Read Buttertea at Sunrise Online
Authors: Britta Das
The following week, Ugyen returns with fever and a urinary tract infection. Like so many times over the past years, she is admitted to the ward, and again, she occupies B12, the bed immediately beside the toilet.
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I start to sympathise with her reluctance to stay in the hospital. Ugyen is left alone on her wretched bed most of the time. Occasionally her father comes to visit her, her mother brings her food, and her sisters plays with her in the afternoon. Overall, though, she is left unattended. Lonely and forlorn, Ugyen looks like a little heap of misery on her stained bed sheet reeking of urine.
Once a day, she shuffles along the hallway to come and see me; another time she gets her pressure sores cleaned in the minor OT. She makes no noise, and she seldom smiles.
Nurses and doctors look her up and down. Some of the other patients stare relentlessly. I can almost feel her pain.
I know now what it is like to be stared at, to be assessed based on appearance and a certain strangeness, and to be labelled as different.
Whenever I see her, I try in my inept Sharchhopkha to make her smile, but I rarely succeed. The lovely features of her young face are hidden well behind an impenetrable blank mask. Determined to be independent, she allows no one to help her, and no one to get close.
One particularly gloomy afternoon, I ask Ugyen to visit me in my quarters. I make tea for her, and hot chocolate. She sips both politely and then leaves them to get cold on the table. She does not look around and stares unimpressed at Spud. The only thing she takes mild interest in is my tiny photo album with pictures of my family. I tell myself to give her time, to let her relax, but the afternoon passes, and Ugyen sits politely on my sofa and does not say one word.
While Spud suspiciously eyes the new visitor, Ugyen turns into a silent statue.
Exasperated and somewhat disappointed, I dive into my big hockey bag and pull out a package of crayons and a colouring book; my reserves for emergencies such as this one.
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Finally, Ugyen perks up. Her eyes sparkle in surprise, and a smile lights her face. Clumsily she starts colouring the dress of a girl. Drawing seems foreign to her, and for a while, she fumbles with the crayon.
‘Would you like to go to school?’ I ask Ugyen.
Her answer is a little uncertain, but still a timid yes. Yes, she would like to go. When I ask if she can write her name, she says no. Still, if she goes to school, she wants to go straight to class one (instead of pre school) because her younger sister Karma Dema studies in that class.
I am relieved. Maybe we can make this work. I have thought about it a great deal. Ugyen is a town girl, born and raised amongst a newly developing working class that does not live in a tight and supportive community. In a village, Ugyen would be surrounded by friends. She might get help, and maybe even be pampered, but in the police camp in town, she is forsaken.
Does her hardworking family consider her quite useless, or worse, a burden? I like Ugyen’s parents. They are simple, honest people, trying to make ends meet. But do they understand Ugyen’s disease? I wonder whether Ugyen’s stony face is born out of her quiet suffering.
The next day, I discuss the issue of education with her mother. At home, Ugyen helps with the washing and
cleaning and, silently protesting her dependence, she insists on cooking her own meals. She has shown some interest in weaving, and her mother is teaching her the basics.
I ask what Ugyen’s future might hold. Would she not be more independent if she learned to read and write and maybe one day hold an office job? Ugyen’s mother seems happy with the suggestion of putting her daughter in school but remarks that she would have no time to help Ugyen.
Ugyen’s mother is also going to school in the afternoons.
She is part of a group of women who were unable to get 184
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an education. Now they are learning Dzongkha, Bhutan’s national language.
So, I think, of all people, she should be able to feel how important school is for Ugyen. Still I am not sure that she understands.
When Ugyen is released from the hospital, for better or for worse, I decide to take Ugyen to school myself. The primary school is located at the end of town. From the hospital, it is perhaps a fifteen-minute walk away, from the police camp about the same, unless one uses a muddy path and cuts through the bushes beside the dzong. The main timbered building of the school is four storeys high and holds most of the higher-grade classrooms. Pre school and class one have their own rooms in little cement bungalows further down the hill.
The vice principal of the school is very kind and shows me around the campus. He seems in favour of a new student, even if it is at the end of the school year. We discuss the problem with the principal. He too seems in agreement, although I am a little sceptical about his enthusiasm.
‘It is children like Ugyen that should get our help, isn’t it, doctor?’ he exclaims. I nod. ‘Actually we owe it to them to try our best.’
‘Yes, you are right.’ Again I agree, quietly noting that no one thought of asking Ugyen to join school before.
I suggest enrolling Ugyen as soon as possible. The principal and I agree on a probationary trial period in class one. The timing of Ugyen’s entrance into school is less than ideal. The school year starts in March and runs through to December. Over the winter, the children go on a long break due to the cold weather that makes studying in the unheated rooms impossible. Now it is already October.
The class teacher for IB, a thin, elegantly dressed Indian lady, assures me that she will do her best to help Ugyen, 185
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but the girl will have to make up almost two years. Will she be able to do it?
I have some doubts too, but I know that Ugyen will need the support of a sibling. Class one is better than not trying at all.
Ugyen still needs a school uniform, and having taken the initiative to enrol her, I want to make sure that my plan does not fail for the expense of buying her outfit. I ask ADM’s wife for help. She explains to me where I can find the material for a kira and where to buy a toego, onju and shoes. Then, with raised eyebrows, she whispers, ‘You will pay for
everything
, sister?’ I try to ignore the contemptuous tone of her voice and dodge an answer.
