A NORMAL MAN

Dedicated to Mr Pema Chogyel, Eng (H) 1st Year - 1998

Looking at his soft fingers
                  and kind eyes,
                  without sight.
I feel –
his vision is much clearer
                  than a man,
                  having eye-sight.

And his fingers have
                  much strength and power,
                  much to express.
His fingers can see,
                  can feel,
                  and can shape the future.

He knows pretty well
                  what his ears could express
                  and friends could tell,
                  his fingers would
                  start listening
                  without being dull.
He is a normal man,
                  much normal than a man
                  who is normal.

He can see no evil –
                  he can feel,
                  he can do no harm, or
                  he may not act in an unexpected way,
                  for he knows the punishment
                  much better than anybody,
                            anyway.
If it is really a punishment
                  he is passing through,
                  but they.
He has ascended from the past
                  which might have been abnormal.
He is a normal man,
                  much normal than a man
                  who is normal.

He sits next to Television,
                  which gives an artificial vision
                  of real happenings,
                  of past and present.
But I could see the future
                  in his eyes,
                  And in his fingers,
                  much clearer and brighter future,
                  full of realities and challenges,
                  full of vision and sight.

Wearing well ironed ‘GHO’
                  and shining,
                  polished shoes,
                  shampooed hair,
 and milky white ‘LAGEY’
                  Without a slightest feel of
                  that peculiar stink,
                  and a very normal blink.

He operates just normally
                  with all intact peripherals.
He is a normal man,
                  much normal
                  among we Abnormals....

(3rd Dec 1998 at 11:10am during exam duty)
GHO - Male dress in Bhutan
LAGEY - White cloth used on the cuffs

Published in Rig-Phel, 1999-2000, p 19