The Raven Squad- A Film Review

The Raven Squad was trending so much on social media to ignore. My daughter Ninzi Show insisted on watching it. Moreover, it was long due for me to watch a Kinley Rigzin Dorji movie. I love the young man’s character, attitude and maturity but haven’t watched any of his movies yet. Same for Sonam Max Choki Page.

First thing, I didn’t expect the hall to be housefull after so many days. The stairs were filled with young people who are aspiring to become something like the Raven Squad.

The movie is about a doting father who fails to appreciate his little MJ son. He realizes it a little too late. He loses his son but to keep his son’s dreams alive, he brings many broken dreams together to form the Raven Squad of success. He sacrifices everything to keep the squad dancing because for him that’s the process of healing.

The story may not sound quite new, but the characters and their dance talents make all the difference, not to mention the occasional jabs of humor that are so well crafted and timed. The background of each squad member has a story that is meant to connect to every youth out there; you are one of them. The new faces have done a good job in magnifying those roles. Kids are going to love them so much.

It’s a motivational film; it will inspire a lot of youth to pursue their dreams in not just dancing but in every form of expression that’s there; I loved the way the film has turned the profession of dancing and cab driving into something so attractive. Good Job, Sonam Maekay Penjor. You played the father figure well. I am tempted to play that role.

Besides the youths, the cab drivers are going to love this film. There is one song that I foresee every cab playing from this day on. It will spread love and kindness among them.

And Dear Kinley Rigzin Dorji, I am blown by your flare in acting. You are born for stardom. You have it all in you. Your director, Karma jerry has managed to showcase your talent to the max. Now, I know why the young kids are so in love with you. It’s my first film of Sonam Max Choki too. And O’ boy, she is a breath of fresh air. I am going to watch more of her movies now.

Wish you big at the box office!

Blame Not Your Country. It’s the Committees

I was chatting with a friend who was reprimanded for writing stuff on Twitter, which, according to a 'disciplinary committee', violated the civil service code of conduct. He said the committee has decided to withhold his promotion for a year as an administrative action. 

He said he didn't write anything so out of the ordinary to be punished. He said they scrolled up and down his Twitter feed to see if he had really written anything so wrong to violate the civil service code of conduct. 

I told him to appeal to the committee and ask them to prove their charges because the official letter states he can appeal within 10 working days.

"I don't think that will work. I might land up making it worse. I will rather resign and go to Australia." He said. 

"If that has pushed you to the brink of resignation, then what's the problem in appealing and facing the committee? What could possibly go wrong? Even if things don't work out, you could still resign." I said.

"Awooo, laakha du mena Bhutan na." He said, which shocked me. His statement paints a different picture of Bhutan. It sounds as if it's dangerous to speak up in Bhutan. 

So, I told him, "Man, don't bash your country for the action of the so called committee that is made up of a bunch of pleasers who think they are doing their job with utmost dedication. Your country didn't fail you; the committee failed you. You are not fighting against your country; you are fighting against the committee. Please know the difference and separate the two."

It was easy for me to say this, but for him, holding that letter in his hand, the fear was real. God knows what sort of big words and names they must have dropped when handing the letter to him. Here is my personal request to all those committees, please don't let ordinary citizens bash their country for your actions. You have to own it up. You can't use names and acts and clauses to threaten people and make them shit bricks. You are doing big disfavour to this country. These committees are whittling away at Bhutan's unique democratic culture that the successive kings have painstakingly built over the last decades. 

The best ways around to help civil servants avoid violating clause 3.3.16.2, Chapter 3 of BCSR 2018 are;

1. Conduct social media literacy to help them use the platforms productively. 
2. Create open internal platforms for dialogues with the assurance that they won't be reprimanded.

Otherwise, it will only breed hostile anonymous communities that will go beyond attacking policies into defaming individuals, family members and even their beloved country. That's worse than violating the civil service code of conduct.  

Do You Help Your Neighbour?

