The Icy Hands of Death

Death is called the great leveler. As a philosophical statement it sounds nice, makes each one of us feel humble and equal. But outside the classroom and intellectual discussions, when one truly encounters the death of a loved one, none of the hundreds of lines or numerous arguments one wrote in an essay for English class matters. Death comes unannounced, takes you completely by surprise and leaves you with a scar that can hardly ever be healed! 

It was a fine afternoon that day. A regular day. I had a rendezvous with an old best friend of mine from high school. We had spent nearly the whole day together. We chatted about so many things, trying to catch up with each other for we were meeting after nearly three years since both of us had left for our respective colleges. Just as I was heading home, my mother called me. She sounded a bit alarmed, "Where are you?", she asked me in a voice that sounded quite worried. "On my way back" I replied thinking maybe she was just worried I had been away all day long. "They say your Badi had an accident. I don't know the details. We need to go now. Come home soon" she instructed me, an unusual urgency in her voice. My heart raced, I couldn't really comprehend what Mom had just said or maybe I didn't want to believe what I had just heard. I was home within a few minutes. Mummy quickly briefed me and said that some of our uncles back in village had called and said maybe Badi (Badi Amma in my mother tongue means "Elder Mother" referring to one's mother's elder sister. I used to call my mother's elder sister, Badi for short) has had an accident, they weren't sure but had heard of a vehicle with a similar description to that in which Badi was traveling in that day had an accident on the highway. 

Badi was a humble lady, in her mid-forties, who had been a vegetable vender for the last decade or so. She used to live back in my maternal village and she would ferry local vegetables from her village to Thimphu, the capital city each week in the hope of earning some cash income to support her family. She would come each week on a Thursday, sell her vegetables through the weekend and return by Sunday. She always stayed at our place whenever she came to Thimphu. Two of her children, my cousins, were admitted to schools in Thimphu as well a couple of years back. So my cousins, who were more like siblings to me, my younger brother and I sort of became the four children who had two motherly figures to take care of us - my more disciplinarian Mum and the more lenient, gentle figure of Badi. Since my younger brother was still too young, my two cousins and I used to go each Thursday to the bus station and help carry Badi's goods to the vegetable market. It had become such a routine part of our lives that every Thursday we would rush back home from school and then head to the bus station to help Badi out. Her goods usually comprised of about 7 packs in total - a few sacks of tuber, a few baskets (huge bamboo baskets) of bananas, broccoli, sugarcane and a few jars of local brew. Even when carried by 3 teenage kids like ourselves along with Badi, we used to get breathless at the end of carrying all those goods. We often mumbled and sometimes expressed our concern over how Bada (her husband, again shortened for Bada Bau meaning Elder Father) and she managed to carry all of it just by the two of them back at the village. She would always smile her gentle smile and say "We manage. We have to to work hard for money". 

Mum told me to get ready. She said we had to immediately hit the highway to my village and confirm what really has or has not happened to Badi. We were all clueless, no concrete information was coming by but there were frantic calls either inquiring if it was true or what had happened. I tried to extract whatever information Mum had so far. It was hardly anything. An uncle had called. Apparently he received a call from another fellow villager who happened to be traveling that same highway and had seen a vehicle veer off the road that seemed like the one Badi was traveling in that day. ("So why didn't he confirm by stopping?" I wanted to scream out. But there was no point). We knew Badi was coming that day, it was a Thursday after all. But her cell phone had stopped working since the day before. And she would always come in a public transport bus, she always had for the last 10 years or so. But since the week before, she had begun coming in a pickup truck belonging to a fellow vegetable vendor from the same village. 

