what do we know about the ladies?

Where ever we visit the temple or the monastery, we will see the statue or the mural paintings of the famous three figure. They are Guru Rinpoche accompanied by two consorts or khandro known as yeshi Tshogyal and Mandarava. The term khandro(མཁའ་འགྲོ་) is a tibetan term translated as the “sky walker or sky goer” ,In Sanskrit it is known as “Dakini”. Every one of us know how important guru Rinpoche is in the history of Buddhism. He subdued the demons and propagated the teachings in those places where Buddhism has not prevailed. His teachings were the highest level known as the vajrayana. Bhutan is blessed by him throughout his three times visit during the 8^th century.

guru rinpoche at the centre, right khandro Mandarava,left khandro yeshi Tshogyal

The two ladies depicting in the statue or the paintings, the right one is khandro Mandarava. She was an princess born to king Arshadhare and queen Hauki of west Bengal. From the very young age she showed sign of great compassion, she was an exceptionally beautiful. However she showed no interest in getting married and becoming a queen. Rather she requested to take up spiritual practice.  She met with Guru Rinpoche and started receiving teachings from him. The relationship between the guru and the princess was of a master and student. It was not easy for both of them to cope up with the king. Thinking that the guru was luring the princess, he tried to burn him alive and placed the princess in the pitch of thorns. Guru with his magical power turned the fire into the lake and remained there surrounded by thousands of dakini. King after perceiving this he regreted his actions and asked forgiveness to the master and the princess. He willingly offered his daughter to the master with great sense of devotion and regret. Guru Rinpoche then gave  profound teachings of Dzogpachenpo or the great perfection to the and his people thus leading to the path of liberation.

The greatest achievement of khandro Mandarava along with Guru Rinpoche was the attainment of the stage Tsewang Rigzin or “Long life awareness holder” (ཚེ་དབང་རིག་འཛིན.) It was the practice done at Maratika cave at Nepal that they the vision of lord Amitayus or god of long life (ཚེ་དཔག་མེད .)It is said that due to this attainment she has overcome death and she is alive even today just like the Guru. For that reason she is depicted holding a vase of long life(ཚེ་བུམ) in her left hand.  On her right hand carries a stick hanging the five color cloth piece(ཚེ་དར). Mandarava is considered as the mother who gives the blessing of long life.

The second on the left side is famously known as khandro Yeshi Tshogyal. She is dressed in Tibetan style holding a skull with with amrita (བདུད་རྩི) ་Born to the lord Kharchen Pelgi Wangchuk and queen Getso with auspicious sign. Her beauty attracted the attention of the kings of neighboring countries. When she was asked to choose herself a bride she refused saying that she would pursue spiritual practice. She runs away from the palace and undergoes numerous hardships. Then she is taken by the Great king Thritshong Detsun who later offers to guru as a gesture of gratitude for the teachings. Guru seeing her capabilities happily accepts her as his dakini and give teachings. Khandro with her inevitable devotion and dedication she accomplishes whatever she is made to practice. Because of her innate natural wisdom she acts like a great vessel where the teachings of guru are poured.

Besides being spiritual consort of the guru, she is also considered as one of the 25 major disciples in Tibet. She practiced at Paro Taktshang, singye Dzong and many other places. So many hand, foot and body print are kept on the rocks of sacred places in Tibet and Bhutan. She requested Guru to give many important teachings which still remain.  Along with the master they concealed many teasures(གཏེར) for the future beings. Those treasures some are being discovered by the destined teasure revealer (གཏེར་སྟོན་པ)   and some will be discovered in the future. She complied the entire secret teachings of Guru Rinpoche and concealed it. Her sign of accomplishment was bringing the death back to life. She contributed in spreading the teachings of guru and worked tirelessly till her final attainment of rainbow body(འཇའ་ལུས). After Guru Rinpoche left she became the main holder of the sacred teachings. The other disciples clarified doubts from her. She became insperable from the Guru.  She lived for up to 200 years and finally went to the pure realm of the copper colored mountain(ཟངས་མདོག་དཔལ་རི ) without  discarding the human body. She is the like mother to all the beings of Tibet.

killing your own blood

three month fetus

What do we know of a mother who aborts the baby? Every one of us will assume her as very rude, heartless and a bad mother. Is it all? How can we judge someone without knowing what they are going through? One of the drawback in the humans is that we overlook at somebody’s situation. We blame and gossip rather than trying to understand her feelings.

