THE TROUBLED HEART
-by Pema Choidar
“That will do! Take what you’re given or lose the lot,” commanded the voice from above. Pema Dorji trembled with fear and consented in a faltering voice, “Thank you.”
His appeal had been dismissed and the decision made final. “It is the verdict of this Court that the said wife shall go with her new husband. However, you are entitled to keep the property and the children.” The Judge made a stiff bow to acknowledge Pema Dorji’s obeisance and bustled out. His marriage was history!
A tiny bar that could barely sustain body and soul was the “property”. Running it single-handedly with children in school was the weight of his responsibility, which progressively grew harder and heavier with time. He desperately yearned for someone to share and ease his lot. It was too much for him to survive this way.
Three years later, for his children’s sake and his own sake- for better or worse! -Pema Dorji opted to take another plunge again.
Lhaden brought in all she could; the love, care and support they’d all been craving for.
Their home returned to its usual unhindered routine: Children to school, Lhaden to the domestic chores and he to his meager business. Home glowed brighter and warmer. Yet, in the minds of his two daughters and a son, they never liked their father’s replacement of their mother with a stepmother. For no particular reason but a vague sense of defiance, they felt subtly subjugated. The little brother even gravitated towards crime!
As the children gained their youthful passion and strength, they found Lhaden (stepmom) ruder and surlier. On her part, she couldn’t stand their clumsy manners and unruly behaviour. Pema Dorji felt mashed like a potato between two rocks. He was never happy; in fact, nobody was happy.
Pema Dorji admitted his kids to a high school far from home notwithstanding his missing them. It was the only way to keep his home from tearing apart.
A few months later, he lost Lhaden too. She died giving birth to a son. His children didn’t attend the cremation. He felt awfully abandoned and left the village with his new born child.
He began a new life scratching the soil for living. He toiled thus till his boy came of age. He felt that his only youngest son understood what was true filial love and devotion.
Pema Dorji lived with unspoken misery and undiluted pain, which he hid in his heart. People found him happy, but in sooth, no one could be sadder than him. He grieved alone and often blamed his stars for the cruel fate he had to endure.
Having had to stagger for ages, father and son had reached another milestone. The son will soon graduate and make his father glad. Pema Dorji also got a message from his older children that they’d be coming to take him to a newer and better place. This brought him true happiness to his troubled heart. All his sacrifices are finally coming to a close, he thought.
The candle by his bedside is lit. He blows out its flickering flame, gropes in the dark for his bed, and burrows under the blanket. In the still of the night, with a last prayer on his lips and the last hope in his heart, he closes his eyes forever.
-Written in loving memory of my Paternal Grandpa, Meymey Pema Dorji
Published in the Bhutan’s National Newspaper, ‘KUENSEL’ on August 19, 2006
-Reproduced to fulfill the requirement of Knowledge Management Course, M.Ed(Management), Mahidol University.
4 comments: