Learning English

English has always been one of the toughest subjects throughout my schooling days. It was even worse in the elementary classes, and it would totally leave me in a state of hopeless. Although Mathematics wasn't my thing either while in primary classes (surprisingly I am majoring in Mathematics now!), I thought it was quite straight forward. We could practice, memorize formulas, and apply it accordingly! It was more of a puzzle game; if you try doing it again and again, you become good at it. But English doesn't have that sort of direct formulas. Let me be clear here, heres my confession: I don't know seriously!
It was in one of the English classes in Tshebar Lower Secondary School, Pema Gatshel, Bhutan, where I happened to ask question to an English Teacher in quest of solving my doubts. The lesson of the day was on "Present Tense, Past Tense, and Simple Present Tense", and I was stuck more with the latest one-the simple present tense. I appreciated the fact that the teacher tried his best to explain to us, but I somehow couldn't get it the logic behind. My main problem aroused when I saw some verbs ending with "s" while some were not. I still remember the teacher repeatedly saying something like "...first person singular, first person plural, second person singular...third person plural..." That made me even more confused!
However, I couldn't dare raise my hand, and request him to explain it more clearly. The doubts just got piled up, and I lost all connections regarding verbs, noun, pronouns and et al. At that hapless moment, luckily he happened to walk by the aisle leading to the back row. I hesitantly interrupted him, and ask him the questions. "Sir, why that verb has "s" at the end, while some others are not?" Sir looked back to the Backboard, and clarified :"Oh, it is simple. When its a repeated thing, then you use "s" after verb. For example, you eat food every day, so it will be like that 'Pema eats food everyday.' Okay?" Wow, thats simple?! I thought. But I feel ashamed of myself for not able to understand even that simple thing. So I thanked him, and proceeded with the exercise. I thought, and thought until I came up with a very interesting sentence. My thought process was that since I go to school everyday, my sentence about that would make a perfect sense. So I wrote, "I goes to School everyday", and with full of excitement proceeded to the teacher's desk upfront. As expected, he said "Excellent! You understood now," and rewarded me with a huge tick (correct) mark!!! By the way, in those days it was our stereotype that number of correct marks that we had obtained over the year determines the smartness of the student. I felt so happy to see my statistic go up!
Believe it or not, that powerful explanation of my teacher lived with me till I graduate high School, and reach here to the university which I am currently in. It wasn't until I came here that I knew it (the sentence I wrote in my class) was an awfully wrong sentence. Being a non-native english speaker, I had to do three months of Intensive English Course prior to the start of main academic courses. I had a tough time conversing with fellows for they didn't seem to understand even a single sentence that I spoke with them. I felt so ashamed, and sorry about my english. Literally, I learnt the "real" english during that three month long intensive course.
Now the issue is that our country in those days lacked qualified teachers who could really teach English. They were not only Bhutanese, but also just class ten graduates with a few years of training. The quality of Education which our government really stresses on would not be achievable unless best, and qualified teachers are recruited. Even more so, since our schools are English medium schools-all subjects except Language taught in English, without sound English background, whole charm of learning is lost.

