Past few months, for me, were the busiest months of the year. Thesis, course works, defense, presentations and seminars made most of my schedule and it dint give me any time to read or write blogs. I tried to steal sometime from my busy schedule but I rather found myself chasing one dateline after another.
Today, I recline and look back at those few months. I can see myself a man seriously working on a series of academic works. But not the whole of that while was academic. Other things did happen. I would like to pick out few of those non-academic affairs. They may not be deemed as highlights but I pick them just because they stand out in my memory.
The scholarship agency had arranged a school dormitory for us to stay until we finish the course. We are five Bhutanese students staying the school dormitory. But the school is affiliated to the university and is within the university campus though. It is no ordinary school. There are fantastic facilities. Only affluent lot affords it. The hostel rooms, wow, they are no less than a five-star hotel. When I first entered my room I thought ‘Even Ministers in our country won’t have such rooms.’ But what’s the downside of it? The hostel manager was too strict. She imposed stringent rules. And what bizarre! Within three months she fired six dorm teachers and some eight to ten security guards. Every month we saw new faces at the reception counter wishing us ‘Sawadi khaap’. Now imagine what difficulty it had been for us Bhutanese to move even a hair. We felt as though we were under surveillance all the time and we had to endure it for the last six or so months.
Later, for reasons I still don’t know, she was replaced by a new manager.
The new manger, a man of forties, brought all peace and ease in the hostel. He came as though to rescue us from the prison-like rules. It’s been over two months since he took over and up until now no one has been fired and replaced. We see the same faces at the reception counter. Unlike the former manger, he doesn’t wear any authoritative air and he is easy going and a sociable man. He talks to us and quit often plays tennis with us (I’ll talk tennis later). Thanks Heaven, for sending us the new hostel manager.
Tennis racquets
Inspired by the recent news of my favorite tennis icon Roger Federer winning Wimbledon 2012 and regaining number one in the rankings, I and my friend Bal wanted to try the game. We went to buy racquets. Since we had not played the game before, we had no idea as to what brand made a good racquet. We picked our choices from among the many on display. On closely examining the racquets, we noticed that the tension in the mesh wasn’t so strong so we got them tightened from another sports center. Finally, we got the paraphernalia ready and out we ventured. We were too excited to give our first shots and our excitement took us long until late evening that day. Suddenly Bal started laughing out loud.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked him.
‘My racquet's twisted!’
I looked at mine, I couldn’t hold my laughter. Both our racquet frames were pulled inward to different shapes by the strong tension.
I looked at mine, I couldn’t hold my laughter. Both our racquet frames were pulled inward to different shapes by the strong tension.
We had picked wrong racquets.
‘Bal where are you?’
We had explored every nook and cranny of the university campus. But there was one place we hadn’t been to- ‘Atop building-11’.
Building 11 is a 14 storied high-rise and it is the first building that comes to sight when we look from the balconies of our dorm. Apparantly, it was built by the engineers from the university and it is an astonishing piece of engineering. It stands beautiful and magnificent. Now that the time for leaving the university is nearing we had a strong urge to go atop it at least once. We wanted to leave no stone unturned. So one evening, Bal, me and a friend living next door set off for the building.
Building 11 is a 14 storied high-rise and it is the first building that comes to sight when we look from the balconies of our dorm. Apparantly, it was built by the engineers from the university and it is an astonishing piece of engineering. It stands beautiful and magnificent. Now that the time for leaving the university is nearing we had a strong urge to go atop it at least once. We wanted to leave no stone unturned. So one evening, Bal, me and a friend living next door set off for the building.
The upper half of Building-11
There was nobody in the building and all offices were closed. We took the elevator and we were at the second last story of the building. Bal was taking some video shots of the scenic beauty of the campus he saw from there, while two of us went to the topmost floor. We could see the bird eye view of the entire campus.
When we came back to the second last floor, Bal was no where to be seen and to our shock the window through which he was taking video shots was wide open. For a moment two of us stared at each other dumbfounded. We thought had jumped from the window.Then we frantically called out ‘Bal where are you? Baaaal, Baaaal’. No there wasn’t any response. I called him several times and there wasn't any response.We quickly made our way back to the ground floor and heck! there he was playing on his Andriod i-pad. We hit him hard and said 'Man dont ever do that again!'
A Sunday morning football match sprained my ankle. I stepped on a depression on the ground and I could hear the sound of the tendon snap. It got my ankle swollen for three weeks and I had to limp all that three weeks.
A jittery interview One Friday afternoon a call woke me up form my afternoon nap. An unrecognizable voice said ‘Ajahn (means teacher in Thai) wants to see you in her office right now. Get up, freshen up and report to Ajahn immediately’ He hung up before I could say a word. It got me rushing.
When i reached there Ajahn said 'Two Thai professors want to interview you on ‘Quality Assurance’ in our course.’ I was surprised and at the same time apprehensive. She handed me a chit and it read ‘Venue: Building 1, Room #: 308, Time: 4-4:30’ I looked at my watch and it was exactly four. It dint give me any time for any mental preparation. When I came out of the hall I dint remember a word I said to the questions. Lol.
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