Of Cycling and Fitness

They say cycling is a shortest road to fitness, not only it burns up your calories, tones your body and strengthen your heart but also help you stay in shape. Regular cycling gives you skinny upper body and shapely legs, or so they say.

Cycling is the best fitness exercise for obese people, since the weight of your body is supported by the cycle; it doesn’t exert much pressure on your joints. Couple of years ago, cycling wasn’t very common in the highland country like Bhutan. However, with the passage of time, cycle brand started producing cycles with gears as much as 25, which has perhaps convinced the Bhutanese small society to seek fitness out of harm work and gym.

I had a small cycle in Bangalore for 2 years, small enough to be for kids. Unfortunately my best buddy, Pema could never learn to balance her body on two wheelers or to ride for that matter. That’s why we could never enjoy a ride together but then I had my share of fun riding early mornings or on weekends. Those days we used to ride for hours for no apparent reason. Most of the times, it used to be my friend Mithun and I. Occasionally Tim used to join us for ride but then at times like this Pema was the cause of worry for us. Since none of us could take doubles, Pema had to walk, while we rode. For that reason, she hardly joined us.

Anyways that joy was short lived. When I graduated from Bangalore, I couldn’t bring my cycle on the train till NJP. That was the last I saw of my dear cycle and God knows I miss her very much. Well now that I’m in Bhutan, I can’t help falling for every geared and helmeted cycle on the streets here. So I thought of buying one myself and one day I asked opposition leader, Tshering Tobgay, the cost of cycles and Lyonpo was kind enough to answer my query.

To my disappointment, the cost of cycle freaked me out. For the life of me, I could never dream of owning one, the price was way above my budget and so I had to give up finally. Cycles are luxury items for the riches, not a necessity for middle-class people, like me.

However, we had this discussion in my office and to my surprise; many of my colleagues (males) are in awe of cycling and fitness. It was good to know, somebody shared my passion for riding. We had exclusive discussion on the topic and finally agreed that we all should take loan and buy one for each and maybe eventually go for long ride as a team. It was a sheer pleasure to talk about stuffs you like.

I’ve always admired Lyonpo Tshering Tobgay, for his passion for the sport. And it’d be a good way to start especially now that the world has become conscious of environment related issues like automobiles and pollution.

Someday, I’d hope to see the streets of Bhutan flooded with riders, not vehicles, accidents and traffic congestion.

The Blame Game

The recent fire incident in Bumthang that gutted 67 shops and houses rendered hundreds helpless and homeless was perhaps the worst fire incident Bumthang valley has experienced over that years, not to mention the lives lost to the fire. The whole nation is together in this; we grieve for the victims; dead and alive but even in tragic times like this some people are quite intended on blaming the disaster management, saying those people were not ready for disasters but always touring and training abroad.

The best thing we could do is to donate in cash or kind so that we can help the victims in our own small ways. The incident has already happened and there's not much use 'crying over the spilled milk' but prepare ourselves to prevent it from happening in the future.

It was a forth-night or two ago when I heard on BBS, the plan to shift Bumthang town to a new area called Dekiling in Bumthang. Though it was a good initiative but not all shopkeepers were happy about the new town plan. Apparently the MoWHS has only space for a hundred or so shops, rest 27 are to be in the Chamkhar town at least for few years. Perhaps due to that incident, people now are thinking, maybe there's a motive behind the fire. Though it was purely accidental but we can't stop people from having someone to put the blame on.

Some people were not even sure whether it was Chamkar forest or the town that caught the fire but still he blames it on women playing Khuru. This guy says women playing Khuru was a bad omen to begin with. The most recent controversial issue we had in Bhutan was women playing Khuru. Though not many are bold enough to voice it out but they are hell-bent on blaming those women for every bad thing that happened this year.

Where is the connection between the fire and the Khuru? How people can cook stories is amazing? Such superstition can really blind our good judgment. Although, I concede women playing Khuru is not a pretty sight to the onlookers but it definitely cannot be the cause of a fire incident happened miles away from the actual playground.

Perhaps the fire could have been averted if the town wasn't full of makeshift huts? Or if the town was relocated to Dekiling has planned? May be people didn’t build concrete buildings because of the relocation plan? Nobody knows for sure. But it's a shame for the Bhutanese small society that we hear of thieves and looters who come in the pretext of helping the fire victims but for their own good, in times like this.

The sad thing is that only few shops and makeshift wooden structures are insured with RICBL. If only such tragic incident was foreseen most residents could have insured their homes and the cost of rebuilding, RICBL would have to bear.

Disclaimer: I’ve heard of the fire incident on BBS for that matter the figures are not accurate. This article is not to offend any individual or organization. If I’ve done so please forgive me.