Western Eyes With Eastern Scriptures

Eyelid twitching refers to an involuntary eyelid movement which may happen all of a sudden without any stimulation. For some, it lasts for hardly a few moments and eventually stops. But for some, this irritating and annoying involuntary twitching lasts for days, weeks and months at its worst. Following is what most of the westerners thinks about it:

"The world is full of individuals having some or the other form of muscle twitch in their body.  Involuntary twitches can range from petty and slightly annoying habits to more consistent and highly irritating behavior, which appears extremely erratic and the victim is simply helpless. In most cases, the twitching habit lasts for a short time and eventually fades away, while in some cases it remains for years together as a harmless muscular movement or a highly annoying form of body movement. Involuntary eyelid twitching is one such example. Involuntary eye twitching or eyelid twitching is also known and referred to by many as benign essential blepharospasm, hemifacial spasm or simply blinking disorder. There are different types and forms of this annoying phenomena ranging from mild habitual forms to seriously abnormal forms"

 Like wise, we the Bhutanese (or Buddhist in General) also have our own belief system for this. According to our system, we believe that twitching in different location, especially around our eyes, mean different things. Its as good as  foretelling something in advance! For example, twitching of an upper right eyelid signifies that, a person will soon be blessed with wealth, where as the twitching of a lower right eyelid signifies the impending misfortunes. Similarly, twitching of the upper left eyelid signifies that a person will fall sick, risk being dead and not fulfilling the expectations and endeavors. Twitching left lower eyelid on the other hand signifies that a person will succeed in all his endeavors. 

Personally, I did not believe in this system. Its long outdated orthodox. Logically speaking how can an eyelid twitching bring wealth, death, peace, success, sickness, failure and fulfillment? I simply did not find any correlation there. That's why I have always allowed my liberalness to play a part here.

But last year was a different story all together. I had the longest eyelid twitching of my life. It actually started way towards the end of 2010 and lasted till July 2011. And certainly many things did happen that year in my life. I had the longest eyelid twitching around my lower right eye and upper left eye. Both weren't a good sign. As if the divinity wanted to prove the belief system to me, many unpleasant things ensued in my life:

1. In the January 2011, our family lost almost 25% our yaks in a fire outbreak.
2. I had had the worst possible car accident of my life. (Damaged 3 cars)
3. Lost the gadget that I valued most in my life, -my Camera
4. Lost my most expensive shade, My Rayban sunglasses
5. My father nearly died of a stroke. Many a time, I had to travel between Bumthang and Paro, all alone day and night.
6. Like me, my father-in-law had his share of worst car accident. He broke is leg and nearly killed my grandmother and three other people.
7. I got my  first ever scholarship application rejected by a Japanese University.
8. Got selected for Indian Government Scholarship with flying results! Which many consider as a bad luck because I cannot go and clean toilets and earn dollars. Many still feel going to India for masters as being equivalent to going to a slum.
9. I got Officially warned for writing a letter to my MP on a issue that I did not agree.
10. Became miserably sick in India, from a viral fever.

These things had a profound impact in my life. There are surely things in this universe which cannot be explained in the light of real world phenomenon. Eyelid twitching is perhaps one such mystery that cannot be easily ignored. 

Now that I am having another round of eyelid twitching, I am little anxious. But this time its the upper eyelid of my right eye. It had has been twitching for about a week. To my happiness, it signifies that I will have lot to eat and will be able to accumulate lot of wealth too! And true to the prediction, these days I am relishing a lot on puff in a near by shop. It really taste great. My Indian friends have difficulty finishing just one but there I am easily swallowing two puffs in one go.  As for wealth, I am planning to buy an ipad..but wondering where the money is going to come from....LOL......

Have a nice day folks............................

The Day I Took my Family to Sunday Market.

