Found Home but Lost the World

At times, even with the fertile mind to write, cultivation of writing is narrowly possible in a place where the network receptivity is eccentrically sterile. In such circumstances, to keep that same wick of thirst constantly burning is undeniably gruelling.

I had a basketful of wish lists to accomplish at home before I returned from my studies. But my place of posting has painfully strangulated all those sprouts of my plans. Some limbs of the dreams had to be either removed or made to wither and shrink of its own, while a large part of it had to horribly sustain with the hailstorm of incessant miscarriages and failures.

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Most agonizingly, that momentum of keeping in touch with my colleagues, students, kith and kin, fellow bloggers in and around the world and some close readers, dissolved without a trace. A friend of mine has humorously inboxed me, “Which part of the world are you in?” Another wrote, “The Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has warned to remove those dormant accounts. You are on the list”.

This seems funny but if truth be told, I was strangely forced to hibernate inside the cocoon of dormancy. The feelings I engrave and the sentiments I endure, which are generally expressed in the form of words could not be shared and communicated due to the sterile technological exit ticket- the internet. 

No matter how much I wish and think positive, that same amount of frustrations engulf me. When the flames of my passion get blown off, though forcefully, that’s the time, when I don’t attempt to fuel it or regrow it, ultimately distancing from my social rings. That’s the time when I feel that when I found my home, I have lost the world.

“Keeping in touch with the people that matter is important” – G Eazy   

Is Virginity, Male or Female?

In the 1950s, 60% of women lost their virginity to the man they were engaged to or married. Today, that figure is just 1% (Allan & Pease, 2009).

The authors of the international bestseller ‘Why men want sex and women need love’ answers myriad of questions ranging from why men want sex while women need love to what men and women really want and, why people engage in casual sex to the mysterious truths men don’t know about women and vice versa.

In its most humorously captivating pattern of language expression, this book is a transparent bible for people longing to start a ‘perfect relationship’. There is nothing such as ideal chemistry or flawless marriage it claims but there is certainly a list of recipes that can help fix our relationships suffering from bruises or loose screws.

The most intriguing experience on reading this book was that whatsoever messages it has composed are erected on the pillar of evidence imbibed from countless standard empirical scientific researches. And as a man, I couldn’t agree more with the male instincts and masculine physiognomies they described. Or else, I might end up with a risk to fall into a column of being androgynous. Seriously.

There are so many seeds of the message I want to sow in fallow me and to my circles suffering from an irregular drought of ignorance. As much as that inspiration train moved inside me, I wanted to gift this book (and other series by the same authors) to my friends and siblings, and let that same train travel through their veins of understanding. In all, my appetite for reading only non-fiction books was never feasting and treasurable than ever. 

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So, as I unthread each message from every page I flipped, I related to how the same things are generally viewed in the face of our society. One of them was about sex – the matter we often shrink back (at least during day hours) and regard as nighttime or non-family stories.

As elaborated in this book, somewhere at some point, our society is driven by that typical set of thinking about sex. As much as men practice infidelity, the number is often graphed as a matter of pride or achievement or to reveal sexual masculinity (at least amongst men). For women surrendering to such practices – either casually or due to emotional upsets, sex with each man becomes a thermometer to measure the temperature of their character, loyalty and devotion. This means, higher the frequency - more the recitation of her name on every male tongue, and the greater risk of cataloguing as a lady with a loose character.

(Similarly), though there wasn’t any mention about virginity (in this book), I extended the circuit of sex to connect with it, after all, virginity is the first introductory question of any sex – asked either openly or secretly.   

Virginity in my narrowest sense - meaning amongst the limited circle of friends I intermingled, is largely interpreted with more inclination towards the females. I rarely heard of my male associates initiating to chat or speak of losing their virginity. Whenever we talk of sex and the related stories – the fairly common backbone of male talk in most of the get-together occasions, we clothe virginity with feminine characteristics. Men rarely regard or remember when and where they murdered their virginity. The way men talks, strangely picture how they are only concerned about the ‘reproductive purity’ of the women. Perhaps, we boys are brainwashed with the ‘Defloration’ pornography where they expose only young girls ending their virginity by men who have already lost theirs a long time ago.

