The CHOLAs Chorus – free & random thoughts!!!

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…)

As a high school student some fourteen years back I would also dabble in a bit of Ngyen Ngag – classical poetry. Ngyen Ngag, in classical Chokey, stands for poetry and directly translates into “beautiful sound” or “beautiful utterance” and is one of the Rigney Chungwa Nga or the five minor sciences.

I learnt the rudiments from my maternal uncle, a monk, who also taught me basic calligraphy during those brief hiatus in farming chores back home in Bumthang. (more…)

Inspired by Englishman Edward Lear, I have some limericks, written in the prescribed limerick format (meter and syllables)  with the rhyming scheme “aabba.” They are simply products of passing thoughts.

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