Anyhow, we had hired a taxi and started moving towards the alleged accident site. Mum was busy over the phone trying to get any valid information whatsoever. I began praying silently. After some time, I too decided to start making some calls. After several failed calls to get any information, I called the telecom operator and asked for the contact number of the nearest hospital to the accident site, a place called Bajo. I received the number and called them. They confirmed an accident had indeed occurred on the said highway to our hometown. But I was given another number and instructed to call there, it was the number of a health staff working at a Basic Health Unit (BHU) which was nearer to the accident site and that the survivors would be taken there I was told. I called the new number and a voice over the phone told me that two passengers had in fact been brought in from the accident site. I was listening with all my concentration by now. I probed for details. "Are they alive?", was my first question. "Yes". "What injuries have they sustained?". The speaker on the other end started explaining. As a trainee medical student myself, I began trying to decipher if the injuries described sounded serious enough. They didn't. I took a momentary sigh of relief. "Can you tell me their names please?", I asked. The voice on the other end gave two names, both females but they didn't sound familiar at all. "Are you sure those are the names? Isn't there someone by the name of..." I gave them Badi's name. Negative. Then the voice added "There is said to be a third person who was in the same vehicle. She is said to have some head injuries. She hasn't arrived here yet." My heart was racing again. "What kind of head injuries? Is she conscious? What is her GCS?" I asked. (GCS stands for Glasgow Coma Scale and in simple terms it is a grading system used in medical practice to assess how conscious and alert a patient is, especially after a head injury - a low score being bad news). Hearing this medical jargon mentioned, the voice on the other end quickly asked "Who are you sir?" I told them that the person he is describing could possibly be my mother (Badi) and that I was a medical student currently pursuing my MBBS in Sri Lanka. The voice asked me to stay on hold. In a few moments another voice came on. He was the senior in charge there apparently. He gave me another number, this time that of a police officer, he said, who had gone to the accident site. The third survivor was still not at the BHU, so I was asked to call the number and find out. I called. I briefly explained who I was and the conversation I had with the BHU staff and inquired about the third survivor who had sustained head injuries. "She is no more" came a sharp, quick response. "I beg your pardon?" I uttered in reflex, thoroughly confused. "She is dead. Died on the spot it seems" he said again without much hesitation. I was stunned. "What is her name?" I heard myself whisper. "Huh?", he didn't seem to have heard me. "I mean did you find any documents to verify her identity please?" I half pleaded. "We found her citizenship identity card. It says her name is..." The police officer's voice reverberated in my head for what seemed like forever. It was my Badi's name. A faint "Thank you sir" is all I managed and I hung up the phone. 

My mother, Badi's daughter and eldest daughter-in-law, who were all seated in the back seat all along up until now while I was in the front passenger seat looked at me expectantly and asked what they told me. "They said they didn't know" I lied. And what happened after that I cannot recall accurately. All I remember is going absolutely numb. I do not know for how long. But finally I managed to speak again and asked the driver to stop a while. I excused myself out of the taxi by saying I needed to answer nature's call. I entered the bushes and called my father. My hands were shaking violently and so was my voice. When my Dad heard the news, all he managed was one word in Nepali which roughly translates to "Oh no!!!". I told him that I hadn't told Mum yet. Then I quickly hung up and returned to the taxi. I began texting my Dad asking him how best to break this news. He couldn't help me much, just told me "The sooner the better." The whole world seemed to collapse then. I had never experienced the death of a close relative of mine before. Time seemed to slow down to a snail's pace. I cried in silence. I cursed God (whose existence I didn't believe and constantly questioned on normal days). And then I waited. I waited for a miracle. I waited for my phone to ring. I waited for some news from somewhere to let me know it was all not true what I just heard. I waited for the storm to pass. It never did. 

One year on and it still feels so surreal. I have returned to Sri Lanka and I often wonder if Badi might still be ferrying her goods perhaps. I still wake up and wish it was all a terrible nightmare. I still look at her pictures and hear her gentle voice speak to me. I still look at her face and see the lady who toiled so hard and never complained one bit. And just like that death took her away from us. Just like that, she was there one moment and gone the next. I could never tell her how much I loved her, how much she meant to me. And just like that, our lives changed forever! 

The Five Friends

In our homeland Bhutan, the painting of Theunpa Puen Zhi (མཐུན་པ་སྤུན་བཞི) or the Four Harmonious Friends comprising the elephant, the monkey, the rabbit and the bird are seen ubiquitously on the walls of Bhutanese homes and various monasteries around the Kingdom. It is said to symbolize interdependence and serve as the epitome of friendship and cooperation. It is said to even connote Gautama Buddha himself and his closest disciples.

Drawing my inspiration from these, I have put down a description of four of my friends who study together with me at medical school. While our friendship had initially sprung out of the fact that all of us had chosen the same career path of joining medical school and the confluence in a foreign land as fellow compatriots, our bonds have since grown (and continues to grow and be constantly reshaped) by the interaction between the strikingly different personalities each of us have, and the differences and commonalities we have found in each other. 