Virginity in its broadest explanation should not be gender-biased. After all, once we trade off and unpack our reproductive organs into a sexual market either for reproduction or passing our genes, in both the genders, it loses its glamour of rigidity, tarnishes its first-time appearance and distorts the geography of its general outlook, if truth be told.  

There is nothing to feel aghast. Neither should a reader assume me going crazy or transforming into a sexual expert. Nor am I claiming that I know everything about something. I am none of these. But as Allan and Barbara explain so succinctly why men and women see many of the same things differently, we really need to school our thinking.

And one way to do so is by flirting with this book. It really provides orgasm on the outlook of sexual education and relationship issues so perfectly, that we understand human relations from a very new set of vantage points.

“Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower” – Karl Kraus

Welcome to the Hormonal Industry

When one of my childhood friends who was planning to tie the knot with his recently met girlfriend asked me to prescribe him an ideal marital prescription, that popular Hindi saying flashed on the screen of my mind. 

This is what I texted to him: 

Shaadiwoh ladoo. Jo khayee bachtai. Jo Nakhayeewohbe bachtai.

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“Don’t you remember that I am deaf to Hindi language? Please elaborate” he wrote.

“Why do you ask me? I am neither a matrimonial pundit nor a conjugal guru”.  

A vacuum of correspondence ensued. A few minutes later, I wrote:

Marriage is like ladoo. Those who eat, they regret it. Even those who don’t, regret. 

Hope you will now not ask for any subtitles to understand it. I responded.

But before he replied, I texted again: “Welcome to the Hormonal Industry”

“Ha-ha. What is this now? This phrase surely demands a Dzongkha subtitle”, he retorted.

And this is how I vindicated my statement:

Research has revealed that the level of oxytocin is very high when people fall in love. In men, their testosterone level reduces while the amount of oxytocin increases. This flux in the number of sexual hormones ensures faster bonding.

Marriage guarantees a legal and social covenant between two people in love to be together, and that’s the reason why many feel anodyne to travel this road. Marriage is the result of these hormones secreted in our bodies. Marriage is thus, a hormonal industry!

Once we sign a contract with this industry, the whole template of our habits, perceptions, and management patterns, transform completely. Those old unpleasant habits that we're unable to let die young during bachelorhood either receives renovation or get refurbished or fixed with the gentle breeze of so-called love. But to fix these square pegged habits into the round hole of marriage is always regulated by the buttons of understanding, compromises, sacrifices, devotion, and convictions. In some essence, marriage is rather like a literary journey. The winds of unprecedented euphoria of love that exists can transform us into a poet to write touching poetry or an artist to craft haunting lyrics of melodies.

While even on brief separations, that aching pain enables us to understand the gravity of emotional torments suffered by John Keats, P B Shelly, and John Milton as expressed through their poetic limbs. We can feel exactly the way they did due to the madness of love. One intriguing thing about marriage is that it is a journey of two amalgamated souls with a single dream, sailing to survive the unexpected storms of life together. 

We learn to divide responsibilities and multiply devotion and sentience. As time mellows and as we grow old together, the love also matures into a form of a child - which then becomes the fountain of happiness, a lifeline and purpose of our life.

More importantly, as we marry, we are promising the child to bestow a set of parents (a father and a mother), a commodity that is rarely found in pairs, in the market of our society today. 

On a scientific note, studies have revealed that married people live longer than single, separated, divorced or widowed people, and that, the mortality rate is low for almost every disease. In the words of Allan and Barbara (2009), ‘marriage has its good side. It teaches you loyalty, forbearance, tolerance, self-restraint and other valuable qualities you wouldn’t need if you had stayed single.

