My Inspiration: A Teacher and a Journalist

On a usual morning, getting lost in my usual chores, I get a call from a colleague who was doubtful whether I will recognize him or not. He had no idea I saved his number a year ago when we met at conferences and the much celebrated Mountain Echoes 2016. We became friends by our likes and love for writing. And he is Monu Tamang, now a Physiotherapist at JDWNRH.

The Teacher

I was invited for the release of his third book, The Morning Sun. I made myself available and in the evening I was waiting for others to arrive and in the distance saw Tashi Gyem, a Horticulturalist also a blogger.  Behind us were Creative Donkey and Beenu. We were late. Calling Monu we slipped into the last row and sat diligently. Looking at the speaker I was taken aback. It was HE T.S. Powdyel. His talks and the silence the audience maintained took me back 12 years into college when I was taught literature by Mr. Powdyel.

Scanning through the heads listening to the talks were familiar faces like Chador Wangmo, Karma Choden, Passu, Nawang P and I am not sure whether you heard the name KB Lama.

My update today is about who inspired me to write in the first place. Besides Ernest Hemingway, DH Lawrence, William Wordsworth, RK Narayan and the modern Elizabeth Gilbert, I am still fascinated with words and writings of our very own TS Powdyel and KB Lama. Mr. Lama used to head one of the private newspapers and my admiration for him was his fiery editorials.

The Journalist

Monu gave me the opportunity to meet my inspirations and I try and write like my inspiration: A teacher and a journalist. Just to make this read a pensive one, listening sincerely to Mr. TS; I took to the pain of memorizing and remembering his words “We need artists to make our society fuller and much realized.”  Back in college, all presentations that we did in Sir Powdyel’s class were displayed on our classrooms walls and not realizing some of the charts were trash, sir exclaimed looking at the walls, “Oh! It’s a hanging garden ina la, Make sure you pick only the flowers mey la.”

I got this wonderful opportunity to meet my inspirations and my experience was nothing short of edifying.