Million mirrors

The leaves collect dew
As the sun rises shyly,
Million mirrors shine.

Bare tree

Bare tree dark and cold
Stands alone. Will the sparrow
Make a nest to stay?

Clover Event Management's logo for Changzey

A poster I made for my friend Changzey

Chungki

Chungki

Imagine young boys and girls kicking a bunch of rubber bands tied together and this is what you will get; the popular and cheap game of “Chungki”. According to popular belief and from what little research I have done, it was found that this game was invented/popularized by the taxi drivers of Kalimpong and Darjeeling to keep themselves warm in the chilly weather when they were waiting for passengers. It found its way into Bhutan through the Bhutanese students studying in those towns.

All it takes is a few ngultrums worth of rubber bands which have to be tied together by another rubbber after stringing it through the other rubber bands. It is then scrunched up and ready for play. Perfect round rubber bands were difficult to find and even if you did, it cost more than the other rubber bands. If you wanted your chungki to be funky, you could go for the colorful ones instead of the standard black color.

The basic rules were very simple. Keep juggling the chungki in the air with your legs (a difficult version of the game did not allow the juggling foot to touch the ground, otherwise it was standard to let the juggling foot touch the ground after every juggle of the chungki). If the chungki touched the ground, then your turn was over and the turn would pass on. The player with the highest juggle count won the game.

We used to have team games with 2 or more players forming teams and compete with others. A line would be drawn to divide the playing space between the teams. The usual rule was that any team could touch the chungki not more than the number of players on the team (3 players=3 touches) with an individual player not juggling the chungki more than twice and the chungki would have to cross the middle line into the other teams space with the 3rd touch. Since there would be no net involved, usually the chungki would cross over the line at knee length or above. The objective was to make the chungki difficult to juggle for the opposition and points would be scored against every failed attempt.

We would have a huge number of players waiting to play their turns so the games had to be fast and furious. In extreme and heated games, players would try to block the chungki from entering their space by deliberately blocking/kicking the chungki by crossing the line. This would amount to lots of injured legs due to the leather Bata shoes and also exchange of words.

We would draw up fixtures to conduct chungki tournaments with entry fees and prizes. There would always be problems with the matches and that is what made playing chungki fun. The rules were never set in stone so there could be lots of improvisations with the rules, sometimes leading to arguments and fights (happened to us a lot) with each team/player maintaining that their version of the rules were right.

Playing chungki got rid of our boredom during school hours and every nook and corner would have a lively chungki session going on. Our shoes wore out faster and the morning polish disappeared by the second period, but chungki helped a lot with your footwork if you were into playing football or basketball.

It was cheap, widely available, everyone played it, made you sweat and best of all, it was fun.

This is a part of a series of blogs I will be writing on some of the things/moments that my generation has grown up with during our childhood in the 90's and early 00's. 

Most of the information/research for these blogs all come from memory or hearsay so I am not responsible if you quote me.

Disco Pencil

   the famous "disco pencil"

I wonder with amazement at the person who came up with the name “Disco Pencil” because there would no name more apt than this for a brand of shiny pencils with changeable nibs. I can’t remember the make of these pencils but I am sure it was Chinese or Taiwanese in origin.

The pencils themselves would be made of very shiny plastic (almost glittery like a disco ball) and once a nib wore out, you could pull out the worn out one, stuff it down the other end of the pencil and the next nib in line would reveal a sharp new nib. Fancy huh? It also came with a cap to protect the projecting nib along with an eraser which would reflect the color of the pencil.

These were not your everyday pencils. I remember buying these disco pencils for about Nu. 10 a piece and in the 90s, that was a lot of money for a student. You could command respect and would be considered rich by your peers if you owned more than one disco pencil.

If you played the game of “pencil topa” (a separate blog on pencil topa coming soon), a disco pencil would be put on the line in extreme cases and to win/have one was a huge matter. One disco pencil could be traded for more than 5 Nataraj or Apsara pencils and the disco pencils never ran out of demand.

It was very popular with the girls because they came in myriad colors. Girls hoarded disco pencils for their colors and beauty. The most vivid and popular ones were yellow, blue, pink and purple. Boys would steal these pencils from the girls’ geometry boxes or bags to either use it to write or to lose it in pencil topa.

I wonder whether we can still buy disco pencils. Not that I need one, but it would be nice to have one just for nostalgic purposes.

This is a part of a series of blogs I will be writing on some of the things/moments that my generation has grown up with during our childhood in the 90's and early 00's. 

Most of the information/research for these blogs all come from memory or hearsay so I am not responsible if you quote me.

