Great Imaginations…

Art By Students

I have always been fascinated by paintings of the great people of past. To this day, I cherish their drawings and look for similar one in the markets. They are so expert that their drawings do not appear as if they are drawn but like it has been captured by one of the powerful cameras. When I see such beautiful drawings, I wish I could draw like them. But pencils choose not to dance on my fingers.  How poor!

Yesterday was a surprise for me. I was overwhelmed by the drawings, small hands made, at the Children’s Park below Changlingmithang.  The artists were from the Pre-Primary schools but some of their drawings were like those of the great artists’. Looking at their art, I could sense that they have already drawn their future.

Drawings go well if we can visualize scenes well.  Right from the selection of colors to the application of dark or light, bright or dim hues, it demands a great skill. However, children seem to have learnt all those. Their paintings were so beautiful. I am thinking to walk around for the second time. 

More Photos at my Photo Gallery

Sad News For the Buddha


People say, although I do not understand, that they are now in the “modern” world. They mean to say that they are in a delicately refined world which is clean and pure. They say they have undergone the change: from bad to good, anachronous to modern, rude to humble, hard to soft, black to white and so on to listlessness. They boldly declare that they are no more Apes and Monkeys but developed human beings who are farsighted, altruistic, harmless, selfless, truthful, honest and well-mannered. This is a wonderful news to the Buddha’s ear. How happy would he be to know that His subjects are doing extremely fine.


Image: Google

But I wonder how far we can go on impressing Buddha by sending such wonderful news from our earth. I fear I have a sad news for him. In contrast to what we declare ourselves to be, I would like to bring to the notice that things are just the opposite. I am embarrassed to say that people have become selfish instead of selfless. The modern world has injected so much of competition in accumulating wealth. Therefore, people are dying to own luxurious goods. They would not discern about others’ welfare but their own ways to rise up in the society. They want to have more by any means even if it involves robbery and thieving. I hope Buddha won’t mind when I say that the modern world has produced people who steal even our underwear.

One evening I dried my underwear on the rod of my toilet window and the morning I went to collect, it was not there. There was no wind to blow it off and children and dogs would not reach it as it was located high. And my underwear had no magical powers to cheat me by dissolving into the air. It was the hand of a modern man who clipped off and took it surreptitiously.

The other incidence is with the dust collector. My wife had left it in the balcony to dry it. An hour later, when we returned home, it was missing. I thought it had wings to fly away but my wife corrected my mad mind saying dust collectors do not have wings. I, then, thought that it must be the same hand that rinsed my underwear.

What should I say about the relics that are embedded in Stupas/Chortens? If people steal petty and dirty things such as an underwear and dust collector, why not relics that are highly priced? I wonder, if what the Buddha had taught has sunk into the ears of modern people. We say that we are travelling forward but in reality we are not. We are instead tracing the death path of the worst time. We have never changed from bad to good: we are rather making it to worst from bad. I say this not because someone has stolen my underwear and I am annoyed. I am never angry and frustrated for such act. Rather I am infused with a great laughter to know that there exist such people. When my wife informed me of the missing underwear and dust collector, I just could not control my laughter. I wondered who the pathetic one he was. If he had asked me personally, perhaps I might have given him better than what he stole.  This is what the Buddha instructed us to do. He asked us to do three things in life. They are:

1.      Give food, clothing and wealth to the poor beings (bzang-‘zin-norgyi-sbjinpa)

2.      Protect beings by accompanying them through frightening moments in life (me-‘jigs-skyabs-kyi-sbjinpa)

3.      Preach whatever you know to benefit the beings (dam-pa-chos-kyi-sbjinpa)

Being lowly educated, I may not fulfill the third criteria but I am strong enough to give accompaniment and food. As Buddha’s loyal subject, I aspire to do this in my own small ways. I don’t have millions to offer. Neither do I have wealth to meet the expectations of the troubled one. But I, at the least, try to do something possible. However, sometimes you meet people who pretend to be poor and helpless. They ask you as if they are in an uncontrollable situation but the moment you leave, they are fine like anyone else.

