Suicide on Social Media

The Bumthang double suicide incident was terribly unfortunate. It has been bothering me for days like it must be doing to many people across the country. While I don't know what to feel about the two misguided victims, my heart goes out to the parents who would be half dead in grief, and wondering where they went wrong in bringing up their children. They will often ask why their child disregarded them and left them for a stranger whom the child just knew for a year in the school. They will forever hang on to the shattered pieces of hope and seek silent answers. What was their fault?

In the midst of this painful event, the leakage of the depressing picture of the victims into the unforgiving social media must have devastated the family members. The pain of having to see it on social media, to know that everybody is watching the death of their child, will kill them piece by piece.

While I strongly condemn the sharing of the picture of the victims, and extend my appreciation to the many responsible and learned people who came forward to fight the spread of the picture that day, I think that the picture was a loud alarm clock to many strong policies that are sleeping in the pages of thick books.

There are three things that the unfortunate incident has fortunately brought to the national focus:

1. Suicide in Bhutan

Suicide among Bhutanese was long seeking attention from us but we weren't so passionate about dealing with it, at least I haven't seen anything significant happening to take care of it. Great many things must be happening in papers but this photo has finally told everybody that it's time take things beyond books and meetings.

2. Ugliness of Suicide

Suicide is murder of self, when your friend commits suicide, he kills your friend, he is a murderer, he should be hated and ridiculed but among us we share so much of compassion for the murderers, going to the extent of paying tribute, writing poems, singing songs... which I fear has glorified the idea of suicide. But the depressing picture has shown the true and ugly picture that suicide is.

3. Social Media Invasion 

The police did a good job by responded very promptly on the distribution of the picture on social media that very day, already today they have tracked down the person who has started it all. He was a health worker who was part of the investigation team. What are the charges against him? Does he even know that it was illegal?
Some of us will have the heart to know that it's wrong to do that but how many of us know that it's a punishable offence?
It's not very long since we dealt with case of sharing of homemade sex videos via mobile apps, some of which are already in the court of law. But I am still wondering how they will be charged and how that will help solve the future problems.
We are already under invasion from the social media and more than what happens in life will be reflected online. It's time we take social media seriously, define it and educate people on the netiquettes before the next big disaster happens.

I Quit!

No, it's not about me, don't worry. I saw "I Quit" scribbled on the wall in Joy Lobo's room in 3 Idiots. Call me crazy for watching the movie over thirty times and still wanting to watch it, but I have learned so much from it that if I had the power I would honour 3 Idiots with  the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Joy Lobo's song became my favorite and his part in movie portrays how weak students respond to challenges. He throws his great invention in the rubbish bin and hangs himself. Imagine if he completed his project and flew his spy-chopper into Virus' office, wouldn't it justify the delay? Of course it's just a movie, and if that happened in the movie the whole charm would die away. But what Rancho does with Lobo's rubbish is something we should applaud at.

From 3 Idiots 

On the contrary, I was shocked at what I saw on the hostel wall where I went to drop my son last week. "I Quit" was written in bold right at the entrance of his hostel, and I could only hope that whoever wrote it might have written it in good humor. Otherwise, look what our kids are picking on! Of the thousand good lessons in the movie, just that thing which was meant not to play with was picked on.

Seen on Hostel Wall

3 Idiots- The movie that taught me more than my schools

If you haven’t watched 3 idiots yet you are the idiot of the century. Surprisingly nobody minds being called idiot after that movie. Everybody wants to be the 4^th idiot. I am sure there won’t be anyone who didn’t watch it over three times.

3 idiots- the movie that touched my heart!

The movie must have made fortune enough to forgive me for downloading it from The Piratebay. I regret it but if I haven’t done that I would have to wait until it comes on TV. After having watched it over ten times now I feel like I have to pay for it. It has taught me more than I have ever learnt from school. I would like to say thank you to everybody who came together to make 3 idiots and enlighten the world.

I, being a student once and now a teacher, got the most out of the movie. Every character seems to have something to teach me in becoming a good learner and a better teacher.

Rancho comes to college to learn engineering for the love of doing it and not to get the certificate. He gives Millimeter money to buy a school uniform and join any school the kid likes. If he is caught ‘uniform change, school change’. Going to school is not about passing the exam, getting the certificate and going to next level and finally landing up in a job. It is about learning. Rancho himself gets kicked off from class often but he gets into another class. This is something I want my students to seriously reflect on.

My favourite scene in the movie is when Rancho was asked, “What is Machine?” Despite his excellent answer, he gets kicked out. This happens in most of our schools. But what doesn’t happen here is what Rancho does when he returns for his book. The message goes out to students who are fond of mugging up books and most of all to teachers who fail to understand the depth of students’ mind.

I cried when Farahan’s father finally asks him to return the laptop and to get himself a professional camera. Life is not about what people would say, as is in our society too, it’s about what makes you happy. Farahan says, “If I become a photographer I may earn lesser, but for the rest of my life, every day I wake up I will happy”.

Failing to understand this costs ViruS his own son. The son never appears in the movie but plays a major role in shaping the theme. He wanted to become a writer but his father forced his dream of engineering onto his son’s life and he has jumped from the train.

Joy Lobo has invented a helicopter with the camera (Now known as a drone) but ViruS declares it ‘unrealistic’ just because Lobo fails to submit the assignment on time and worse ViruS calls up Lobo’s father to tell that the boy will not graduate this year, which forces the bright boy to take his own life, leaving a message, ‘give me another chance’. That song is my favourite.  It calls for us teachers to be sensitive, tolerant, and appreciative of students’ creativity and not mere name-sake deadlines.

Telling ourselves “Aal is well” even when things are not so well does not solve the problem but worrying about it only makes it worse and gives us exaggerated pain. Raju is a victim of countless worries and therefore leaving himself with lesser energy to focus. After his suicide attempt he realizes Rancho’s ‘Aal is well’ wisdom. And his job interview shows us the magic of honesty and faith in one's self. When his two friends bring him the stolen paper, he throws it away and says, “I will pass if I can and fail if I must but do it honourably”.

“Go for excellence, success will follow you”, is the biggest message of the movie. Such abstract nouns are hard to explain, however, the movie has boldly personified the two; Rancho illustrates 'excellence' and Chature is 'success'. The movie goes on to illustrate success running after excellence at the end.

ViruS’s college is just like any school in Bhutan and the movie questions the way things are going. It questions the system, questions the teachers and parents and it even questions the students. It’s one movie all of us must watch and for those of us who have come to love the movie, it is an indication that we are heading in the right direction.