Yearender/Profile: Meet Tukuli (Pema Yuden). She’s just over three years old and she’s the youngest member of the Kuensel family. Don’t underestimate her tender age since she’s the feistiest one of all.

Despite her temper and tantrums, which she throws almost everyday, the red-cheeked girl with shabby hair wins everyone’s heart with her smile and the colourful clothes she wears lighting up the dull winter as she makes her way around the Kuensel compound.

Tukuli lives in the office canteen with her parents. Her mother is popularly know as Tukuli Ama, who makes her ends meet serving orders at the canteen.

Tukuli always seem to look forward to accompany her mother on her daily chores but her mother never takes her along. Tukuli loves spending time with the dogs, her best friends, and she loves taking afternoon naps too. When she’s not sleeping, she loves strolling around the office.

Despite having a rule in place where outsiders are not allowed inside the offices especially inside the editorial department, one can find Tukuli talking with a reporter in her gibberish language. She is popular among the staff but she’s closer to the editorial family.

Sometimes, during a cold day, she sneaks inside the warm newsroom hopping from one cubicle to another, greeting anyone she meets on the way.

A newsroom is a place filled with stress where reporters and editors are always busy. In the midst of it all, Tukuli walks in and lightens up the entire mood. One can always hear a reporter or an editor stopping their work and chatting with her.

On that particular day, I was bogged down with work as usual. Tukuli wearing an Elsa’s costume (a character from a popular animated movie, Frozen), which was torn in few areas and a slipper that matched her dress, walked up to me. Without a second thought, I stopped everything and talked to her. It was a much-needed break.

She started inquiring about every thing on my table. When she was bored, she went on to the next cubicle and began inquiring the same. Then, she started running about the newsroom. People shushed her from some corners but she seemed to enjoy running inside the warm office.

Then the editor walked in, a tall figure towering above the little girl. I could see that he wanted to tell her to go home but after seeing her smile and realizing that it’s too cold outside, he decided to let her stay inside a bit longer. Tukuli, after knowing she could stay a bit longer inside, squeaked with excitement and began running from corner to corner.

After a few minutes, to her dismay, Tukuli Ama stormed inside the newsroom with a fiery look in her eyes. She took Tukuli by her hands and dragged her home. Tukuli left the newsroom with a smile because she knew someone or the other would definitely let her in the next time, in a place that resembled a maze where everyone was busy typing something on a computer screen. She knew there was no one who will bother her there because sometimes it was so silent that one could hear a pin drop.

Thinley Zangmo

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