In the word of Shakespeare, “Life is a stage where everyone plays a role,” and for the Gedu zombie man, life definitely is a stage because his life is nothing more than staging a play.
He lives in the mercy of his audience, who if convinced enough having witnessed his performance would spare some cash or something to eat. He sings, cracks a joke, dance to the tune of the audience and react to the beats of audience drums. This he does singly to earn something to fill his hungry stomach. Every morning, he wakes up with the thinking of where he would find the lending ears and even if he found them, will they feed him? Nothing matter him, not those rude crowds sometime, who won’t think twice before throwing him bad remarks, but filling up his stomach through all means. Yet, he has survived thirty five years practicing the same trade of life – eating by entertaining.
In the corner of the wall, one sees a congregation and for no ones doubt it is the Gedu Zombie entertaining the crowd. His tactics of amusing people includes the famous recitation of the Lam Drukpa Kuenley Changchoe (alcohol offering) the first ever one could hear from the man himself. This unique alcohol offering in the word of divine madman carries deep meaning though in very crude language. And ofcourse the readers should here understand the name of Lam Drukpa Kuenley depicts.
“He is like a jack in our community” said one of Gedu resident adding, “we have learned to live with him in harmony”. He comes handy sometime in bad mood with perfect prescription of the light hearted joke added another resident. Mr. Tashila, a civil servant in Gedu have known him for a long time and occasionally shared few pecks of Indian wine. Tashila says he is someone you can turn to when you are feeling bit left out or lonely. He is a perfect companion in the bar and a pant the zombie is seen wearing always is the one gifted by him.
Otherwise he is spotted during tsechus and other public gathering blatantly performing to whoever would lend him attention. He doesn’t complain rather is happy with whatever is given him atleast those palatable. He has neither families nor home which can be translated roughly as no worries. He lives happily with what he could eat in a day, helping to keep him breathing.
One day in the middle of the clearing among the jungle, to the poor couple, he was born. Like any other children, he dreamt of attending the formal schooling and do his graduation to earn a good position in the civil service. He dreamt of earning a monthly salary and feeding his poor parents. His dream also included marrying a beautiful wife and rearing children of his own, who won’t have to bear the same brunt of life as his.
But nothing went as he desired. His both parents died when he was grown not old enough to shoulder the responsibility of running household on his own. His hard luck had it that he was the only son and the child born to the parents. With no one to take care and guide him, he ventured framing his own destiny, to the world he is experiencing for the first time. He found himself doing odd jobs for some rich people to keep his heart beating. But he was treated no better than the dogs.
He took yet another giant and calculative step in his life by leaving his old job and wondered like the gypsy to the mercy of the compassionate passerby. Now he has no boss and no subject and he thought that is the life that suited him. Now, he sleeps by the street with the dogs and wake up to sing another song not sure whether it will earn him loaf of bread. But, he told me, only me his personal secret that deep inside him, the dream of one day being a Dasho ofcourse in his next life, is still alive concealed within the fibre of nerves in his mind.
Life really is a tricky trade. God forbid!!!
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