Dari Thromkhar

Dari Thromkhar

Dari thromkhar shay di jowda,

ngi migkhar bum chi tshuechi

choe thongbi kab lay,

nge zamling choe lu shorsi,

Jaa da tong gi bulay,

choe ra ra thom me mo,

saa ga tey jo rung,

choe ra ra lay bay mo,

bumo choe lu kuchey baygay,

khandrom choelu cha sum tshaygay,

choe ming chi lab di kadrin chang,

nge namkoe choe da thuebchi,

Jaa da tong gi bulay,

choe ra ra thom me mo,

saa ga tey jo rung,

choe ra ra lay bay mo,

therii bari iin, choe ra ra iin,

tente ra iin, due ata ra iin,

nge mitshe choe lu jindai,

Ngai Gencha Bay Nang May

Ngai Gencha Bay Nang May

Jagar pemi thang gi maja lay mi lay,

Choe maja dongdro bja mi bja,

Choesham thrami gu lu,

Bumpai ngai gencha bay nang may.

Lakha sharwai meto zey mi zey,

Meto pema thongsay ga mi ga.

Pangshong demi na lu,

Dumra ngai gencha bay nang may.

Selwai gangchu babsey sha ra ra,

Lamai drupchu jinlab chey mi chey,

Chumo ser gi nyamo,

Gyamtsho ngai gencha bay nang may

Khandrom choegi zheri lay mi lay,

Ya nam lu phusay bja mi bja,

Samug, lung dang karmai bulu,

Namkhar ngai thridung bay nang may.

Translation:

The peacock from the southern plains is beautiful,

You are the feather that adorns that bird.

On my altar of offering,

Let me be the vase that holds you close

The flower that blooms on the mountain is pretty,

The rhododendron brings a smile on my face,

In the untouched valleys,

My gardens await you to bloom with them

The crystal river follows a steady path downwards,

The water has been blessed by the divine,

Brilliant gold fish that lives in the water,

The ocean calls for you to be its jewel.

A fairy with beauty beyond comparison,

You are a sight to behold when you travel the sky,

Clouds, air and the stars,

In between these, I, the sky, want you to be my sun.

...for those who find it hard to express themselves

The Rich Corridors of YHSS

“What a waste of a class” mentioned my desk mate. I couldn’t have agreed more. But we now had a 10 minute recess. Do what you want to do, take a toilet break, grab a cup of tea at the cafeteria, catch up on assignments and homework; the 10 minute break was a god send.

“What are we doing during the short break?” enquired Tashi. “I have no idea” I told him. “We have history class after the break so I guess we should get going before we are late again”. He picked up his history textbook with a sigh and followed me in to the crowded corridors. The break was about to end and everyone was rushing back to their classes.

At the entrance of the academic block, some of the boys from my history class had started teasing the girls passing by. Eager to join them, I rushed as fast as possible with Tashi in hot pursuit. He wouldn’t miss it either.

Chimi was one of the weirdest boys in the class. He kept admiring his own body which I thought looked like a pencil wrapped in cellophane. Plus I was told by Tashi, who stood behind him during morning prayers, that Chimi’s well gelled hair had a stray flea setting up camp. Not the prettiest of pictures but that was how Chimi functioned.

Today he was leading the teasing. “I have a building” he said loudly to the girls passing by hoping to impress them with his imaginary wealth. I told myself that I can top Chimi so I started boasting to the girls. “I have 3 acres of apple orchard, 5 jersey cows, 2 power tillers, one bungalow, 2 solar powered lamps, 11 goats and I have good looks” I proclaimed. The girls passing by looked at me and giggled.

Chimi was flustered at someone stealing his thunder. He upped his game a little. “I have a Corona car, 10 yaks, 4 horses, 3 pigs, 17 hens and a hefty bank balance” he proclaimed.

I must admit that the 3 pigs was quite difficult to tackle and I had to find new possessions to impress with.

The argument kept going back and forth between me and Chimi while the girls passing by looked at us and smiled. Seeing the positive response, the other boys started getting in on the act. Soon all the millionaires and billionaires of YHSS had assembled in that corridor and started proclaming their supposed wealth.

Before the corridor got any more congested with us boys blocking the way, the bell rang and we had to get to our classes. I looked at Tashi and he was smiling. I smiled back. He knew we had discovered a good way to keep ourselves entertained.

Before we knew it, after every class or break, my class boys would be found in the corridors impressing the girls with their wide range of wealth. YHSS’ collective wealth grew by leaps and bounds during our stay. We were the richest school in Bhutan.

Kerela Diaries

“Beware of your luggage” said the Saroma Tour and Travels’ representative. I thought you had nothing to fear of your luggage had you packed it yourself. I know that he was telling me to be careful with my luggage but then the english that he spoke was too funny to be passed.

Rickety old bus with a conductor who rang a bell once to signal the driver to stop and twice to move did not bolster my enthusiasm any further for the auduous journey ahead. It was a garish bus with a yellow-red color combination and that it was one of those old buses that you see in bollywood movies. But the best thing that the bus had to offer was it’s resilience to bullets. This bus was bulletproof because there were no windows but tin sheets to save yourself from sun, wind and rain. Our bus driver was a man in his own league the way he was playing the curves and maneuvering the vehicles ahead of him. Although a tree that fell on the road did stop our driver for 10 minutes but later on he shook everyone up by hitting a scooter. The unsuspecting scooter driver might not have any idea as to what happened, but we knew what we were going to miss if we fell asleep. An action movie with car chases and hit and run scene was being played right in front of us and we would not have missed it for anything.