It's Neat!

Kuzozangpo and Sawadhekhrup! Before the year comes to an abrupt end without mentioning anything of the culture shock here, I cannot make this post a new year’s update, you know why? It’s spooky in many sense. Yeah, yeah! I know….. you know most and you know well about Thailand especially Bangkok with all shopping stuff, malls, amusement areas, Tuk Tuk, Khao San Road, Patpong, Pattaya, Som Tam, Chang, and not to forget Ann, who speaks a little Dzongkha and most Bhutanese know her, the Tokyo mall in MBK, Watson's, Tesco Lotus, Seven-Elevens, etc… 

I know you know many more than the mentioned. What many don’t know is, this is not for the ladies anyways, beauty and grooming parlors are dotted everywhere for women and equally dotted are massage parlors, I haven’t been to any.

Look for hair cutting shops as you stroll around and walk aimlessly with no sense of direction. Many a Bhutanese, including me still have doubts about which is east, where the hell is north and so on. And in downtown Bangkok, forget directions, one’s own hotel disappears within minutes if you are not careful. People literally squeeze in between jammed cars to walk ahead. OK, back to hair-cut!

For men, getting a decent hair cut here can be pretty cumbersome. Now, don’t jump into conclusions for those of you who know me-a supposed bald preaching of hair-cut. If you are smart enough, you can look for hair cutting shops on Google Maps and even if you find one, you will pay way above the normal.

As minimal as hairs on my head, men’s hair cutting shops are also minimal. After you have found one, get in, speak some Thai-English and get yourself a hair-cut. I am talking about me, not generalizing. The person who cut my hair or trimmed anyways, gets a calculator and shows me, 300 Baht. What the heck? But that included washing your head and a little massage. Imagine, if you aren’t bald.

Next stop, weeks later, I stumbled upon a clipper in a Tech-mall. Asked, ‘Thau R-layi’ and I get the answer, 429 baht. This should be a sensible investment and I bought myself a clipper.

How's that for a first timer? 

After that, I never visited any shops for my hair cut and on two occasions, I requested my neighbor, Sherub for running the clipper on my head. This is the third time I have used it and guess what, I did it myself. Just before plugging in, watched YouTube on how to clipper your own hair and watching religiously, there you have it, a clean clipped hair and not so good head. Necessity is grudgingly the mother of all inventions. So, if you thinking of holidaying in Bangkok and its outskirts, get yourself trimmed or try my idea or you choose 300, Clipper worth 429…and learn some handy skills. One thing about being bald is, it's neat! 

Self-conscious a too little? Looks, Hairs, dresses etc…Well, no one notices all these now...People are busy getting from A to B, because you are in Bangkok, the most visited city in the world. So who the hell will say, blink or even notice if you cut your own hair...

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy holidays! Thank you for visiting.

To live is an act of courage: Reasoning Suicides!

Let us not make GNH a jargon and relate it to every possible misfortune that Bhutan faces. Youngsters aren’t happy that’s why the suicides, as common as that. Since, GNH stands out and we are still fascinating the world with our philosophy, everything that happens in Bhutan is somehow linked and reasoned to this concept. I know perfectly some link must be maintained but let us not make a metaphysics or for that matter a metaphorical irony of out every other problem that we undergo.

Sorry, I came late to this topic and I have thought about this for a while and spent some time pondering on what has been mentioned in Kuenselonline.com about suicides. I am very amazed at the fact that how can suicide rate be medium in Bhutan considering the population. People in other countries have a rate mentioned and let’s consider this, millions if not billions live in the countries cited and governments take suicides very seriously.

Some major causes of suicides among many, as I have read are;

§  major psychiatric illness - in particular, mood disorders (e.g., depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia)

§  substance abuse (primarily alcohol abuse)

§  family history of suicide

§  long term difficulties with relationships with friends and family

§  losing hope or the will to live

§  significant losses in a person's life, such as the death of a loved one, loss of an important relationship, loss of employment or self-esteem

§  unbearable emotional or physical pain

Some platforms and activities to reduce the above mentioned causes is the need of the hour. Isn’t it worrying that young people are taking their own lives with reasons? There are reasons that’s why the death. Young people are dying, isn’t this serious… A sensible thing the authorities can do is conduct a nationwide suicide prevention campaign across schools and colleges instead of mentioning services like helicopter and insufficient counsellors in schools, overworked psychiatrists and very few mental health centers. 

Home is where most of the problems begin and what if something is done to educate adults on this, take for instance, sex education at homes is a taboo even for the ones reading this. This culture must be adopted to talk to young people at homes. Let us make our young people believe that, sometimes even to live, is an act of courage. And yes, sorry for the wacky title-because it doesn’t have to be rocket science to detect common sense whether be it governments, communities, organizations or individuals.

Kadrinchey for dropping by.