Yesterday was sunday (29/05/2011) and fittingly it appared to be a very beautiful day for people who need rest.. The bright sunny day with light occassional drizzle in between to cool off the heat, it was a perfect outing day for a family too. so I decided to take my family (including my father, who is recovering from his sickness and mother who is looking after him) to non other than to Thimphu vegetable market, also known as Sunday market. Of the two market (one that sold vegetables and other that sold handicrafts and garments) we decided to go to the latter first 

All my family shopped crazily like they have never been in the market before. As for me, with my little daughter clinging on to me like an infant monkey. there was little I could other than to watch them buy different stuffs.

My mother had her own shopping list. -Starting from sickle to dry fruits and kira to tego. She also bought many  items which were in fact not included in her list. She bought trousers for the kids of my sister who is currently looking after our ancestral house in Shingkhar. she also bought a bundle of broom!

Like my mother, my father had his own idea of shopping too. He said he wanted to buy a pair of drum (nga) only to be surprised by the enormity of the price tag (Nu 3500 per piece). Apart form that, he insisted that he wanted to buy a  plastic sheet, large enough to pitch a tent for his remaining yak calves (out of 19 yak calves he had, 15 were killed in a fire disaster in the month of January 2011)

Like their grandfather and grandmother, two of my elder daughters had their idea shopping as well. My elder daughter dyingly  wanted to buy a gown (she calls it Cinderella gown) when her younger sister actually wanted to buy a multi colored balloon with a rubber handle. When their demand was turned down by their mom, I saw them shedding tears of anger under the shade of gown and balloon respectively.

After spending nearly an hour there, we finally decided to heed back. As we slowly approached the traditional bridge that separated the two markets. There were tow beggars who said payers aloud (Jimba Tobgay) at the entrance. There were also few others who demanded public sympathy by begging. few looked healthy while most who begged were old and wretched ones. Few were dumb and few even blinds! we gave what ever little money we had to all of them and came back to the parking lot came back home.

13th March is my Birthday

On the joyous occassion of my Birthday!

We are from a very remote place and therefore, my family didn't have the luxury of marking my birthday on the calender in 1980. I was infact born on a date and time unrecorded. My mom, (now in her 70s) has a vague recollection of moments as to how I was born.

I called her today and she told me that she (still) cannot remember my birthday in gregorian calender. She, however told me that  I was born healthy and strong with black hair and black eyes on 13th day of the first month in Bhutanese calender.  She also told me that I was born not in hospital and that my father, (now in his late 70s) was my nurse.

So here is how I got my Birthday. 13th day in Bhutanese calender is equated to 13th of March, which usually coincides with the first month in Bhutanese calender. Since I was born in 1980, I became a person, ultimately born on 13th March 1980 in the Monkey year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

My Version of Gross National Happiness; A try at it

Let me remind all (whoever read this) that  I am not here to reiterate what our Prime Minister (then Home Minister in 2004) talked during my graduate orientation days, -of the four pillars and posts of GNH. I am certainly not here to also reiterate how I have answered questions on GNH during my civil service examinations back then. Therefore I am certainly not here to say whether GNH is a holistic development philosophy or an ideology in itself.

All I know is that, during his coronation in 1972, our beloved Fourth King spoke about the importance of Gross National Happiness as against Gross Domestic Product . If we remove "Gross" then all he spoke was about "National Happiness".  The happiness, -the ultimate human endeavor was his priority. His Majesty didn't care whether we have all the means to achieve it but he vehemently believed Happiness is possible even without positive balance of payments, without huge mineral deposits and virtually with no development infrastructures altogether. He reminded the, Nation that "Unity" and solidarity among our people would take a long way in achieving everything we plan. 

As much as GNH has garnered appreciation and acclamation, It has received equal criticisms too. And as much as there are people admiring it, there are that many  people making mockery out of it. Today there are leaders who are eager to advocate GNH while there are also critics who are skeptical and cynical  about its outcome. 