However, marriage is the easiest subject in the world to have an unlimited opinion about, but perhaps the bravest thing to do. Bravest because we have to ensure it functions throughout the span of one’s lifetime. It is not proportional to the number of years. Sometimes, even the concrete ship of a marriage that journeyed 50 years suffers a cruel fate of wreckage within a fraction of a second. When it is on a rough note, which is a result of a screw gone loose, that fury has the ability to transform that once-upon-a-time-heaven into a living hell.

Basically, the voyage of marriage is surprisingly full of ups and downs which is the consequence of some hormones which make us fall in love. It is not a default mode of human living that always produce the hymn of ‘happily-ever-after’ stuff.

As I say it, you must understand that there is no single thread of thought to dampen your love. If you don’t marry, people might doubt your sexual orientation 😃 or those with a biological education might even doubt a hormonal disorder.

Socially, marriage is generally considered proof of true love. Embrace it to sail on the cruise ship of your life with your love. Experience, the hard teacher as many say, would teach you on the way of your life.

Good luck, buddy.

“Thank you. As you said, let me start the engine of my marital ship and live every moment of it. Buddy, please note that you are included in the important guest list among those local leaders and business honchos during my wedding ceremony”.

But days folded to weeks and weeks aged to months. I called my friend to ask if he has forgotten to invite me for being his marital therapist some time ago.

But what can the world expect, when he has already experienced those marital hiccups even before he got married to his beloved. 

His so-called beloved has become the kept woman to one of the local business tycoons.

And now the question is, how did he lose his beloved to be somebody’s kept woman?

“You have two choices in life: you can stay single and be miserable or get married and wish you were dead” – Bob Hope.

Silent Treatment

One of the most acerbic truths about getting into a very transparent relationship is when we realize that we are pushed towards the end of a friendship spectrum. At such disposal, it leads to the shrinkage of usual communication to the bare minimum creating a huge vacuum of silence. When this silence is further silenced by silence, it becomes a beginning of an end for a small and beautiful journey of friendship, and compromises thereafter, are rarely promising. 

Such an awkward episode in the smooth sail of friendship rather stonewalls the intimacy and the one who is at the receiving end of the cold-shouldering business suffocates with incurable emotional abuse and rejections. 

 

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This demand-withdrawal pattern witnessed in the cloth of any relationship, by some marital therapists and clinicians, refer to as Silent Treatment. It is one of the cheapest forms of passive-aggressive manifestation of contempt, disapproval or discontentment because by prolonging silence, it conveys undying grievances, resentments and ignorance. 

When one willfully breaks the bridge of normal conversations with a malicious intent of isolating and insulating from the circle of cordial rapport, due to an involuntary resignation, the victim on the other side becomes defiant and vengeful. As long as it is painful for the giver to withdraw, it is even more terribly hurting for the other to accept rejections and stepmother treatment of insignificance, without really understanding the reasons for the stony mysterious silence. In this situation, both the giver and the recipient are tortured and emotionally punished - one for attempting to withdraw and the other for being unable to withdraw. For this vicious cycle characteristic, few psychologists have even called it ‘manipulative punishment’.

Silent treatment tests boundaries. It forces one to demarcate its own territory. This is risky especially for the relations written on the white paper of trusts and faith. While there are both healthy and unhealthy ways to settle the dust of misunderstandings, it is important that both ends come to a midpoint to make things more transparent. In fact, both have to accept speaking about the silence directly instead of avoiding silence with silence.     

      

“The most painful goodbyes are the ones that are never said and never explained”- Anonymous.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is an act of stealing someone’s ideas or piece of work without any acknowledgement and crafting it as one’s own. It can happen either through deliberate cheating or by accidental copying. But this theft of ideas is classified as unethical and equated to be a grave academic fraud. 

In many countries, people who violate and commit such immoral and dishonourable acts are even subjected to potential legal implications. Such immoral drill of taking someone’s ideas furtively is intolerable in many parts of the world and that even a little spark of coincidence can at times ignite a huge inferno of plagiarism row and allegations, and subsequently hit the headlines.

