Religiously biased!

I dropped my wife and our baby to a monastery for our monthly offering. All people including my wife were made to stand in a queue for hours in the sun. She was wearing a fatigued look for waiting in the hot sun holding our baby. Waiting for them in the car, my patience ran out. Why was I in the car? I wasn’t attired properly (acceptably) to make the visit. Next stop I lost all my patience, took my baby and wife back to where we came from after we handed over the offering with some cash to an elderly gentleman.

Later I was told that a VIP has arrived and is making some offerings. When a VIP visits some shrine, does that mean people will have to wait outside? The shrines are made for all Bhutanese alike and not just for a select few. Where is the religiousness when people are made to suffer and sweat in a long line holding babies?

Religious centres and places are for everybody alike and must be available. The Lakhang that I mentioned is frequented by visitors on a daily basis. Just because some acquaintance of some blah blah blah…comes, it doesn’t mean every other Bhutanese men and women must make way for the supposed high profile visitor. Come on people this is a place of worship and not some social gathering where a chair has to be called to be the chief guest.

I inquired, women are forbidden to enter the Goenkhang. I have a baby daughter and I am still told girls and women are forbidden to enter. This made me mock at our tradition also. Miscarriage of religious justice I believe, because I was told some of the VIPs were women and they were in.

We have a tradition of not allowing women into the inner sanctum of some religious places in our country and I was taken aback to hear the visitor already in. I inquired an elderly monk nearby about it and he told me, women can enter if one doesn’t care about the misfortune and ill luck that may befall later. His answer made me give a ‘how can that be’ look.

People, enlighten me on women entering the inner sanctum-Goenkhang, or I will give in to the thought that…in Bhutan we have the right to think and remain silent.

Have a good day!

Blood and beyond blood

Over the evening, on a mundane chore at home, I answered to someone on the phone. The news shocked me. It stirred a sense of insecurity in me and from today I am trying to be a better human being. I have done everything that is required of me as a being to my near and far ones.  Death and marriage brings people together although each one doesn’t stand in other’s eyes.

It is sad and depressing to have finally come to know that your own blood people have nothing but hatred for you and your success and happiness burns them inside-out. I have patiently listened to many a people for some relief in these times and the most that came out of their opinion was just live your life and do some savings. I am trying to come to terms with these advices. Just live on the present, don’t think about the past, and ruin your present.

I am not a crises guru or an expert relationship advisor but what I have found out to be is, relationship is directly and inversely proportional to the money you possess. No one asks about ‘what do you do for a living?’ anymore. All people are curious is about how much you make at the end of the day. The bottom line of a successful relationship is money. There is an exception though. If your relationship is blood, whatever I have opined may not be true. Wait a minute! This is grudgingly true for in my situation I belong to those heck of beings who has found a means to measure relationship with figures you have in your bank account.

I have undergone a similar ordeal just recently and the pain is perfectly excruciating. Let there be no relationships whatsoever, no attachments, no expectations and bonding etc… When one has known the consideration of oneself in other’s eyes, then you realize how important is that person in your life even if its blood or beyond blood. 

I have lived for many around me and I will continue to do so. I lead a simple and a happy life. I meet and cater to whatever expectations that my people have in me. And yet sometimes when I feel everything is going the way it should be, something out of the blue creeps in making me question the very foundation and fabric of relationships, biological of course.

I have made mistakes, undergone turmoil and have had head aching moments, wept and lamented over for not being able to make it. I also attended a funeral of a dear one and realized, in this brief called life, there is no time to indulge and think over all the past and react to it. That’s why I have made this conclusion (correct me if I am wrong), a mother’s  love also can be biased to her children. This is my ordeal of the mundane-cy in living for blood and beyond blood. 

If I were a monk

I don’t know how you readers and my fellow bloggers would react to this but this is a close guarded secret of mine. I want to declare this, as I could not keep it to myself after thinking it over for the last couple of days. This morning while in the morning assembly, a student talked about living the life of a hermit. To lead a Buddhist life, it is necessary that one must keep the intent clean.

Over the first session, when children were busy scribbling and working on some Dictionary activity, I thought of penning it down. I must say to you, this is no laughing matter and everything is factual and true. Not even my closest friend knows about this.

I was born in the tiny town of Chukha in 1984. As I grew up and when I was about 4 and half years, I was taken to my hometown of Dramitse, now in Monggar. I don’t know what made my mom take me to Dramitse but when I realized I was admitted in the Dramitse Monastery as a monk. Can you believe that- head shaven and robed-red!

I still have some faint memories of me living in the big Lakhang and always fearful of the Lopens. From then on I don’t remember anything of coming back to Chukha. It was much later that I came to know about what happened to me. I don’t know what my mother thought when I was made to join the monkhood but it was me from the very beginning that didn’t show interest in the life of the monk. I am told I would always complain about the robes and the life in the monastery. It was after much nagging that I was finally allowed to attend a formal school.

I was a monk for a month or two and then when I was brought back, the academic session had already begun. I was made to appear the first term (there were three terms in a year during those days) all by myself. I can only remember a teacher asking me the color of the sun and my answer to that was ‘red’. When the results came out I was the undisputed topper in my class. I topping my class was with me until middle school and in college; I went a little awry with academics.

Now at this point in my life, I am educated, salaried, and content with my life. Sometimes I get a little curious thinking where and how would I be if I had chosen to become a monk. And thinking of monkhood still sends a cold chill down my spine. I am now a father of a beautiful girl, husband to an understanding wife and I am happy with it. My life revolves and is directly dependent on these two humans.

Where would my happiness lie if I were a monk? This anxiety kills me even now…