If a loaded truck pulls into the parking lot near your building, you know that a new neighbour is shifting in. You know it from the load in the truck. No matter how you pretend, you know there has been an empty flat in the building since the last occupant left. You even know why they left and where they moved to. So you have been expecting a new neighbour.

But in Thimphu, you somehow don't come out to welcome your new neighbour. You peek through the window but don't even open your door to say hi. You don't think it's your business. 

Having come from a village --where we come together as a community to help each other build houses, harvest crops, celebrate birth, grieve deaths and so on-- when I see a new neighbour, I go out to greet them and help them unload the truck and carry their stuff up the stairs into their new home. On the other hand, my wife will either prepare tea or arrange cold drinks for the newcomers. We extend the same courtesy to outgoing neighbours too. 

If a friend or a relative is shifting their house and I'm aware of it, I go to help them even if it's not anywhere near the neighbourhood. If necessary, I will take my pickup truck along. And my wife will prepare tea or a meal depending on the necessity of the situation.

When I went to help a friend shift his house today, my expectations were low from his neighbours. Sure enough, no one came out of their homes to help us. Neither in his old neighbourhood from where we were moving nor in the new community. Forget about helping us; there were two incidents where we were asked to move our truck so that they could drive into their parking. They could kindly park somewhere else for a while.

My wife offered to make tea for us, but I had to drive all the way back home to pick it up, so I scrapped the idea. But I thought there would be other friends and relatives with all sorts of refreshments and lunch. Guess what, we had to order home delivery food. I lamented how Thimphu has quickly outgrown our beautiful Bhutanese way of life, community ties, and traditional values.

When I pointed that out to my friend and his wife, they said it's still way better than in Australia, where they can't bother their friends, so they hire professional logistics whom they pay by hours. They are grateful that quite a few of us came to help. Someday even this might become a story to tell. 

The Process of Writing- My Debut Hosting on Bhutan Echoes

I feel honoured to be given this opportunity to host a session on the process of writing, a subject that is close to my heart, a subject that I worked so hard to understand when I co-founded the Writers Association of Bhutan and a subject that's at the heart of what I do with BOOKNESE.

You will see how natural and spontaneous we are during the discussion, not because we rehearsed so much but because the subject was as close to their hearts as mine. My guest Tshering Wangchuk, former CEO of Business Bhutan and BBS, is the author of A Thousand Footprints. My Other guest Utsav Khatiwara is an editor who works as a lecturer at Royal Thimphu College. Within an hour that I spent with the two outstanding personalities, with whom I haven't had so much associations in the past-- especially I met Utsav for the first time on the day of the shoot-- I felt a lot richer in terms of my knowledge on writing and publishing. 

Save all your questions until the end of this show;

My Floating Bed #DIY Project

You don't need a floating bed to have a good night's sleep, but if you must, please invest in a good mattress instead because that has a considerable effect on the quality of your sleep and, therefore, the quality of your life. I don't have to dig into the science to prove how good sleep influences a good life. 

If it's the mattress that matters, why did I work on a bed? A floating bed, rather? At first, I was into making a headboard for my old bed. I spent a long time reading and writing in my bed, and it was painful not to have a soft and sturdy headboard to lean on. 

I worked on a headboard that I always wanted to have. I had a mental picture of one. The ones I saw in the market were not within the budget I could afford and not quite the kind I wanted. My Headboard came out better than I thought. I went beyond wood and carpentry into foam and cloth. I didn't stop there. 

 

Why did I even want a headboard in the first place? I wanted to read and write in my bed; that's when I felt the need to have a reading light attached. Now that I have an electrical item attached, I thought, why not add another feature to make life easy; I added a mobile charging station on both ends of the board for my wife and me. No more messy extension cords and chargers on the bedside table at night. 

Initially, it was a standard two-pin plug, but a friend suggested I have a USB charger and remove the need for an external charger. Likewise, I had a reading light that had a small switch that was difficult to locate, especially when I was sleepy and trying to turn off the light; therefore, the same friend suggested I go for a light that would turn on and off by mere touch on any part- and no switch.