However, plagiarism is still one omnipresent academic epidemic that is generally witnessed and easily received in most of our educational institutions and publications. Just because there is copy and paste buttons, we take advantage of the technology to dishonestly sneak someone’s work and present it as ours. School magazines and newspapers have reportedly been the brothels of plagiarism for many of our students. And project work is no exception.

 

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The allure of plagiarism does not fade in the genes of our students. But as an educator, such practice of unlawful duplication of someone’s knowledge has a big reason to worry. Technologies that have transported the information to the doorstep of our fingertip has largely made this generation, complacent and lazy to invent their own ideas. 

Chronic procrastinators don’t agonize because they are highly acclimatized with the climate of accepting plagiarized work to be safe and permissible. As a result, they submit themselves to be ardent players of systematic plagiarizers.

In the schools, in the event of doing class works, either intra-corpal (copying the work from their mates) or extra-corpal plagiarism (copying the work from external sources such as websites or books) is highly rampant. And during the publication of magazines, few switch to self or auto-plagiarism (resubmitting the work that was previously submitted).

While many of our students are aware that plagiarism is detrimental and inappropriate for them to practice, due to the silent approval of our culture, its business is still mushrooming. It is certain that in the schools, the teachers are responsible to watch this practice die young because such practice focus more on “product than the process”, but our parents at home are also equally liable for such lapses. 

After all, educating our youth is the shared responsibility of both the parents and the teachers and not simply the teachers alone.

“Plagiarism is the fear of a blank page”- Mokokoma

An Alter Ego while driving?

I am certainly uncertain whether it is apposite to tag this article, either loosely or raggedly, with the term Alter Ego.

But with the support of my immature limbs of linguistic competence, I am connoting an alter ego to a set of different behaviours demonstrated in some situations by any people. And particularly this time, in the spotlight of driving.

Having been driving to the workplace from my home on a daily dose of 14.9 miles, by now, I felt like I have neared the equatorial belt of South Africa. And at the end of this academic tenure, I will be drenched with a feeling that I conquered the journey to the world in 180 days.

Well, I am not vomiting any resentment of my life here. 

Ever since I learned how difficult it is to acquire human life, I have put an end to this life of impermanence to weigh against each other. So basically I don’t equate my life with others because at best, I am reminded of a story, where a shoe-less man stops complaining about his life after seeing another without a leg. Our living has to be sustained in our own ways, as destined or fated, big or small. Hence, in my mind, this mundane observation does not stir any startling wave of inconvenience.  

But what is so bothersome is a kind of drama I witness frequently on the theatre of the highway performed by our professional motorists. Even those licensed drivers (sorry taxi drivers), who are mandated to protect themselves, passengers or pedestrians by following a set of transport guidelines overlook the traffic rules once they journey into a network, unreachable from the web of traffic cops. Due to this roadside fuss, driving in the early morning, breaking the silent virgin of the dawn is the only thing I wish for, as I don’t suffer from any hiccups of driving wrath owing to the limited interface of other vehicles. But by evening, on my return, I would witness the identical incidences of driving transgressions on different screens of the motorway. 

A case in point as soon as the temporary roadblock caused due to widening works is lifted, vehicles from both directions would speedily marathon to access the highway. In such circumstances, that mandated traffic rules of vehicles moving down the hills which should otherwise hang on, in favour of vehicles climbing the higher gradient, becomes a forgotten traffic decree. 

Consequently, all the vehicles remain congested and jammed, almost immovable even by an inch. The only space to free from such mobbing is to fly off the cliff, which nobody would be willing. That is the time where drivers from the opposite directions would pursue to indoctrinate one another to give the way, by describing a promising heavenly space even when there is just a hell inviting gap. No drivers would accept their miscarriage of traffic guidelines, but instead, argue their purpose of driving as complete urgency and exigent.

Sometimes, my wild imaginations can’t fathom the risk involved in getting thronged on our highways. Just imagine the situation getting stuck during monsoon season (but only the eyes washed with tears can see better) on a narrow highway pitched on the mountains, especially at this time when our roads are prostituting with copious road widening works. 

