I am Tsering Dorji, 32 years old and a former monk at Druk Sangyal Choeling Monastery 
situated in the hills of Darjeeling. My father died fifteen days after I was born, and my mother got married to another man. Since then, I have been living with my grandparents. I joined the monkhood at the age of six upon my late grandfather’s wishes because of my family’s financial problems. Like many others, I too struggled with the absence of my parents’ support. I left the monastic institution in the year 2007 at the age of seventeenth, and since then, I have been living as a lay man. After my grandpa’s demise, I have been living with my relatives, helping them in their seasonal business.
Since I started my layman life, I have had to juggle many things in my life. I was very passionate about cooking. Through my uncle, I got to know about the culinary course at Delhi, and I told him about my passion in culinary and my wish to enroll in one of such institutions. The three month course fee was around eighty thousand rupees which was beyond what I could afford. Threading my own path, somehow, I managed to seek financial help from ENVISION and received a three-month fellowship to study culinary art from Asian Academy of Culinary Art, Delhi. After the course completion, I joined Berco’s as an intern and I am still continuing my internship. My wish is to continue the internship for a little longer and excel in the art of culinary.