On 7th September 2014, I was very glad to have my old Sony tape-player come back to life after having been out of service for six years. Thanks to my friend who fixed it. It went dead in 2009 and since then I had been just waiting for somebody who could fix it for me.
If born to die in the world are we,
Why, then like a free eagle let us all be! –
Soaring above the hills and dales so high,
Let us the pinnacle of life reach without a sigh.
As every living soul fromn this world has to vanish after all,
Let us imbibe this life to the lees before we fall;
Let our hearts and livers with gusto bleed,
And bubble with pleasures without any sweep of greed.
First of all, I am grateful to Facebook for reminding my friends of my birthday today. I am so glad to receive birthday wishes from a number of friends on my Facebook wall. I had hardly felt so cared and loved by people around me. Unfortunately, I am not able to respond to all the well-wishers individually. So, I decided to write this post to thank all those who have remembered me on this special day of mine.
Dear father,
I have no idea what you are doing or where you are reborn. Nine long years have passed by since you left this world but I still often find myself missing you badly here on Earth. 11th September 2005 was the saddest day of my life. I had never thought that you would leave me so soon. You know we had a lot of dreams at hand yet to be materialized. The kind of world we had imagined to live in after I get a job was not too far from us, but what an untimely tragedy befell us. After having gone through several hardships together in life, it’s very sad that I had to let you go even before I was able to pay you back for everything you did for me as a father, protector and teacher.
A few days back, I and my wife were in the living room of our house chatting over a cup of tea when she spotted a sparrow hover around the flower plants on the veranda. She suddenly rushed out to drive off the bird but when the bird left, she saw a freshly plucked flower on the floor. She found the culprit. She had been wondering who was plucking the flowers from time to time. But there wasn’t anything we could do to prevent it in the future.
I know many people still wonder how do persons with visual impairment access computers and mobile phones because one has to see what appears on the screen. A couple of years ago, I was chatting with one of my friends on WindowLife Messenger and suddenly she asked me, “who is typing for you?” She did not believe me when I told her that I was typing myself. I know she was quite hesitant to chat with me because she thought there was somebody else beside me to read her messages to me and type my responses to her on my behalf. Well, it’s normal for anybody who has not been with a visually impaired person for sometime to wonder how computers can be accessed without sight. But for my colleagues in the office and some close friends, it’s no longer a mystery.
On the evening of 28th August 2014, I and my wife decided to host a simple dinner for my uncle who was in Thimphu on a short visit. He is my late father’s youngest brother and he lives in Samtse. All his three daughters are in Thimphu and he was staying with them. So, we invited them all for an informal get-together. But what was expected to be a joyous family gathering ended up as a moment of humiliation and harassment for us.
“If I have failed, my parents have warned me not to return home tonight, or I will be killed!” a 5th grade student in Thimphu had told her friends as they were walking to their school on the morning of 18th December to get their final academic results. Her friends tried to console her but it seemed she was already injured by the words of her parents that had hit her ears like lethal bullets. As they stood on the school ground waiting for their names to be called out, she looked more nervous and worried.
From the traditional practice of manual farming, life has become much easier for the farmers of today with the advent of modern technology and sophisticated tools. The Royal Government of Bhutan, through the Ministry of Agriculture has been providing various support services to farmers across communities in an attempt to make the country self-sufficient. Among so many services provided by the Government, the supply of herbicides to help farmers protect their crops from weeds somehow seems to be missing the intended target especially in Samtse Dzongkhag.