Only after I had the magnificent headboard built and attached to my old bed did I realize that I needed a more matching bed. I wasn't so confident about making a bed. But when I saw the floating bed concept, I knew I could do that. I knew I could do better. Thus, I worked on it, and I had the bed done within a few days. I brought it home and coupled it with my headboard. 

Going strictly by the recipe, I even added an LED light underneath the bed to glorify the floating effect. I stole the LED lights from my daughter's room. 

The satisfaction of having done the bed didn't last long because I felt something was missing. The headboard and the bed looked like they were from different planets. 

From my experience of working on a friend's zen bed, I knew I needed to wrap my bed in the same cloth as the headboard. I went back to the fabric store from where I bought the foam and clothes to get an additional cloth. 

There you go! The bed seemed like it had grown out of the headboard. It looked soft and comfy all of a sudden. It came out the way I loved it to be, far better than I thought I was capable of making. It was definitely an accidental success, and I have learned so much from experience. I am willing to share them. 

And finally, I have my floating bed. My daughter has taken away the LED light, but it looks great either way. The concept of having the bed floating is both aesthetic and functional; there are no issues when sweeping the floor around and underneath the bed.  

And yeah, Good Night!

Wooden Bathtub (Wa)#DIY

Wa (ཝ) is a wooden tub that's generally used for hot-stone baths. It's an outdoor thing, but I have always wanted one that I could keep in my bathroom. I have asked my brother Samtey to make me one in his furniture house in Punakha. It took a while, but he finally delivered it early this year between the two lockdowns. 

 

I loved it, but his version was not the traditional shape that I wanted. The base area was equal to that of the mouth, which took a lot of water to fill. My 50-litre geyser was useless. So I planned to remodel it to suit my taste. 

My Remodeling Plan

It was a scary experience. I was tearing apart a well-made tub without even knowing if I would be able to put it back into the shape and size I wanted. I was ambitious. I liked the Wa to have some modern features to make it easy to use. 

I cut off almost half of the original tub and achieved my desired shape. It looked great. But because of the angles I have added to the structure, I had to play around with slopes on all the sides, including the bottom part that comes into contact with the base. I added a waste coupling to make draining easy.

When testing with water, there were multiple leaks. It seemed like a failure. Thanks to my indigenous knowledge, I know the leaks are normal. There are two ways to contain them;
1. stuff the gaps with cloth pieces using a sharp object

2. keep the tub filled with water. The leaks will disappear gradually.

I tried a new trick. I applied silicone sealant. More than half the leaks were gone. The tub was still leaking. Then the good old method of keeping it filled with water solved the rest. Now my bathroom smells of a sweet pine tree. 

Inside of the Wa

The Wa in my bathroom

This interesting project gave me the confidence and desire to do more. I have worked on over six small projects. The Wa project is the second biggest and my second favourite. The number one on my list is an unusual bed concept I worked on:- Floating Bed. 

Four Simple #DIY Projects

During the lockdown, the two things that I avoided were thinking about the lockdown and talking or writing about the lockdown. I didn't want to pretend not to be affected by it. I rather didn't want it to affect me. I set out to work on some carpentry projects to keep myself busy. I didn't know I was good at it. Maybe I wasn't good at it first but as I did more projects I improved. It surprised me and my wife. 

3 Shelves for the kitchen

I found a dozen bottles of oil and sauces behind the gas stove. They are there because of the frequency of use. Placing them any further from there could disrupt the process of preparing food, therefore I built a single layer shelf right behind the gas stove. 

When the oil and sauce bottles found their place, the containers holding tea ingredients and other spices were jealous. They were in a plastic cabinet, which was eating up a lot of space on the kitchen table. So I sacrificed my supposed-to-be bookshelf for them. 

For the pots and pans, I found the easiest way out. I got some angle clamps from the hardware store and built two layers of shelves for them. 

One Shelf for the Bathroom

One shelf led to another. With inspiration from The DIY Life with Anika, I made one for the bathroom as well. 

These are the simple ones I worked on. The next two will be much bigger, more complex and of course, my favourites.