<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No substitute for this <\/strong><\/p>\n Late monsoon. The tea bushes in the lowland plantation form a verdant edge to Bagdogra airport on the Indo-Bhutan border. I am on a flight to New Delhi. A young man, his hair gelled and spiked, sits next to me. He asks to look at my cell phone.<\/p>\n \u2018You have Vodafone,\u2019 he remarks scrolling the screen.<\/p>\n \u2018The connection is good,\u2019 I reply.<\/p>\n \u2018My cell phone has no signal,\u2019 he says tapping the breast pocket of his black shirt. I feel obliged to ask, \u2018what network do you use?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Airtel,\u2019 he says. On the road to the airport, I noticed several Airtel billboards offering low tariff and \u2018superfast connection\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018Are you local from this area?\u2019 he asks pointing to the heat haze of the North Bengal plains outside the plane window.<\/p>\n \u2018No, I am from Bhutan.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Related to the Royal Family?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018No.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I am in the construction business. I have offices all over India. If you want anything, here\u2019s my number.\u2019 He hands me a business card crammed with names of branch offices, cell phone numbers and email contacts.<\/p>\n \u2018Can I make a local call?\u2019 He asks taking my phone with alacrity.<\/p>\n The pilot announces that the plane is ready for takeoff and requests all electronic devices to be switched off.\u00a0 The young man continues to talk animatedly. I remind him of the announcement. He shrugs it off, \u2018they say that all the time but nothing will happen.\u2019<\/p>\n An air-steward approaches him and says, \u2018Sir, you must switch off your cell phone now.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s not mine,\u2019 he says handing it back to me.<\/p>\n baggage claim \u2013 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Born and raised in the kingdom of Bhutan Sonam Chhoki<\/strong> is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the\u00a0architect of Bhutan’s non-monastic modern education. Her Japanese short form poetry has been published in journals in several countries. She is current haibun and senryu editor of the UHTS journal, cattails.<\/p>\n This haibun was first published in A Hundred Gourds 5:1<\/em>, December 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No substitute for this Late monsoon. The tea bushes in the lowland plantation form a verdant edge to Bagdogra airport on the Indo-Bhutan border. I am on a flight to New Delhi. A young man, his hair gelled and spiked, sits next to me. He asks to look at my cell phone. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haibun-tanka-haiku-haiga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11046"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24016,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11046\/revisions\/24016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nmy suitcase \u2018to arrive\u2019
\non the next flight<\/p>\n