“Kunkhen, huh?” A boy said to himself, in a tone and manner which betrayed that whatever he is thinking has been on his mind for long. This boy had a larger figure than boys of his age, tall and strong-looking, but his face looked no older than 16 years. He had straight black hair that ran across his head and smoothly rested on his forehead, just stopping before his eyes. His eyes looked confident and far-seeing and his gait, easy and composed. He was not a particularly handsome boy where he could invite countless passionate gazes but one wouldn’t call him ugly. He was well-proportioned standing at about 5ft 10 inch but not overly masculine and bulky. The boy was calmly climbing up a slope and a small pendant glistened over his shirt. It was a turquoise threaded by a red string and it was bouncing to the rhythm of the boy’s steps. Tall trees surrounded him in his hops over the protruding rocks as he made his way to one of his favourite places in this world. It was high up in the mountains and it overlooked the entire hill station of Dharamshala. Nowadays, he was told, this place was known as the ‘Flag Temple’ and one can immediately understand why when they see the countless prayer flags zigzagging across the tall trees. A few more jumps and climbs later, the boy hears the familiar sound of flags fluttering in the wind- one of his favourite sounds -and he knows that he has reached his destination. He looks upwards and sees numerous flags dancing with the wind, he looks downwards and sees the entire town. He makes a quick effort to search for his home after which he starts to rest under the shade of a large Cedar tree in a makeshift seat. He laid down and made himself comfortable enough to invite sleep. He had chosen the biggest of the trees as his ‘base’ which had an eagle-eye view of the hilly region that surrounds him and his home. The weather was pleasant and the sun had just climbed past 2-pm.

“Kunkhen Tenzin, Tenzin Kunkhen…” he goes as he repeats that a few more times almost as if he was getting his tongue and face used to saying such a name. He tries to say it in a low voice, high voice, with an accent, without an accent, in a fast pace, in a slow pace, but the boy still looked disappointed no matter how many times he tried the name. The words were simple enough, easy to utter but the very same words seemed like rough pebbles struggling out from the boy’s throat. ‘It just never rolls off the tongue’, he thinks. He looks down and takes a deep breath because he knows he must try again. He must try again, and harder this time, to get used to it as this is the name that will accompany him for the rest of his life. ‘Kunkhen Tenzin’ That was his name! A Tibetan name, as one might notice as his parents are Tibetan and so is he. A name requested from a high lama by his parents and assigned to him at birth. This boy didn’t understand why names had to come from Lamas or why the name at birth can be decided by parents and especially when the name is not that good. The boy never really liked his name and couldn’t imagine a day where he will, in the future. His name seemed too grandiose, too high-reaching, too nauseating to hear and say, a name that he might never be able to live up to and a name that inevitably invites ridicule. Kunkhen was not a religious person by any means. In fact, he had a secret dislike for the people of the cloth and the institutions behind them and treated them with suspicion. But his parents were devout Buddhist and always had little sermons for him here and there reminding him of how great Buddha was for doing what he did and teaching what he taught. His dislike towards his own name is also a result of his atheism or rather anti-theism as he knows what his name literally means. ‘Kunkhen’ is a frequently used epithet for Buddha literally meaning “ All-knowing” and ‘Tenzin’ means “The holder of Dharma” where Dharma represents the teachings of Buddha. So this boy’s name means “The holder of Dharma who knows everything.” One can see how this can be burdensome.

