An Illegitimate Son

‘Every single moment you craft a fake promise to entice an innocent girl, do you ever comprehend the brunt an illegitimate child has to bear for having no legitimate father. Folks, he/she is taunted. Imagine the heartbreak and shame mother has to go through when she is nagged into revealing the father. The following story is a touching episode

One day the eight years old son of Lhazom returned back from school with tears in his eyes. The cause of his tears was the taunt he had undergone in school. His friends call him ’bastards’. Imagine the psychological shock the child has to bear when he is bullied just because he has no one to be called father. Imagine the plight of the child when is asked to pencil in the portrayal of his father and cannot phantom a picture.

That day he nagged his mother to name his father. He narrated about the incidence of his friends mocking at him for being fatherless. To console and reassure her demoralized son, the mother was forced to unravel the story of his being to her beloved son.

Lhazom crazed all men who set eyes on her by her exclusive qualities of gentleness, exceptional beauty and soft speech. Infact she was as beautiful as any girl in this earth would like to be. She was indeed eligible for man with all his life dignity.

Although she failed to attend formal education, she managed to remain spick and span among the rural lass. She dreamt of entering the matrimony with a salaried man because she was fed up with what all the rural life had to offer her. She has had enough of working late in under the mercy of scorching sun and incessant rain. She fancied living in metropolitan cities.

“In early nineties’, mother continued, during the nationwide census, Mr. Lhapa led the census squad to Chukha Dzongkhag.” She was barely nineteen then. The crew after the completion of the spirited census retreated to the merrymaking with wine and women. There was a dancing session in the night by the village girls. She partook the dancing dominating the session and caught the eyes of all the men.

Mr. Lhapa set his eyes on her for his bedmate in the evening. When they are together in each other’s embrace, Lhapa, an already married man back home with two kids, cooked up many false promises to Lhazom. Her ignorance of Mr. Lhapa and her dream of becoming a wife of a workingman lead to her undoing. She fell an immediate an easy victim to his impractical promise.

After the team completed their census and on their way back to Capital, Lhapa still assured her that he would come back to marry her. Did god do justice to her? She got immediate and lasting punishment for that single evening with Lhapa that will for no doubt decide her fate ahead. She kept waiting for him to be back with undying hope.

A year after, the same leader came with the census group. Lhazom was overjoyed to see Mr. Lhapa again. She was dead sure that, this time he would surely take her with him. During the census, she was last to register the name of her son.

Mr. Lhapa asked “Father’s name and address?’ “You should be knowing it yourself,” was the prompt reply. He was stunned with answer. “Mr. Lhapa, Census Officer, thimphu”, she added before he opened his mouth. Lhapa responded with anger, “Who is he and what do you mean?” With her head low, she narrated about the affair he had with her a year ago and insisted him to recall the memories.

“You remember the night you spent with me and those promises?” But it hit her like a poisoned dart when he denied having anything to do with her and came out with the truth about having two kids and a wife back home.

With river of tears and stammering voice, Lhazom said ‘so, dear son, Lhapa, Census Officer, Thimphu, is the name and address of your father. You are never born without father. You see unlike other kids, you have a father working in the government job.”

Now it’s thee turn of the son to console his mother promising that he would never again ask the name of his father, now that he understood that the trauma he is going through is no where compared to what his mum is going through.