Add Reading Habit

Ask me if I’m a reader? I wouldn’t hesitate to answer, a big ‘NO’. As a student I have never read by interest, few that I read was for book reviews that I am required for internal assessment in class. Reading books weren’t chapter in the book of my learning. If I scored well in subjects, I am done. I am intelligent. I am brilliant. This is what I thought. But that was a biased evaluation, a flawed judgment. If it’s at all possible to go back young, I would add reading as my personal elective subject besides usual subjects. If I am given a minute time to advise (more accurately suggest) students present and future, I would say, “add Reading Habit” in the league of their habits.

Press me if I’ve added Reading Habit now? I wouldn’t feel a tinge of hesitation and my eyes wouldn’t lie to answer, ‘yes but very lately’. But in this little period, I’ve learned that reading could be the best habit one could ever possess. It can be the best companion under rain and shine of life. It can be a medicine for illness. It can be a nurse for a health of mind. It can be a doctor for a mental health. We need to add Reading Habit to have a forever friend, a nurse and a doctor.

Source: Google

Reading makes one; a doctor, engineer, pilot, traveler, hiker, business tycoon, scientist, athlete, actor, and a whole gamut of glamorous professions one could ever dream to become. The reading makes it possible. Travelling across the globe is no huge hassle for a reader. Reading makes you travel at an unimaginable pace; without the knowledge you’re onboard, you land up in different worlds feasting your eyes with abundant beauty of the world. We need to add Reading Habit to become all-in-one.

There are so many challenges that are coming up; Book Bucket Challenge is one kind where you list top ten books you’ve read but your count not making to ten is a huge blow on the face of your Habits. I encountered this. I was nominated for BookBucket Challenge by my blogger friend Rima, I couldn't continue the challenge as my reads can never add up to ten. But I would do next Challenge. We need to add Reading Habit for challenges.

I have very little in me and travelled far and wide bluffing on reading. Never mind, I am a want-to-be good reader. I am spreading my arms with the hope that my friends could put in loop as many others to add Reading Habit. More than any one, parents and teachers across could be a locus point for this. Add Reading Habit to everyone to have most of the things if not everything.

Add Reading Habit.

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Peeking through the myopic lens of two years’ experience

It’s a weekend, rejuvenating myself, I stood on the hill of Changangkha overlooking scenic beauty of Thimphu City with my myopic lens to peek through my barely two years’ experience into the world of reality. Until two years ago, I was just harboring on hopes and expectations of my life.

After studying four years to obtain UG tag, I thought world would be mine. I thought I would be enjoying a comfy of rotating chair with many under my dictate. But the fact is real and my expectations surrealistic. The ground realities mirror a different thing; I’m under the command of many others. Of the undergrads employed, I stand at its nadir. In the hierarchy of organogram, I am in the lowest echelons of it. Along the chain of employees, I am the last link. Literally, there isn’t way I could boast myself of any authority. But I’m happy authority comes with a huge responsibility.

I majored in Accounting and decided to take up a career in accounting field. Of the handful fortunate, so called luck of mine landed me into accounting career a corporate sector. I thought it entails colossal learning. I presumed it would be progressive feat in my life. But the reality reflected conversely; just learn the formulae of handling accounting software employed and it’s done. It just requires the rudiments of accounting; debits and credits. Know it and it is the practice that matters along. The daily work is routine. Day, week, month and year round you repeat over and again. I’m happy learning is self-initiative. By the side of my career, self-development must run in parallel. Office work has no room compartmentalized for it. I need to find it on my own.

While many people see greener pastures in job that involves frequent travels and tours. I was blunt on those grounds to have blinded sight. People in the Accounts are the ones who do least travels and tours. I am confined to my office and my presence can squarely equate with a care-taker. On the lighter talks amongst office mates, we used to aptly label ourselves Security Guards of the Office. But I’m happy I could eye on everyone’s travel itinerary and allowances they’d get on their travels. This I consider as luncheon frequently I feast on.

Source: Google

You and I learned so much in schools and colleges. Fed ourselves with innumerable feeds of concepts and theories. All of these are perspiring from me for I seldom use it. Few years down, I can see impending vacuum. However, should the need arise to relearn those I can always build upon remnants of it. I am still happy; cerebrum of our brain has that functionality which makes it possible to relearn at ease.