Ugyen accompanies me to the shop and dutifully tries on the last available sizes. The shopkeeper stares at me. As a newly born foster parent, I feel shy and unqualified.
‘Do they fit?’
I have no idea how to size any of the clothes and finally rely on Ugyen’s preference. The jacket looks much too big, even if one adjusts for a possible (but unlikely) growth spurt. Ugyen beams an elated smile and, in the end, that settles the matter. We decide on one item each, sticking to the red rubber boots for her weak and deformed feet.
Walking out, I notice that Ugyen is half drowning in her uniform, and yet her steps seem less shuffling and her head is held a little higher.
On Wednesday morning I pick Ugyen up from the police camp and, together with her little sister Karma Dema, we negotiate the curved street past the dzong and down to the primary school. Karma Dema beams with pride to walk beside her older sibling and carries both girls’
schoolbooks with extra care. Neither girl says anything, but the experienced class one student is in the best of spirits.
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but most of the time she stays beside us, and with a bright smile, she encourages Ugyen’s wobbly walking.
At the school, many curious stares and the welcoming voice of the vice principal greet us. ‘Ah, so this is Ugyen.
You will come to join us in school now?’ I can see that the kind man tries his utmost to make Ugyen comfortable. Still, Ugyen remains shy and answers all questions with a bare minimum of words. Worried, I look at my little protégée.
She seems overwhelmed by the secretive whispers and childish stares from other students but holds her head in a stubborn gesture of indifference.
The VP and I discuss the possibilities of getting Ugyen caught up with the current curriculum, and by the time we have settled on a temporary plan of action, classes have started. A proud Karma Dema heads off to class with her sister. Ugyen’s teacher joins us and, confused, I enquire if she is not teaching today. The petite Indian woman reassures me with a lovely smile, ‘Yes, madam. I will be teaching Ugyen, do not worry. But right now, they have Dzongkha class. Dzongkha is taught by the Dzongkha lopon. I will go back after this hour.’
We talk for a little while longer and, finally, I make my own way to the cement building that houses the first and second grade classrooms. It does not take me long to discover Ugyen. The door to the classroom of 1B is wide open, and Ugyen is perched on her seat in the front row beside Karma Dema. The little wooden table and bench are far too small for Ugyen’s size, and the added cushion which I made to protect her pressure sores does not help the set-up. Still, Ugyen is sitting tall and proud. She does not notice me coming, and I am able to watch undisturbed for a few minutes.
The Dzongkha lopon, a serious-looking young man, has drawn a few pictures on the blackboard, labelled with letters that I cannot recognise but assume must be the Dzongkha 187
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alphabet. Pointing to the board, he reads out the letters and a boy in the last row recites them.
To my surprise, the lopon now asks Ugyen to repeat.
Ugyen is flushed with concentration and bravely
pronounces each sound. Nodding encouragingly and
correcting her pronunciation, the lopon asks a few more times, and after she volunteers several timid attempts, he seems satisfied. Smiling he calls out ‘
Lekso!
’ and on cue, the entire class starts clapping their hands in applause. Forty little pairs of hands encourage Ugyen on her first day of school. All of a sudden, I am not worried any more about how 1B will accept their new student.
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y O N E
Town Planning
After five months in Mongar, the stony, winding
staircase up to the bazaar is not only familiar but also dear to me. The narrow passage leading from
the football field to the shops signals freedom from the hospital and promises the world of villagers and lamas. I love balancing up the wobbly incline to emerge amongst the colourful house fronts and large prayer wheels. Today, something has changed, though. I stand beside the chorten of the village square and stare in disbelief along the road.
I always imagined change in Mongar would be slow in the making, and indeed, over the last few months, it has been.
The mutations sneaked up gradually, quietly, so subtle you could barely notice them.
First, there was the undeniable shift in the town
population. Where initially only a handful of villagers and shopkeepers had chatted quietly in the evening hours, now the streets are filled with dark Indian faces. The construction site at the hospital is expanding, and more and more manpower and materials are assembled in town.
With no entertainment other than a few shops-cum-bars, 189
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the lonely men displaced from their country by the wish to find work collect in the streets of Mongar. They are neither noisy nor disturbing, only different, unexpected in this remote district where households have lived secluded for centuries.
After the men came the road. Town planning, as it is called. Mongar was to receive a bypass; where and how was never clear to me. In fact,
why
was not that certain either, other than the reason that Mongar had been blessed with someone’s decision to develop it. What became painfully clear, however, is that town planning meant death to the trees. Every last one was felled, and after a brutal frenzy of slash and burn, Mongar is now bare and dusty, exposed to wind and weather. The green giants that used to shelter the town under their protective arms have been chopped and bundled, and are waiting to be fed to someone’s wood stove.
I have watched these mutations in surprise and
disappointment, wondering what will be sacrificed
next to the gods of modernisation. My doubtful eye is unappreciated, I know. Mongar is embracing its advances with open arms.
Though perplexed and shocked, today I am no longer surprised by any changes – except for this one. I shut my eyes, convinced that the hallucination will fly away once I catch my breath from the arduous climb, but alas, when I peek through half-closed eyelids, the illusion remains. On the right side of the road, where before an entire row of shops had surveyed the bazaar, now an empty hole gapes at me. The wooden shacks have up and disappeared overnight, and all that remains is scattered garbage and some orphaned plastic bags garlanding the bushes. The shops must have advanced to somewhere else.