The wise saying ,"Give someone a fish and you feed him for a day.Teach him to fish and you feed him for life" indeed came true in my case. Am Chime had prepared me for my entire lifetime by teaching me the art of weaving.
It did feel weird to go looking for a job after having lived life in my own terms for two years.But definitely not out of place for deep within my heart I always knew that I was born to struggle in life. Being born in a country where everybody wore their national dress in their day to day life was a blessing for people like me who didn't have the blessing of formal eucation to push our snout forward in life. I took shelter in a weaving centre which not only promised me a better knowledge of the weaving art but provided me with a life I never thought existed for me.
I made lot of friends for the first time in my life. Meeting many women who had faced the worst storms of life made my pain seem less painful.
It was a total new world. Yet! Every night I felt cold sweat of fearful anticipation of the same path of pain and struggle awaiting with its harness to hook me. I knew my fate had not yet changed it's course, it was just waiting to allow me to sink into the system of joyousness so that I could feel the pain of sorrows more.
But during the day,sitting in rows of our looms I forgot all about the tugging reminder of more pain waiting for me somewhere in the niche of fate's cruel hand,waiting to pounce on me.
One year ended happily with my fellow weavers. I had even forgotten that I was married once and had a husband who kicked me out of his house simply because his sisters told him so. The winter sun in the azure sky was telling me about the tales I had forgotten and in my reverie I didn't see the figure of my dreams drawing near me.
"Zangmo!" I kept on staring at the sky knowing that sound was from my memory world. But the sound from your dreams doesn't tug the sleeves of your tego. It was Dorji. In his flesh and blood,staring at me like a big reminder of a lifetime from the previous generation. Seeing him after a year was nothing like seeing him in my dreams. He looked more handsome and mature.
I opened my mouth to talk but fell short of words; what to tell him?what to ask? There were thousand and one things I wanted to shoot from my heart but my lips couldn't get in sync with my heart .
"How are you?" he asked. I was being silly,that's what I should have asked him; isn't that always the first question one asks upon meeting with anybody.I gave him the response that everyone gives,"I am good." Although I wanted to tell him that I missed him and missed the warm security of having one's own home no matter whatsoever differences we might have with one' s spouse. But being a woman ties up one's tongue when in such situation of emotions.
"I want you back," he pulled my hands as if doing so would harness positive response from me. I pulled my hands back. All the horror of that unfateful day returned and I wept;wept for the shame with which I was thrown out of his house simply because his sisters felt that he should drive a car not a scooter ;should be a father but not a husband. I wanted to spit at all four of them and make my life in the weaving centre my world. But something in me reminded me that if my mom had been alive she would have supported my miserable married life with my husband rather than being a successful spinster in a weaving centre.
So, I listened to my inner voice like I had always done and once again I packed my bags...to return and make a HOME for myself.
(to be continued...)
write
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
My Life, my story! (YET more twist)
A seed once sown has to become a plant and nothing but a plant.I was destined to become an uneducated woman struggling to keep afloat in her own pool of miseries. But a plant too can have their own set of branches and there is no rule of the nature that a particular kind of plant should have a particular set of leaves like all; likewise I chose to finally end my constant struggle with grief in the name of responsibility.
Moreover my burden of responsibility ended with my li'l one's demise. So, I ran away from my brother's house.my neighbor had visitors from Thimphu and they asked if I would go to work for them,there was no need for me to deliberate or ask anybody.I simply took the decision. That hardcore decision of leaving my own people was as easy as finding one's eyes even in pitch darkness. Maybe that strength came from the four animals. I sought truth of their words from my dream and took flight,never to return.
Five years with Aku wangchuk's family gave me what my family could never fathom. I became a individual with her own bank account. They paid me nu. 200 per month but that was more than I could have ever earned in a lifetime bundled up with my tears in my brother's house.
Aum chime taught me the trade that would feed me for a lifetime, the art of weaving. A young weaver,listening to BBS radio I picked many Dzongkha words. Staying in Thimphu itself is a source of education. I found myself using occasional English words too apart from being able to converse in Nepali and Dzongkha.
A young woman's most important agenda too was fulfilled. Meeting my husband was not a looking for a needle in a haystack task.I knew my fate was sealed with him as he sat beside my loom telling me tales from his school and students. So then began my life of happily ever after.
Aum lhamo'a daughter sonam told me many fairytales from the books she brought home from school. All these stories ended just after the princes and the princesses got married. She never told me what happened after that and I could never ask her as she would religiously close her book as if that was a gruesome task in itself. But my story doesn't end at this point, my story actually begins from ".....and they lived happily ever after.".
