Sporadic Whispers: Musings of a Part-Time Writer

 I always thought I was afraid of dying. It's obvious, death is inevitable and all of us have to face it sooner or later. I've always known it like everyone else. And still I have never been able to come to terms with it so to speak. I always thought that the reason behind was that I was simply afraid of dying like most people. The thought of death and what lies after it has kept me awake for countless hours since my high school days. The thought of death has haunted me on busy days and long weekends, on bus rides and long drives, in meeting halls and toilet stalls. But today at work, as I contemplated the idea of death and tried to understand why I have always been afraid of it, I realized that I was not afraid of the actual act of dying and what happens to my body and my soul after my death. I don't consider myself to be a religious person and I have never had a concrete opinion on wether life after death exists. At the same time I also never dismissed one or the other si...

A simple story revolving around the life of a simple yet relatable character. This is what I thought of the book titled 'Yangchen' by Tshering Wangchuk, the author of 'A thousand footprints' which is on my reading list and currently sitting on my bookshelf. This book takes us along the life of Yangchen, the protagonist as she goes through all that life has to offer to her. It all seems to be going well for her for most part of the story but towards the final quarter of the book, things start looking gloomy for our protagonist.  This is as far as I can talk about the story without revealing any plot lines. The following paragraphs may reveal a bit about the plot so I do recommend that you read the book first if you do not want to find out anything about the story. The book is written in a simple language which makes it an easy to read and an easy to understand story. The reader need not try and read between the lines to understand what is happening as the story goes alon...

Although I have read only a couple of Rimpochoe's books, I think it's safe for me to say that this book is different from the style of writing I have come to associate with Rimpochoe. But that is of course to be expected as it says "How to prepare for Death, Dying and Beyond" right on the book cover. We can make out that this is sort of an instructional/ guide book. It took me 9 weeks to complete first and foremost because it is about death, dying and beyond and how to prepare for all this.  I have always struggled with the thought of death, especially about what will happen to us after we die. It's not like I have not accepted the fact that we will all die eventually, it's just the thought of not knowing what will happen to us after we die that scares me the most. And with as many believes, if not more, as there are religions it gets all the more confusing and scary.  This was one of the main reasons I couldn't finish this book as quickly as I would have ...

This is more of an after thought on the book and the author than a proper book review. As the author puts it himself, 'Post-mortem' is a collection of essays on loving, loathing and limping so I am not going to go into detail about what one will find inside this gem of a book. First of all I must say that the book is aptly named. The author truly dissects events of his life as they unfold and presents them to the reader in this unique style of writing that, I am sure most will agree to, is mostly associated with Mr. Jurmi Chhowing in Bhutan or even the whole world as a matter of fact. I have read quite a number of books and have come to love and enjoy a few authors but in all honesty it’s mostly because of the stories they tell. I know there are a lot of wonderful authors to discover but so far there have only been two people who have wowed me with their style of writing: Haruki Murakami and Jurmi Chhowing. This of course is my personal opinion and I am yet to read and disco...

 It's a new day, a new year, a new blog and a new me...... ha! who am I kidding with this crap, right? It might take us all some time to get used to writing 2022 instead of 2021, but I am still the same old guy who wants to write, or so he thinks. I still have the same old excuses and the same old fears of failure and regret. But enough is enough! I tell myself. No more running away from my thoughts, no more hiding behind fat shield of excuses. Speaking of which, here is a list of around 30 plus excuses that I usually have at the tip of my tongue and fingers and that apply not only to writing but also for all the other things I have always wanted to do: Mulled over these back in August when I was in quarantine with plenty of time to think about plenty of excuses. Going through the list today I found out that most of them were silly, some repetitive, and most of them didn't have any strong standing to hold me off from whatever I wanted to do. But there are a few t...