A Phone Call

I was seated in front of my computer with a cup of coffee after waking up a bit late that day. I turned the window blinds, and peeped outside. It looked so bright and hot as usual days in Florida. It was pretty good day I should say as I was feeling in a mood to study. So I was enthusiastic about completing the Civilization response paper which was then due the very next day. Emails checked, news read, and profiles visited. I was all set for starting my task of the day.
I was half way through reading the thick Western Literature book: "The Norton Anthology". Time to time I read the directions (questions) given for the response paper, and tried relating to the text that I was reading. At certain points, I felt so pumped up with the information, and sometimes so totally lost inbetween. When I could find nothing relevent and interesting points that would help build my arguments, I felt of cursing the professor. But I knew, that was not the right way to go by! Then, I would proceed reading further and get engrossed into unending texts.
At that moment, my old Motorola phone rang, rather obxiously. It was my brother from Sikkim, India, giving that repeated missed-calls. As always, I quickly called him back. He sounded very sad! "Is everything alright?" I enquired, concernedly. "Yes yes. Why? I'm just not feeling sleepy tonight, thats why I'm calling you..." came the reply. Sigh. I felt very relieved to hear that, yet I couldn't trust him fully for sometimes people back at home don't usually say the truth whenever bad things happened thinking that I will get worried.
Upon repeated enquiries, he said that he was just being sad about the fact that hes not been any help to our old parents. "I know, of course, you all are looking after our parents very well so far, and I have no doubt in future as well. But as I am also their son, I equally owe them the same help that you siblings are doing to them. The problem is, I am a monk, and I have nothing that will be of any help to them," he said, sounding genuine and helpless. I quickly interrupted him, and assured him that we siblings will do anything to our parents, and that it is equally same. "Ata, we are not expecting anything from you, you being a monk itself is a great pride for us," I tried assuring him.
As our conversation continued, we became more and more emotional, and I silently cried. But I was successful in keeping it low to avoid from his notice. He has been in the monastery since he was seven years old, and now in his twenty seventh year, I can certainly notice his success as a true practitioner of Dharma. He has succeeded in grasping the religious/Buddhist principles and ethics. Every word, and talk that came out his mouth brought more sense to me, and sounded embedded of real-life meanings. I felt so proud to have my brother said so many value talks to me when I needed the most-being far away from home. I agreed everything he had to say, and assured him that he shouldn't feel shy for not able to support our parents, as I will be taking care of everything within my capacity. But my assurance didn't seem to make him feel better. He kept getting into real life situations, and the problems that we humanbeings are sucked up into in this short life.
"I feel so sorry, and sad looking at you all because unlike me, you all couldn't get the golden (rare) opportunity to practice, and devote life to sacred religion. I am fortunate for I am able to do it. But I am helpless about that, and only thing that I can do is pray for everybodys well beings," my Ata continued. That made me so sad, but like he said there is nothing that could be done at this point. I have already headed for a life full of tensions, stress, worries so and so forth to say the least. At times, religions are forgotten, and just strive to fulfill the materialistic achievements. The life is indeed so doomed!
With this and that, we had been talking for about an hour. I should say that hour-long moment was one of the most emotionally engaged moments ever. It taught me lots of real life lessons, and put in me more senses. "Tshey Nga Ma Tsho Sag Jin Sag, dang Moelam Ja Chenpo Taap Nii Sha, Otha Mitshey ga Aiee Bak Tham Chey Rang Pham dang Buzhii ann Zoom Mi Ryoe Ba gella. Tshey Chi Ma Ga La Othen Da Bu Rum Mey ga Kalo gella. Moenlam Lekpo Ta pey Kheley" - Its all because of the generations and generations of prayers and luck that we are at the present life able to meet in a family as parents and sons. Its very uncertain for the next lives. We should pray for that! That was his ending phrase, which brought me more tears in my eyes. I was being so emotionally challenged, and feeling so helpless about life. In the mean time,I had to defer the response paper for next day as I couldn't continue doing!

A Mistaken Love!