One afternoon, I was rushing to my training hall. On the way, at the bazaar, I was confronted by a man who looked little sad. He asked me for Nu. 30 to ply to Babesa. He said that he had lost his purse and was penniless. I pitied his condition and gave him what he wanted. I walked a few steps ahead. Something in me forced to look back and when I turned, I found the man with a glass of wine. He had paid my money to the bar. I was shocked. I walked back, despite being in hurry, and told him that he had lied to me. He said that he grew thirsty the moment I gave the money. That’s why he was drinking. He would again go on begging from other people the bus fare. This time, perhaps, to Olakha or Changjiji or Semtokha.    

We are all Buddha’s subjects and we ought to be doing the same but individuals differ. It is because of the merit and demerit that we have accumulated in the past. It is in this life that we have to realize our present conditions that we derived from the past and prepare for a bright after-life. We are at the cross road. Which road to take is in our hands. We must have our own discretions to choose the road. If we are lacked by wisdom to choose the road, we have enlightened Gurus near our knees. We can always consult them.

If finding a Guru is not possible, we must choose not to alter the true shape of our life that we inherited at our birth. We must neither overload it with desires not pressurize it. It must be left to oscillate, on its own, just like the meanders of a river. We have never seen rivers taking short cuts by climbing mountains to reach the sea soon. It goes wherever the shape of valley leads them and it finally reaches the destination, the ocean. Such is our life. Our life has valleys and mountains with paths to take us to the final destination. We must know that we are travelling every minute and second. And in our journey to our destination, we must make sure that we smile, laugh and enjoy the beauty that we pass by. We must never harm anyone on our way. Rather we must gift, all that we encounter on our way, a lot of happiness and joy. Being rude and bad will leave marks on the way that cannot be washed away even after thousands of years. Remembering that we are moving forward to meet the emptiness, we must give what we have, forgetting to own others’ wealth by stealing. Stealing things from others to make ourselves rich is sadder than a dream.  

We must know that the Buddha is watching our steps and actions. And we, as his loyal subjects, must never betray him but be abided by his code of conduct.  

The Little Traveler

The Little Traveler

The bus that drops me and my colleagues at our office, every morning, is a “Chinese Bus” (as people prefer to call it). It has a few seats and a huge empty space to accommodate several standing passengers. We hardly get to sit. I tell my friends jokingly that if we are to get the seats in the Chinese Bus, we have to have accumulated merit for hundreds of lives.

 

Unlike every morning, yesterday’s was unusually packed with all Motithang and Jigme Namgyal School students buzzing in. I was dangling helplessly from one of the hangers above my head with my lunch box squeezed under my arm pit. The passengers getting in pushed me to the front while the ones at the front stood immovable like a boulder. I was sandwiched. I feared my curry container would open and splash chilies across the eyes of fellow passengers. I had to catch hold of it firmly. While I held my curry pot with my left hand, I did not let my right hand out of the bus’ hanger. I had to balance my body on one hand with all the strengths I had reserved.

There was not a space to breathe. Tall and fat people surrounded me and I had to pull my head out for air like a giraffe for the leaves on tall trees. I could not bend down. And there was no way do it with all compactly packed.

Travelling for some time, I felt something moving by my leg. Feeling down the body, I sensed something hanging from my left leg. For one time, I thought some people must be sitting. But there was no possibility of people sitting. There was no space to insert one’s legs too. I took my hand down slowly to feel what is hanging from me. I touched “hair”. What an awkward! I immediately pulled my hand up. The bus reached a U-turn and there was a grip on my leg. ‘Someone was surely pulling my stockings down,’ I thought. I could not withstand. I pushed the man beside me a little afar, projected my buttock back and bent down to see the hairy daylight beast. What a shock. It was a small girl standing suffocated, supporting on my leg.

I did not know where she was heading and what job she had. She was carrying a bag at her back and a lunch box (perhaps) in her right hand. In her left hand was Nu.10, probably to contribute for the bus conductor’s welfare. I asked her if she was accompanied by her parents. She said “No”. I thought her parents must be so brave. I would not dare to let children of such tender age travel alone. She was too young to catch a bus and travel for herself.