Let us try to understand the situation of an 18 years old girl who is pregnant for three months. Her parents are very strict and would never accept the child. She is in the second year of her college. The boy who is in same college has accepted the baby but they decided that it was not a good time to start a family. So without anyone’s knowledge they secretly made plan to go to samdrup jongkhar. The boy has made appointment through his friend with the Indian hospital. It was a tough situation for both of them. They both loved the baby so much and it was the sign of their love. It was a heartbreaking moment to remove the symbol of love.

When they were ready to leave the next day, the girl could not sleep. She could feel the movement of her baby and that made her heart cry. So she woke up and decided to write a letter to her baby. She writes.

My Dear baby,

Firstly I want you to know that your mama loves you so much. I know that your dad loves you as much as I do. I am really sorry dear I could not fulfill the duty of a good mother. She should be happy by the news of having a baby, she should make everyone happy by giving her good news to the family members. But I could not do this. Dear I don’t want to bring you to this world of people disgracing us. People will blame us, they will disgrace your mama and her family. Your father will be defamed in front of everyone. It is not that we hate you it is just that the timing is bad. If we bring you here even your grandpa and grandma won’t accept you. My friends will gossip and say that I have been a whore. My teachers will say that I have wasted my time in the college. May be they are true, maybe we are the ones who made mistake. But dear I want you to know that your parents loved each other so much. I wonder sometimes whether loving is a crime. Forgive us dear baby if not we will have to leave with the guilt throughout our lives. You have been growing inside me and it is unimaginable that I won’t have you tomorrow. So this whole night I want be with you, talk with you and feel your presence.

I love you so much dear baby and you will always be in my memory. I fear that tomorrow our fate will separate us. I am so sorry dear……………..do forgive us.

With lots of love

Yours mama.

At the same time the boy also wrote a short letter to his baby. It says

Dear baby

Your papa is so ashamed in front of you. He is so sorry that he could not be a responsible dad to bring you here. If you come here I will not be able to give you and your mother the comfortable life which I want to give. I am so sorry I could not be what I should be. From the core of my heart I loved you dear baby. I fear of losing your mother, she is the best thing that is in my life. Now I fear of losing you and that fear haunts me so much. Always remember we have loved you and will always be loving you

Yours

 loving dad.

They exchanged the letters next day and started their journey. They took the risk of aborting the child. It was very tough for both of them but they had to cope up. They realized that it was their mistake and their simple mistake brought a huge impact. They felt like a murderer and murdering their own blood was not easy. Not only in Bhutan millions of babies are aborted worldwide. It is sad that parents are becoming killers. The lesson that we need to learn from them is being responsible for our action. We need to be careful about what we do and decide. Sometimes our infatuated emotions which is so blur could change the course of our life. As a student we need to understand the priorities whether studies are important or the love? We need to balance our life in such a way that we are not distracted. We are the hopes of our parents and as a student we must try to uphold this.

Diary of a girl

We have read many news about rape cases. It takes my heart away to read that story. Rape is the worst inhuman behavior. I remain struck with lots of questions after reading. I wonder how she is coping up.  The story of victim does not end there yet it is just the beginning. How would she cope up with the love of her life? Will the incident haunt her throughout? The article that I have published is written from the rape victim point of view. I thank my source (who was a victim in 2011), she willingly shared her experiences to me. I am sorry to the readers because I don’t want to reveal everything about the incident. My article is not about 5Ws and 1H, it is not written in the hard news format. Rather as per her wish I have written down in the first person view.  We decided to write in the diary form. It could be taken as an excerpt from her diary. Here it goes…….. 