Not only was I born with a cursed fate but even my body seemed to have been sent with defective parts. Somehow I couldn't seem to give my husband the joy of fulfilled parenthood. Well, come to think of it, the husband's role is never questioned when it comes to infertility. Too swept by the grief of having failed as a wife I had stopped weaving a year after our marriage. In the initial months of the first year my husband consoled me with his hopes soaring high each month. But I guess his hopes stopped bothering his dreams in the second year for neither did he comfort me nor did he talk to me about it anymore.
One day,sitting on the couch I was staring at the tear-jerker soap opera ,lost in my own thoughts. "mathang!" I heard my husband's youngest of the three sisters yell. I jerked into reality and saw three angrily glaring women . "oh!"was all I could mutter while my three sisters -in-law stormed in the different direction of my house.
The eldest of the three was already in my bedroom throwing my clothes out of my closet while the younger duo took their position infront of me. I guess this is what it must be like in a war front when you are besieged all alone by the enemy team. They threw the worst of their tantrums. All I can remember is staring at the door,expecting my husband to barge in and save me.
"You are nothing but a burden on our brother. You aren't weaving to add the income in the household. My brother doesn't even have a car. He goes to school riding that old scooter while all other teachers,even the women, drive cars now." I nodded with tears clouding my eyes.
"and you can"t even be called a complete woman!" this was the worst and the worst of all accusation. Was it my fault that I couldn't mother a child.
"Get out of our brother's house...."they gnarled at me in unison.
I would have stayed if only my husband had stopped me but even he was one of the conspirators. "I am helpless,I guess my sisters care for me and I can't break their heart,"he stammered.
I picked up my clothes from the floor and walked out of the door of the sanctuary I had learnt to call my home for two years.
(to be continued.................)
Moreover my burden of responsibility ended with my li'l one's demise. So, I ran away from my brother's house.my neighbor had visitors from Thimphu and they asked if I would go to work for them,there was no need for me to deliberate or ask anybody.I simply took the decision. That hardcore decision of leaving my own people was as easy as finding one's eyes even in pitch darkness. Maybe that strength came from the four animals. I sought truth of their words from my dream and took flight,never to return.
Five years with Aku wangchuk's family gave me what my family could never fathom. I became a individual with her own bank account. They paid me nu. 200 per month but that was more than I could have ever earned in a lifetime bundled up with my tears in my brother's house.
Aum chime taught me the trade that would feed me for a lifetime, the art of weaving. A young weaver,listening to BBS radio I picked many Dzongkha words. Staying in Thimphu itself is a source of education. I found myself using occasional English words too apart from being able to converse in Nepali and Dzongkha.
A young woman's most important agenda too was fulfilled. Meeting my husband was not a looking for a needle in a haystack task.I knew my fate was sealed with him as he sat beside my loom telling me tales from his school and students. So then began my life of happily ever after.
Aum lhamo'a daughter sonam told me many fairytales from the books she brought home from school. All these stories ended just after the princes and the princesses got married. She never told me what happened after that and I could never ask her as she would religiously close her book as if that was a gruesome task in itself. But my story doesn't end at this point, my story actually begins from ".....and they lived happily ever after.".
Not only was I born with a cursed fate but even my body seemed to have been sent with defective parts. Somehow I couldn't seem to give my husband the joy of fulfilled parenthood. Well, come to think of it, the husband's role is never questioned when it comes to infertility. Too swept by the grief of having failed as a wife I had stopped weaving a year after our marriage. In the initial months of the first year my husband consoled me with his hopes soaring high each month. But I guess his hopes stopped bothering his dreams in the second year for neither did he comfort me nor did he talk to me about it anymore.
One day,sitting on the couch I was staring at the tear-jerker soap opera ,lost in my own thoughts. "mathang!" I heard my husband's youngest of the three sisters yell. I jerked into reality and saw three angrily glaring women . "oh!"was all I could mutter while my three sisters -in-law stormed in the different direction of my house.
The eldest of the three was already in my bedroom throwing my clothes out of my closet while the younger duo took their position infront of me. I guess this is what it must be like in a war front when you are besieged all alone by the enemy team. They threw the worst of their tantrums. All I can remember is staring at the door,expecting my husband to barge in and save me.
"You are nothing but a burden on our brother. You aren't weaving to add the income in the household. My brother doesn't even have a car. He goes to school riding that old scooter while all other teachers,even the women, drive cars now." I nodded with tears clouding my eyes.
"and you can"t even be called a complete woman!" this was the worst and the worst of all accusation. Was it my fault that I couldn't mother a child.
"Get out of our brother's house...."they gnarled at me in unison.
I would have stayed if only my husband had stopped me but even he was one of the conspirators. "I am helpless,I guess my sisters care for me and I can't break their heart,"he stammered.
I picked up my clothes from the floor and walked out of the door of the sanctuary I had learnt to call my home for two years.
(to be continued.................)