It was on 8th of June, 2004, that I got imprisoned in the world of "Love". I found myself no better than a thief who had stolen ‘Her’ bread, and hidden in the dark and friendly corners of the night.
I was only a little boy studying in tenth standard oblivious to the craziness of Love. My heart went on roaming with no definite or perfect destination. In due course of time, I met glamorous Soelzom, a former school mate. I felt something very unusual after seeing her or I would rather say I got completely carried away by her beautiful and divine figure! “Why only now?” I pondered over as to why I had no feelings for her while our four years of stay in the previous school. And quickly I figured out an answer: “It is all about the ‘right’ time, which without doubt is today!” On that day in the summer sun, the nameless yearnings filled my soul. She was so congenial to me, and subsequently the handful of my heart went to her. I being an innocent boy having little idea that the body is like a bubble, and the mind like the wind having no origin or nature, had gathered all the strength that I needed, and revealed my love to her on the blissful Tuesday afternoon, the 8th of June through my trusted and childhood friend Wangmo.
It was my ever first experience to be entered into that world, and my friends were equally shocked to see me entering. Although majority of my friends were in disfavor of my latest development, Wangmo supposedly the trusted of all friends, showed no restrictions at all, and by then I had already fallen in love with Soelzom. But Soelzom took no initiative in reciprocating to my love note, and she only kept on giving me an angelic and captivating smile. The periodic winks of her just turned to a powerful device making me even crazier day after day. Thereupon, I came to know that the love is such a powerful thing which fills our heart, yet our hearts are incapable of making that power. Her absence would doom and darken all the beauties of life.
When everybody was busy studying for BCSE (Bhutan Certificate of Secondary Education) examinations, I was the only one begging for the love. In the classroom, I would always sit near the windows looking for her. To my helpless friends, I was one hell of a sick and a mad boy struggling for a girl who didn’t even bother to respond a note. Qualifying for college was entirely the least of my concerns, and what it mattered most to me was getting her in my life! Ten odd days passed with neither a word of acceptance nor rejection from her. Though the delayed response indirectly hinted a negative reply, I couldn't take it as granted. Only if I were not so foolish, I would have given it up that day itself, instead I chose to fight yet another losing battle as I sent the second note on the gloomy Friday afternoon, the 18th of June.
Every morning, I would wake up with a renewed hope, and head to the class expecting a note or at least a verbal reply. In fact, I would always look forward for the morning assembly as it provided me a safe refuge from where I could draw her eye contacts, and breathtaking smiles. But day and night, I waited eagerly expecting a reply from her like a poor Buffalo once waited for salt from a smarter Yak who, legend has it, had borrowed the thick fur of Buffalo and gone to Tibet with a promise to return soon, but never turned up. Even Wangmo didn't have anything good or bad to share about, other than comforting me to be patient as she was seen preparing for exams, and that she could not find time to reply. With such speculations, she left me alone like an empty bottle deserted by a drunkard. The only difference was she wasn't a drunkard, but an angel!
Although I was heavily wounded, my pretense of having a normal life without any problems kept my friends out of notice. I still believe that I may not have suffered that much had she told me the truth right away. Instead of telling me the truth, she kept everything muted, but continued showering me with her lovely smile every now and then. To a heartbroken person like me, there existed hardly any words having the required power to console my wounded heart. Out of desperations, numberless chits were sent to her which they only proved themselves no better than the mere wasted papers dumped into a garbage bin.
I couldn't predict or guess whether fortunate or unfortunate the day was when I finally got a piece of paper with a few words neatly scripted on it on the fateful day-the 6th of July. She had sent me a wishing card for the midterm exam as well. “Still then, I love you too,” reads a deep red wishing card bearing a picture of Roses. I couldn’t believe my eyes, as I slid it under my pillow without anybody else’s notice. “‘Still then,’ did she mean to write ‘till then’? Or did she really mean it at all?...? …or…?” debated with a train of thoughts. Although I cursed myself for being too judgmental of the word “Still”, I felt confirmed that she was only for me, as I was for her. I had a tough time concentrating on studies with my mind always flooded by her images. I never missed a chance to glance at her whenever and wherever opportunities came knocking in. How so miracle that I could even recognize her in the darkest of the nights among the hundreds of girls?!

The “ship” which was indeed on a voyage of my life sailing smoothly for a while, however, met with unforeseen strong waves that engulfed the “ship”, and left submerged! Just a week ahead of the trial run examinations, in the hostel room of Nangkor School where I had stationed for studying, there came the closest friend of mine Karma, a jolly and not very tall but a guy packed with humor comes in wearing a caring face. I knew he had got something new to say, and yeah in fact he had got more to say than I had ever anticipated: "Hi Chophel, did you know that Soelzom is a girlfriend of Rigdhen, not yours? They are so crazily in love with each other. I’m sorry, but you better give up the love!!!"

Note: The original story was written in the year 2005, and all names are changed to maintain the confidentiality of the people involved. I tried to maintain the originality with minimal corrections, so bear with the grammatical errors.
Picture credit to Google!
My original story title was "A Virulent Love", but my editor prefered the present one. Thanks editor!

Happy Birthday!

Today is all about being in a festive mood, and happy. Its on this day 23 years back that I first stepped onto this world! Not until very recently, however, that I took it as a bit serious affair and gave due recognition.
As an underprivileged boy, back in Bhutan, I didn't have resource to mark and celebrate the day. To my friends surprise, I had no idea about my birthday until high school let alone celebrating it. It was only when we were required to fill the forms for the issuance of examination entry card that I came to know about it!
Now being on the foreign soil, I can't help but remain amazed seeing how the "birthdays" are given that importance. Its more of a family affair, and the loved ones go on to surprising their counterparts with their presents and parties. Afte feeling the need, and appreciating the cause, I celebrated my first ever birthday (my 21st birthday), in 2008 joined by my international friends. It was both happy as well as shameful moment, though! Happy because it was my day, and obviously having the party. And shameful, or rather nervous, because I had not celebrated before, and didn't know what else to do. However, everything went very well, and we had a fun night!
So today as well, although without cake ceremoy, I and my roommates family and friends got together for a dinner just to feel the day. They made pork salad, and korean steak for me, and yeah it was very good indeed! Happy to get lots of wishes and messages from my beloved friends. Thanks a lot!! I am feeling 23 now! LOL