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Gangkha Chorten Angay

Life is but navigating on trail purely dictated by the destiny. The destiny frames the journey one must make in whole course of life and no matter how rough this course is, one must stride it. So, she was compelled to make the rutted journey in her life.
Every newcomer contemplating to enter the premise of the Gangkha Community in Chukha, must go through a 70 years old lady in her dirtiest rags. Sitting by the Chorten on a hilltop that offers the sweeping view of the last horizon, the same chorten from where she bid her daughter adieu 5 years ago, she tries to drive away every stranger, raining with stones, sticks, mud and whatever she can lay her hands upon. If one is not quick enough to bypass her, one can be the easy victim of these bad welcome to the community.

Making my first trip to the village once on an official tour, I had a terrible experience of this disturbed lady. Had it not been my porter who was quick enough to rescue me, I won’t have made the journey back home.
Over a cup of ara, I narrated an incidence to Gup in the evening. He lamented ‘she is a mentally ill lady. It is her way of fighting her brutal memory of her gruesome past. But she is docile to her village mates’. ‘But why newcomer,’ I enquired.

Zam was married to the man of her choice. Infact, it was her childhood love and they loved the life each other and promised to live the life together. Soon she was expecting what could be their lifelong remembrance of matrimony. Pressing his ear by the bulging stomach, he would usually talk with the person yet to come out. They promised to tend the child to their best and give the best they could their en route child. And as expected, the beautiful girl was born to the glory of them.

But as the fate had it, the father couldn’t attend the celebration of his daughter’s first birthday when he succumbed to the eternal force of death so unexpectedly. She then promised to continue with his promise with her daughter. In last memory of him, she sacrificed her time and effort to her daughter’s best upbringing. And at 16, the girl turned out to be most beautiful and well groomed lady. She definitely grew up to draw very man’s excitement to take home and present to their mother.

A civil servant embarked on a tour to the village and he didn’t miss his notice of the prettiest lady. ‘ah….a treasure within concealed in remote village’ he said himself. In the evening, after having won her confidence, he proposed her mother. Now, here is the opportunity to materialize what the mother and father dreamed many years ago. Although, she single handedly could not give her the education, she saw the light at the end of the tunnel. In best welfare of her daughter, the mother promptly consent the idea.

Time has never been rough for her than the time when she has to let go her only memory of the person she loved very much. Accompanying the couple on their way, she thought, ‘my daughter has finally found the man I have dreamt’. ‘Only if her father is alive to appreciate over what I have done to his daughter’ she giggled herself.

Stopping by the chorten she now have lived almost every day of her present life, that’s the farthest she could accompany or otherwise she risk getting dark on her way home. She painfully parted with her loving daughter with tears raining down the cheeks. ‘Once you are in the town’, she said in her subdued tone, ‘don’t forget your mother’. ‘If you can, take pain to visit me sometime but don’t fail with chain of letters’, ‘I will be missing you’

On her way back home, the mother spiritually sent her daughter the best prayer. ‘May she live life happily only then will I be able to die peacefully’, she prayed. The vibrant house turned out to be most silent and the darkness engulfed before she could actually realize. While in kitchen, she felt her daughter in the room and vice-versa.

Things went on for few months as she expected. She would be first lady to meet the village mailman half way on his journey back to village after fetching letter. Every letter and some monetary gift from her daughter brought her immense peace and happiness. But of all it was the message which kept her informed that her daughter is keeping well.

It has been a year now since her daughter left her and the village. The letters she used to receive frequently so suddenly stopped for her. She was worried about her daughter yet there was nothing she could do then to keep expecting everyday. Back with her daughter, when she could bear no more discrimination from her husband, who would return late home, fully intoxicated by alcohol, she contemplated for the divorce and landed up with prostitution to meet her ends.

Then came the letter written in red ink enveloped with the worst news. Her daughter when even got fed up with the rustic life she had to lead. She therefore, ended her life in the city contemplating the suicide.
Back home, the mother doesn’t believe what was written in the letter. Waiting by the same chorten, she keeps waiting for her daughter to return and every stranger that passes by reminds her of the man who took her daughter. She storms them to get rid of him.

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