I pushed away the fellow passenger harder and created way for her to the window side. I asked the Jigme Namgyel school student who was comfortably sitting on the chair with his legs widespread to donate some of his comfort to the little girl. She got to stand in the space between the two chairs, a much safer place in the Chinese Bus.         

Who could be more humble than him?

Let us take a look at the world around us. Who does not want to take a ride in a luxurious car? Who does not want to live in a peaceful bungalow? If provided, who will deny of employing servants and security officials? But there is a man who is denying all these today. He is the new ‘Humble’ Prime Minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay.

 

I am in my late twenties. Several Prime Ministers ascended the throne, showed their face and ruled the country. Denying the services had never been talked of. Newspapers never got to carry this weighty beat. I never heard them rejecting their so-called Thoblam. For now I doubt if they were, at all, entitled to such thoblams or they simply had no courage to utter “No”.

Whatever may be, I am taken aback by his grand gesture. It is a truth, yet hardly spoken, that we spend a lot for state protocol (which otherwise could be reduced). We never realize that the hard-earned money belonging to the poor people, buried in the shades of mountains, is used in an hour’s festive event of the state officials. We never realize how much help could that money be if given to the pauper of the far flung villages who are deprived of square meals?

We talk everyday the sufferings of people, their atrocities and the help the government of the day needs to render but the talks seldom materialize into action. In several cases, words are born never to be succeeded by their heir, actions.  But I find the Prime Minister as the man of action. I find him as a man consciously concerned for his people. Knowing that Bhutanese, especially down-trodden people, cannot rise up to touch the ceiling, he chose to come down to pick them up by his hands. This is our Leader. Leaders of the soil will not feel embarrassed to stoop and touch the same.

I salute him for his simplicity. During his campaign, I was moved when he sat on a grubby chair while the decorated one remained empty at his side. And after the elections, he chose to deny state protocol and other luxury which he is entitled to. I see in him a great leader.

Because he has chosen to come down, even a common man like me can now imagine talking to his own PM and shaking hands. No more typical protocols to follow! No more fence of 36 police personnel! I will no more think that my PM is unreachable. May you lead us by example always.

Aum Dorji Choden from Trashigang has done Bhutan proud as a first woman engineer and this time as a first woman minister in the entire history of Bhutan. The next in line we look at her is as a first ever woman Lyonchhen. Tashi Delek La. You have lit many hearts and shown the way for many in doubts. Wish you every success.

Image: KCD Productions

If I do not scratch from earth, I have no possibility of acquiring from Sky.

Nothing is sadder in life than being in a helpless situation. When the world around you moves, you have to stand still like one of the broken legs of a centipede, functionless, useless and lifeless. Yet in the case of this creature, the broken leg is being pulled, pushed and nurtured by other legs and its body. In the case of us, human beings, we have no much of such altruistic spirits: to help others and push them ahead even before us. What we have at our throat is the stiff competition. The thought that I must win or I must be richer than others reigns the centre of our life. Exposed to the industrial smokes of the region, our heart is getting blackened with the passage of time.

 

In such a world, the survival of someone who is just seeking to begin his life is questionable not only because he has no wealth to start off but also because he has no helping hands around. With nothing probable, the ultimate source beginners look at is what they receive at the end of the month, salary. Now, how much is that salary? Hardly adequate, given the existing situation! It hardly makes to the last date, 30 or 31 of the month. Every month, whatever the astrologers predict to be auspicious, becomes a month of struggle, difficulties and sufferings. Every day we find ourselves trying hard to survive instead of living. I fear we are forgetting to live. We never wake up in the morning feeling we have enough for the day. Such is the hardships or pains born in the hearts of every people.

 

I live in such a realm with thousands of question. I am not excited of making wealth but I am worried about sustaining lives that of mine and my family. The little amount that I earn is hardly enough. Nothing is sadder in life than being in a pathetic situation. When worst situations surrounds, I always try to explore other means that are cheaper and affordable. Making of this, my Pen Tray out of a paper box (cover of my water boiler) is one such exploration of mine. I am using this in my office. If I do not scratch from earth, I have no possibility of acquiring from the sky.