With so many humdrum of GNH in the air, I believe that this topic even has a profound  impact on my family too. For this matter, my family to me is like a nation where my wife, my 3 daughters and my granny are the subjects. I am the government in myself and so I make policies  and take decisions that  have lasting impact on my family, -the nation. In other words, my family is in itself a micro nation with its ultimate goal as 'happiness'

With what ever limited income I earn, I make sure that they are all well fed three times a day. Breakfast with bread and jam for my daughters and rice with suja and ezay for my wife and granny. There are times when they wanted to go out for lunch and dinner but I convince them that food we cook ourselves and eat at home home are actually tastier than those we get in the market. I also make sure that budget appropriated for a said period lasts enough till  the next appropriation period. 

Mine is but a very frugal family and I bother least about latest fashions and latest arrivals in the departmental stores. Wanting things in the name of fashion and wealth are something that is not included in my procurement manual. Having said that it doesn't mean that I don't buy for my family and wear myself. I do but enough to keep us all  warm and  tidy.  Perhaps that why my family doesn't need a shoe rag and a additional wardrobes.

Occasionally when there are guests coming to my place, I welcome them with utmost Bhutanese hospitality. I offer them a decent food that will satisfy their hunger. I also offer them local alcohol to mark our tradition and  in return if they offer doma, I wouldn't deny even though it messes my dust bin and sometimes my entire room with the spit. I may not have AC rooms with sophisticated restrooms but I offer them enough blankets and mattress keep them warm. 

During cold wintry days, I make sure that bukhari burns enough wood to keep us warm and that the limited wood stock lasts for the entire cold season. I am doing it more in the interest of my cost cutting rather than my concern over natural environment but I presume it has a double impact. In similar manner I only use enough and perhaps limited detergents to wash messy garments of my 3 growing kids to (again) reduce my cost, not out of my love and compassion for aquatic lives but  again .

Back in my office, I do what I am best at,-impose tax, detain goods, impose fines, confiscate goods and make people unhappy (most of the time) and do some blogging in between. Its a place where I meet old friends and make new foes. Its also a place  where I get called for favor or facilitation. Finally its a place from where I go back home, -happy, sad, frustrated, pissed off, satisfied, rewarded, disgraced, elated and contended.

Until it is next morning, GNH for me is all about about preparing dinner for my family, bathing my kids and doing loads of laundry and offering butter lamp in my Choesham.  Its about planning what to cook for my daughter's  pack lunch the next morning. Later, Its also about taking my kids to sleep with my stories -stories that would rather frighten them and keep them awake till midnight. When my TV addicted granny resigns a day to her bed, I too go to my bed with a voluminous book titled 'Gross National Happiness and Development' published by Center for Bhutan Studies, because even in my half sleep, I feel its worthy of learning what gross national happiness is as a Bhutanese man, So that in my dream, I can compare Gross National Happiness to Gross Family Happiness I know of.




Notes:
Suja means traditional Bhutanese/Tibetan tea prepared out of butter and local tealeaves. It tastes more like soup
Ezay means minced chilli mixed with onion and tomato. sometimes ingredients like ginger and peeper are also added to increase the flavor
Doma is a bittlenut which Bhutanese people eat up along with lime and some kind of leaf (I dont know what that leaf is called in English). the spit looks very red and at times disgusting.
Bukhari is a metal oven in which wood is burnt to keep the room heated and warm
Choesham means a place of worship for Buddhist.

Loochoe Without Meat (2011)

Loochoe in other word is the annual  day  of offering.  People offer their new harvest to the local guardian deities. -the deities and god whom they believe have protected their crops from the wild vermin and other natural calamities. It is also a day to pay gratitude and tribute to those deities for having kept them healthy, wealthy  and productive for a year.  It officially ends the harvest season and  for many, its also time to reflect upon past success/mistakes and anticipate future progress. 

It is at this time, I take a week off form my office and move to my wife's place along with my family. I also invite my mom and dad to join us. I call it a vacation.  

My mother-in-law would have prepared everything back home including massive brewing of ara and my father-in-law would have shopped everything starting from salt to sugar in Thimphu.