With sharp cuttings that are landslide-inviting above, and itching baldness of cliff below, my goodness! we can almost define impermanence within that short moment even without the help of any spiritual guru. Such surreal feelings aggravate our already unenlightened minds to blame one another for ensuring a situation of a particular sort, almost trespassing on personal matters, and thereby lose our focus in solving the road problem.

But if we do not invite our ego to take the driver’s seat, immense of those minute problems can be halved or solved by manifold. This trend of wild driving is biologically defined, undergoes silent mutation in our society today. Although it takes place in a very subtly negligible and almost unnoticeable manner, they are yet equally deleterious and worrying.

“Take it easy driving- the life you save may be mine” – James Dean

Green School in Green Bhutan

At one time of our educational voyage, the concept of Green School in Green Bhutan was so popularly branded. It was the most decorated educational endeavour that glamorously pledged the Ministry of Education’s mission on educating for Gross National Happiness - an undertaking that targeted to reclaim the core objective of education.

Steered by the former Education Minister Thakur Singh Powdyel, it was in its truest sense a noble educational enterprise embedded into the bone marrow of Education Ministry to channel its drive of educating for Gross National Happiness - the brainchild of His Majesty the 4^th Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck. Because of its magnificent input of concepts, it was inspiring to learn that “My Green School”, a book authored by the ex-minister is translated into Spanish and Catalan, Spain’s two major languages by one of the Spanish’s educators and translator. Loads of appreciation to the ex-minister for secreting pheromones of such green ideas, inspiring the little world around Bhutan to follow in tow. 

While the concept of Green School in Green Bhutan is familiar, through the lens of my limited understanding, I wanted to reiterate the rosary of its brilliant dimensions. I vividly remember once a grade 7 student who attempted an English essay in the school where I worked 5 years ago wrote, “Green school is a school full of green trees and plants”, and nothing more.

Well, it’s appreciative of him though, for he knew at least one aspect of green school, i.e. Natural Greenery. In fact, Green School in Green Bhutan consists of 8 components as follows:

1. Natural Greenery

2. Intellectual Greenery

3. Academic Greenery

4. Social Greenery

5. Cultural Greenery

6. Spiritual Greenery

7. Aesthetic Greenery

8. Moral Greenery.

1. Natural Greenery

Obviously, among all the components, natural greenery is critical and crucial, in the sense that it presents the general blueprint of how the school is. It will display the natural atmosphere and largely portray the physical arrangement of the school. A naturally green school is apparently neat and clean, decorated with perennial ornamental plants and trees. It is a zone free of litter, plastics or any non-degradable wastes. It is such a natural paradise that does not tolerate any substance abuse, graffiti or junk foods. Natural greenery can promote the values like beauty, cleanliness, purity, aesthetics, naturalistic, respect for nature, love, carefulness, sense of belonging, peace, harmony, sustainability etc.

2. Intellectual Greenery

Through the intellectual greenery, we know and realize the sole purpose of coming to the school, i.e. to cultivate our mind. The fresh land of our mind should be well equipped and prepared to grow and absorb good learning because a mind sans good learning can be a devil’s workshop. The arms of our mind should embrace all sorts of virtuous ideas, moral values and innovative knowledge and it flourishes irrespective of any season. Otherwise, a mind that is intellectually not challenged can largely defeat our primary goal of coming to the school. Intellectual greenery can enhance the values such as thoughtfulness, determination, purpose, readiness, confidence, attention, concentration, contemplation, usefulness, helpfulness, worth and utility.

3. Academic Greenery 

With academic greenery, one is able to appreciate the grace of ideas presented by various scientists, academicians, philosophers, thinkers, educators, poets and authors. Or else, one may not know why we should learn Science, Economics or literature, which are in fact the vast ocean of ideas. The ideas in the theories of science, the fats in the curry of literature and the brain in the skull of economics are necessary and useful in our generations to grow and get ourselves informed. So, such a trend of appreciation for the efforts put in by various thinkers must be kept alive and academic greenery is one powerful gene to sustain this inheritance, for many generations to come. Academically green learners will be able to a vessel full of values such as appreciation, admiration, thankfulness, respect, honour, esteem, enjoyment, pleasure, happiness, satisfaction and delight among many others.   

