thedawaring's blog

Image courtesy: https://cdn.instructables.com It is a Sunday afternoon. A lazy Sunday afternoon, in fact. I am reading a book by Haruki Murakami. ' South of the Sun West of The Border' , is its title. He is a Japanese writer whose central theme of writing is  magical realism. Characters in his books are quite often confused like me. Or am I confused like the characters in his books. I am not sue.  As I read, I am also listening to Mozart Symphony number 40. A small cup decorated with Chinese characters sits on my table. There is a flask of hot water too. In a yellow plastic, I can see a strange root. I have never tasted it before. I recently got it from an acquaintance in China. I carefully take out two small pieces of roots from the yellow plastic, put in my cup and pour some hot water. The color of water changes to sky blue. As I lift the cup with both of my hands, and bring the cup nearer to my mouth, I can see a strange thing in my cup. There in the cup, I se...

Image Courtesy: Shutter-stock On a full moon night in early autumn, I sit on a hill overlooking a strange yet breathtakingly beautiful town. There are lights of different shades and hues decorating the town. A cool autumn air is blowing gently. I am the only live soul inhabiting this place at this point of time. It is almost 1 am in the morning. The full moon hangs low in the western sky like a freshly churned out ball of butter. There are fewer starts tonight. I hear a faint soft sound of somebody playing a bamboo flute. At first, the sound is merely recognizable. As I listen with rasp attention, the melody from the flute intensifies. It pierces the darkness and travels through the swishing trees at midnight. A feeling of ecstasy runs through my veins. For a moment, a feel goosebumps all over my body. Is an angel playing the flute at this point of night? Are the demons celebrating a feast? I ask myself. But I am not afraid or things like that. I just feel I am in a diffe...

Story of a Carpenter and his Karma. Image courtesy: http://quotesnsmiles.com In Himalayan Buddhist regions, people believe that there are many world forms. These worlds forms/universe are ruled by a specific Buddha at a specific time. The current Buddha is Buddha Shakya Muni. The future Buddha is believed to be Buddha Maitreya. This back ground is necessary to appreciate the following story. This story was told to me by my father when he visited me for a few days from village in Far East of Bhutan, Trashigang. Part I  In an earlier universe, during the time of Buddha Woe-sung, there lived a king who was a patron of Buddhism. When the Buddha Woe-sung died, the king collected many precious relics like fragments of bones and hairs etc. form the blessed remnants of the Buddha. The king kept the relics by the side of his bed, on a beautiful altar for many years, making offerings of scented water and aromatic herbs.  One fine day, the king thought it...

It's been over nine months that I did not write a blog piece. Logging into to blogger and writing these lines gives me a feeling of deja' vu. It feels like taking rebirth in the blogger's world. When we try to write after a gap of months, you notice that words don't flow easily from the creative parts of your heart. It is a sort of victory day today for me. Victory over procrastinating that I will write tomorrow.  In early spring of 2017, I was sitting outside a holiday resort in Paro, with my laptop open, my eyes scanning the picturesque Paro valley and surrounding mountains. It was the perfect place to write a poetic piece. The morning was afresh with thin mist of clouds hanging loosely in the opposite mountains, fresh pale green apple leaves growing on weather beaten, dry apple trees. First rays of the morning sun was kissing the otherwise dry paddy fields of Paro. Two huge old dogs from a nearby animal rescue shelter sat lazily near my table. Fresh va...