{"id":355,"date":"2013-05-22T08:15:36","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T02:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/blog\/?p=355"},"modified":"2026-03-13T22:09:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T22:09:02","slug":"of-gratitude-and-moving-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/of-gratitude-and-moving-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Gratitude and Moving Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"269\" src=\"https:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/namaste-300x269.jpg\" alt=\"namaste\" class=\"wp-image-5170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/namaste-300x269.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/namaste-1024x916.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/namaste-768x687.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/namaste.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This is for the thousands of people involved in winning my freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The past month has been tumultuous, to say the least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I lost my job and some. And, as if that wasn&#8217;t enough, just two days before I was to fly home to start a new life, I ended up incarcerated in a Qatari jail. The ordeal lasted eleven nights and twelve days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When freedom came, the afternoon of Sunday, May 12, I wasn&#8217;t even expecting it. I was unaware of all the frantic activities taking place around the world to get me out. As a matter of fact, just that morning, I had done my laundry&#8211;by hand, in the bathroom, in a bucket!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the &#8220;Captain&#8221; entered our room saying, &#8220;I bring good news. You go out!&#8221; I had to ask one of the Arab-speaking Nepalese to confirm what I understood he was saying. &#8220;Yes! You are free,&#8221; came the response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Running an incredible campaign beginning around May 9, you (classmates, current and former colleagues and teachers, former students, family, other friends, friends of friends and other well-wishers) won my freedom. Your actions and thoughts won me my freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the actions of those responsible for my incarceration brought great anguish to myself, my family and many others, your actions and thoughts ended that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, as I start a new life, a free man, the way I see it, the only way forward is to pass on your generosity and kindness, in a pay-it-forward kind of way, by devoting my time to alleviating the sufferings of other human beings, of fellow Nepalese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hope you will accept that as a small token of my own and my family&#8217;s gratitude!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A word of gratitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30,31],"tags":[60,166,167],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-qatar","category-qatar-academy","tag-free-dorje-gurung-campaign","tag-qatari-jail","tag-qatari-students"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/namaste-feat-image.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Jbro-5J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29915,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions\/29915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}