   

4. Social Greenery

As school is a niche that houses a group of educators and learners having the stature of intelligence and calibre that are poles apart. It is not merely a habitat that erects numerous classrooms and playfields. A huge community is thus built, with the accommodation of diverse learners and educators. A wide spectrum of values and beliefs are shared almost every day, and useful values are mutually appreciated and practised. The reasons for being together peacefully and dependent on each other are collectively sought and pursued. The success of anybody is a joy of teamwork while the failure and sickness for any single individual is also a disaster for the team as well. Subsequently, with the feathers of social greenery, we fly together to confront the tsunami of obstacles that are of any magnitude. Such aspect of greenery enhances

Unity, sharing, teamwork, harmony, peace, togetherness, commonness, oneness, cooperation, tranquillity, serenity and composure etc.     

5. Cultural Greenery

Culture, be it tangible or intangible, is often an expression to showcase how we are and the way we do things. These expressions are generally conveyed in the way we dress, talk, belief, pray or conduct rituals. Since culture is an entity flavoured with beauty and creative dimensions, a school has to offer a platform to stage its creativity, gracefulness and uniqueness to the learners of today, who will be the custodians of our own culture tomorrow. A culturally sound learner will encompass a high degree of civility, sense of belonging and uphold social conventions. Thus, the cultural greenery will ensure that our youths practice the standard and conventional form of cultural practices on the ground of commonality and pass it green to generations manifold. Values that are often groomed due to cultural greenery are identity, personality, character, uniqueness, individuality, distinctiveness, tranquillity, sovereignty, autonomy, comfort, peace and harmony.

6. Spiritual Greenery

One commonness in all the Bhutanese (being Buddhists should I say?) is that we all possess that filament of spirituality. We never believe that we are just complete beings. We are grounded by a belief that there are infinite other beings, above and beyond, superior and powerful, capable and intellectually gifted than us without whose backup can’t make us achieve and realize our dreams. Such rational thinking consciously reminds us to nurse and tend the spiritual relationship and ennoble it. Spiritual greenery will help to cultivate the values like belief, relation, strength, dependence, trust, hope, faith, devotion, loyalty, sincerity, allegiance, conviction, confidence and reliance.

7. Aesthetic Greenery

An aesthetically green person will be able to distinguish clearly between appearance and reality. The dominance of technology has flattered this world by making ugly beautiful, dubious genuine and uncertain certain. But with the insights of aesthetic greenery, we will be able to truly appreciate the real good and beautiful and boycott the unwanted and unworthy. By this gene, we would learn to incline our minds towards doing morally good things and put an end to engaging in immoral practices. Such greenery will instil in us the values like truth, honesty, integrity, appreciation, selection, insight, admiration, adoration, pleasure, satisfaction, contentment, fulfilment, and satiation. 

        

8. Moral Greenery.

The compass of moral greenery can enable us to navigate the good from bad, right from wrong, or true from false before we submit our judgement in doing things. The rudder of such aspect of greenery can help to sail the boat of our mind into the sea of growing divinely charisma and noble values that are one critical trait in generating a productive citizenry. Morally green learners possess a high sense of judgement, analysis, reasoning, logic, interpretation, illumination and enlightenment.

Since school is one formal institution to foster such values into the mind of our future generations, the education we provide must encompass such aspects of greenery. Our kind of education expects to instil those green values, generations upon generations, and let it be green forever. And the flame of this noble expectation can be kept burning for a long time only with the wick of Green School in Green Bhutan.

“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather make man a more clever devil”- C.S.Lewis

Jealousy OR Territorial?