Below is a description of them based on my experiences and observations. And I have partly decided to publicly publish these because my dear buddies wanted to be the subject(s) of my newly started blog! 

Enquiring Elephant 

He has an incredible memory. He'll remember every nook and cranny of where a particular statement originated from; while the rest of us struggle remembering what the lecturer has printed on the lecture note slides, he will even have remembered which particular lecture note of the several we read contained a certain fact or sentence. 

On normal days, he is quite moody some would suggest. I would simply say that he sometimes like to take time off and be by himself. We all have such days. Perhaps just that our Enquiring Elephant has more of these days than most of us do. But on most good days, he is really kind. An inquisitive mind, I love the look on his face whenever I'm teaching him something - mostly it's something related to our modern gadgets like phones, tablets, laptops or the internet. I'm not a tech wiz but when I do try to impart whatever little knowledge I do have, he observes keenly. Mostly it would be something really trivial or mundane but he pays close attention to how it is done and makes you feel like a really good instructor. 

On the whole, he's a really well-organized person - he always wants his stuff kept back where it was taken from (a reasonable ask honestly) but on most days we don't comply to his demands, sometimes inevitably and other times just to piss him off. He's one of the most hardworking and down-to-earth of the five of us. 

Mad Monkey 

Well, monkeys can hardly stay in one place for too long. Such is the nature of our next friend - the Mad Monkey! He's the adventurous one. Try walking with him in the University premises one day and a journey that would otherwise only take fifteen minutes would take twice as long or more because nearly every third person walking down the road would be someone he knows and they would stop to have a quick chat; it's his adventurous, outgoing (and quite uninhibited) spirit that has earned him so many friends and admirers. He's probably the most carefree (bordering to recklessness more often than not) and relaxed of the five of us. While I call him the Mad Monkey, whenever he visits the house of our most well-organized friend, the Enquiring Elephant (whom I described above), he becomes a bull in a china shop! And good heavens, doesn't that upset our poor Mr. Enquiring Elephant. But this very fact also makes the two of them such close buddies. 

The Mad Monkey of course is the charm of the group. Sometimes he can amuse us with his gymnastic abilities, other times drive us crazy with his boisterously bold ideas. A true romantic and a cryptic poet, he's a man of many talents, not to mention plenty of intelligence. But it is probably his innocent heart that perhaps compels us all to forgive and even adore him despite his notorious, crazy acts. 

Charismatic Cheetah

The champion runner, the fastest land mammal, cheetahs are perhaps one of the top class athletes of the animal kingdom. Our friend, the Charismatic Cheetah is the same. As you might have guessed by now, he is an avid lover of sports among other things! And he is pretty good at them too - football, basketball, table tennis, badminton, you name it and he plays them all, in fact plays them well enough to make it to the school/University teams of most of these sports wherever he goes. But the love of his life is the one where eleven grown men run after one ball and try to put it inside the opponents' rectangular post, the sport described as "the beautiful game" by Edson Arantes do Nascimento (more popularly known by his nickname "Pelé") - football!  Well, he's so crazy about football that one of the most depressing things about exam time for him (as he confessed himself) is not being able to play football because he has to study so much! 

Gifted with a lean tall torso and a handsome face, how many "kills" this Charismatic Cheetah has made is probably something even he's lost count of! Just like his wild counterpart, who's so well camouflaged in the grasslands before a game, he's a guileful and clever fellow; anyone who can outwit this fellow is a person of considerable brilliance. After reading many Buddhist books sometime back, this cheetah had turned vegetarian for a while. 

If one is courageous enough to irritate him persistently (something we friends often do intentionally), he contorts his face in desperate frustration to something that renders the most hilarious look to his otherwise smart face (a look we call the "Udzarongpa face"). 

Talented Tortoise 

Tortoises and turtles are perhaps one of the most shy creatures of the animal world. I have always enjoyed watching the way they retreat their heads into their shells at the slightest movement around them. Our friend, the Talented Tortoise is also someone very shy and extremely self-conscious on most days. But one should not be deceived and mistake his humility for his weakness. Underneath his shell of shyness lies a person of extremely strong will and a robust determination to prove himself. Tortoises are often depicted in fairy tales as being the wise old creatures. Similarly, our little friend, the Talented Tortoise too is somewhat a store of wisdom with immense kindness and compassion that often results out of wisdom. He's probably one of the most selfless and kind-hearted persons one can ever come across. 