“God what I ask from you is freedom to leave my life without fear. I know my life has been so unfair with me. May be the pain I have undergone at that age was beyond what I could tackle. But even today I wonder whether that incident has made me strong or not. Still today I am wondering with those questions in my mind. Dear god, if you really have compassion to the sentient beings. I want you to kindly answer my few questions. I would like to know the reason why did it happen to me? You know very well that I was too innocent to believe anything especially as I was waiting for someone who would take me with him. Was my mistake that I had too much faith in you that made me undergo such pain?

If it was to happen with me then why is it that all the people had to know, how about my father’s reputation which he earned for lifetime was shattered by me. God, you really made me realize that I am the worst human ever.  I have realized that I have not been a good daughter to my parents and now I realized that I even cannot be a good girl friend to him. I am so sorry my dear love I wish to be a better one but I am shattered from inside. I have lost my pieces and I fear that it would never be complete. I respect individuality because similar things never happen to everyone. Those pain that I have to undergo, please let me be the last person. I can’t imagine to let anyone suffer as I did.

Looking at my present situation, my life from the audience point of view looks so perfect. My friends says they envy my life. They find it so comfortable and thinks that I’m lucky. Who would be seeing what I am going through? It is always true that we cannot judge a book by its cover and that is so applicable in my life. Things that have happened and those still happening I just wonder the cause for that. The girl that I used to be 12 years ago would be surprised to find the type of lady she is becoming. She might never have imagined that she would grow up to be a heartless and useless lady. Sometimes I wish if I could go back and be that girl so engrossed with books.

Life is unpredictable, that’s the greatest lesson I have ever learned so far. I never expected that I will have to see this phase of my life. I thought my life would be simple but it is just horrible. It is very tough to keep things about yourself with you because sometimes you run out of strength to bear that pain. It takes a lot to regain the hope to live. When you get lost in your own thoughts sometimes you find your existence meaningless. You realize that you have made no difference. May be I will never be able to make a difference.

I am so sorry not being able to understand you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me but the timing was bad. It takes my heart away, I love you so much and I want the best things to happen to you. For that I want to go away because I am not the right one for you. I will not be able to stand up to your expectation. I wish you all my luck and love more than enough so that you will move on without me. I know I just came for a while in your life and I might not have that huge impact. I had one of the most memorable time with you and I thank you for that because I will always have it to cherish.

I don’t blame anyone for my fate, it just happened. Now I try to move on and shape myself for a better future. The person I can be now is normal. It is tough actually to act as if nothing happened in your life.  Maybe that incident has made me strong and I shall continue to be stronger”.

Feminist power

1.       1.women and the society

The society accepts men with their past time games such as khuru and archery. They gather together during the festivals and participate in the competition. Archery indeed is gaining its competency. yangphel tournament is an national event where Bhutanese men can showcase their talents. Attractive prizes are awarded, man with highest kareys is offered a car and the winning team wins other prizes.

When it comes to woman there is no such national event conducted. Women unlike men hardly get chance to gather and socialize through the games. They are deprived of showing their talent. It was a amazing moment when group of ladies back in 2010 played khuru. Some people gave positive comments and said it was a positive sign of equality. Whereas some few people also argued that it does not suit women with the khuru. According to the human right entitlement anyone can choose to play the game of their choice. Women must not be discouraged by those social stigma that feminine is always associated with soberness and calmness.

Now with the changing times it has created a platform where women can at least understand that they must be treated equally. Apart from the guardian of the family, beside the fact that women is the cook of the family. Entitlement and privileges of a women must be respected. 

women playing khuru, 

                       

              2.  Women and the education

When it comes to recognizing the equality of feminism. Education has now shown a positive result. 100 years ago when the first modern school started in Bhutan, no girls went to study. Daily household chores were reserved only for girls. Family could never think of sending their daughter to the school. Girls from the early age were taught to do household chores like cooking and herding cows. In eastern Bhutan, girls were trained to weave.

Gradually people started understanding the benefits of education. Parents realized even for the girls life could be better. This is how girls also started enrolling in the schools. During 1980s and 1970s the ratio was visibly unequal, the number of boys exceeded the girls. Later from the beginning of 21^st centuary the ratio became equal. Now in 2014 it is indeed surprising to see more number of girls in the class.