Until that time, until that happening, my work would go on over and again. Oscillate between work and self-development, scan the travel allowances of others, print checks and call recipients. I shall remain glued, immobile on my cozy chair. With happiness, I shall do all of it. This is way I cook my bread and butter.

I have presented the darker side of my career but brighter side of my career remains all-pervasive, etched in my heart. I shall present it on one fine sunny day.

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The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

My eyes welled up, tears rolled down the cheeks, I was lying on bed flipping through the last few pages of the novel when the story is at its climax. My eyes couldn’t hold tears. I let it flow. Until this, I haven’t realized how emotional I am. How easily I could break down. As Nicholas Sparks took me through the height of his novel, each line is a droplet in the ocean of my tear-filled eyes.

The novel is intricately woven with threads of love, family and friends. Of course the waves and tides along the ocean ride of life.

The main characters include Kim, Steve, Ronnie, Jonah, Will, Blaze and Marcus. Kim is a single mother finding her way for her second love with Brian. She has a daughter and a son; Ronnie and Jonah. Their father Steve is away from New York, living a solitary new life in Wilmington, North Carolina. The story in between, connects the characters: Will,  Tom, Susan, Megan, Blaze, Marcus, Lance, Teddy, Scott, Pastor Harris, and others as Ronnie and Jonah sets for summer vacation with their father in Wilmington. The story gains momentum here.

The story turns wavy: low to high, high to low, sad to happy, happy to sad in Wilmington on vacationing their summer with  father whom they haven’t met for last three years, since he had moved from New York. Ronnie had never talked and responded to letters and calls her father made. She hadn’t been in good terms with her mother at home. Visiting her father isn’t her best time to see off summer. However, under duress, she consents to her mother to spend summer with her father who had been desperately starving to see his daughter growing to become a woman in a year and his growing son who is ten. He wants to make sure that his children understand why he’d moved away from them though that wasn’t his option. 

Ronnie falls in love with Will. Both of them love each other despite knowing the fact that the summer vacation shall set them apart. However, they remain adamant on their love. They’ve found common ground of love that synced. The summer seems flying as she spends time with Will.

With time she also starts loving her father whom she hated seeing. In a speck of few weeks of summer, she has changed a lot. She has undergone hell and heaven modification in her behavior, her attitude in a whole. The love around beautiful summer at Wilmington has done a lot to her as much as happiness between father and a daughter. She has seen different person in his father whom she thought otherwise. She thinks he is the best father she could have, a father who sees lot in his children. The summer goes beautifully with ambient love in family and Ronnie’s love with Will.

Source: Google

Their happiness is found short lived when Steve, the father feels ill of cancer which was known to himself, Kim and Pastor Harris. That was the same reason why he’d insisted Kim to send them with him for summer vacation and she has accepted his request. He wanted to spend his remaining days with his children whom he missed those three years since he moved away from New York.

Finally he succumbs to this terminal illness leaving his daughter and a son. But he has taught them a lot in a short summer they spent together. As a father, he did his duty to instill life lessons. Those were miracles.

The story ends on happy note: Will comes to New York for his studies and meets his charming Princess Ronnie.

The story is wrapped with lessons. I have enjoyed going through. My eyes were literally glued to the pages of the novel until the last page. The novel has lot to say of love, family and friends. Hate can turn into love and vice-versa. It largely delves into how relationships can turn sour and revert to its normalcy of sweetness. How relations once hurt and wounded can heal again. It also lessons how vital is the time of parents to their children to read correctly of each other.

I can bet many would break into tears if you read this novel, Nicholas Sparks is capable of it. Message in a Bottle is no less than this. Next in my to-read-list is The Note Book which is unfortunately out of stock in many stores last time I visited. That is really popular selling Novel and I should find it sooner. I can’t wait to read it soon but I have some preparation to do in between. I will read it one day sooner.

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Agay (old man) who hands us chocolate every morning

Barely a mile from my office, around the basement of Changkha Lhakhang(temple) lays apartment where I stay. The place is fairly quiet unlike near Flyover Bridge where I used to stay before which was full of commotion; vehicular honks could impose dreams to awake at the pitch night when many are enjoying a sound sleep. As young as four in the morning people walk off from their cozy bed to make as many circumambulations of the temple doing rosary concurrently. Old and young, from all walks of lives visit the temple for a lot of religious reasons; to pray for a newborn’s well-being, receive blessings for long journey and important undertakings, and many reasons within. The places nearby is a good combination of all. But rental is also quite high. It takes half of my salary. For me I have no choice as my Office is caged by the basement of Sangaygang (roughly translates to Buddha hill). The diameter of my travel would pinch me in monetary terms to look for reasonable apartment in places like Olakha, Hejo, Taba and Babesa. So, I have to put up here, which is walking distance to Office.