He is also an abundantly talented poet and writer. However, his shyness prevents him from boasting about his works and it took an accidental look into some folders on his laptop to discover the hidden treasure of poems he had composed over time. While a shy person by nature, he is also someone who will quietly make light conversations with people and always keep in touch with them. He makes it a point to exchange a few kind words with all the shopkeepers along the street he walks everyday between University and his apartment; they always inquire to his whereabouts whenever I visit them and if he hasn't dropped by already that day. His humble but diligent nature makes him absolutely adorable to anyone who gets in touch with him. 

Barking Dog

I do not want to write much about myself lest I end up writing something that either sounds downright flaunty or extremely self-deprecating. Suffice it to say that I might be considered the Barking Dog of the group for I am probably the most talkative of them all and also the one who tries to lead the pack most often. More often than not, they let me bark and lead for the simple fact that if they don't, I will engage them in an endless debate in which I will ultimately triumph by hook or crook (or perhaps more accurately because I will refuse to accept defeat) and also because that would be the reasonable thing to do than have a howling dog behind you all the time! My friends will probably have more to say about me. 

Building a Nation: Reflection of Bhutan's Journey

It's been over 2 years since I came to Sri Lanka to pursue my undergraduate studies and have lived here ever since. During my stay here, I have had profoundly enriching and sometimes thought-provoking experiences! The most recent of these has been the Sri Lankan parliamentary elections just this past week. It compelled me to think and ponder over the topic of nation building and what it takes to steer a nation towards its destiny, especially in the 21st century. I am not a political pundit or an expert economist (having studied the subject of Economics only briefly during high school nearly half a decade ago) but I present the humble opinions of a common man and a young citizen as I see it based on my experiences and limited knowledge so far. 

A village in Bhutan, Sakteng in the eastern district of Trashigang (Photo Courtesy: Her Majesty the Druk Gyaltsuen's Facebook page)

Bhutan and Sri Lanka share many common things. For instance, Buddhism is the dominant form of religion in both nations. Health and education are provided freely by the state in both countries. But there are stark contrasts between them as well. One is a landlocked kingdom high in the Himalayas while the other is a republic island in the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka has a long colonial past while Bhutan takes pride in never having been colonized by any power in its years of existence. Sri Lanka was the first country in the world to have a democratically elected female head of government while democracy itself took roots in Bhutan less than a decade ago in 2008. So for a young Bhutanese like myself to live in Sri Lanka has been a great learning opportunity - not only medicine which I am pursuing as my career but in so many other aspects of life. My experiences here compel me to think, and I can't help but compare and contrast the two nations time and again. 

The most recent event that stirred my thoughts was the Sri Lankan parliamentary election. The forms of government in the two countries are quite different. Bhutan has a bicameral parliament and is a constitutional monarchy whilst Sri Lanka has a unicameral parliament with a presidential system of governance. But like all nations that resort to "democratic elections" of people's representatives to a parliament, election times bring a palpable sense of the whole country engaged in heated debates with plenty of rumor-mongering and rancor. Such was the case in the island nation of Sri Lanka these last few weeks leading up to the polls on August 17, 2015. It reminded me of the first parliamentary elections held back home in Bhutan in March 2008. It was a historic event for us, the Bhutanese. The peculiarity of it being that the change in the form of government from a traditional monarchy to a democratic constitutional monarchy was initiated by our King Himself, His Majesty the Great Fourth, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. We were very cynical about democracy coming to Bhutan, the general feeling was that we weren't ready yet. And as if to validate this feeling, there were only two political parties that eventually got registered to contest the polls and a one-time special decision to forgo the first round of Primary polls and directly conduct the General round was implemented. We had frowned at and disapproved the divisions that allegiance or preference to political parties had made within our social fabric. For too long we the Bhutanese had been united under our beloved Kings, such divisions along political preferences hitherto unknown to us. We were dismayed by the "dirty politics" that seemed to emerge as the election campaigns caught pace. And just when we had thought that the nation had had enough, the second elections in 2013 brought forth more drama as political parties formed and merged, and candidates (sometimes even party leaders) switched sides. For the Bhutanese, these were sinister acts, only more evidence towards what follies democracy and the accompanying party politics brought with it. But in Sri Lanka, the oldest democracy in South Asia (according to Wikipedia), such events seemed so normal that I was pleasantly surprised by how much at ease the people seemed to be. Perhaps, it was a sign of the maturity of the electorate or simply them having turned callous to such events. There was no fuss about the divisions political parties brought to the society or the sense of hatred it created among the people; or maybe, as an expatriate, I failed to see it clearly. However, I didn't fail to notice the vigor with which supporters of candidates, and in turn the political parties they represented, went about in expressing their allegiance. There were queues of buses, filled to the brim (or the doors rather) with supporters, young and old alike adorning the party-colored T-shirts with smiling faces of the candidates of their liking, flags in hand running up and down the country. I was amazed by the enthusiasm and fervor with which they seemed to rally for their favored side. To a Bhutanese like myself, where our campaigns are much more silent and such loud rallying unheard of (and even prohibited to some extent), I was amused by these happenings. But even back in Bhutan, passions ran high sometimes like during social gatherings when politics was discussed. Of course, often times, the discussions centered around the personas of the party heads rather than ideologies (which in essence were pretty much the same for all parties, just worded differently). 

