The CHOLAs Chorus – free & random thoughts!!!

Routine check-up with no illness is still a matter of anathema in our society. It’s not very difficult to believe that medical intervention is sought only as a matter of last resort. Frantic last-minute dash to hospital is not uncommon. Last minute is very common.So every emergency is not an emergency in a strict sense of the word and always. It’s our own creation. And this is against the backdrop of free medical services. Also it is not always because medical facilities are days away. We run to lams, lhakhangs, and tsips across hills and vales. Actually we do not condescend to visit BHUs to see an HA. This is our culture. Are we proud of this?

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I work, you work and we work, don’t we? Nine to five are the hours of work in public offices five days a week, from Monday to Friday. Winter is cold, very cold; yet we await it eagerly. Bathuk and bukhari or radiator and red wine? No, it’s nine to four in winter. (more…)

One time a boy and a girl meet. Love at first sight, each is head over heels in love with the other. On a day shy of a week of constant courtship, a slovenly septuagenarian man with a rosary in one hand and a mini-prayer wheel in the other chances upon the lovebirds. Typical as it is of the elderly Bhutanese, he stops and barges in on the couple, uninvited and nonchalantly. The old man unsteadily parks himself beside the lovebirds with a solitary doma-stained tooth in full view. He is on his way to circumambulate a chorten. Unaware that he is getting himself waylaid on a journey to a destination that will pay dividends in the afterlife, he begins his impromptu yet providential sermon, unasked. (more…)

Souten, Pyar Jhukta Nahin and Hero were the very first Hindi movies that I watched. Like any other first, these three films are forever etched into memory. Every once in a while I fall back to recall and recount my tryst with the varied and colourful extravaganza that is Bollywood. To me, they formed the very calling card by which Bollywood fares were to be identified with. It whetted that palate, and the gourmet that followed was to be savored for some time. The year was 1985, almost a year into my six-year stint in Thimphu as a student. Personal video sets were then the preserves of the few and hiring a video screen and a VHS player was quite the de rigueur for most families. Families would jointly rent a set and the film fest would continue for days, usually ending with us young ones being barred from the final day screening which I later discovered was “strictly for adults”. (more…)