Mentoring Session: A Social Gathering over Steaming Tea and Delicious Dumplings

Every Wednesday for an hour, I and my eight mentees meet in my cubicle to discuss and share an update on our individual roadmaps. Last week, Tshering Choki, one of the new mentees in my mentoring group, casually mentioned her friends in other mentoring groups are going out of the college campus and engaging in other social activities. She said, "We should also enjoy and plan interesting activities in our mentoring group." I was extremely happy to see my mentees coming forward with different ideas to make our mentoring session interactive as I was, honest to God, running out of ideas to break the monotony of discussing and updating our individual roadmaps. It has been over a month since we geared our discussion mainly on the individual roadmap. I quickly scanned through the overt expressions of my mentees in the room and I could see a few heads nodding in agreement with Tshering's words. I asked for views and opinions from the remaining seven mentees. They spoke the same language. So, we decided to conduct an upcoming mentoring session outside my cubicle, in an open space over tea and dumplings. 

Over a brief period, a week to be exact, I got an opportunity to know Tshering Choki well. I am an introverted person and rarely interact with people unless the situation requires me to engage in any form of conversation. However, in this case, I did find myself opening up to people with ease. I am weaning off my usual social awkwardness and reluctance to be part of the conversation. Thanks to my outspoken and outgoing mentees. Tshering is a mother of three beautiful kids. She loves cooking and finds pleasure in bonding with people over meals. Despite her hectic schedule she volunteered to prepare potato dumplings for eight people, for one of the mentees was out of the station on her study tour to Gomtu. (Ngwang, your absence was felt by each one of us in the mentoring group). She said that she woke up in the wee hours of the day, around 4 am, to prepare potato dumplings. We thanked her, uncountable times, each time we took a morsel of potato dumpling. 

It was a heartwarming moment when I saw a casserole filled with fried potato fritters. One of the mentees bought it from the college canteen. I deeply appreciate it when people, be it my students, relatives, family, friends, or other significant individuals in my life, display small random acts of kindness and generosity. Thank you, Ugyen and Pema for Aloo Chop (the local name of the snack). My other male mentees, Ngawang who is also a co-mentor of the mentoring group, and Nima arranged plates from their friends and took the trouble of carrying tea and cups from the college canteen. 

The unsung heroes, and the ones that we take for granted, of the mentoring session, according to me are the ones who never fail to physically turn up to mentoring sessions every Wednesday. I would like to express my appreciation to my mentees for turning up to the mentoring session on time without fail To date, I didn't face any issues with the attendance of mentees. And I am hopeful that we will strive to be a better version of ourselves by learning from each other. I am delighted to have punctual, humble, and hardworking mentees in my mentoring group. 

Today as we sat cross-legged, as per Bhutanese etiquette, under a huge soothing mango tree in a scorching afternoon sun and cracked jokes over steaming cups of tea, potato dumplings, and fried fritters for an hour, I can write with the conviction that I felt a strong positive energy within and outside me. We did not talk about our individual roadmaps during the mentoring session but we did learn to live, laugh, and love a little more today and what else we strive for in life than to be present in a moment.  

Sending all our love and good wishes to my readers from my mentoring group with a reminder to live in the moment and love life!