long and hard about what and who we actually are. Whether man or woman we are human. Therefore, frailty, our name is human. With all due respect, my sincere apology to you, Shakespeare, if I have startled and spun you in your grave. Frailty is embedded in human psyche. You and I and one and all are overwhelmed by the self-centred activities of the here and now. We chit-chat about this and that now and then, we expose our outside a lot to cover a tiny dot inside, and we are only deepening our hypocrisy. Isn’t it crazy? (more…)

Thirty-two nations are fighting over one ball vying for the FIFA World Cup Trophy in South Africa. The vuvuzelas are reportedly deafening. But have they drowned the criticism of the Jubulani? If the Jubulani could speak, it’d lambast FIFA and all the 32 nations kicking it mercilessly. We saw Italy win the World Cup in Germany. That was four years ago. I had more hair and less wrinkles. I do not know if I’ll watch the FIFA World Cup in Brazil in 2014. Sure I’ll be older than I’m now. The bottom line is that we all grow, and grow older. I know we all know this – I make no issue of it. My point is that let’s not disillusion ourselves that growth stops at puberty! (more…)

An irreplaceable part of boyhood memory so intrinsic to my upbringing and growth is that of travel, and the trials and tribulations thereof. Coming from a farming stock in a far-flung village clearly meant extensive travel, and therefore the inevitable exposure to the accompaniments of a journey by motor road that was yet to acquire the creature comforts of a drive we enjoy today. Those episodes of journey by bus and later by train formed a cornucopia of human elements, of joy and exuberances, of success and failure, and of high emotions of suffering and pain: all in equal measure.

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The face of Helen of Troy unanchored and “launched a thousand ships”. That was the Trojan War. It was conventional. Today we have nuclear weaponry. Nuclear attack can be launched easily at a click of a button. So it’s corollary that it can be prevented as easily. What’s it that can prevent the deployment of tanks, the launch of missiles, and the drop of atom bombs altogether? It’s neither military might nor economic clout. I tell you, it’s the act – but mind you, not necessarily consummation. (more…)

My O My, O dear

My poor tender misled mind

Is a mangled leaf (more…)

One is a number smaller than two. Who does not know that? Ask anyone, I bet everyone will have the same answer. But let’s admit that it’s far simpler than this question which catches us all unawares, and then fumbles us – which is heavier, a kilo of concrete or a kilo of wool? But does this unit – the state of being one – mean less work, I repeat less work for one? Hang on, you know, there are at least two sides to everything. (more…)

Agay Dotila sits on a chair unsteadily in a balcony overlooking the Memorial Chorten. Donned in skintight jeans his granddaughter squats down across. She throws a glance at his face. Her eyes quickly run through the furrows, and she asks him, rather insensitively: “Agay, why is it inauspicious to die at 84?” (As if death is auspicious). Agay scans her, disapproves of her posture but smiles – unperturbed. “I had heaved a sigh of relief on losar (14 February 2010), as it was the last day I was 84,” answered Agay. Born in March 1926, he is still 84 to her even as they speak on this March morning. As he tells her why he’d feared death at 84 more, a fat man walks clumsily past their house. (more…)