One Book to Read Before You Die

Many of us have read countless books over the years—some truly transformative, others so forgettable they could double as sleeping pills. I’m no exception. A few books have left such a deep mark on me that I still carry their lessons around like emotional luggage (the carry-on kind, not the lost-at-the-airport kind). Among my all-time favorites are The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma, a fable about chasing your dreams and finding your true purpose—ideally before your knees give out, and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, an exhilarating novel dripping with optimism. The latter gently insists that anything is possible if you want it badly enough: just follow your dreams, listen to your heart, and apparently ignore logistics, budgets, and common sense. Then there are timeless masterpieces like Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations—each a brilliant, essential read for anyone trying to navigate life’s glorious mess.

Most of these I’ve read once or twice, but one book keeps calling me back like an old friend who knows all my flaws and doesn’t judge. That book is J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. At first, the title didn’t grab me—it sounded vaguely like a farming manual for depressed guardians. But once I dove into the first few lines, I found myself laughing out loud at its raw, goddam cynical expressions. Now, whenever I feel blue, I reach for this book. It keeps me company. It helps me forget—especially that embarrassing thing I said in 2007.

The Catcher in the Rye is a goddam must-read before you die. The language is vulgar, crude, yet strangely humorous—like a grumpy uncle who somehow makes you feel better about your own failures. Set in the 1950s, the story is narrated by a young man named Holden Caulfield, a character many believe mirrors aspects of Salinger’s own life. Holden is a complex figure—seemingly a failure, a restless outsider who struggles with alienation, loneliness, and a distinct lack of a GPS for life. At times, he’s disaffected, disgruntled, and deeply sarcastic, retreating into a world of his own making—one he calls full of “phony” people and ideas. (Spoiler: according to Holden, almost everyone is phony. Including, possibly, the guy who invented sliced bread.)

The book was admired by former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who called it “a marvelous book.” I couldn’t agree more, and let’s be honest—any book that gets a president to say “goddam” in his head is doing something right. I love its voice, its raw honesty, and how Holden’s frustration spills out in unforgettable phrases: “goddam,” “it kills me,” “how I hate this,” “he’s a moron,” “pain in the ass,” “bastard,” “crazy”—expressions that keep you laughing, even through the sadness. It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s absolutely worth reading. Just don’t expect Holden to like you. He doesn’t like anyone. But somehow, that’s exactly why you’ll love him.

Colours

Spring season is here, but there are no natural flowers budding in Bangalore. All you can see are flowers in pots, and all these pots sit on high-rise buildings. There are hardly any colors on the ground. In Bhutan, this time of the year is a celebration of spring. It would be indescribably beautiful. Holi, the Indian festival of colors, still lingers. You can see many garlands of flowers in florist shops and many displays of color powders (raags). You can also see many college students with faint, unwashed colors on their faces.

Colors make our life. They add beauty to our lives. We love colors. But it seems one of the teachers in my previous school was quite dull when it came to colors. The teacher simply didn't care about them. I remember this:

In one of the final exams (2008) for mathematics, there was a question on coloring different shapes—triangles, circles, squares, etc.—for Class I. Some students were provided with colors, but not enough; many didn't have any. I didn't realize how poor our education system was in some remote schools like Tsirangtoe Lower School in Tsirang. The storekeeper said sadly before the exam that the store was out of stock of color boxes. "The government can't buy everything now," he said. He was damn right, but where could some poor students get colors in their lives? That was another gripping story. But good things took a turn after a year. Farm roads soon came to Tsirangtoe's villages, bringing in a good amount of cash through work and selling products. This made even the poor able to sweep hundred-rupee notes frequently from their hands. The government always has a way, I learned from this instance.

Now, coming back to that color exam: a teacher also always has a way. So, the teacher slowly dictated to those who had no colors that they should write the words RED, GREEN, BLUE, etc., inside the blank shapes. Helen Keller knew all the names of colors, but she hardly knew what red or blue was because she became blind before she could grasp the world of color perception.

