Beyond Alphabets

Blessing me with her wisdom; my daughter

It is nothing new. I am trying to teach English alphabets to my almost three-month-old daughter. She did well. On the first day, she could utter only a few vowels, but the progress has been good. A, E, and O are her favorite alphabets. There are a few alphabets she purposefully refuses to say aloud with me. There are many, but I want to talk of only one today and give my interpretations. The letter C. From the look of her eyes, she is clearly disgusted. And I am sure you will mock at my assumptions, but as a father, I have a right to interpret my daughter’s wisdom.

It has been there ever since the beginning; as old as the mankind. Naturally, it is human tendency to think of someone who does a little good things to us or speaks kindly of us, we think he/she is a nice person. And everyone has weakness to nice persons. All family members and friends are nice people to everyone. Obviously nice people are to be treated well. And when you are a person in a high position, you have people looking up to you, all nice people, your friends, family members and relatives. All these people expect you to do good things to them that might somehow benefit them now or in the near future.

But it is against the moral conscience of man to favor one set of people over another. Again, it is quite a human tendency to help your near and dear ones. You just did the right thing by giving your cousins some jobs. You just did the right thing by letting your nephew write a selection exam even when he has already received the answered questions in advance. You just did the right thing by taking the road to this part of the geog because all nice people in the village live there including your own parents. You just did the right thing by offering some cash to a man of power because now your daughter has a comfortable job to take care of her livelihood.

My daughter has had the chance to be ride cars on her way to her routine injections. And she has consented to get a ride in a cab because being nice person she understands her father’s position. She understands now her father has to pay extra money to get the same car and buying a used car contributes to air pollution.

This is at the time when the entire world is talking about combating climate change and global warming. And when such talks are going on this side of the globe, some people are making millions from their industries and factories while others make millions by the very act of organizing such events. Well, talking helps, but blabbering without action is a sheer waste of energy. People look forward to such summits for they take them to foreign lands, where they will be treated like saints to star rated hotels. Our approach to climate change may not have changed at all. Some of us make living by talking on fancy topics.

An endemic sense of place

A sense of place is a feeling that makes one feel at home and thereby at peace whenever he or she is in a particular area or think of one. It is the first impression or a deep sense of recognition that is deeply rooted in our memories. It is a feeling of happiness, and a sense of safety, an expression of endearment toward a particula r place (Cross 2001). Before I travelled to Perth for my studies, I used to work in Thimphu, though I was born and raised in a small village called Wamling in central Bhutan. Although Thimphu offers modern facilities and infrastructure, it is only back in the village that I feel entirely at home. It's here I get a sense of peace and experience a sense of belongingness; it's where I can genuinely be myself. In Wamling, our day breaks with a crowing of a rooster and mooing of cows in the distance. Somewhere a horse neighs, and another reciprocates from nearby. A dog howls and chickens chuckle in the coup. A stream gurgles down the hill turning p...

Utpal Academy - Bhutan's first All-girls High School

Academic Block Welcome to Bhutan’s first all-girls school. Isn’t that wonderful news to all our parents? Certainly, as a parent of a one-year old daughter I am excited about the coming of a school exclusively dedicated to the needs of girls. Our girls need special treatment, which we can for sure entrust the responsibility to Utal Academy, Paro. Dinning Hall I really like the name – Utpal – in Buddhist world, Utpal is another name for lotus flower, which is believed to grow from mud and yet blossoms into a beautiful and majestic flower. It stands for purity and many deities are depicted holding flower Utpal, more prominently Jestusn Dolma, the Goddess Tara. Symbolically, it also stands for the transformation of our girls. What an apt name for the school! Hostel Room The Principal’s message posted on the academy’s website promises providing our young women an “opportunity to participate fully in a wide range of extracurricular activities to develop skills and qualities that...

When they are ready

The Ministry of Education discovered 890 'underage' children admitted in schools across the country in 2019. Thus, the ministry in May 2019 issued a notification revoking the admission for these children. Majority were in urban centres. Desperate, parents and the affected schools requested the government to intervene. They also requested the government to consider lowering the enrolment age to five years. Currently, in Bhutan a child can legally go to school only when s(he) is six years old. And that policy was strictly followed a few years ago to the extent that some schools refused to admit children even if they were short of a few weeks. So, parents, mostly in urban areas, resorted to faking their children's ages. Many parents were guilty of adding years onto their children's actual ages. However, most parents, we are told, managed to correct their 'mistakes' later. Faking a child's age was rampant...

Nawang P Phuntsho

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