All this made me think about why the common people went to such great lengths to defend their political parties of choice, especially around election time? Well, because the winning party forms the government, some might answer. Indeed, the opportunity to govern is at stake. Being able to form the government means having the paddle of your country's future for at least the next 5 years in most countries including Bhutan and Sri Lanka. But is that so? Is the direction a nation takes really in the hands of the ruling government? To a certain extent, maybe yes but I'm afraid it takes more than a handful of individuals to chart the course of a nation's path. For we must always bear in mind that a nation is a large family, a very large one indeed, and it takes the efforts of every single member to keep it moving forward. 

As a medical student, I can't help but draw a scientific analogy: all higher living beings exist as a result of the successful reproduction of various cells in the right part of the body in the right proportion to form tissues and organs, and their working together. This is possible due to the extremely accurate reproduction of cells day in day out. At the heart of it all lies a chemical compound called deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA that holds the code to all of life's marvelous secrets and wonders! Without the DNA coding, cells cannot be reproduced correctly. Similarly, for a nation to function properly, its DNA must be strengthened too. And I believe that a nation's DNA are the values and principles that her people have. It can be easy for us to listen to the promises that politicians make during their political campaigns and then later blame and grill them for not keeping them. It is easy to sit on the couch at your home, holding the day's newspapers and pass your commentary regarding the pathetic state of the nation, placing all the blame on the politicians. Seldom does one think that maybe we are expecting too much from them. A government is a machinery. And politicians are but one component of that complex machinery. The machine needs to function in sync under various laws, rules and regulations that govern its working. The politicians need to act within the premises of the machinery to serve our needs. One should not expect to replace the wheels of one's car in the garage today and expect it to become a racing car overnight. Whenever we think of the people who run our country, we should think not just of the ruling party who form the set of government ministers but all the people who run all the machineries of the state. The state encompasses not just the parliament, some of its esteemed members eventually forming the cabinet of ministers, but so many others such as the eminent judges of the judiciary, people who man the numerous autonomous government agencies and so many other institutions within the state's purview. All of them together are responsible for running a country. Of course, as they say, money runs the world, or the world runs after money. So the corporations and various business organizations who may not even be run by the state (merely regulated at most) play a vital role in the development of a nation too as they are the powerhouse of a growing economy. Ultimately, the responsibility of running a nation lies with all its citizenry. For all the people who eventually fill these important offices and run these organizations are the citizens of that nation. Therefore, the character and temperament of the citizens will eventually determine the fate of a nation. It means that if we want our country to stand tall among the league of nations in the world, our people must develop first.

