5 March 2010

Wai! Have you realised that sometimes it’s worth years of learning to go back to the past and reflect on it. In my wayward fancy, I’ve often tried to identify myself with many of the characters in our folk tales. I’ve tried to give them flesh and blood and put them in a social setting in the remote past.

I’ve imagined that, long, long ago, when little children in the west looked into the sky and sang Twinkle, twinkle, little star/How I wonder what you are, there lived someone called Meme Hayley Hayley in what is now called Bhutan.

One day, he chanced upon a huge chunk of turquoise. He went around with the windfall wearing a huge smile. By and by, his priceless turquoise was reduced to a song. But he sang the song and kept smiling.

He did not know how to be rich but he knew how to be contented and happy. He could be the universal symbol of contentment.

Today, Meme Hayley Hayley’s genes are rare in his descendents, the Bhutanese. Science has told us a lie through the theory of evolution. We haven’t evolved but rather degenerated. That’s why, the story of Meme Hayley Haley has totally reversed. Today, we know how to be rich but don’t know how to be contented and happy.

That’s why, Meme Hayley Hayley is a misnomer today. He is a foolish squanderer. Recently, I asked a boy what he’d do if he stumbled upon a chunk of turquoise like Meme Haley Haley. Straight came the answer, “I’d sell it and buy land, cars, buildings and be happy. I wouldn’t be foolish like that man.”

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