 

Lives of Bhutanese people have to be improved. Happiness is not only about the moon-like shape of our mouth; it is also about the dancing heart. Now with the new ‘promising’ government elected, I am looking forward to a better life.

CONGRATULATIONS

 

Life like a Dream…

Songs have always kept me alive. Whenever emotions strike me, I turn to songs for advice and courage. The beautifully composed words of songs, I find, are very powerful to console my heart. Listening to it brings motivation in me saying “forget your unfathomable pain of the past and start living the present life”.

Yesterday, I was browsing my wife’s laptop and I happened to click on a VLC media player saved on the desktop. It started to run and later I discovered that it was a song “Milam-tsam-gi-mitshey-na” by Jigme Ngedup and Pem Dechen (If I am not mistaken), two of my best singers. The words of the song are, I must say, beautifully crafted. I felt touched and could not control my emotions. I realized that our life is indeed short like a dream as sung in the song.

When I was listening, my wife came in. I told her, “The song you have kept on the desktop is beautiful and soul-touching”. She told me, “This was the very song that helped me pull through my difficult times”.

For the beauty of the song, I (try to) translate (with the fear of misinterpreting and losing originality). Give a read anyhow and help me translate better.   

Milam-tsam-gi-mitshey-na

Boy:    In a dream-like life of mine

The desire of my mind haunts me time and again,

Am I not seeing a magical dream?

Or am I not getting connected with the past?

My mind doesn’t know anything about it

My Dear Sweetheart!

Girl:    Whatever I have done

I have done in ignorance,

Now I regret;

Forgive me, my hearty friend

The so called Norbu Gedoeth Pungjom—

I did not know it was a relic,

Today it befriends me in my sad days,

            Today it befriends me when I am broken,

How sad is my life!

Boy:    The picture that is drawn in my heart

Is the drawing of your charming face!

It will never be vanished,

Be there forever

And never be shattered.

Boy:    The heart that is inside my body

Is ageless, and it’s for you,

The love is the nature of my mind

And it cannot be forgotten forever (so long as the mind exist)

My life is meant for you,

My Sweetheart!

Do not be sad, please!

And do not ever regret

You will have a day to be happy and joyous,

I love you from the bottom of my heart

Dedicated to My Dear Wife

Compassion is No Fire to Melt Metal Fences?

Metal Fence

When everyone in the civil service slept extra hours on Saturday and Sunday, I woke up early morning to head for the office. I was to join a team of well-versed interviewers to interview about 150 candidates (shortlisted from among more than 350 applicants) vying for the post of Personal Assistants. I was the junior-most officer who lacked experience and knowledge to conduct interview but I had no way to escape. Before I could even prepare for it, I found myself interviewing applicants.

We started calling in applicants and asking questions. Each time the door opened, new faces appeared in but our questions did not seem to be new for all. We repeated the questions (like Baza Guru), except on certain occasions, so as to judge the applicants on the same standardized grounds. The candidates who were appearing interview for the first time crawled in like a cat soaked in water while those who had attempted several interviews in the past walked in boldly.

Graduates had come to snatch away class XII jobs. They are willing to stoop down and take the post of a PA to gain experience which they said is demanded everywhere. On the other hand some class XII graduates had waited for years to be employed. Some graduated as early as 2002 and had been hunting for a job which they said is rarer than daylight stars. A few of my classmates, who had been repeating class XII two-three times, had also turned up for the interview. I knew the race of life is not same for all. And the majority among the interviewees was those pushed to extremes by the society.

One among them was a moderately built woman. She is the inspiration behind this post. Like other applicants, she had come to sit for the interview. But the unique part in her was that she did not speak much. She rather let her tears speak for us. We tried hard to read the words laden in her tears but we failed until she said her husband left her and her two-year-old son for a better wife.