Our people...my fellow Bhutanese, that is when my confidence begins to stammer at times. We take pride in being among the happiest nations on earth. But I often wonder how long this happiness will last. Sometimes I even wonder, if this state of happiness which subsequently brings a sense of contentment is our biggest enemy. Our habit of being happy with the status quo is often the source of our complacency. I guess, we can't help ourselves because we are a family of just over 700,000 people living in an area roughly the size of Switzerland; we thus have one of the lowest population densities in the world, we never really had to compete too much among ourselves for anything. This, combined with the Buddhist philosophy of compassion towards others and the need to rid ourselves of jealousy has meant that we Bhutanese usually don't compete fiercely. And where there isn't competition, there never is progress. After all, it takes lifetimes of great pressures and unbearable conditions for the black coal to become diamond. His Majesty the Great Fifth, Druk Gyalpo Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, during an audience granted to students among whom I was a fortunate listener, remarked that there is a word in our language that is probably the worst of them all embedded in our Bhutanese nature which we must rid ourselves of, the word kheymey (Dzongkha: ཁྱད་མེད) - loosely translated as 'it doesn't matter'. This easy going nature has given us the resilience to rise out of many hardships and difficult times but it now threatens to turn us into a bunch of lazy, complacent lot. Whenever we see someone indulge in a corrupt practice in our workplace, we say kheymey, it doesn't matter, (s)he has a family to feed, penalizing him/her harshly will be bad. Whenever a student is caught cheating in exams, we say kheymey, it doesn't matter and shy away from correcting the student with a stern punishment. I am not saying execute a corrupt official or expel a cheating student right away, but these are simple examples of how we fail to set an example and correct our behaviors assuming them to be trivial trespasses not realizing that we are refusing to inculcate the right values and principles within ourselves. If good values were instilled in each of us firmly, then we wouldn't have to worry about the kind of representatives we elect to our parliaments or any other institution. Complacency and tolerance to complacency is what holds us back from moving forward. Investigating corruption cases by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) or discovering lapses by the Royal Audit Authority (RAA) will not eradicate corruption or malpractices, they are just temporary relief for the symptoms (to draw another medical analogy) of a disease whose roots are deeper, within our conscience which must be cleaned through proper values and removing complacency from our work ethics. 

As a small developing nation, we rely heavily on donor funds. In fact, more than half our development activities are funded through external sources. Of late, most of these donor countries have announced that they will phase out of our country in the coming few years, and with that, we've been forced to face a grim, inevitable fact - that some day we will be on our own. I do not run the nation but I know how that feels because I stand at a similar juncture in my personal life as a young undergraduate. For years, I have depended on my parents to take care of all my needs and the prospect of having to start a job and be independent in a few years is a daunting thought. Our nation perhaps is at a similar crossroads. But unlike me who's being trained as a doctor and feel pretty confident of being able to earn my living eventually, I'm less confident in the training that our nation is getting. Let's face it, if all the donor countries (including our bestie down south) were to leave tomorrow, we face a very grim prospect of surviving on our own. We barely have any resources to rely on. The best gamble we have at our disposal is our human resource which I fear is far from strong enough to shoulder the responsibility of steering our country forward. With a population that is dwarfed in comparison to our two ginormous neighbors, we have very few options but to strive for excellence in everything that we do as our Beloved Monarch often points out. But excellence is far from what we Bhutanese strive for most of the time. Besides the kheymey that we use as a pathetic mantra to justify our incompetence, we often rely too heavily on the government - the noble Bhutanese tradition of expecting some form of kidu (Dzongkha: སྐྱིད་སྡུག) , translating as 'welfare' from our "rich" government. As an example, I won the Royal Government scholarship to pursue my medical degree here in Sri Lanka. As part of the scholarship entitlements, the Royal Government pays my annual tuition fees, a handsome amount of monthly stipends to cover my living expenses and an annual sum as book allowance. Besides this I'm also entitled to claim the reimbursement for my annual residence visa fees which I pay to the Sri Lankan government; I dutifully and without fail always submit my receipts to claim the sum from the scholarship office back in Bhutan. I never thought much about it for I believed I had earned it through my hard work during school days and winning the scholarship. In contrast, during my second year of studies here, a few of my Lankan friends went to represent the University at an international quiz competition in physiology held in Malaysia. Imagine my shock and horror when I discovered that they had paid from their own pockets for the air fare and also the expenses for their stay there. I asked my friend why was it so? Shouldn't the University have funded it all, after all they were representing the University (by the way, our University is state run) or perhaps even the Lankan government should have funded them for they represented Lanka too? To this, my dear Lankan friend calmly replied "Oh no, our University isn't that rich and their funds are spread too thin as it is providing free education to us all! And our government isn't in a much different condition either". I was truly ashamed of myself on that day. Here I was (the writer of such articles and future professional-to-be) with such narrow minded, selfish thoughts. I can't help myself, I'm a Bhutanese after all, it is in my blood to expect everything to be done by the government. If you want more evidence, then just switch onto the the national television, BBS right after some natural calamity has struck a part of the country and listen to the bereaved families, you'll know what I mean. Until the day we change this very Bhutanese attitude of the expecting the government to clean our mess up for us, we are bound to remain perpetually shackled to the tag of being a developing nation.