Coming out of the exam hall, I pulled a student aside behind the exam building and gave him a test. I asked him if he could name all the colors, which he did perfectly well—like a parrot. Then I picked a blue rose from the nearby garden and asked him its color. He gave a deep look at the blue rose, hesitated for a moment, then smiled and said, "...um... red, sir." I smiled back and said, "Roses are not always red. There are blue and white roses too. This is blue." The student directly cussed me, saying that he didn't care about anything besides marks in the exam, and he confidently announced that he had written whatever the teacher dictated. He was right. Just marks would do.

And that was it. Some of our underfed students, if asked to name colors, could name all twelve different colors. But if asked to identify among twelve different colors, they had no choice but to think hard and say blue for red, green for yellow, and black for white. Why? Because they have not seen colors practically, even though they have two big bull's eyes. Our teaching lacks practicality and applicability. We are made of theories. There are many instances where computer degree holders could not operate computers. What a shame! Jobs demand experience, not so many theories, and not so much dictating from chairs. Some of our Lyonpos and ministers simply speak good poetry from their chairs.

The purpose of learning is knowing something. Isn't that true? Knowing the colors. How can students develop cognition and recognize things? Whose weakness was it? The concerned teacher? The storekeeper? The examination system? Or the education system of the country? We must think about this and avoid being blind despite having two bulging eyes to identify everything. A good point here: Helen Keller was blind and deaf, yet someone colored her life.

Fry in the Summer

Though this lousy summer is still a little far off on the calendar, I can feel the damn season has already arrived in Bangalore. It's shown up early—like an uninvited guest who refuses to take off their shoes, then asks for a cold drink.

This year, unlike last, the weather has become much hotter. Last year around this time, it drizzled. Gentle rain. Cool breezes. Hope. This year? Nothing. Just heat. Dry, miserable, soul-sucking heat. And everyone's talking about how lousy the weather has become. It surely is! Damn this global warming. 

Last week brought two holidays. On Tuesday, Holi. On Friday, Good Friday. And you bet they were goddamned holidays. Not because holidays are bad. But because I didn't celebrate either of them. Not a single colour. Not a single prayer. Just two lousy holidays spent on my lousy bed in my lousy room.

Sitting on that bed, I tried to engage myself in my own activities. The problem was, I had no idea what those activities were. So I did what any sane, bored person would do: I opened the internet. Then I closed the damn laptop. Then I opened it again. Then I flipped through pages lying scattered next to my bed—uselessly, like a confused penguin at a desert resort. I read some phony writings. I walked to and fro in my room like a caged tiger that has given up on life. I wrote something that was complete bullshit (and when I write, I type on my keyboards—plural, because I own two and use neither). I opened the refrigerator and drank a single cold drop of water. Just one drop. The rest was too warm to call water. I visited the toilet. Came back to my lousy bed. Then did it all over again. Goddamn it. I felt I was inside a cell. A hot, badly decorated cell with no air conditioning.

Then I thought: I need to do something. So I gave myself a long walk. In the sweaty, blistering sun. Brilliant idea. Outside, children were playing cricket. Running. Shouting. Sweating buckets. Enjoying themselves. It really killed me. How could those little craps bear the heat of the sun? Do they have no sweat glands? No sense of self-preservation? Are they secretly lizards in human shorts?

I walked to a shop to read the temperature. The number on the wall flickered: 31. Not so bad, I heard. New Delhi had just reached half boiling point. Some other parts of the world were even worse. I don't know how people survive in those blistering places. The thought alone killed me. Right there. Next to the shop selling cold drinks that I couldn't afford because I spent all my money on mosquito repellent.

The room has been sweltering like anything. The fan's blades cannot be seen when they move—they become a ghostly blur of disappointment. So you look for a cool shower. You imagine it. You dream of it. Cold water. Relief. Salvation. But the shower is not as cool as you expected. Heated warm water drizzles out heavily. Bet me. The warmness is enough to make you sweat more than before you entered. You step out dirtier than you went in. God, I hate that. I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns—which, ironically, is the very problem I'm complaining about.