I was shaken by her problem. I wish to hear everything in the world but not the stories of fallen love. When she sobbed, I knew a thorn had pierced into her heart that gave her so much of pain. She must have had a million-hour story to narrate but the time we offered her to speak was just a couple of minutes. Within that speculated time, she managed to tell us that they married happily some years ago after which her husband forced her to discontinue studies saying he would take care of her. However, their joy of marriage ended soon when he packed and left the room. She was not prepared for the end but it came for her.

Since then, knowing that she has to fight forward with her remaining life, she sat for Continuous Education (CE) exams while struggling to care her son. And she had come for the interview expecting a job that would give her a decent salary to raise her son.   

I wish I could provide her a job so that she rises in the society. But bound by the rules, I had no authority to spill-over my compassion. Someone has made it clear that compassion is no fire to melt metal fences. 

Why Should You Wait to See others Die?

With an acute desire to see his arch enemy dead, he bought newspapers every day by spending a little amount he earned from his work. It was into each paper that he looked for his enemy’s obituary. He wanted him to be dead no sooner than before. He wanted his name to appear in the newspaper’s obituary column.

However, his foe did not die even after several months of waiting and longing. If he had not been summoned by the Lord of Death, how could he? Rather than his enemy, the obituary column happened to be for the many other unlucky and poor. He would grumble in utter anger when papers did not carry his foe’s name. He would swing it away behind the door recklessly.   

Months flew and years drove. He grew old and his nerves to work weakened. This led to the reduction of his salary and the reduction affected his ability to buy newspapers. But he was determined to see his enemy’s obituary even in his deathbed. That was his wish. He would even forego his food for newspapers.

With so many years of accumulation, his house was full of papers piled in huge bundles. Some he used as pillows and others as mattress. Inside the house he had built his own bedroom with the papers piled up around his bed as walls.

And one night, as he was sleeping in his bed room, the bundled papers fell down and hit his head killing him on the spot. Whose obituary now? The enemy he wanted to die did not die. And the friend (newspapers) he trusted with all heart killed him.

Why should you wait to see others' death when the same is yours too? 

No Artists can Re-Draw her Destiny...

Image from www.google.com

“Apa, why are you staying here in a small yet dark room? Why don’t you come home where we have a big lighted hall? Do you hate me? Or do you hate my mommy?”

This was what a probably four-year-old girl spoke to her father over a small square window in the Center Box (City Detention Center). The father, who was in a thin white shirt, hearing his daughter speak broke into incessant sob. He had no reply for his daughter but tears. He turned back to stop but I knew he found it difficult. His wife who was holding a few months old child was also soaked in tears.

I had gone there to see one of my friends who had been among those unlucky to be under the darkness. More than discussing my friend’s problem, I was engrossed into the conversation that took place between the husband and wife. What a bad guy!

“Our Jinda (house owner) is asking us to leave the house,” the women in her broken sentence told her husband. With no source of earning, as her husband was behind the bars, probably she has not paid last month’s house rent. From their discussion I came to know that the husband was detained for a few months and the wife had not been able to meet her daily expenses.

“Did you sell the kira you wove?” asked the man holding his breath.

“Yes” replied the woman saying she used the money for buying their baby’s cloths, paying bills and filling up gas. The husband stood lost. He became wordless. Perhaps he must have thought what he should do on earth when problems queue in life! Perhaps a search for ways to get out!

“I have reached everywhere and explored every way that I could walk,” said the man adding yet he did not find a single ray of hope. Although his body was detained, he said, his mind was not. His mind lived with his family and friends. He told his wife that there was nothing he could do from behind the bars than to regret that he gave his family a lot of trouble.

The woman broke down in sorrows. She must have just hated to know that no artists can re-draw her destiny. What she got was what she got. The clock struck 6pm and police chased the visitors out. Pushing in a little rice (wrapped in a plastic), through the window, she walked away. The small girl screamed in want of her father. But the law could not be melted by the juvenile love. It had to be grounded using stones. The police pushed her out and shut the door. I wondered what the father, inside the building, must have thought. 

