Trip to The Last Shangri-la : Thimpu Visit

Kings Memorial Chhorten

The Second Last day of our Bhutan trip was to explore the Bhutans Capital aka Thimphu. We started from Paro and in about 2-3 hours reached there, had a little breakfast and soon reached the first location: King's Memorial Chhorten. This place was getting renovated so not much of a scene.

Museum

Folk Heritage Museum-Must Visit

Next we visited the library, but it was lunch time there, so instead of waiting, we continued our tour to the Museum. Now let me tell you, I have been to a few museums but this was extraordinaire, one of its kind, again salute to Bhutan for this Museum. It was established in 2001 and provides visitors and tourists with fascinating insights into the Bhutanese material culture and way of life. The Folk Heritage Museum is set inside a three storied, 19th century traditional house.

The museum gives us a glimpse of the traditional Bhutanese lifestyle, in addition to artifacts from rural households; it also displays an impressive collection of typical household objects, tools and equipment. The museum also organizes regular demonstrations of rural traditions, skills, habits and customs as well as hosting educational programs for children.

The activities of the museum follow a seasonal rhythm, just like the activities of a true rural household, offering you something new to see every time you visit the place. The museum does a remarkable job of recapturing the rural setting and ambiance of a traditional household by setting up paddy, wheat and millet fields, a traditional water-mill with mill stones more than 150 years old, traditional style kitchen gardens with vegetables that were typically grown during the past 100 years. So sad that photography is not allowed, but then we have google.

@ Library

National Library and Archives of Bhutan

Frankly speaking, im not much of a reader guy, I like to watch movies/seasons instead, so Library didn’t had much charm for me. I must add an appreciation to the point that this Library had 2 sections, one for Foreign Languages like English and other for their own Bhutanese language. Bhutanese language Library is a 5 floor building and the most amazing thing about it is that all the floor schematic is exactly same, in computer terms it’s like copy and paste one above another.

Buddha Point

Buddha Point

A place with a big Buddha’s statue, another cool place to check out.

Handicraft's Place

Handicrafts Place

Last but not the least we have handicrafts place from where you can take souvenir’s for your loved ones There are numerous shops lined up one after another, you can purchase a variety of things from there, you can bargain and select the lowest cost shop also.  Try to purchase something unique of Bhutan like we purchased hanging clothes (its incorrect name, I don’t know what they call it, but they hang these cylindrical colorful clothes in their temples.). See picture.

Happiness, an obligatory requirement for Development-Research Paper

Dear Readers,

You might be aware that I am going to present a paper in the third world conference of GERA to be held in Paro, Bhutan. Here is my paper. Please review it and post your comments/suggestions, so that I can refine it.

Happiness, an obligatory requirement for Development

Kuntal Desai

Abstract

Happiness is a compulsory ingredient for development of a country. Its actually a transitive relationship. if people living in a country are happy, they will work more and hence country will prosper. This basic rule applies in every arena be it education, politics, marriage, daily routine etc. GDP(Gross Domestic Product) is commonly used as an indicator of the economic health of a country, as well as to gauge a country's standard of living. It is time for our statistics system to put more emphasis on measuring the well-being of the population than on economic production. People are looking less to internal personal growth and more to material growth.

Research Design

We have to understand that  the best things in life aren't things. Building community, sharing wealth and caring for each other are far more likely to lead to satisfied lives than the individualist ethics. Now-a-days we are are bombarded with a fake image of success which defines success as “A person who has lots of money and fame”, but in reality a successful person is the one “who is content and happy” it does not mean that we should stop earning and sit, but not to run after money. It is important to challenge corporate power and inequality if we are to create happy societies.   

We worked with 30 men and women aged 22-35 in an organization where whole and sole purpose was to complete the task on time. There was lot of pressure, less resources, more work which resulted in generating hard policies. 

There was a continuous surveillance set up, each and everything was recorded weather they are talking to clients or among themselves on the floor,even their breaks were monitored. They were not even allowed to socialize and play music. All this setup was done to enhance the productivity of the organization. Management was trying hard to increase the productivity by putting more and more policies day by day but it eventually reduced the productivity thereby creating dissatisfaction among members.

Due to above policies, whole organization went into very bad condition. Everyone wanted to move away from there, so the management tried to lure them by incrementing their salary, but it also didn't improve anything. There was a meeting called to figure out reason behind the decline and all the members agreed on one and only one point that is the rules that are being enforced on them to increase productivity. Everybody expressed their anguish against those rules which severely affected their personal liberty. Major steps were taken to increase the productivity again but this time they were games in the organization, socializing activities so that they can cooperate and work to improve the condition.

Results

As expected, within a month conditions improved. There was a balance  in  the organization,  not  too  much  work,  not  too  much policies, enough for fun, and socialization. The desire for happiness is universal, and sustainable happiness is multi-dimensional, not just dependent on money. The ultimate outcome of policies should be to increase the welfare of the people, not just organizational growth. And that’s what we have to measure. Countries-organizations are now replacing human development with GDP when it was never developed for that reason, so that’s a big mistake. GNH  means  different  things  for  different  people.  It is  a  kind  of  well-being, happiness with what we have, contentment with what  we are, not craving, and being able to sleep peacefully, knowing we have done the right thing.

Conclusion

The paper concludes  that all societies-every individual want well being. It must be about a society that is really evolved, a holistic development of the individual, including material and other needs. It‟s about people finding meaningful work and a purpose in life. This is what GNH seeks to achieve, an enlightened society.

Acknowledgements and References

Interview with Tshoki Zangmo, Researcher, The Center for Bhutan Studies (CBS), Thimphu, Bhutan, 24 July 2009.

Focus Group Discussion all over Bhutan by CBS

Research Papers by Thakur S Powdyel(Researcher), Karma Ura(President) and Karma Galay (CBS), Sabina Alkire, Tshoki Zangmo, Karma Wangdi, Alejandro Adler Braun (University of Pennsylvania)