Saturday, October 1, 2011
My Life, my story!(The Sign)
My brother's marraige to my stepmom's niece was a well-orchestrated move made by her. She had her place as the Head of the family even after my father's demise. It was like a play being staged: my mathang makes her entry and a month after that my father makes his exit.
Although not moved by his expected departure,I feel the last thread of my strength ebbing. But with the need to be grateful to my brother's initiative of trying to unite the whole family, I slog under two conspiring blobs of inhumane women.
Moreover, there is a toddler whose need for a proper home is much important than my well- being. But my li'l brother too makes a hasty exit from our play. I've heard people say that some women's curse does work miracles and I get to see it live.My stepmom and her niece start their day with,"shelay manawa waktsa niktsing!" I don't know anything about the sciences of diseases so my only diagnosis of my li'l one's death is the venomous curse of the two women in our family.
In the darkness, I keep staring at the calender hanging on the wall. I can't read what's in there but I do understand that it gets replaced with another such hanging when the year changes.
When we first stepped in this house, on a similar kind of hanging was a picture of Guru Rinpoche. Every night I would stare at his eyes and question him the reasons of my existence. Each time I raise my query, my li'l brother stirred beside me.I accepted that was Guru Rinpoche's answer-that I need to live for the tiny toddler breathing next to me. And heavy with the sense of responsibility I would drop asleep.
It had been few months since Guru Rinpoche was replaced by a picture of four animals placed atop one another.I remembered seeing a similar picture in the lhakhang of our village and in one of the innner walls of Aum Lhamo's house.
I never felt I could ask the same question about my existence to these four animals so I silently gazed at them night after night as if by doing so I would somehow get an answer from them.
It was one dark night, the four animals came alive and talked to me.
"We are called Thuenpa Puenzhi," they spoke with such kindness that it melted my heart and drops of it ensued form my eyes.
"Don't cry li'l one," the mighty elephant patted me with its trunk. "Go, I give you my mighty strength to shoulder any kind of tasks."
Amid snifling sobs I felt a naughty tickle under my armpit. It was the monkey."Here li'l one, I give you my swiftness to be able to jump from any obstacle you might have to face."
I wiped my tears. The rabbit came hopping and in its most tender voice blessed me with the strength of love while the bird gave me the strength to fly and cross nine mountains and oceans.
I opened my eyes and met the gaze of my the four animals on the wall. It was just a dream!
But I wondered, what kind of tasks waited for me? What more obstacles did I have to overcome?Why would I need the strength of love? Where would I go crossing nine mountains and oceans????
(to be continued)
Although not moved by his expected departure,I feel the last thread of my strength ebbing. But with the need to be grateful to my brother's initiative of trying to unite the whole family, I slog under two conspiring blobs of inhumane women.
Moreover, there is a toddler whose need for a proper home is much important than my well- being. But my li'l brother too makes a hasty exit from our play. I've heard people say that some women's curse does work miracles and I get to see it live.My stepmom and her niece start their day with,"shelay manawa waktsa niktsing!" I don't know anything about the sciences of diseases so my only diagnosis of my li'l one's death is the venomous curse of the two women in our family.
In the darkness, I keep staring at the calender hanging on the wall. I can't read what's in there but I do understand that it gets replaced with another such hanging when the year changes.
When we first stepped in this house, on a similar kind of hanging was a picture of Guru Rinpoche. Every night I would stare at his eyes and question him the reasons of my existence. Each time I raise my query, my li'l brother stirred beside me.I accepted that was Guru Rinpoche's answer-that I need to live for the tiny toddler breathing next to me. And heavy with the sense of responsibility I would drop asleep.
It had been few months since Guru Rinpoche was replaced by a picture of four animals placed atop one another.I remembered seeing a similar picture in the lhakhang of our village and in one of the innner walls of Aum Lhamo's house.
I never felt I could ask the same question about my existence to these four animals so I silently gazed at them night after night as if by doing so I would somehow get an answer from them.
It was one dark night, the four animals came alive and talked to me.
"We are called Thuenpa Puenzhi," they spoke with such kindness that it melted my heart and drops of it ensued form my eyes.
"Don't cry li'l one," the mighty elephant patted me with its trunk. "Go, I give you my mighty strength to shoulder any kind of tasks."
Amid snifling sobs I felt a naughty tickle under my armpit. It was the monkey."Here li'l one, I give you my swiftness to be able to jump from any obstacle you might have to face."
I wiped my tears. The rabbit came hopping and in its most tender voice blessed me with the strength of love while the bird gave me the strength to fly and cross nine mountains and oceans.
I opened my eyes and met the gaze of my the four animals on the wall. It was just a dream!
But I wondered, what kind of tasks waited for me? What more obstacles did I have to overcome?Why would I need the strength of love? Where would I go crossing nine mountains and oceans????
(to be continued)
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