FINDING OUR INNER DZONG- Reflection on meeting a friend

 

Trongsa is an ancestral home of my grandfather and father. Trongsa Dzong is place of great significance to Bhutan, symbolising union of national conscience, visionary leadership and sovereignty and peace we rejoice today. Pelden tells me that the Dzong holds some 25 temples, some as old as the Dzong itself. I was even more enthralled when I learnt that it had taken more than three centuries to attain the grandeur it defeats all other Dzongs.

Pelden Wangmo is a Deputy Chief Education Officer at Trongsa Dzongkhag today, a stature of warmth and energy. We had graduated together to become teacher in 2002 and separated our ways into our world of service and personal lives. We were school mate too.

After 18 years, Search Inside Yourself brings us to meet again briefly to reconnect memories of the Khaling days at Trongsa which is a bridge between the East and West. She was a vibrant school girl then, a happy-go-lucky friend, full of chatter and laughter to fill the corridors and classroom. The gracefulness of a humble school girl has not faded much, except that the misadventure of a family life and tendering three children alone have made her a shadow of mellowness and womanhood.

What changed her was the life she has lived and challenges she is facing with strength everyday as a mother to three children. Her husband had died in a freak accident, after drowning in Pa Chhu at Paro. It had been a disastrous slap on her lively family, and life after that had never been same. Having learnt to live life for her children, as an example of an unforgiving mother, she has learnt to balance grit and grace as a leader and a mother.

Mrs. Pelden is a Desuup too. Amidst her parental role and after office work, she finds strength and joy to patrol Trongsa town once a week. What motivates her is how she is seen as an inspiration to other women friends. Her role as Desuup and a Deputy Chief DEO has become an example of possibility, strength and woman leadership for her friends and family. Teachers I met tells me that “Pelden is a gentle leader, interactive and warm woman of focus and determination. She is an understanding leader. Her warm words are what inspires us.” This resonates with my belief that leadership is not a stronghold of power and absolute authority, but the degree of greater responsibility I have to perform for wellbeing, growth and happiness of my staff and students.

She said, “I am in love with this place, mainly with the magnificent Dzong. I feel fortunate to walk to work every day, through the corridors of one of the longest, sacred and most important historical architecture of our country.” She shared this sentiment to 29 other friends in the SIY programme, with pride and joy.

Pelden says that, she “forgets every other thing that drains her once she enters the gate of the Dzong to her office.” She attributes this experience to the Dzong itself and the work atmosphere in her office.

Mrs. Pelden confides about her workspace. “I am trusted by Chief DEO and given full responsibility to what I do. That the three of us DEOs work seamlessly, sharing roles and opportunities for training and tours. Our work relationship is fluid, we know what each of us do, where each of us are going, and even take each other roles and opportunities for holistic learning. This is an experience I love in our office.”

If this is how everyone works in their offices, not driven by greed and arrogance and power, but by understanding feelings of others and our own, we can built Dzongs of grandeur in our hearts. If one humble monk can give rise to a fortress as mammoth as Trongsa Dzong, and many such across the mountains and rivers, it is not impossible us to become a better human. Search Inside Yourself is a tool that can question the grossness of life we lived and reveal possibilities for grandeur in our character, values and way of life.