Year 2018 and our Letters in the Making
Editorial
2018 has been a stone to step on that’s enthused many to set off on a journey of million miles so it’s a milestone for the whole diaspora of the resettled Bhutanese. It’s already a decade now since the resettlement began in 2008. Many community organizations observed 2018 in several ways in various parts of the globe as they could finally find a place to call it home and enjoy the sense of belonging after living dog’s life as they had to leave their country and homestead at the beat of a drum and face the music. They are now taking the breaths of relief as the resettlement came into their service as a saviour to safely remove their ambiguity, homelessness, and statelessness hanging like the sword of Damocles over their heads for years.
We can’t turn blind eyes to the fact that 2018, for us as well, has been the year of our biggest agility and activity and eventually the most remarkable year of the first decade of our publication after the commencement of resettlement. We began the year with welcoming two editors who have been immensely contributing their time, energy and expertise in the face of their personal, familial or professional commitments only to periodically make our electronic literary periodical more regular and browsable. We switched our weekly journal to fortnightly since the beginning of 2018 and are now consequently content and pleased as Punch that we made a decent decision for we’ve published the largest number of articles in a single calendar year in 2018. Since the first online publication on 7th May 2009, we have been able to archive around 2,500 articles out of which 343 posts have been published in 2018. Arithmetically, 13.72 percent of the posts we’ve published so far have been published in the last calendar year.
Literature Council of Bhutan (LCOB), in conjunction with the local Bhutanese community organization, organized and successfully concluded a two-day programme in June in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Literature enthusiasts from Norway, Nepal, Canada, Australia and various states of the US were among the attendees. A few books of different genres of Bhutanese Nepali literature along with two music albums were released. LCOB released its publication ‘Samakaleen Bhutani Nepali Katha’. It’s an anthology of contemporary stories written in the Nepali language by 16 Bhutanese writers from across the world. Such a collection has never been published in Bhutanese Nepali literature. Some papers on various subjects were also presented in the event. The event was historic in several senses and one of the evident evidences is the participation and recitation of her creations by a differently abled lady who’s known by Maya Bhattarai. In spite of her oral and physical challenge, she traveled all the way from Kentucky to Ohio to attend the 2nd day of the event. LCOB also formed a new Board of Directors (BOD) in December 2018. We are looking forward to working with the new BOD more effectively and efficiently than ever.
We would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to more than 200 writers who have been living in different nations around the world and marching together with us to a distant but a common destination. You all have been both the puffers and the supply of oxygen to young but clogged and asthmatic lungs of our letters. While on the track, we sometimes experience race-induced bronchoconstriction and you serve us as a Ventolin. We are hopeful that you keep sticking around in the years to come and fulfill our wish to have healthy longevity of our literary life. Keep creating and inspiring others with your creations as we have been pushed to veer off the narrow road but fortunately, we survived. The ecstasy of survival after such a fatal accident is invaluable and comparable to nothing. Let’s engage ourselves more in documenting what we have seen or been through and that will be our history. We wish you all a more prosperous, productive, creative, happier and healthier time in 2019.