‘Why did my Parents give me such an uncool name?’ the boy ponders with sluggish eyes as sleep calls him. He vaguely remembers his mother telling him why he had this name but he can’t seem to remember it now. He must have been very small or maybe he was remembering a non-existent memory. ‘When was it? What did she say?’ Kunkhen musters all he can to remember it. He searches through all the memories he had of his early childhood. The earliest continuity of memory started from 10 years of age for Kunkhen. He knew that a child’s memories are actively forgotten as the child grows but it didn’t feel like a ‘growth amnesia’ for him. It felt, more often than not, that his memories were wiped out. It felt empty, completely empty. He had asked his parents about his lost memories and they would look at him with a sad face and console him by saying “ It’s ok. I am sorry!” He never understood why they said that or why they looked so sad while saying that. Often he would think of something and a quick burst of memory seemed to fill him but it disappeared as quickly as it comes. His mother’s words must be in one of those forgotten memories. This was not his first time where a memory was on the tip of being remembered and something told him that it would not be the last. ‘Was it not just another name picked from a Lama’s box, does my name mean something greater?’ Kunkhen thinks, to no end,and as his thoughts become loose, his questions dissolve, his self fade and his eyes slowly close away. ‘I will ask my Mother later’ He resolves. And as Kunkhen drifts into sleep, a black tendril grabs him and he is taken into a new world, a new land.

Kunkhen tried to look around but he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t remember how he got to this place. Was he kidnapped? What happened? He tried to sit up but he felt stuck on the ground like a tree with roots. He looked around to gather his thoughts but it confused him even further. Both the sky and the ground seemed to be covered by a black blanket, darker than the darkest Vanterblack that Kunkhen had seen. There were no stars in the sky nor the moon to be found. Silence was the only sound that was heard and no light managed to penetrate this dome of darkness. For a period of time, that seemed both an eternity and an instance, Kunkhen stayed stuck, not being able to move. He had been trying to harness all his conscious power to move his body. Each of his legs seemed to weigh a tonne and no matter how much he struggled, he wasn’t able to move. Every muscle of his body seemed to be tied and Kunkhen felt very helpless, paralysed and frustrated. It felt like the worst sleep paralysis, but dialled to a 100. ‘What is this? Why is this happening to me?’ Kunkhen demanded but the dark void had no answer.

Instead he slowly felt a slithering black coil wrapping him and suffocating him. It felt like the dark space was curving around him slowly and indifferently. Kunkhen struggled to breathe as his gasps for air became more painful and effortful. His ribs cracked under the pressure and his shoulders dislocated as the black space squeezed him like a prey by a Python. ‘Am I going to die here?’ Kunkhen thought as his mind slowly lost to the intense pain of his bones cracking and joints popping. His body was being crushed. Some of this darkness entered his ear like a snake slithering in. What followed was a head-splitting rumbling that echoed through his whole skull. Almost as if a small army was hitting their war drums and gnawing away on the insides of his head, Kunkhen’s head felt on the verge of exploding. He cried out in agony. Kunkhen felt defeated, destroyed even. He had never experienced pain on this level and the pain felt real, more real than anything. He still didn’t know why this was happening to him. ‘Maybe this is hell, maybe I am already dead’, Kunkhen guessed but his entire body throbbing in torment blocked any extra thoughts. He felt his mind losing any semblance of consciousness and as he drifted away from the conscious world, he remembered his parents. And as pictures of his mother and father smiling and waving at him entered his mind, he fought back to stay awake.

‘Mother! Father!’ Kunkhen thought of his parents who went out today. They had told him that they were going to visit the temple. The temple was about 30-40 mins in walking distance through the hilly road and was the homeplace of the 14th Dalai Lama. His parents had a tradition to go once every week to that temple and Kunkhen didn’t want to be a part of it. He wanted his parents to have this time to themselves and he also didn’t want to be a subject of their radiating faith. That’s why Kunkhen said to them that he didn’t want to go and they respected his decision. But now he regretted not going with them. Sure, he would have to unwillingly prostrate and offer prayers to the deities in the temple but that would be way better than what he is going through. Anything seemed better than being imprisoned in a dark dome paralysed and slowly crushed to death. Tears slowly trickled down Kunkhen’s eyes as the figure of a man and a woman slowly disappeared from his mind. ‘I wish I could have been with you two.’ He said with deep regret.

