The photography lesson

I don’t know exactly since when I’ve nurtured this passion. Photography. To tell you, I just love taking pictures of almost everything. One clarification here though; I’m not a certified photographer. But hey, should one be certified to take pictures?   

I don’t know.

Initially, I began taking pictures of nature. Snow-capped mountain, cerulean skies, the sunset, rain, prayer flags, leaves, trees, and flowers - so much more. Perhaps all the beginners do start shooting nature. It could be, at least in my case.

I found divinity and beauty in nature, and felt feelings, warmth and hope. So I intended to capture and relive these things on my lens as briefly as possible.

Sometimes I would look at my own pictures and like anyone of you, I marvel at it. And to my own amazement, I stand in disbelief. Because some of my pictures seem unreal to me; it’s as though I had made it up.

However, photography and writing really complement each other. The digital lens does write stories, photographs do tell stories – sometimes better than my handful of words. So incapable of writing forward, for my blog, I look at my pictures and do I derive inspiration, get stories.

Quite wondrously, it is through my digital lens that I started to see the world around me differently. And ultimately I became a nature lover. Most importantly, it helped me to learn to find beauty and pleasure in the simple things. It changed my life’s outlook, for better.

Someone rightly stated about the photography and our life,

The greatest of inspiration, isn’t it? 

I can add here a few lines, but my own lines. You can, in life, fork out your problems like the way you crop out the unwanted parts of images. And if you want to make your life more attractive, learn to apply effects to images of your life.  Whew, it’s that simple!

As I’m still learning to take good pictures, so do I still learning to understand the life’s essence. 

Note: Second picture downloaded from google

Thimphu all set for Modi’s visit

I went around Thimphu City this evening for a casual walk. And wow, I am hugely impressed with the new looks of the City. The Street and Town look strikingly beautiful and dazzling.

Thimphu sets all ready welcoming Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, who will be arriving in Bhutan tomorrow. The highway and the Street all dressed in the flags and posters of both the prime ministers flaring on the poles and buildings.

Everything - in and around the City - looks perfectly organized and clean. Flowers well watered, and all blooming. All waste and trash disappeared. One feels as if you were in the City of Tokyo and Singapore.

The security personnel are everywhere. I hope the Indian PM’s visit would be a successful one and the Indo-Bhutan would last forever, ever stronger.  

The shopping mecca

Whenever I travel here in Bangkok, I do this again and again. Shopping. Quite a lot. Actually, I’m not a shopaholic, maniac. But once I’m here, in the shopping malls of Bangkok, I become a different person. As I shop like crazy.

Quite surprisingly, this capital city has quite a huge number of popular shopping malls, centres and complexes with over thousands stores. Very convenient and attractive, they provide all kinds of shopping opportunities, plenty of entertainments and artwork.  

The amazing thing about the malls here is that they have almost everything you could possibly want. From fashionable garments to footwear, home decorations to foods, jewelries to electronics, craft items to entertainment (cinemas, karaoke, 4D, games, bowling alley).

Like you or any visitors, I also spend most of my free time running from one shopping centre to another, exploring new items, trying on different schemes and of course buying. Only once you are in here, ah, how you wish that you were a rich man.

Interestingly, here, you can bargain like hell on almost everything and you would be just shell-shocked at the rock bottom prices they offer you.

Moreover, the city provides very convenient transportation services and delicious street foods. I just love travelling by the skytrain and tok tok, always new experience for me.

 First picture courtesy: googlesearch

Meet up with a fellow-blogger in Thailand

Yesterday evening, I met up with blogger Dumcho Dorji here in Salaya, Thailand. As you all know, he currently studies at Mohidol University and blogs about his life’s experience in Thailand and Bhutan. We knew each other through our blogs; in fact, very well. But we never met before in person.

However despite his busy schedule, Dumcho found a time for me. He took me around his beautiful college campus for a walk. And he did treat me with dinner - some juice and foods - on the street. 

It's quite surprising and nice to have met a Bhutanese blogger in a foreign soil. More so happy that one could get to sit together over the dinner and talk about our life, love and aspirations, as bloggers and writers. 

I am ever so thankful to Dumcho; it is one moment that I can always cherish in my life.        

Thai situation is improving

When I landed here in Thailand last Saturday, the authority of the capital was cleaning and clearing the litters of the protests at the downtown Bangkok. I was quite nervous of the political unrest in the country. I was even afraid to wear my red shirt. Moreover, the Thailand Stock Exchange has been falling everyday. The whole situation of the country was worrying.