Unemployment, and in particular youth unemployment is a hot topic of discussion during election times. Such was the case in both of our elections in Bhutan. Every young citizen, be it a degree holder or a high school dropout, clung onto their seats to listen to what each party had on offer. And if what I said about corporations and business organizations being the powerhouse of an economy is true, then I'm afraid our Bhutanese powerhouse is like a steam engine full of cold, wet coal that wouldn't burn easily or even if it did, it would burn inefficiently producing more smoke than actual fire. I say this because in any economy, the corporations and businesses are enterprises which are run by entrepreneurs. Generally speaking, Bhutanese are the worst kind of entrepreneurs, mostly because of our complacency and unwillingness to work hard, and our contentment with the status quo. Walk into any Bhutanese shop and one shouldn't be surprised to be met with cold indifference by the shopkeeper, hardly even acknowledging your arrival in their shop, as if you were there not to buy something but rather to steal. Owing to our close proximity to India, most of us are very fond of Indian television and are fluent in Hindi. Ironically enough, while we have learnt lots of things from our giant neighbor, we have failed to learn the art of entrepreneurship from them, Indians being renowned for this very vital skill. In fact, I myself am guilty of being a bad entrepreneur, having helped my mother run a small grocery store a couple of years back, I hardly treated my customers more differently than my description above. (But then again, I could argue that enterprise was not my thing and I was destined to become a man of science). Although clichéd, it might be most appropriate to quote former American President John F. Kennedy when he said "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". Self employment and enterprise will be what will eventually draw us out of our present predicament. 

View of Sri Lankan hills in Kandy, Cental Province (Photo by author)

Living in a different country has often helped me realize and strengthen my Bhutanese identity. It has made me see things from a different perspective sometimes, and question some of the things we take for granted. There have been times when I've been proud of some of the way we do things in Bhutan too. I guess this is what my teachers often meant by exposure when they spoke of travel and living abroad. But for this piece, I have chosen to highlight a few of the many problems I see facing my motherland while utterly disregarding all the positive facets of our country and our people. I did this because, like I said earlier, we are too comfortable with ourselves and many before me have already exalted the many good virtues of us, Bhutanese. I wish to take a more critical stand and hope to evoke a few minds. The rise of nations such as South Korea and Singapore from the ashes to become the Asian tiger economies within the past few decades serve as living sources of motivation for our country. Our time has come, and it is time to answer this great calling, especially the younger lot of Bhutanese! 

FATHERS' DAY!!

Today is the 21st of June 2015, and as I scroll down my Facebook news feed, I see the social network site flooded with pictures of fathers posted with lots of grateful words. For once, it feels real, all those things posted on people's wall (funny how a virtually existent, intangible thing is given such a tangible name). Anyway, unlike most days when girls would post photos with one of their numerous "besties" (yes, such a word exists now - check the Oxford dictionary), reading through these words of how much their fathers mean to them feels more genuine. And even the smiles on their faces or the moments captured by those photos taken way back during an era when cameras were few and far between, when the word "selfie" was not conceived of yet and when pictures actually captured moments, and weren't taken in a whim of boredom or deleted just as easily, these pictures are much more beautiful (and real). 

Truth be told, I didn't know it is was Fathers' Day today, and I'm not sure if the majority of those who have posted these pictures did either or simply joined the bandwagon after seeing someone or a few of their friends do it, who in turn possibly might have done the same mindless mimicking themselves. I like to pretend I am smarter than most people, so I quickly Googled (another real word) it up and began reading a page on the ever informative Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Turns out, it is unofficially Fathers' Day in some countries where it is observed on the 3rd Sunday of June (I never understood why people kept some days - important ones at that like Friendship Day & today - on such ambiguously defined days? Why not have a specific day like the usual World Health Day (7th April), International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women (25th November) or the likes of it? That's besides the point anyhow. Like I was saying, it could be said to that is Fathers' Day today – fathers play such an important role in our lives, we could have it every month. So did I post something on my "wall" too? No, I didn't! Why not? Well, firstly because I once again wanted to feel smarter than others and not simply do what the masses had done. Secondly, and more importantly, because I thought of my father, and what he might  have said. 