Quarter to nine in the morning, as I ferry to my office with my office mate, a few meters away on the way, a man at his eighties trudges every day from his home to do rosary at the temple. His upper part of body bends to form distorted 90 degree angle and walks with a stick. Walking down to the temple and doing rosary is his daily work. This is what many old people do. As they count down their days, they engage more into religion and confine their lives around the thread of prayer beads.

Every morning I and my friend meet him on the way, he pockets his right hand holding his walking stick with left, and he offers us a chocolate each. “Thanks Agay” we say.  Then he walks. He does it every day. On the first encounter, we just thought he might have seen us like school going children, because usually the old people use to gift kids with chocolate to make them happy. He might have seen us like school going children as we have a bag each on our back and a lunch bag each on our hand.

Source; Google

We’re blessed to be greeted with sweet chocolates every day from the man of his age. Man who would outrun longevity of today’s generations. He might have many to take of the world with his lifespan near the heel of century. We have never asked any questions to him for he might have lot to do at the temple and he would take longer to reach there at his tortoise pace.

We are fortunate to savor chocolate from Agay; we believe that if we get something to eat from old people, we would be blessed with longevity. We feel immensely blessed on that ground thinking that we would have extended our lives to his age. Everyone likes to live longer if it is possible.

On the sad note, we still don’t know who he is. All about him remain questions in our mind. We love calling him Agay. Our talk with him starts and ends with ‘thanks Agay’ upon handing us chocolate each.

He is definitely a kind man. He flashes a smile every day when he sees us. This brightens our day at office. This prelude of our day with this wonderful Agay handing us chocolate is really worth engraving in our hearts. We shall remain indebted for his chocolate and kind heart that he carries.

May this dainty sweet Agay live longer with his kindness to spark a light in many lives of school going children who meets along the way and receives chocolate.

We know very little of him but know much of his kindness at heart. Thanks Agay.

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Appreciate the rain as much as the sun

Umbrella is invented for protecting from rain as it is also to keep away from scorching sun. To this end every one of us tries to keep away from rain and sun. If it rains, we use umbrella, if it pours, we use umbrella. By this, we have implied we don’t appreciate both; rain and shine.

Of the two, we are inclined to sun. When it shines, we generally believe a day is good to do something; work in the field, make a journey, go for walk, etc. When it rains, by chance we need to go we go with umbrella. If at all not necessary, we confine staying at home. We have accepted sun a compatible companion but rain we haven’t accepted it unless it is needed for irrigating fields. We haven’t called for its need until crops in the field are drying out of thirst. We haven’t felt the need unless drinking water sources are drying out and faced water shortages at home.

At this time of the year, villagers are praying for bountiful downpour. They have their irrigation fields to get watered and crops are wilting under sun yearning for rainfall. Rainfall is only timed for them at this hour when the days are busiest prepping for bountiful harvest few months later. So, they need rainfall as much as sun for their crops.

Urbanites and everyone in Bhutan must smile to hear sky thunder, for it signals coming of rain to boost up our hydropower productions. Without a good amount of rainfall around this monsoon, the government’s earning through electricity is going to nosedive. With less rainfall, the face of Hydropower Sector’s Balance Sheet is not going to be as colorful as with deluging rainfall. Know that huge chunk of Bhutan’s GDP comes through Hydropower sector. Appreciate rainfall as much as sun. Rainfall is no any less than sun. It has become dearer with development policy clustered around hydropower. Celebrate when it rains.

Source:Google

To honor indebtedness to rain, I with some of my office friends walked under rain post lunch as we usually go for a few minutes’ walk.  We thought it is worth appreciating rain by walking under it without umbrella thwarting it. We did it in its petty way to honor our appreciation.

It was not enough I felt. After the office, still the rain is drizzling enough to sift through my gho and drench completely, I decided to walk under it. It was equally enjoying. I felt like I am taking a cleansing bath. It is as if like blessing from heaven to wash off sins that I have accumulated. It has lightened my body as much as brightening my mind. It was little I could do for rainfall.

Please appreciate rainfall as much as sun.

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