The Darkest June

The cover of The Darkest June with the picture of Wangdue Dzong on fire was enough to fascinate me. I wondered how could anybody build a story around June 2012 Wangdue Dzong fire but again it was Dasho Karma Tenzin Yongba, who could be trusted to do something strangely bold. Having served in the police force all his life crime story was his love story. His first novel The Restless Relic and collection of short stories Barnyard Murders were testimony to his mastery in the genre.  

Wangdue Dzong is a subject so close to my heart because I have begun my career in the shadow of that majestic Dzong and have seen it every day for six years until one day I saw it being razed down to the ground. I wrote about it in iWitness. I have written many more stories on the Dzong during my seven years in Bajothang. Therefore I have a special interest in anything that's about Wangdue Dzong.

As seen from where I stood on June 24, 2012

The official story stated that the fire was caused by an electric short circuit. The short circuit excuses helped solve many fire disaster cases, and Wangdue Dzong's was no exception. Beyond the official story, we looked no further because we took it as a sign of a fateful time that had come. Nothing could have stopped. No human was held responsible.

Book Cover from BOOKNESE

In The Darkest June Author Karma Tenzin has woven a thrilling conspiracy around the June 2012 Fire. Two parallel stories begin in 1964, one in France and the other in Trongsa, and end in Wangdue in June 2012 with the fire. Professor JD has visited Wangdue Dzong two years before Jambay sees it on his maiden journey en route Trongsa to Thimphu. He sees a dream of Wangdue Dzong engulfed in an inferno. The bad dream that he has that night under the tree in Wangdue haunts him for the rest of his life. 

Professor JD is found dead in his apartment only days before his journey back to Bhutan. He was going to return the diamond he discovered in the rock sample he stole from Wangdue Dzong two years ago to the government of Bhutan. His death puts the case to a long slumber until his granddaughter tries to connect the dots and finds the key to the locker where her grandfather has kept the papers and the diamond. 

Through Jambay's journey in Bhutan, the author subtly takes us on a nostalgic ride into our past; beginning of towns and roads in the country. Jambay meets a nice Tibetan couple who gives him shelter in his initial days in Thimphu but his affair with the young wife makes him leave Thimphu. In Phuntsholing he makes a humble beginning with a warm Sherpa family and goes on to become one of the top businessmen. 

He marries into the same Sherpa family with their niece. Later his daughter helps him in his travel business. That's when the two worlds meet. Though Professor JD's granddaughter takes her share and drops her interest in the rock, his partners pursue their search for the origin of the rock in Wangdue. They book their many tours through Jambay's company. His unsuspecting daughter leads the final tour in June 2012.

In 29 short chapters the book gives you doses of love, lust, family tale, wealth, crime,... and within a few hours, you would be on the last page wondering if Wangdue Dzong fire was really caused by a short circuit. It gives wings to your own imaginations. You would find yourself playing with even more complex conspiracy theories as if to justify the loss of a great national monument.

I have carefully avoided the details of the story to reserve the true charm and I must tell you not to judge the book by its substandard cover design. The book truly deserves a better cover and title font. And before I forget, please be warned that it's a work of fiction. 

The book is available on BOOKNESE

Blogging With Dragons

Do you remember the popular column "Ask Boaz" in Kuensel K2 Mag?

Well ‘Ask Boaz’ was for more than four years the favorite tech guide and information source in Bhutan, which ran as regular column in Kuensel’s weekly K2 magazine. Boaz Shmueli would answer to questions sent in by his readers with surprising wit and simplicity. Over the years, the column subtly became the most authentic history of technology in Bhutan. 

Now the complete collection of his articles from ‘Ask Boaz’ column is put into a book "BLOGGING WITH DRAGONS" and if you are quick enough, the ebook version is on Amazon.com for free these days (Click on the Picture).

Click on the pic to download the book

As I read flip through the pages I am transported down memory lane- the times we struggled with Dialup connection to the wake of Facebook on 3G network, technical nitty gritty to online security and media literacy, KB days to coming of TB, … The book is the most authentic biography of technology in Bhutan. It can give a very authentic insight into the lives of people of the Bhutan, and the gradual change we underwent in the short span of time.

The book is a legacy of a foreigner who lived a meaningful life in Bhutan and impacted everyone who owned a computer, tablet or phone.


The book can still be a helpful ‘how to’ book in Bhutan and similar countries. It can be a useful technology guidebook for anybody living in or travelling to Bhutan because we are still faced with the questions that Boaz answered years ago. 

