Naming Them

Bhutanese are getting more resourceful when it comes to naming; be it a person’s name or a name for their business entities.  In the eighties and early nineties there used to be a shop by the name “New Ideas”, located at the heart of Phuentsholing town.  Lots of criticisms were directed at it, accusing it of not conforming to the traditional name.  To this effect an article even appeared in the opinion column of kuensel. 

But today the trend seems to have changed drastically.  People are getting lots of “new ideas” and they are getting more imaginative by the day, when it comes to naming.  One noticeable change is in the moniker of people, which are getting complicated and some of them even sounding like tongue twisters.

Losing the Roots

I come from a small village, located at the South Eastern part of the country.  Back in the late 70s it used to be a small village of just 15 households, where everyone knew everyone.  Except for two huts, all houses were made of stone and mud.  All of them looked similar - dark and ancient, in an imposing way.  The roofs were either wood shingles or slates.  The attics were used as granary cum store room and the ground floor housed the cattle.  The family lived in the first floor, which consisted of two rooms.  The outer room served as the kitchen, dining room, drawing room and the inner one housed the altar.  The whole family shared these two rooms.

Ours was a large family, perhaps the largest in the village.  My grandfather used to pride about this very fact.  Today we are 116 members, the progeny of our grandparents. Then, we were seventeen dining members, including us, seven grand children.  One uncle used to be away most of the time, either for ‘woola’ (compulsory labour contribution) or ‘druk dom’ (labour contribution for a year by a person for every six able bodied men).  Another used to tend the cattle and the supply of butter and cheese never seemed to exhaust.  My mother and her sisters used to do the household chores and weave clothes for the entire family.  Life used to be a simple one then.

Taken for Granted – Making Security Our Responsibility

“The only time we ever think about breathing is when we have trouble doing it…” says Marty Klein, of Palo Alto, California.  There are some things we take for granted and never notice it till it is lost or endangered.  Security is one such thing, in the list of a Bhutanese.  It has been presented to us on a golden platter and we made it our right and never realized how we got it and what it took to get it and even more difficult, what it takes to maintain it.

Happy Clogging! – My Losar Greetings

New Year, as per the Gregorian calendar, is just over and it’s time for another of the few new years we, the Bhutanese celebrate, in different parts of this small country – Lomba in Haa and Paro region, Chunipa  Losar in the East, Dasain in the southern part and the Daw Dangpa Losar.  The immediate one due is Chunipa Losar, popularly known as ‘The Sharchokp Losar’. 

And it is time for another round of greetings – sending wishing cards (on the dwindle now), calling up friends and families (the order of precedence here is intentional; friends are always dealt with first, especially friends of the opposite sex type, after which comes the family), sending text messages (sms), which is the most popular form as of now, and finally through social networking sites, the most popular being the facebook ( I can’t imagine how we would have managed our lives without this facebook!).

Of Marriages and Infidelities

There is a slight rain today, a drizzle actually.  The remnants of the Thrui Bab (Blessed Rainy Day), my wife says.  I am sitting at the patio of my house, which is directly facing the great old gulmohar tree.  It amazes me to no end to see this great tree, standing strong and firm.

            Today a majestic looking hornbill couple has appeared from nowhere and they are sitting on the topmost branch, at the dome of the ‘big green umbrella’, of this great tree.  What lovely birds!  Elsewhere, they are an almost extinct species, it is reported. 

            Birds, they say, couple for life.  They remain faithful to each other throughout life.  There are stories of how one partner commits suicide if the other dies or gets killed.  I cannot vouch for its truthfulness, but if so, we humans have a lot to learn from these gentle creatures.

Who am I?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

 The famous lines from Shakespeare, probably read and will be read by countless people generations down the line.

Of late I got this strange feeling of wanting to find out who am I.  My name, the inheritance from my late grandma (May her soul rest in peace!), is what I am known as and called so.  But, what and who am I really, inside?  This has been nagging me for some time now.

A Dialogue with Generation Z

By any standard I don’t think I will be termed as old and I don’t feel so either.  Neither can I be called young any more.  A bit of rigidity has set into my joints, though I can proudly say that I am physically very active.  But the remarks of my son, while we were discussing birthdays, made me feel my age.  He said, “Dad, but where will you place all those candles even if you celebrated your birthday?”  I was telling him about my lack of interest in celebrating my own birthday.