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Amidst the sadness and pain, Kunkhen felt a deep hatred for whoever imprisoned him here. He didn’t know why he thought that someone was responsible when it could just be a dream but he knew that this was different. He didn’t understand how he knew, but he knew! He had dreamed bad dreams before but this was a different thing entirely. “Who are you? Why are you torturing me?” He shouted as loud as possible. Though his tongue felt tied and his voice mute, he shouted, as loud as possible, so that Kunkhen could at least hear it himself if not anyone else. He awaited a response and for a while, nothing seemed to happen. But suddenly Kunkhen hears a distant rumbling followed by a faint voice. Kunkhen listened to the voice carefully as the faint sound slowly turned louder and clearer and the voice slowly morphed into a laugh. It was a deep laugh that seemed to come from the depths of a large man’s diaphragm, a laugh that carried a profound joy at Kunkhen’s suffering, a laugh that resembled an aged psychopath, well versed in the art of cruelty, laughing maniacally. The laughs grew louder and louder until the space started shaking in resonance to the laugh. Kunkhen instantly knew then that the owner of this laugh was the master of this dark dome. He was the one who brought him here and brutally tortured him. “Who are you? Why are you doing this? Why are you torturing me?” Kunkhen shouted at the top of his lungs but still, no words came out of his mouth. But the laughter only grew louder and the space trembled even more violently. The black coils around Kunkhen grew even stronger and indifferently squeezed him. The sounds in his head grew even louder, he felt his ears bleeding and head splitting. “Stop!” Kunkhen cried “Please.” Kunkhen was crying tears of blood, his ears bleeding to deafness, and his bones breaking to bits. He was just a young teenager, 16 years old. What had he done? To deserve such torment with such utter impunity, being crushed to death inside and out, in a world of darkness, paralysed and alone. If the laws of Karma were real, what Karma had he created where Hell was this brutal to him. What past lives’ sins was he facing punishment for? “Stoooppp!” He cried again filled with immense indignation and resentment. The laughter kept resounding until Kunkhen felt his consciousness fading. He had been firming all his willpower to stay awake in the face of horrifying pain and fight against it but he was losing now. He was going to fall unconscious soon and that would be his last time, his ultimate end. But as he closed his eyes accepting his fate with both anger and sadness, his pendant moved.

The pendant shook and it started to glow. Kunkhen looked on with surprise as his turquoise bead shone with a brilliance like that of the sun and dispelled the darkness surrounding him. The radiance of his pendant made the coiling darkness slowly recede from Kunkhen’s body and disintegrate into dust, much like vampires in sunlight. As the light slowly rippled through the black space to reach Kunkhen’s face, he felt freed. He felt himself returning to his calm state of mind, each photon seemed to rejuvenate him. He was slowly able to move his hands and then his legs. As he bathed himself in this light as if it were a bath of heaven’s ambrosia, the strong laughter abruptly stopped like an animal frightened and surprised to alertness. Few moments passed by until a faint, old, gruff voice echoed in the dark and when it spoke, the black dome shook. “ This protection won’t last you long. I will find you again and that will be the last time.” Immediately after saying that, the voice disappeared and the dark world went silent. Though he couldn’t see, Kunkhen knew that the person, his imprisoner, was gone. But he felt that this would not be the last time he would meet that being. It said it would be back to finish its job and Kunkhen believed him. Kunkhen took his pendant into his right hand and grasped it tightly as he slowly brought it to his forehead. Like two heads meeting in greetings, Kunkhen touched his forehead to the turquoise. His hands and body were broken in several places, his ribs and shoulders smashed into many pieces and his ears, eyes and mouth bleeding but he was not dead. He was saved!