This year, I had one responsibility less. -responsibility of bargaining and buying beef and pork. In the past years, enormous chunk of meat used to be served during our loochoe and I personally felt  that the idea was not right. It involved slaughtering of many animals before hand. At least 1 cow, 1 pig,  4-5 chickens, 7-8 fishes were sacrificed every year just to satisfy our gluttony. For me it was not at all a good offering by any means. I have even debated this topic with my wife with deep sense of regret. Apart from saying it as a "tradition of the valley", she had nothing more to say.


Finally this year, I have heard of people in different communities forming committees among themselves to do away with this weird tradition. In many places, people have decided not to serve any  meat products on sacred  occasions (like loochoe in particular). Thanks to the His Holiness the Je-Khenpo and central monastic body, who happened to the fountain source of this noble initiative.

Even though there were instances of monks refuting the idea, People everywhere seem to embrace the idea. Loochoe without meat means loochoe without sacrificing innocent animals and worthy of being called a Buddhist way of offering. 

No meat was served during our loochoe and I am happy because I found villagers happy being served mushroom curry  and emadatse along with aludam and dal.

I will have no regret going home next year for another loochoe and another vacation

Fire Disaster

My Father is more than Hero 

I have heard of fire out breaks. At first it was disturbing me. It took away my mental peace and marred my sound sleep for many days. It made me feel bad and sad because it not only took away  homes and belongings of our fellow country men but it also claimed lives of our beloved people at regular interval of time.

As the  year progressed, such news kept on coming and going. I thought that, the media in Bhutan are into competition in covering those fiery and quaky incidents. There were times that I took those news nothing more than a cock crowing at regular interval of time in a day.

But in the vie hours of 25th Jan 2011, I woke up to a thundering cock; - the incessant ring from my phone. It was my sister at the other end. She broke the news that broke my heart apart. without any hesitation she told me that there was a fire disaster back home and that every thing in the shed including the 14 precious calves  were burnt to death.

14 yak calves dead in the fire ? That was too much for me to believe. 

The moment later, I found my self speeding to Thimphu to console my mom and dad who at the time were actually on a break with my sister. 

No sooner did I enter the room, then I saw my inconsolable mom and dad grieving at  the lost. I saw their eyes swollen and redden by gushing tears. They even couldn't stand on their own feet. Teary eyes everywhere (in the room) made the atmosphere all the more  dismal and tragic. 

I took a brotherly stand and decided to reach  my mom and dad home so that they can at least see those surviving ones. From there,  It was a the longest and heaviest journey back home. My father never said a word and my mother cried all the way. We finally reached home at1030 pm to be only  greeted by a group of equally grieving siblings. My father could barely walk and had to assist him. That was the first time I saw tears in my father's eyes. 

The next day, I did my own  inspection and found out that there were skeletons of calves and burnt woods scattered everywhere. 4 surviving calves were very well treated by the veterinary doctors of Bumthang. The damages and losses were all recorded and reports were duly submitted to His Majesty's Secretariat's office in Bumthang. Not only that. I also saw the people in village prompt enough in showing their solidarity. They all turned up and consoled my parents. For ordinary people, it was a loss of only animals and not human, but for my parents it was far more than that. For them, it was like loosing 14 loved kids in fire at a time. 

Raising yaks and herding them was my family's ancestral tradition and my aging father has stood firm and strong against any idea of giving up that tradition. We herded yaks only for milk, butter and cheese and not for yaksha. His love for yak knew no bound and he proudly compared each individual yak to his ten children. Sometimes, when he doesn't feel good about his kids, he would say that his yaks are more sensible than his kids. such is the love and care my father  have towards his herd of yak. A small herd was our family' s identity and  pride. Today it can be fittingly called as the "backbone of my family's economy" for many reasons.

As a caring child, I have always envisioned a happy and peace full days for my parents. Even though they resented the idea, I remember luring my parents to sell off all the yaks, not out of my dislike for my family's tradition but herding yaks in the mountains took heavy tool on my parents health. I also remember my parents saying that their yaks are all like their kids, - like us. To them they were like priceless jewels. 

Today I pray for the eternal peace for my 14 siblings who lost their lives in the hellish fire.