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All the Light We Cannot See- Book Review

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I love hearing war stories. But what’s even more inspiring and deep are the little stories which are often untold and hidden by the stories of heroic victories and defeats. My favourite ones include the story of Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician who invents a machine to crack Nazi codes and solves the impossible Enigma machine during the WWII, only to be classified and revealed decades after the war; the story of Leisel Meminger escaping her war-ridden life through the solace of books; and the story of Desmond Doss, who refuses to bear arms, but fights the war with compassion and saves almost a hundred men in the battlefield, and many more. Adding to this list, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See is a beautiful story I could read over and over again. It portrays two parallel lives of Marie Laurie and Werner, set in two different countries, France and Germany respectively, during the WWII.   Marie Laurie loses her vision at the age of six and the war leads ...
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Plants and I

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I tagged along with my cousin and a team of taxonomists, Life Science students, plant enthusiasts and basically people who knew about plants to Dochula last Sunday. And as you might have guessed already, I was the black sheep. My plant knowledge is as good as zero and if you ask, I can barely name ten plants. I didn’t study biology in High school because I wanted to concentrate on maths and also, I wanted free periods. I don’t regret about this decision but sometimes I just wish for a better connection with plants. Stuck a Taraxacum behind my ears My cousin Dechen, had told her friends that I am a “nature lover” in the idea of creating a bond with the team and when one of them asked me how I got my interest in plants, I quite humored myself. I told them that I came across various plants while studying Landscape Architecture which is in reality, just few shrubs and trees I’d gone through the internet. But I got them all nodding in agreement, so everyone was good. ...
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What is Time?

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Just a picture taken two months ago A few years ago, I wrote this article about how confused and how many questions I had before going to college. I was going to start a completely new adventure in my life, travelling more than five hundred kilometers from home, in a sub-tropical climate only to challenge my body that has endured extreme cold but not heat. I was then eighteen, curious and firing with excitement, ready to bring myself out to the world with the teenage motivation. I’d have imagined my college in ten thousand ways and often hoping it not to be less than stairs that opened with passwords and cozy common rooms for study, or a library with deep secrets. I must’ve idealized my college too much but I couldn’t blame because even after reaching the college and seeing what it exactly looked like, or worked, I would secretly hope for something fascinating to happen, at some point. It’s been four years now, and this is my fifth year. And if you ask me, I’m still trying ...
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Kitiphu, an eye to Bumthang

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Kitiphu, at a distance If I were a vulture, I couldn’t possibly have known how high this beautiful mountain touched the sky. Kitiphu is one of the most wonderful ridges I have ever been to. Having Tharpaling monastery, once the seat of Kuenkhen longchen Rabjam, at its feet, this holy mountain stands up to about 7,500 meters above the sea level. I’ve been living in Bumthang ever since I was born but I could make it to Kitiphu only a few weeks ago. Thank god that a reason and a strong determination came up to string some lungdar(prayer flags) on that mountain. The main reason why people go to Kitiphu is to put up prayer flags considering the fact that we gain luck if we do so. I’ve also been told that during the second king’s reign, this mountain used to be a bypass between the then two capitals, Bumthang and Kuenga Rabten(Trongsa). I wonder how people could have been able to walk for days, sleep under trees and cook beside the paths. the mountain ranges we could see from Kitip...
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The Thing about Merit

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There is no such thing as being self-made. I refuse to believe that human beings and anyone for that matter, have any natural capacity to be self-made. Michael Sandel’s “The Tyranny of Merit — What’s Become of the Common Good, ”- is a hard read but had quite an impact on my deeply rooted opinions on, life, basically. The thought of wanting to solve all these misconceptions plagues me to a point where I don’t even put an effort to think. At the risk of sounding like I’ve figured it all out after one book, I put together 2 things I’d like to believe I learned. 1. The irony about self-made people: The concept of ‘self-made’ or self-sufficiency had the heaviest impact on me. What a life-changing experience it was to learn that the more one considers oneself self-made, the harder it is to instill gratitude and humility. And this matters because it is rare to care about the common good without these sentiments. Most of us enjoy the pride we take in the independence we set for ourselves. The ...
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