However, as I stay here longer, I slowly understand the situation, more clearly. And I am happy, enjoying my stay here, trust me. Though the curfew begins from 10 pm to 5 am, everything runs as normal - businesses, public services, transportation and airlines. The movement in the country is not restricted as portrayed in the media.

The situation has become alright now. The locals and foreign travelers enjoy all freedom to walk around, do shopping and sightseeing. I observed that protests were well organized; it engaged only the protest groups and their members in the designated places.

As the Thai military junta Chief received royal endorsement as Chief of the National Council for Peace and Order, most Thai people are hopeful that the unrest could be solved. Moreover, they are showing support to military deployed to enforce martial law and maintain peace.

All the community leaders agreed to comply with order of the Chief to remove all signs of red shirts from public places. The leaders and members of different protest groups have been summoned and put under trials.  

The people of Thailand are wishing sincerely that the political unrest be settled soon. If so happened then the national election is going to happen very soon, possibly within next four months.       

Photograph

These are the pictures of Taksang, the majestic monastery of Bhutan, that I took during my last visit to the place. I hope I’ve done enough justice to this splendid monastery by clicking it in my lens. Have a good time, fella bloggers!

Mystery of my favourite poem

When I was in my high school, I came across this famous and magical poem for the first time. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot”. And ever since, it had become my favourite poem, indefinitely. Ever so gracefully, it remained on my mind, too gracefully though.

Still I do remember those days, of my classroom where I used to sit on my desk, so attentive, in excited and radiant smile, reciting the poem. If I’m not wrong, this is the first time I fell in love with English literature and of course started liking my English teacher.

This is one poem that I held dear, and its lines, I knew by heart. Again and again I would read the poem. To put it precisely, it’s crafted in perfect words and emulates overpoweringly breathtaking images that one would never forget in life.

And the way Tennyson starts out the poem is simply splendid. I can’t help myself from pulling out those starting lines and putting down here,

On either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And thro' the field the road runs by

To many-tower'd Camelot;

The poet portrays the scenes so magically. And it made my heart lurch, all the more. This is the only poem that I read not for the exams, but out of the pleasure of words. In fact, that’s the time I realized the power of words, what the black and white letters can be.

Above all, it’s the protagonist of the poem that had absolutely hypnotized me. The Lady of Shalott. She is described as an absolute angel, “lovely face”, “fairy”, pure, and beauty who “weaves by night and day/A magic web with colours gay” in a four-towered castle. She is like…ah as if I had met the love of my life, my soul mate. The more I read it, the deeper I fell in love.

Moreover, I felt hugely heartened when I had the opportunity to learn the poem once more when I joined Sherubtse College in 2005. We read the nineteen century literature and we analyzed this poem too. However, the analysis shocked me; left me shaken.

The poem suddenly turned dark. The Lady of Shalott is restricted and imprisoned in the tower under a terrible curse. Subjugated and lonely, she is considered as an invisible object, ghostly. Second half of the poem becomes bloody and mournful. The Lady is doomed for going against the norm. She cries. She dies.

I couldn’t believe that the love of my heart, the Lady’s life is one long unspoken sadness and accursed. It’s unthinkable; it penetrated me deeply. I couldn’t take it. It aroused such sorrow and grief of the loss of the Lady that I almost burst into tears in the classroom. I was angry at the poet, I started hating my lecturer, and I grew disinterested in learning literature.

After almost a decade, today, I read the poem once more. To tell you…it was a decade of my life filled with difficult obstacles and decisions, unthinkable loss and fear, and countless tears and anxiety. But it was also a decade of humbling realizations and experiences – of love, of joy, of emotional growth, of mental maturity, of understanding the true essence of life.

As I am already halfway to this bumpy ride of life; and today, as I read the poem, I have come to understand it. Its true essence, its beauty, its purpose and the love and grace in the poem. This world, this human life is all temporary. Vulnerability figures large all time, and that falling apart happens continually. Accept it or not, all is not fair or perfect in this world, similarly this favourite poem of mine.

I am excited here that I may understand the poem further as I grow older, in my old age. Learning never ends, and this poem never stops giving me new lessons. “The Lady of Shalott” is a poem for lifetime.

Photo courtesy: google

Photograph

You are the apple of my eye!!!

And of course litchi to my mouth!

He-he...spotted this little boy on my way to Takshang on the last Zhabdrung Kuchoe. Have a wonderful day, dear readers!