The writer Boaz Shmueli is also the author of Thimphutech.com and Creator of android app BhutaNews. 

La Ama- A Book Review

Book Title:  La Ama ... a mother's call
Author:        Chador Wangmo
Publisher:    Miza Books
Published:   2015
Pages:         198
Price:          Nu.250

 La Ama is perhaps the first book I have read completely in a long time. And the very first book I have finished in on sitting. I am a very slow reader and 198 pages would usually take me over a week but Chador Wangmo has begun her book with a tight knot of suspense and I didn't want to put down until I untied it. Soon I found myself too engaged with Dechen Zangmo and wanted to be by her side until she wakes up.

Chador has invented a unique plot that is strategically woven to fly us across time and places and put us in exactly same state of being as the narrator. Chador's mastery over English language brings out the strong waves of emotions that the story has to offer.

The story is about a girl who is abandoned by her parents and abused by people in whom she places her trust. She has surrendered to her fate and hungry husband, until one day it becomes too much for her. In her attempt to escape from her brutal husband and with nowhere to go she meets with an accident. In that deep unknown space between life and death, she finds herself with her mother putting together the pieces of puzzles from the past and reconnecting with her. She discovers that she has been reliving her mother's mistakes.

"was there any reason to fear the outside world when brutal predators existed within the family walls?" (p.126)

I don't want to risk writing any more about the story lest I land up looting the charm from your desire to read yourself. Chador Wangmo has subtly and creatively exposed the secrets hidden behind the closed doors of our society. It's a book every Bhutanese woman must read to find the strength to make right choices at the right time, and it's a book every Bhutanese man must read to ensure that it happens but not as a favour, rather as natural as it should be.

"I wonder if marriage was a union of two souls as it is often said or merely the ownership of one soul over the other." (p.172)

The only problem I saw in the book was on page ii, where she disclaims that "Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead is purely coincidental" When it should read, "Any resemblance to actual person is intentional, and if you are offended you know where to go."

The book has impressed me in more than one way; I loved the title, the cover design, the size and promotion, the paper quality, and the general design. Chador has left no page unturned in the publication of her debut novel. Thank you for writing La Ama.

Books on Democracy in Bhutan

Million things have happened in the first five years of democracy in our country. We were all eyewitness to those events that defined the birth and infancy of democracy in Bhutan. There were events that excited us, headlines that shocked the nation, political dramas that angered sections of society, decisions that changed our lives, and moments that changed Bhutan.

Those decisions, those promises, the headlines, the emotions, the drama and everything that happened in those five years are but surprisingly history now, to be forgotten with each passing day. No matter how strongly we felt about somethings or how somethings impacted our lives we have moved on. But if democracy has to flourish we must not forget what happened in the first five years, it was the priceless lesson we cannot afford to lose.

Gyambo Sithey, the same author who documented the 2008 election in his book "Drukyul Decides-In the minds of Bhutan's first voters", has done us yet another great favour of recording remarkable events from the first five years of democracy in Bhutan in his second book "Democracy in Bhutan-The First Five Years 2008-13". The book with its excellent print quality and design is a complete history of the founding years with nostalgic collection of pictures.

The Democracy in Bhutan

On one hand I wonder what was there to make up a staggering eleven chapters but by the time I turn the last of 200 pages I couldn't imagine how the author could possibly sum up five years and million things in eleven chapters. The eleven chapters will take you back in time and let you feel the impacts yet again, sometimes taking you into the depth of some matters that we had just let go with a smile.Undoubtedly the foremost writer on democracy in Bhutan, Gyambo Sithey has picked on stories that have mattered the most and that should be remembered for times to come.

What he will write next is not so hard to guess but looking at how many things have happened under the new government within the first year I wonder how many chapters he will have to write. But I bet he must have finished the first chapter already and the title may be: "100 Days Pledges".

Gyambo Sithey's First Book: Drukyul Decides

I have been lucky to receive both the books from the author himself, signed. And the author signed two more copies for my school. But I didn't want these two books to be hidden among thousand other books in the school library, I wanted them to be seen and read, to educate young voters in my school. Therefore I gifted the books to School Democracy Club, the ECB initiated group that is responsible for educating the school on democracy. To them the books are no less than encyclopedia.

Democracy Club posing with Gembo Sithey's Books. Thank you!

I would like to suggest every Democracy Club in the schools to own these two books as assert and perhaps ECB could make this possible.