Samten Yeshi| Fall Ends, Keeps a Topic

As the fall term of 2017 take leave, I have a topic to begin. Yes! it is about my thesis as usual and the good news is, I have a topic.

Having gone through a well-designed thesis shaping exercise disguised as ‘Presenting Culture’ everything gradually fell into line, like the branches of streams narrowing down into one running river. I was able to negotiate between my two special areas of interest, one paving way to another.

I am going to write on the Bhutan’s monuments in ruins, which I call it the Bhutan’s Memories in Ruins. Well I am sure you want to know why? First of all Bhutan is a small country, which was never colonized by any country, with rich cultural heritage and historical narrative, a powerful and inimitable value of a sovereign independent kingdom. But I realized that half of the memories; the evidences of sovereign independent nation’s historical narratives lie buried.

If you area asking, am I the only one, who realized this? No, I am sure it is not the case. But the question is, why is these ruins, rich of history and cultural values not getting the attention it deserves from the state government, scholars and the public? Are the ruins not valuable and important to the country? What is the problem there, why has it remained neglected?

These are some of the questions that need an answer. If I asked every Bhutanese whether these ruins are a national treasure. I can be assured that it is the national treasure. But why is not many talking about these historical ruins? Why the lack of public discourse on what it should be, how should it be and what should be done with this national treasure?

The public discourse is eve farer when the government of Bhutan do not even have a list of important ruins in the country. A comprehensive inventory on the monuments in ruins will be a new idea. Therefore, there is clearly this gap of realization in the people of Bhutan that needs to be addressed. While the people know that the ruins are national treasure, it is not understood in what ways; its potential for socio economy, and cultural and historical benefit.

I for now generally plan to outline a descriptive approach to this topic to produce a fair list of important ruins of Bhutan and its potential for socio economic benefit and the cultural and historical values. I would also like to highlight the possible factors that may be influencing Bhutan’s capacity to act on this ruins looking at it from historical angle, such as the process of unification and the history of cultural establishment and contemporary present matters such as the finance, expertise and human resources to deal with these ruins.

As far as the planning and thinking is concerned on this topic, I can sense myself in a passionate state that I want to go beyond just 70 or so pages of thesis, but a book that can advocate importance of the need to incorporate historical ruins into Bhutan’s cultural management system. But the fact is I even wonder if Bhutan has a cultural management system because another odd fact of the culturally rich country is that, cultural policy is yet another need.

Well, some how I have a topic, but I am in the planning phase of how it should look like and what it should focus on. I am to begin working on the outline of this topic and yes the journey continues. So I shall not yet stop to wish myself a good luck, until I have a defined outline in next few months.