Would he have ever regretted for his rueful choice?

Even in Dreams…

Sample image from google.com

It was an early morning. I was sitting sad by the side of a river. The river was too big and vast. I was all alone, trying to get to the other side of the valley. But the river being too big, I was not able to cross it. Finding no way, I was sitting sad, on a white stone, by its side.

I am narrating my last night’s dream.

Instantly, to my surprise, a horse came near me. And it was Sermo. Sermo was my dedicated horse who suffered equally for my education and died in the year 2011. She bored 4 colts and 3 fillies during her entire life. Every year when I get back home for winter vacation from school, she would have given birth. And when I go to school, the next season, I would sell her beloved child (referred affectionately) and with that money, I would travel to school.

During summer she would have carried several loads of load for many people and earned a little amount which I would, in turn, use them to buy my school uniform and shoes. As a child, enthusiastic to go to school, I would remain in great gratitude for her help. I would often say to my mother that I could go to school only because of Sermo. My mother would take good care of her. She was my breathing asset. I would share my food with her and she would eat everything I give.

Her last child I sold was when I went to India for my higher studies. It was her last child too. When in India, I would ask my mother about Sermo. Getting to hear about her would bring great joy in me. If it was not for her, I would have been left in the village, uneducated. This is because I come from a very poor family with poor financial background. There was much joy I derived from an innocent animal who was supposed to have sent to the world to help me.  

However, my happiness did not last long. Sermo fell ill. When I was half way through my third year, she was seriously ill. She rejected grass, water and food. And when I graduated, she died. It was as if to say that her work was complete and mission achieved when I graduated. Sorrows strike me as I lost someone close to me. She was not an animal for me but a benevolent human being. She was closer to me like any family member.

When I reached home, after my graduation, I could see nothing but the remains of her body in the forest above my village. I could do nothing than to shed tears and mumble a few words of prayers that I learnt using her money. I prayed for her swift return as a human being and meet me so that I can return her the knowledge I acquired using her money. I offered butter lamps for her soul and collected a piece of bone to load into a river, to take it to the far away ocean, as a gesture to reunite with the universe. It was such a sad day that I felt empty without her.

  

Ever since then, I have never dreamt of her. But in my last night’s dream, she had come to my rescue again. As I waited at the river side, unable to cross it, she came to help me. I sat astride on her and she reached me to the other side of the river. She sank deep but I was never wet by the water.

She is there, even in my dream, to help me out. I got up immediately and thanked her again this time with prayers: “If you are still around in the Samsara, may you be freed and relieved from it immediately.”  

Result Based Management (RBM)

Putting Project on Paper

I attended a five-day workshop on Result Based Management (RBM) last week. It was a good starter for a beginner like me. The RBM is a comprehensive management approach introduced by the UN institutions and adopted by several bi-lateral organizations. It is a results-oriented/based approach. This aims at improving management effectiveness and accountability by defining realistic and expected results. It also involves monitoring progress towards the achievement of expected results and integrating lessons learned into making decisions and reporting on performance.

The RBM particularly focuses on reporting and corrective action established by assessing Actual Results and Planned Results. For a civil servant working in Planning and Policy Division and for Project Managers, the RBM is the right tool to be used. The RBM has a regular and institutionalized Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system that will gather information about achievement of results at any level in the Logical Framework Matrix (LFM). The LFM includes Input, Activity, Output, Outcome and Impact or Overall Objective of the project. The achievement of one goal leads to the achievement of the other. They are linked each other. That is why it is also known as the Results Chain.

Sample of a Project in LFM with Indicators and
Assumptions

In RBM, the planner has to look back from the Impact or the Overall Objective of the Project towards what should be done to achieve the goal. The result is thought first. To achieve that result/impact, necessary outcome, output and activities have to be initiated at the ground level.

Thus, the RBM provides a coherent framework for strategic planning and management based on learning and accountability in a decentralized environment. It appears first to be a management system and second, a performance reporting system. Our planners use this today. This is much more effective in terms of monitoring and evaluating a project.

