Celebrating the Historic Day

The greatest King ever in History

As a big celebration was going on in Bhutan, I saw the live streaming link of the BBS to commemorate 60^th Birth Anniversary of fourth Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuk. The celebrations in Bhutan were grand and wished if we were present there too. In order to make that up, I talked with our friends’ Roshan and Beena to have a small celebration for the great king of all times. They too agreed and we decided to celebrate the day with three occasions: Diwali; our friend Sonam Tobgay’s birthday and His Majesty’s 60^th Birth Anniversary. Me, Yangki, Beena, Roshan, Kharka and Sonam Tobgay gathered at Roshan’s place at Tuglakabad on the afternoon of 10^th November.

We had a small discussion on how to celebrate and we decided to celebrate it in our own way and cut the cake at midnight. Yangki, me and Kharka went to the nearby Alaknanda market to buy the groceries and cake. We bought two cakes: one for Sonam Tobgay and the other for our king. As we finished our shopping, we started preparing the dishes for that night’s celebrations. Beena worked on shelroti which I have seen Southern Bhutanese preparing during Diwali festival. Kharka and Yangki worked on mixed veg curry, dal and chicken. Egg curry was my part. Roshan and I worked on the decorations too, mainly putting up the king’s portrait and balloons and lighting the lights. By evening, all the preparations were done and we were eagerly waiting for our other friends to join in the celebrations. One by one, they came in and when all reached in, we had the snack session where the shelroti and mixed veg curry was served.

Once the snacks were done, we had a game session conducted. It firstly kicked off with the balloon dance where we were all coupled up. It was fun to see as we struggled to keep the balloon balanced in between. Sonam Dorji and Tshering Yangki managed to balance till the end and they were the winner for that game. As the balloon was limited, there was a game played among 6 boys to blast others’ balloon and save their own balloon. Jigme Dorji won this game. Once this game was done, another game was started on. We all sat in a circle where the music was played on and a balloon went circulating each one of us and when the music stops, who ever had the balloon was made to sing. All of us were made to sing that night except acho Tashi Norbu who has the champion. We had another game again. It was named as, “Blind shot” where our eyes were covered and three glasses were kept containing Beer, Juice and water for girls and for boys’ case one more glass containing vodka was also introduced. We had to select one and take the shot directly. I was the first participant and I got beer. Our friends took turns to take the game and most of them either got water or juice. Only one or two of them got beer or vodka even after several tries.

Time was bit early for our dinner so I introduced them a new game which I played in my primary school. I don’t remember the exact name of the game but it can be called as killer-police game. It was very much popular and loved when I was in my school those days. In this game, we all had to sit down and all were given a chit to choose. All the chits were empty except two chits. For those with empty chits, they were considered as innocent citizens. One of the two chits contained the word Killer which meant he/she had to kill the innocent citizens. The other chit contained Police whose main work was to catch the killer. No one was allowed to reveal who they are.  As everybody got their chits and the role in it, all had to look at each others’ eyes and there the killer and police chase would start. Killer would be winking at the citizens (sometimes police too as he won’t know who police is) which indicated that he/she had killed that person and once a person was winked by someone, the person should step out saying that they are dead but they shouldn’t reveal who the killer was. Police had to make sure that he/she see the killer winking and catch hold of the killer. It turned out to be quite interesting as some of the killers were very smart killing 6-7 innocent citizens and some police were smart enough to not let any citizens get killed. We all enjoyed thoroughly.

Dinner time

After this game was over, we decided to have our dinner. We took some rest after the dinner and then sought to dancing and singing. All of us sat down on the floor and sang some of the most popular Bhutanese songs like Ngesem Ngesem and Tharingsa. We rocked on various songs like Bhutanese traditional song of Zhungdra and Boedra, nepali and Bhutanese rigsar song. It was a great time to enjoy for such great occasion.

With joy filled enjoyment, we didn’t know how time passed when the midnight scrolled in and we had to cut our cakes. Firstly we all gathered near our king’s portrait and sang the HAPPY BIRTHDAY song for His Majesty and all of us together cut the cake and fed ourselves. The cake was lighted with the candles reading king’s age, 60.

Happy 60th Birthday Your Majesty

Next we moved to Sonam Tobgay’s cake and sang the BIRTHDAY song for him as he blew off the candles and cut the cake. As the cake feeding was going on all the guys’ face were decorated with cake as can be seen in this picture. Wishes were exchanged and we stopped the celebration as the time was almost 12.30 am 11^th November 2015.

Happy smiling cake-smeared faces of Hamdardians

I jumped in excitement the next morning while my friends were still enjoying their beautiful dreams after getting the most wonderful news. I shouted, “Hey our King and Queen are going to have a baby” which disturbed the peaceful sleep of most of them. They all seemed happy knowing the great and happy news. By 11 am, we dressed ourselves into our national attire of Gho and Kira to join the celebrations at the Royal Bhutanese Embassy, Chanakyapuri in New Delhi.

Bhutanese students from Jamia Hamdard

Beautiful set up at Embassy

It has always been a great moment of pride and honor to put on our beautiful kiras on such great occasions. We soon joined hundreds of Bhutanese gathered at the Embassy for the great day wishing His Majesty a long and happy live and thanking him for being such a far-sighted monarch showering happiness and peace to his people.

Cultural dance by students of Neelam College

Cultural items were performed by various college students and a drayang from Paro who especially came for the celebrations. Some traditional sports like pungdo (shot-put) and tug of war was also conducted where the Bhutanese gathered there participated and were awarded prizes too. Dzongkha speech competition was also held where various speakers talked about the great contributions His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuk made to Bhutan and the whole world too. Listening to their speeches, one thing was common to all of the speakers and that was the GNH…Gross National Happiness. Another name for His Majesty is “GNH” which brought our tiny Bhutan to the international arena gaining immense praise as the land of GNH.

A portrait of both the kings were distributed by the Embassy

The day was celebrated grandly in Bhutan as we all cherish the presence of such great visionary monarch and always blessing and protecting us. We shall never be able to repay His Majesty for whatever he did to us. Long Live His Majesty!!