Nawang P Phuntsho

(I have stolen this pic from PaSsu; not sure how he got it) What a memorable moment that was! And the whole nation is still in the celebratory mood. People everywhere undergo what I call a Royal Wedding hangover for the sheer longing for an extended duration so that the celebration befits the people’s king and the Queen and the joy of the Bhutanese people. But the fact that we were all part of this historic and auspicious national event is truly worth writing pages and pages about. I will always remember the day when the whole nation came together to celebrate the important event.   The Royal Wedding assumes an additional meaning to me. It was the occasion, which made my four-generation-family (my 87-year-old grandmother, my mother, me and my one-year old daughter) witness to this historic event. Of course the importance and sanctity of that auspicious occasion can never be overstated. It was truly one national event that unified and br...

Every time I behold His Majesty shake hands with people from all walks of life on the national television and hold the hands of old people, who shed tears of happiness not being able to contain the joy on meeting their king, a large lump forms in my throat. It happens every time I am shown that scene. And I find that I am unable to control my tears. This is when I know how His Majesty feels towards his subjects. This is also when I understand how much our old citizens love and revere their young king. And getting to shake my humble hands with that of his Majesty’s was truly a blessing in disguise. I will never forget my convocation. Talking of convocation, unlike in the past this year it was to be held in Thimphu according to the announcement made by Royal University of Bhutan. There were resentment from all graduates, but there was nothing much we could actually do. We wanted the day to be as real as it can get and for that we wanted to go to the actual setting and make it seem as...

Stalls being built If you somehow happen to be visiting Phuentsholing or permanently residing here, you won’t regret your being in this gradually turning dusty border town especially when the nation comes together to celebrate the Royal Wedding. The big event would unfold in Pungthang Dewa Chenpoi Phodrang and Changlingmithang national stadium, but to commemorate the auspicious occasion, the big names in Bhutan’s music industry will be here shouting their lungs out during the Royal Wedding. On 13 th October you will witness Bloywood singers and other bands entertaining the crowd while for the remaining two days, our eyes and ears would be treated with the melodious and haunting voices of Minzung Lhamo, Namgay Jigs, Ugyen (Mayako), Dechen Zangmo, Jampel Yangzom among many other well known singsers. If you aren’t in Thimphu or Punakha, come visit us in Phuentsholing and relieve your senses. There will be all sorts of food stalls and sales. However, if you love gambling and alcoho...

Photo Courtesy: http://www.raonline.ch Days are gradually getting shorter nowadays and the paddy fields are slowly yellowing in our villages like the autumn sun itself. For farmers this is the time to harvest their hard work for having toiled both in the rain and shine the whole summer long. But here in the heart of Phuentsholing town, there is nothing to harvest although the whole summer our footballers seemed to have prepared the new football field for paddy transplantation. Phuentsholing Sports Association (PSA) has invested a lot of effort in trying to turn the old ground into a new and standard football stadium; of course with the funding from the outside. It is nowhere near Changlingmithang national stadium, we know. But for a smaller town like Phuentsholing, the new stadium is all that we could possibly ask for. It came as a blessing for the football enthusiasts in the town. The new stadium (which does not appear to be now) took more than a couple years to be fully bu...

Dorji Penjore's latest book to hit the market In 2009 The Centre for Bhutan Studies (CBS) organized a three-day National Storytelling Conference. Scholars from home and abroad presented papers on the importance of folk culture. They pointed out the need to revive our rich oral tradition. Hundreds attended the program and it was truly one big national event. People from different regions were invited to narrate folktales in their own dialects. That conference was praiseworthy. It aimed at creating deeper understanding and appreciation of our oral tradition and similar traditions elsewhere. “Walls of rural Bhutanese houses may have once echoed and re-echoed with folktales narrations but frequency of narrations today is becoming ever fainter and lesser,” writes Dorji Penjore, one of Bhutan’s foremost folklorists. “There is a huge gap between original folktale reservoir and what could be narrated today. A Bhutanese folklorist would be disappointed by number of narrators and fol...