By evening, mosquitoes dance around like they own the place—and honestly, at this point, they probably do. I don't know where they come from. I close every goddamn tiny hole. I seal windows. I block doors. I stuff socks into gaps I didn't even know existed. Do they come from the sink's hole? The drain? The neighbor's soul? I use coils. Sprays. Creams. Electric bats. Ancient curses. Nothing works. They always loiter around, hunting for prey—and I am their all-you-can-eat buffet. They literally kill my sleep. Night after night. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Right next to my eardrum. That sound. That evil, high-pitched, demonic sound that belongs in a horror film.

One day, I woke up in the morning and saw three mosquitoes sleeping next to me. Permanently dead. Their tiny bodies were swollen with red blood. My blood. I nearly puked. It killed me. Again. I meant it this time.

So here I am. Hot. Tired. Mosquito-bitten. Waiting for winter in a city that has forgotten what winter means. Damn summer. Damn Bangalore. And damn those three little vampires who died happy, with their bellies full of me.

This World is Yours

To My Son

The sun has the whole universe,
and you too have all—
in front of you, a vast stage
to play the game you have never played.

You have everything:
generosity, merriment, tears, hurt,
love, care, good, bad—all of it.
It's how you see,
how you move forward.


To me,
you are always joyful,
with a piece of a good heart.
You are optimistic as you are,
and as powerful as a man needs to be.
A person's personality
shines through joys and goodness.


You are good in all.
To become the best, you try.
And sometimes in life—independence.
Bother not what others do;
bother only what you do.

Let no one hurt you in the end.
Let others speak well of you.
Self-hope sometimes lifts you—
you need that expectation.


Your future is as shiny as coral,
for you have everything
that a man sometimes doesn't have:
health, wealth, character,
good rapport, confidence, persuasiveness—
these will truly win you through life.

May God bless you always.
And my wish is God's wish, my son.

The Canned Dream

People care about the fruits, not about how a tree is nurtured and taken care of (I wrote a similar topic in this blog called "The Roots of a Seed").

We admire the harvest but forget the soil, the water, the sunlight, and the countless hours of care that went into growing the tree. This is human nature: we celebrate results while ignoring the process. But what happens when the fruit we so eagerly awaited turns out to be a disaster? Or worse, when the entire tree is axed or uprooted from the soil? What then?

The hope of life is the root. If the root is uprooted, there is no hope more hopeless than that. When a person pours their heart, sweat, and years into something—only to see it crumble—the despair is immeasurable. For some, the most desirable thing in life arrives not as a reward but as a tragedy. Many friends have described such moments as "killing the life," "demoting the life," or simply, "what is this?" Then come the blames—blame on your life, blame on the people around you, and finally, blame on God.

A few of my friends repeatedly blurt out, "I know everything, but what's wrong with this result?" It is like saying, "Life is empty, but why this suffering?" The contradiction haunts them. They believed that knowledge and effort alone would guarantee success. Yet here they stand, empty-handed.

It is almost time to complete our courses, and for many dreamers, the end of the course will feel like the end of their lofty dreams. But that is not so. It never ends. I tell myself that always. Endings are merely new beginnings disguised as closures.

My house owner was once a rickshaw puller. He told me his story. Now he owns twenty-seven buildings. He eats gold, I think. No one can predict life. One day you are pulling a rickshaw; the next, you own a city block. So I say: just dream and relax, but be ready to jump and hold tight when that dream knocks at your door. My door always remains open to welcome dreams. I hope I have not missed mine. Sometimes, the future—which seems illusory and out of reach—does not concern me at all. What concerns me is whether I am ready when opportunity arrives.

Anyway, I mock those "canned dreamers"—people who speak of dreams but take no action, who wait for success to fall into their laps. I think to myself, "Nobody knows everything; only God knows." But deep in my heart, I ask many times: how unequal it is that God seems not to know some people—those who truly deserve recognition and reward. Yet there is always a "but" in life. Why so much contrast and comparison? Why do the undeserving often prosper while the deserving struggle?

"God is the one," say politicians, as if they have a direct line to the divine. But ask any ordinary person, and they will tell you that their god is the best—implying that all others are false. That is a huge debate. When it comes to answering for an unseen thing like God, I give up. I cannot prove or disprove. I can only observe the world as it is: unequal, unpredictable, and often unfair.

And that brings me to George Orwell's Animal Farm. Let me leave you with this famous line: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

Perhaps that is the only truth we need to remember.

