Welcoming 2016

I am surprised how fast time has slipped away. Within no time, we have spent the twelve precious months of our life since the day we celebrated the New Year last year and due to God’s grace and the blessings of those who had wished us around this time last year, we could successfully make it to 2016. I hope God will continue to bless us like this throughout this year and beyond. Today as we welcome the year 2016, I think it’s time to look back and reflect on some of the best moments we have had in 2015. It’s also an opportunity to reflect on the mistakes we have committed over the past one year and take forward the lessons we have learned from those mistakes.

The advantages of being blind

When I lost my sight at the age of 9, I was totally shocked and confused. I didn’t know what was happening around me and what kind of future I was heading to. All my family-members, relatives and neighbors were deeply worried about my future. They all thought that with my sight gone, my door to the outside world was shut forever. Everybody thought that I would have to spend the rest of my life depending on others for help. All those who came to see me sympathized with me and I became the mouthpiece of everybody in the neighborhood. It was really a terrible experience. I lost the ability to do many things which I used to do easily when I had sight. My hopes and dreams all collapsed at once. But after I went to school, I slowly began to see the beauty of my new world and discovered my own strengths. I gradually regained my confidence to live a normal life with others and I got back my smiles that had vanished along with my sight. . Today, I am a happy person despite of being deprived of the opportunity to see the physical world with my own eyes. Although I have lost my sight, I have got the vision of my life. My disability is actually supposed to limit my freedom and choices to enjoy the real beauty of this life, but as I grew up, I began to see in it many advantages instead. Following are some of the advantages of being blind I have come to understand based on my own personal experiences:

Connecting urban children with rural life

Most of our children today grow up in cities and towns leading sophisticated lifestyles and as a result, they hardly get the opportunity to experience a unique type of life their parents and grandparents have enjoyed back in the village. Although the towns and cities do have various modern facilities that make life in general easier and more comfortable, villages have their own unique natural beauty and charm. So while many parents in urban centers are busy looking for means to engage their children meaningfully during this long winter vacation, I and my wife are sending our children to the village to let them experience a unique way of rustic life as well as to get them closer to their grandparents. We have been taking them to the village at least for a month every winter with the hope that they would learn to appreciate the beauty of rural life and realize the real value of family and community bonding.

A funny as well as adventurous cycling experience

When I was studying in PSG College of Arts and Science in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India, one of our Bhutanese friends had a bicycle gifted to him by his brother who completed his studies from Kerala. It had become a Bhutanese pool-vehicle since everybody used to ride it whenever needed. We used to ride it to go out for shopping in the nearby market areas as well as to go to meet our friends living outside the campus. It was comfortable for two people. When the owner of the bicycle graduated in May 2004, he left the bicycle for us to use. I often used to go on ride with my friends who were experienced cyclists.

Memories from Chennai, India

“We had the first-hand experience of flying through the cyclone today and I hope you might have enjoyed it” the pilot announced as soon as we touched down at Chennai International Airport, probably in an effort to comfort the worried passengers. We all burst into laughter when the pilot made that announcement. The weather conditions in Chennai on Sunday, 15th November 2015 were really wild with heavy rains and strong cyclone. We took off from Bakdokra at 4:30 pm and after a short stop at Kolkata, we continued to Chennai in the same flight. But as we approached Chennai International Airport, the aircraft began to tremble wildly as we flew through the oncoming cyclone and heavy rains that had been flooding Chennai and the neighboring areas over the past five days or so. As the pilot announced, it was really a scary and dangerous flight. I had never been nervous and anxious like that before. I kept on praying as the aircraft struggled to cut its way through such a strong and wild rainstorm. But due to God’s grace and the kind wishes of our friends, we could safely land at Chennai at around 8:30 pm as scheduled.

The first leg of my official trip to India

Six years after my first official trip to Bangkok in 2009, I am thankful to my boss for letting me join her team to visit a youth center in Chennai in India. When I was told that I have been nominated for the study visit a couple of weeks ago, I accepted the offer with gratitude for two main reasons. Firstly, the activity is part of the project I look after and somehow I had a feeling that I deserve this opportunity after being involved in planning and implementing numerous activities under the project over the past two years. Secondly, it has been a very long time since I had got my first official trip outside the country. So, I thought it would be an opportunity for me to refresh mentally for a while. It has been really a long gap. My wife was 6-month pregnant with my youngest son when I first got to officially fly to Bangkok in September 2009 for a week-long training and now he is six-years-old when I have got this second opportunity. However, my first official trip was a true blessing for me because although I could not officially fly out of the country thereafter, I got the opportunity to travel abroad once every year privately either upon the invitation of external agencies or through scholarships. I think that those blessings are over now and here comes the second official trip. I once again hope that this official trip would also bring me another bunch of blessings for the next couple of years.

On the 60th birth anniversary of His Majesty the Fourth King of Bhutan

The heart of every Bhutanese is throbbing with excitement and joy at the moment as the nation comes together for the historic celebration of the auspicious 60th birth anniversary of His Majesty the Fourth Druk Gyalpo, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. All the cities and towns are brimming with life and music as various forms of artistic displays and decorations add extraordinary glamour to the existing charm of the natural landscape. People from different segments of the society and from different walks of life have come together with various initiatives to join the nation in celebrating such an auspicious occasion. This is the day we had been waiting for to offer our wishes and prayers for the long and peaceful life of our beloved king, the Fourth Druk Gyalpo and express our special gratitude for his selfless contributions to making Bhutan a safer place for all of us to live in for ages. As Bhutanese, we have thousands of reasons to celebrate this historic moment tomorrow.

The unfit parents

Human beings are the only creature blest with the biggest brain and because of this, we are far more advanced than other animals in terms of our capacity to think, judge and act. We have moved carefully and consciously through every stage of human civilization and our experiences have made us a perfect social animal in the world today. We are the only animal capable of understanding and respecting others’ emotions. We are biologically wired to show compassion and love to those who are near and dear to us. Indeed, great masters say that when we are born, we all are born with Buddha nature in us. But as we grow up with modernization, it seems some of us are losing those human values we have been born and brought up with.

Lemlema: a mysterious woman that roams the brooks and creeks at night

When I was a child, I often used to hear elder people talking about Lemlemas, the ghostly spirits that would roam the brooks and creeks at night. I was told that those who go out at night for fishing are most likely to encounter them because they would be usually roaming the river-banks in search of food. It’s believed that they feed on fishes. Those stories would scare us to death and we would never dare to go out during the night since there was a brook nearby. We were told that if they find a human being, they would kill and eat only the cartilages: finger-tips, palms, ears, nose-tops and soles. Although I always questioned the existence of such spirits, some of the stories I heard were quite convincing that they literarily froze me with fear.

Problems are not always as bad as they are thought to be

Life is like a car. Once you get behind the wheel, it becomes your responsibility to get to your destination no matter how bad may be the condition of the road ahead of you. Challenges are everywhere and sometimes they make you feel that you are more unlucky and miserable than others. But if you look around carefully, you would find that there is nobody in this world who would not have undergone similar experiences you have been through. Problems are part of life and there isn’t anything that can be done to strip them off completely. But as nothing happens without a reason, I think it’s also important to realize that problems are there just because there are solutions. It’s true that every problem has a solution and if you can take time to think and explore it, you can definitely find your way out. People say God has plans for each of us but I am sure they don’t always materialize if we do not strive to implement them. Whenever we are bound in a chain of problems, sitting down and crying won’t break us free. We must always have the courage to pave our path through the wilderness of time as we move forward in life.