I often find it odd to discover the Facebook accounts of older people, especially my relatives like uncles, aunts, grand uncles and grand aunts. To think they are Facebooking (again a completely valid, meaningful word), it just boggles my mind. To my ignorant and narrowly-thinking mind, Facebook has come to be associated with the younger generation. A sort of platform of young, lost souls to feel "connected" where they clutter up their lives with useless chatter in the name of posts, which are mostly nothing more than cries of exaggerated hopelessness, despair or happiness in their desperate bid to gain some attention while others feast on these spicy, juicy stories as a form of entertainment, or with endless "chats" (rightly termed I think) with hardly any meaningful, true conversation. Do not get me wrong, I am not simply accusing others of such follies, if anything I too am guilty of having committed them. Nor do I think Facebook or any other social networking site is utterly useless (funnily I met the love of my life through it). I'm not even against adults having Facebook profiles. I'm simply pouring out my honest thoughts on some days when I reflect on what we are actually doing on Facebook. But to continue my earlier discussion, I find adults having Facebook profiles odd because to me it (FB that is) has come to symbolize a sort of platform for the immature, youngsters who are still trying to discover who they are, trying to feel less lonely or insecure by counting all those "Likes" on their statuses, profile pictures or cover photos. And I always thought adults are very different from us in that sense; I know that it is a naive thought but it is an enduring one which I find hard to get rid of despite much pondering over it. It is further reinforced by the fact that my father himself does not have a Facebook account (now you know why I'm so heavily biased against adults having FB accounts). 

On Fathers' Day, I didn't post anything about my father or change my cover photo or profile picture having him in it. I didn't even wish him. I simply closed my eyes and thanked God (as a Buddhist there really is no point in it since we don't believe in a single God or creator per se). Nonetheless I expressed my gratitude. (Of course, I'm writing this article besides praying, some might argue). So why didn't I, the original question is still unanswered. Even if I had, my father wouldn't see it since he isn't on FB. So what's the point of writing it so publicly when all except the one person I want to convey how much he means to me can see it? But I guess that is the point nowadays, isn't it? Instead of a real conservation over a phone call, or better still, a visit in person to our loved ones, we post it publicly on their FB walls for all to see. Instead of enjoying the moment with the person we care for, we are busy trying to get  the best shot on our front cameras for a selfie (or Wefie - another nearly real word) to be later posted on FB! So while we are together, we talk less, instead we chat with someone else eagerly bent in front of those tiny screens, and later post a photo with big smiles on and write a few lines on what a wonderful time we had together (can't imagine a greater irony)! So for once I thought I needn't let the whole world know what I felt through FB, how much I loved my father in this case. But why didn't I message him directly then? Well, you see I don't even wish my father on his birthday. No, there is no tragic past or a flashback of father-son rivalry or anything like that found in a typical movie script. It's just that in our culture, we don't do such things. We don't say "I love you dad", or "I miss you dad" or "Thank you for everything", we simply don't. That is why we don't have words in my mother tongue that express these things. "I love you" only denotes a romantic sense in my mother tongue, nothing else, so certainly sons don't say it to fathers. We express it it differently, or rather silently I suppose. Me, for instance, I express it by speaking to him respectfully, that is perhaps why we have special respectful words that are used specially for elders in our language. These verbal expressions and these special days are a Western phenomenon which I find difficult to embrace with my father. Perhaps my son (yet unborn) may say such things to me some day and I may find it perfectly normal but I don't seem to be at ease saying it to my father yet. Of course, if I had mentioned to my dear Appa (father), he probably would have said, in his usual calm expression, “So what?”

So on Fathers' Day, I am writing my very first article for my blog, dedicating it to my father, to let him know that he is my idol, my inspiration and my hero.

To all fathers, who are heroes to their children - CHEERS!