Upon this gesture, the glow of his pendant carefully enveloped Kunkhen, like a mother to his child. His wounds started to close, his bones slowly fixed again, and his joints popped back in. The light of the pendant was healing him and like a phoenix from its ashes, Kunkhen emerged from the light totally healed and revitalised. Kunkhen felt much better than he had ever felt, his broken body was rejoint stronger than ever and his mind felt more calm and peaceful. No traces of the perilous torture he had faced were present on his body anymore. The pendant was still glowing and he could feel the warmth of the turquoise on his palm. Kunkhen was too shocked to even process what was happening or what had happened but he knew one thing- this pendant saved him.

Kunkhen didn’t know who the voice belonged to or why it wanted to kill him or even how it brought him into this world or what this place is or where it is. Kunkhen didn’t know how this pendant, which seemed like a very common pendant, had powers beyond his beliefs. But this pendant saved him, protected him. Otherwise, Kunkhen would be a pile of flesh and bone squashed by the black tendrils. “Thank you” He said to the pendant, still holding it near to his forehead, to pay his respects and gratitude. In this moment, a scene ran through Kunkhen's mind.

This must have been about 1 year in the past when he just turned 15. He was reading about Dashaavater- Vishnu’s ten incarnations in Hindu mythology-in his room. Kunkhen was always an avid reader of mythology and loved all stories from all cultures. Precisely when the story of Buddha- claimed as one of the incarnations of Vishnu by Hindus- rolled around, his mother called him over and brought him this pendant. His mother called it a ‘Yhu/Yhoo’ which means Turquoise in Tibetan. She told him that the Tibetans consider turquoise as the ‘Sky’s Stone’ because of its heaven-like beauty and long-held belief that it came from the heavens, thus being imbued with spiritual powers and benefits. Tibetans also believe turquoise to be a talisman of some sorts which protects both the wearer and the giver by absorbing negative energy and karma around them. “The colour of Yhu fades and grows, to the ebbs and flows of negativity.” She repeated the common saying while putting the pendant around Kunkhen’s neck and said that this will protect him when she will not be there. Kunkhen remembered her saying all this with a distant eye- an eye that seemed to have seen a tragic story play which she could do nothing about- and in a sad voice, a voice that seemed to have realised that it won’t have many more words to say. She said that the thread that ran through the turquoise was blessed by a Lama of her tradition and the turquoise was brought from a special place. She didn’t tell the name of the Lama or the name of her tradition or what the special place is. But her voice sounded hopeful. She ran her hand through Kunkhen’s hair and she slowly held him in her hands. She hugged him so tightly that he nearly suffocated. Kunkhen had to tap her and say enough for her to let him go. He thought of his mother as overacting and worrying when she didn’t need to. He also didn’t think much of the pendant she brought for him, aside from thinking that it looked nice. He didn’t care much for all the protection bullshit, afterall how can a stone absorb his karma if there is even such a thing. He didn’t care for the lama, nor her tradition, nor the special place from which this turquoise was dug from. He didn’t believe in it and he didn’t care for it.

He didn’t care then, but he cared now. He cared a lot now. In this dark dome where he was about to be executed, this pendant lace had protected him. Kunkhen knew that whatever he went through was not normal. The person who trapped him here had powers beyond his belief. He was the master of this world. He could control the tendrils of darkness like a snake charmer. His laughter was enough to crush his internal organs. Kunkhen knew this person was nowhere near normal. Now, he wanted to know where this turquoise came from, who blessed the thread, and which tradition this lama came from. He thought about his mother who gave him this pendant. Did she know about the mysteries of this pendant? Maybe she did. She did tell him about how this pendant is a protective talisman. Did she know that he would be attacked like this? Maybe she did. That would explain her sad face when she gave him the pendant. But then, why didn’t she warn him? Why didn’t she tell him what unknown enemies and dangers he was going to face? First of all, how did his mother know about this? What was their relation to this mysterious attacker? Maybe she knew about everything that happened. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she knew nothing and this was all a big coincidence or a hyper-real dream. Maybe he will wake up soon and forget all of this.

“It will be fine.” Kunkhen whispered to himself as he shut his eyes and felt the warmth of the still glowing pendant in his fist.