The Year I Met You

The year I met you was the year;

Of stagnation of free flowing river,

Entrapped without an inch of escape.

There was no going back or moving on

I remain there, frozen with the time.

Waiting for the sun to melt the coldness

Of a snow queen dwelling in me.

The year I met you was the year;

I drown into the deeper well of thoughts

Without an inch of escape

The more I thought, the more was a pain

The more pain I felt, the more ignorant I became.

The deeper I went, the scarier world was

The scarier world grew the stronger I become.

The year I met you was the year;

Of enlightenment of the soul

The year of discovering myself

The year I learned to live with the pain

The year of great lessons and pleasant memories

The year like never before

It was the year I fell in love with you.

Wrong Turn!

“What was that, the trailer of wrong turn?” I asked myself.

The merciless slashing of the bodies, the skillful yet swift beheading of men, the floating bodies in angry bloody flood and I was in the isle, injured, at my best to survive.

Then I realized it wasn’t a trailer of Wrong Turn but replica of ‘Bajiroa Mastani’ I watched before I slept.

The gruesome nightmare woke me in the wee hour, the morning cold scolded me to sleep, the mattress begged me to stay, the blanket lured me to embrace it and a mind, a slave of my lazy body almost readily agreed to it when I heard Apa in stern tone “ Woo sho Tshering! hang ya zamin rang mangiwa dabu yebchona.”

“Apa please wai…dasu yephey.” I begged hugging blanket tightly.

“Woosho yegpa na. Wunthan Amchi ga toh tey chos pey rumcho.” Apa said again. I could hear the clinking of utensils from kitchen confirming she needs help in the kitchen.

Wrong turn! I don’t want to disappoint my parents again. I reluctantly but guiltily woke up, promising to be more responsible. Apa is currently doing M.Ed at Paro and Ama, Memey and siblings came from Gelephu Tsachu and we are houseful at Amchi’s place. And it was not the best act to sleep like a log when a fireplace oven demands the log to be fed.

One wrong turn and you are doomed.

Rough Start

Only the sound of shoes and heels reverberated despite the queue of people waiting for the visiting hours. Both anxieties and excitements shone in their face. It reads 5:56pm, four minutes to go. People rushed, I directly went to level 3 at ICU section. Uncle greeted me with a weak smile and directed to a place where he was kept. The security guard on the way said we can’t go inside. Uncle requested and begged saying I am patient’s sister, guard let us visit him and asked us to make our visit short. Am I the only one who feel whole hospital set up is so intense and depressing, can’t it be little livelier?

As we went nearer him, I saw him lying but inclining on the bed, living with the help of various technology and machines. He wasn’t he; not a chubby healthy smiling person I last saw him. His eyes fluttering, traces of tears at the corner of eyes, mouth slightly opened, he looked like he hadn’t eaten for months as flesh abandoned his bone. I felt my heart at mouth and I broke at that moment seeing a cousin just two years older battling for the life.

R.I.P Cousin

I couldn’t meet uncle’s eyes; eyes of a helpless father filled with a terror as he saw his son dying in front of him. Moist filled eyes that were looking for a miracle for his ailing son. When I asked him what his disease is, uncle said Doctors are yet to diagnose it, though ‘TB malignancy’ was suspected and he was being treated for that. Uncle recounted his every memorable childhood stories to the details of last few months of sickness. One day when uncle was back for a lunch, a cousin woke at that moment and confronted them saying that they didn’t care him well saying that somebody chopped off his hair in their presence. Another time, he asked them to fetch a person at door who he said has come to treat him though nobody was there actually.

At 8:00pm, an uncle whose daughter at 21 was admitted due to chronic kidney failure informed us that our patient’s health had further deteriorated. Fear gripped us as we looked at each other’s eyes and began praying for a miracle. A minute later, a relative informed that he is little better. We kept praying in a silence, a minute felt like a millennium and waiting seems tedious.

Precisely on 1st January, 2016 at 8:57pm, doctor said sorry to us and we lost him forever. He chooses a path, never to look back. The pain left him and he left us. He was too young to die but god felt he is too old to live. He was a 2^nd year B.Ed student at Samtse. He was at vacation, perhaps a vacation so long that he might never return to his institute.

The cremation took place at 11:26am on 4^th January, which lasted more than 5hours and when finally his ashes were sprinkled on the river, he went to the place beyond our reach yet to everyone’s destination.

What is new about this ‘New Year 2016’ is that old faces are vanishing from my life. I think 2016 is the year to lose the people around me; some to death and some to situation. Both can brings tears in eyes and haunt me enough. I am looking for the reason; the reason to live knowing we are to die ultimately and sometimes abruptly. The reason to live without feeling; when we can feel, we can feel the pain and when the pain feels us, we are hurt bringing unbearable sufferings in life.

Death is an old phenomenon yet every time it strikes us, the pain we feel is new and fresh.