It is also useful in our daily lives. The initiatives that we undertake in our life are nothing but small projects. If we know the steps the RBM follows, it will help us to organize our daily activities in a better way towards achieving realistic and planned results.  

The Radioman

“If you can broadcast, why can’t I listen?”

This is what I imagine the old man, with the radio, thinks. I have been meeting him for sometime now. Every evening, when I walk past the street to home, I meet him holding a radio in his left hand. And his right hand is inside his coat pocket. He wears a red hat. He does not look at anybody. He seems to walk slowly but aimlessly. Seldom he lifts his heads high and looks around to people and nature. He is calm, cool and innocent.

Around him are people rushing and yelling breathlessly as if their last day has come. You see vehicles honking and angry policemen whistling. You see beggars beating their drums and dogs barking. Your mobile phone rings and you shout to your friend on the other end. You eye a girl, painted like a statue, on the other side of the road and your toes hit the stone. You see drunken men going to the cloth shop and asking for beer. You see people carrying huge loads and others roaming the street like a king. The world is a busy one indeed. But the Radioman seems bother-less to all. He is in his own world.

Seeing him, I enter a crossroad in my life. I do not understand why some people rush while others do not. And for those rushing people, I do not understand what they rush for. If a man like the radioman can lead life without rushing, why can’t others? If a man like him can be happy without anything, why not us who have many things?

I turn once again to the radioman: look at him and find him satisfied with what he has. Simply put: he has no cravings. And as result he has no worries. This has given him happiness in rags. All that he has in life (as you may refer to as his greatest asset) is his radio. He must be wondering why people around him are rushing ruthlessly. I fear, he must be laughing at us too. 

This old man, who feeds on music as his food, has great many lessons to offer to the world. I am sure he has heard nothing about GNH, the mega philosophy that we have broadcast far. But in true spirit, I feel he demonstrates it. And this is what we need: doers and not hollow speakers. 

Expectations & Realities

Two of my villagers have always told me that they would come to see me in my office one day. They wanted to see how I work in the office. They are eager to watch me working with the professionals.

This is because they have lived with me since my childhood. They haven’t been lucky enough to be in school but they have grown old observing me as a child, adolescent and adult walking to school. During my childhood days, they have watched me walking barefoot. During my adolescence, they have pitied me chewing hardened maize dough with hot chili. They saw me working hard to solve the plus and minus homework given by my class teacher. They saw me walking sadly to school after my father passed away. They found me reading late into the night when all were sleeping. They saw me almost dropping school due to lack of financial support. They have seen me working for the rich to earn expenditure to go to school. They have seen me running up and down carrying loads (that paid a little amount of money) to buy my school shoes. They have seen me drinking porridge during the long days in summer. They have seen me sleeping on the cow skin under a rough blanket woven using nettle skin. They have heard me praying aloud. And they have waited what type of a person I would become.

I was never a strong person to fight ahead in life. My hopes were not high; my dreams not strong! I was just sailing the general motion of the river. Not many people, in the past friom my village, had travelled the road and I did not want to travel the untraveled road. I left it for the wind to carry me where ever it can. And the wind of fate has carried me to this far today.

Today when they hear that I am employed and working in a government office, they are surprised. They never expected me to reach this position. They are appalled. Now they want to see how I live and work with people. I have just completed my university degree but they feel that I am equivalent to Dashos. I tell them that I am nothing in the civil rank. I have just managed to acquire my seat but they think I have achieved great. And for people like us, it is indeed the great achievement.

They imagine me to be living in a big office with huge chairs. But the reality is that I live in a small office shared by other officers. And my office is just located behind the door. When you open the door, you do not see me. If you want to see me, you should close the door and look back. This is where the great people (as assumed by them) live and work happily. I am not disappointed because I do not have a good office. So long as I have the space to sit and work, for the people, I am least bothered of the luxurious office. I believe that I must work with what is available and never have more expectations. Expectations, if not met, brings dismay.

But my two village mates have already developed a high expectation for me. I know they would be disappointed after they see me behind the door. Still then, I have asked them to come to my office any time they wished.