Education has the potential to let people undestand what is equality and be a responsible citizen.It is a good sign to see equal number of male and female competing for jobs. Women even take up blue collar jobs. In Bhutan the capital city has number of women taxi drivers, which is very inspiring. At the same time we have women not only as a mother and wife but as a doctor, engineer, teacher and more. They take up double responsibility and it is amazing to see them take the challenge.  

3.women and politics

When democracy was first institutionalized in the country, people started up with the formation of political parties. The majority of the member as expected were male and only few women participated in the election. The winning party won few sits for women too. But no one received the title of lyonpo.

2013 election gave us a new scenario, among five political parties two women were the president. Although the democratic system of the country is very young, it showed a good sign of taking a firm root. For the first time in the Bhutanese history, the country got its first ever elected woman minister. This broke the stereotype of olden times where woman were not given high post.

During the times of jigme Namgyel till the reign of the third king. Woman hardly participated. In the decision making process. The society was a male dominant society. There was no sit and opportunity was not provided. As of now the country has tried its best to encourage women’s participation in the poitics. So many workshops, seminars and advertisements are made to let to women explore their potentiality.

First elected woman lyonpo Dorji Choden.

Thank you seniors

 

Dear seniors,

We express our heartfelt congratulation for making through sherubtse. Best wishes for the journey you all take up from now on. We hope the hardwork you all have put up for three years  will be ripened.  

We all have been together for a year, attended assemblies together and above everything you all have been the most exemplary senior. You all were our inspirations when we first joined the college. You all gave us the motivation to start our journey  and yet we as a first year students took up the steps you all had taken two years ago. The impression that you all have created shall be imprinted forever in our heart. We hope that you  have gathered all the packages you need for the journey of life. Happy Graduation!!!!.

Best wishes,

First Year students.

  

When I was getting ready to join the college, we were narrated incidents of how freshers were treated. I heard about the ragging system and deep inside i felt the pinch. The ragging system which is the better word for bullying was highly prevalent in the colleges and schools. I was reluctant to join the college fearing the ragging from the seniors. 

The impression of the seniors we had in our mind was totally the opposite when we reached here. They were one of the best sisters we could ever imagine. They would come to us ask whether we were comfortable or not, they came forward to let us feel at home. Then i realized that not every seniors bully the juniors. 

While this semester is coming to an end. The final year students are getting ready for their final stay in the college. They are coping up with their presentations, test and assignments and they balance it with movies and farewell gatherings. The atmosphere is very intense filled with excitement but for some its emotional.

At this point of time it very inspiring for first year students to see our seniors getting ready to face the world. I personally feel very happy as well as apprehensive for them. I see myself in them after two years from now. It arouses a sense of fear when I think of leaving this college. I fear of losing those who are very close to me especially my friends. Distance tears apart the relationship but thanks to social media we can change still be connected. 

Since I have two more years to go on, to learn  and experience life. I think two years is lot more. So many things can happen, we can change for betterment.

Smile of contentment

Despite the noisy sound of vehicle, abi sits at the courtyard of the house. On her right hand she turns her prayer wheel and counts the bead by the left hand. She continuously chants Mani siting peacefully. She gets up early at around 5am and starts her prayers. Sometimes she spents her time with people chatting and listening to their jokes.  

She is abi Tsundru aged 94 counted as the oldest citizen in kanglung and Rongthung vicinity. Born in 1920 at Rongthung as the eldest sister. She had a younger sister but died at a young age.  Abi has seven children and more than twenty grandchildren.  Her husband has expired many years ago and the second marriage did not last long.  Now she recollects her memories of their lifestyle in 1930s. It is indeed very heartwarming to get firsthand information from a person who has seen the maximum change.

When asked about how Rongthung was during her times, she says there were only 20 households and the houses were built as single storied by bamboo which amounted to 40 people in the community. She remembers her life from the age of 16 to 17 which was around 1936 to 1937 under the reign of the second king jigme wangchuck. Now Rongthung has 132 household with more than 700 people.

“our life was simple, we had nothing as compared to today. Our diet composed of flour and potatoes ’’, replies abi when asked about the meals. Due to the lack of fertilizers less quantity of spinach, radish and potatoes were grown.