Sometimes

Sometimes, darkness can be too dark—
not having a single spark.
Dingy, long unending days
with no light at the end.
All things look empty and vain.
Things fall apart.
There, I wish for hope.



Sometimes, silence can be too silent—
without any rustle or any breath.
In a lonely place, alone,
feeling and sensing so down,
feeling so diffident and so forlorn.
There, I wish for love and joy.



Sometimes, stresses can be too stressful—
without any prospect of solution.
When troubles are troubling
and things are all in a hotchpotch,
there, I wish for peace and homely beauty.



Sometimes, love can be so hurtful—
when a wounded heart breaks into pieces
spread all around me, everywhere—
on the carpet, on the sofa,
on the pillows, the beds,
everywhere.
There, I wish for a true love.



I wonder why I am the only one at fault.
Alone, bearing all these pains,
my mind goes over the brink.
Where will I set my foot?
Where will I rest?
Why do I get sucked into this tunnel
so often?

So dark. So indistinguishable.
I try to hide—
but especially from myself.

Darkness.

Uniforms to Help Financial Crunch

In this so-called financial crunch or crisis, one must be ever careful with cash transactions. Money has become tight. One must know what to buy. The burning desires for material things have been tempered by economic inflation. With no salary increase and government budgets being slashed across developmental activities, money has become genuinely hard to come by.

The real problem is the rupee shortage against our ngultrum. Government reports paint a scary picture, suggesting it may take five or more years to recover from this financial crunch. Millions in debt remain to be cleared. Meanwhile, millions of our currency notes are floating in border towns, now useless. I was told by a storekeeper in Jaigaon that these notes are being eaten by rats inside their cupboards. That's it. I don't really understand the full picture. Now the cost of everything has skyrocketed. Yet, on the other hand, millions of rupees are earned every day from power exports. It is difficult to comprehend our economic situation.

At this juncture, some schools in Bhutan have come up with a good idea to help themselves and to teach people how terribly wasteful it is to spend money across the border—buying more than we need. Teacher uniforms, for instance, have become widely popular in schools. Darla MSS is a living example: teachers have adopted a dress code during working hours. Excellent! This helps not only individually but also financially. It helps one's family, society, and the government. The help may be just the tip of an iceberg, but it still makes a difference.

Our lady workers have kiras competing anywhere. They tend to buy very expensive kiras and tegos almost every month to show off to their friends. This is costly. To curb this trend and to reduce the accumulation of many useless kiras in favor of one useful dress, I think the uniform is a good idea. But of course, there are again personal rights—freedom to choose, freedom to wear—but that is another side of the coin.

Our male workers are done with five or six ghos in a year; they don't need to dress extravagantly. They already have dresses. Their ash-white, ash-black, or blue ghos are sufficient. There is one Lopen in Darla who always wears an ash-white gho the whole year round. That is too much on one extreme. On the other extreme, there was a southern Bhutanese math teacher (my fellow countryman) at Jigme Sherubling HS in Khaling who had just one ash-white gho for two years. I stayed there for only two years, and I didn't expect him to continue with that single gho alone. But I was truly struck when I saw the school magazine of one of the schools (name withheld). There he was, seated in the middle with his old ash-white gho—that man has become a principal! He is a calculating man, I guess. He really understands plus and minus.

Now, feeling somewhat hyped, I counted my own ghos. I breathed a sigh of relief. I have not been a real jerk when it comes to ghos. Within eight years of earning, I have sixteen ghos stuffed inside my cupboard shelf. They barely fill the whole step of shelf number one. Not so much, I thought. I have also given many old ghos to my people. I remember clearly that I have given away almost seven or more by now. I am not a gho freak. I have only two very expensive ghos: one Lungserma given by my parents, and a Sershog gho that my wife forcefully bought for me. These two expensive ghos are staved and bedded inside a suitcase. I hope they won't lay eggs and double. The last time my wife looked at them, there were some bugs creeping in between. Soon, they will make a home out of my precious but useless ghos.

Like all men, my favorite ghos are plain ash-blue and ash-white ones made across the border. I have five or more ghos in these colors, and I am afraid that some people may feel I have learned from my math teacher in Khaling.