One moment when I was lunching with my colleagues, as usual, we swam into the sea of schmooze. As many of us would proceed to spice the conversation so that it gives an electrifying flavour, our tongues swept every matter related to our life thereby, leaving almost everything barely unexposed. 

From wealth to power, fortune to talents, the infatuation to love, hook-ups to break-ups, and of course, marriages and divorces were the main seasonings that gave the true extra zing.

But of all those things, we chattered more on ‘JEALOUSY’- an emotional malfunction caused due to the deficiency of wise wisdom. A series of debates sprung, each time punctuated with our own reasoning and justifications as to why one should have or not have jealousy.

Having observed the tsunamic wave of consequences caused due to jealousy, we settled that the impulse of getting jealous should be weeded from the garden of our mind to the best possible, which in reality is taxing. Jealousy, either for good or bad intention transpire in our mind only when we want something that isn’t really ours, be it wealth, opportunities, status or prestige. 

When it grows in our mind, it clouds our judgement, making everything around us seemingly insecure and threatening which necessarily may not be. Due to this ripple effect, psychologically, our mind is often modified to be like a pressurized cabin to harbour an attitude of extreme possessiveness which further worsens the nature of our mind because we become ugly, resentful and judgmental of the good things around us.  

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Even in the working environment, the muscle of jealousy can irreparably clot and freeze a relationship of any sort. While its prevalence is commonly known and identified as incurable, reduction of its growth is quoted to be possible.

Of many alternatives, one key to limit jealousy is being territorial. Territorial is protecting what is already ours. It is largely a matured instinct that will define the rightful ownership and make us possessive of what is really our own. For instance, being aggressive for the opportunity that comes in our name and suddenly someone walks away with, is being territorial, not jealous. This is one common flaw I observed in almost all organizations, leading to an abrupt emergence of conflicts in the system.

But at times, being territorial in a place ruled by the people polluted with the dust of jealousy is often the most difficult task to navigate their mind into the world free of it.

“I am not jealous, but when something is mine…, it’s mine”- Anonymous

The Centre fruit Ambassadors

Many a time, when I am out for a shopping spree, I end up receiving centre fruit - the most ubiquitous Indian-made chewing gum in our indigenous marketplace- in exchange for my balance money. When I am on a roller coaster ride of ‘retail therapy, I don’t even mind brooming all those colourful tasty rubber from the counter table and instead, entomb those incidents into the wallet of forgotten stories.

Because there’s nothing that we can do at our own disposal, it is by far, easier and cheaper to fall prey to this formulaic business ethos of accepting the colonization by gum money. Our native retailers and entrepreneurs have largely consumed this as a commercial right ever since our coins or (the less usage of currency with lower denominations) vanished into thin air from circulation in the economy.

In the nations abroad, the primary lifeline of the economy and of course the delivery of various public services are sustained by the obtainability of huge volumes of coins. Transactions are rapid, businesses are swept, and service deliveries are elegant, since the value of money, either to be paid or received, can be easily translated by using the coins. 

But in our marketing picture, in the absence of having no coins or denominations that can substitute our exchange, we either risk surrendering the commodities, thereby triggering the anger dynamite of the shopkeepers, or wait for them or run ourselves to nearby shops and persons to rescue us in finding convertible payable amount. 

If the use of the coins in our business fair is still prevalent, the purpose of minting our coins will be served besides aiding to reserve its flow and make it visible for all the generations. It is nevertheless, acceptable for this generation to know that the Bhutanese coins existed, but it would be painful that the forthcoming generations would not even hear of its fateful existence, let alone see it. 

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Till the homecoming of our coins into the theatre of economy, the salespersons can dance on their feet as ardent Centre fruit ambassadors, either by design or by accident. While it is certain that the gum money given to compensate our balance money cannot be used to purchase the goods even from that same shop where we obtained it, as a customer, the least we can do is to forcefully never forget the revolutionary story of centre fruit progress, in terms of its colour, size and taste.

“God is not against money, He is against the money being used outside His purposes”- Sunday Adelaia