As a young girl she has worked for Tashigang. She says people could not focus much on their works as they spent their time working for the Dzongpon. According to her the greatest change she had seen seen was in terms of diet. She says, “our diet composed of flour and potatoes, we would rarely get chance to eat rice. These days we get to eat rice three times a day, thats so special for me”.

Another greatest challenge was trading. They had to walk all the way to samdrup jongkhar which was known as gudama by then. Five to six people would travel to samdrup jongkhar carrying woven clothes and potatoes. They would do batter system and exchange with salt, utensils and thread. The journey in total would take two weeks to reach at the village. Our life has really undergone a huge change, developmental activities has made life much easier compared to the olden days of theirs.

Having witnessed lots of changes in her life, she says she is thankful to the kings of Bhutan for ruling the country independently. Despite the fact that she has reached such a crucial age, abi Tsundru has no such chronic disease. The only thing is she has some difficulty in hearing and vision. However she smiles with contentment. She advices the younger generation to make the best use of every opportunity available.

"Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”

I feel those are the lines which best describes my life. If someone ask me why I say that, I would happily give one thousand and one reason for my justification. Those lines have touched my heart and I feel that it shall always do.

Earlier my life was easy and simple. Performing well in the classes and not playing any games. I was only directed towards studies. I had a fear that I would be ashamed if I don’t top just like the previous classes. May be my meaning of success was based on fear of losing my position, maybe I just worked hard to be in number one. Later I realized that being in the number one position is not always winning. Sometimes we think that we have won but if we look carefully we might have lost so many things. It is true that as a student we must prioritize studies first. But we must also understand that some values need to be learned through experiencing and exploring the life. May be this was what I missed when I was busy occupied with the books.

Time passed and so did my primary and secondary schooling at yonphula LSS. There in the school I grew up with big dreams, my teacher used to tell me that I should become a Dasho one day. I too believed in her words however sadly I did not know what type of Dasho I need to be. Now when I look back I wish instead of encouraging me to be a Dasho, she could have taught me to be a good learner first. Above all she also could have taught me to be a good human. In school students are taught to have ambitions such as doctor, engineer and pilot but forgets to tell them to be a better one. After all I realized that we don’t make somebody to become someone. That somebody himself or herself becomes someone. We just need to show them the path and they will take the journey of life themselves.

My life took a major turn when I reaches grade 12. It was during this time when I realized that my life was just like the poem “The road not taken” by Robert Frost. I felt like I was lost somewhere, I could see myself heading towards nowhere. Then I remember those lines “Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”, because I had to make a choice whether to pursue science or go back to arts. Everyone including teachers and friends wanted me to join engineering or computer science for the college. I on the other side wanted to take up arts. I was motivated to risk taking unusual path by the poem.

Those lines hold close to my heart and it was a source of inspiration for me. This lines define who I am now. I feel that now after reaching the platform which I have been waiting for so long. I find myself shouldered with lots of responsibilities. I need to fulfill my duty as a caring daughter to my parents, as a hardworking student to my teacher and above all I shall serve my duty as a good human being to the world.   

Who am I?

It gives me a second thought whenever I have to talk about myself. I had to answer many other questions before I could answer of who am I. when I look back at my life, I realized that it was very simple. I changed ambitions yearly, I thought of becoming a doctor sometimes an engineer. As a topper during my high school days, my teachers and friends expected me to join science stream in class 11. Indeed I did what I was expected to do. Ignoring my own potential and interest, i studied pure science for two years. Studying was not easy, by then I learnt that we must never do things which we don't like. I found myself lost somewhere, I didn't have any dreams as such. My only motive became to pass the subject but I realized that I would never opt for science related studies in the future. 

By virtue I qualified for Sherubtse and i decided that I would take up media studies. Then only I realize that this was the place I was meant to be.

Now I want to grab the essence of life and discover my potential. I feel aspired to break through this monotonous life and experience the taste of hard work, success, failure and most of all taste of real happiness. I won’t mind even if I don’t do any job for a living. I don’t want to become someone and make a difference rather I want to make a difference and become somebody.dorjiwangchuk2013@sherubtse.edu.bt