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In The Land of Leeches

Summer gives way to the rains, which invokes all nature’s magic. It alarms its approaching with first doorbell rainfall. Then one cannot help the bare trees getting green and soon one witnesses the hues and colours of natures right under the nose. Everybody welcomes summer, the best of all four seasons next to spring.

"Summer is the time for the trees to put on new and fresh attires"

The summer brings an end to the dead winter, to the season of the time when all inhabitants on earth are purely hibernating. The plants welcome the time of quenching thirst with incessant rains. It is also the time for the trees to put on new and fresh attires. But when every single creature waits summer, people in Chukha prepare themselves to face another fight to conserve their blood against the inching creatures. Summer for us is a curse from god in heaven.

We have our own reason to blame every approaching summer. With trees and grasses coming back to life, the common nuisance creature in Chukha also accompanies the nature. The leeches are seen inching in all territory. They are found measuring all roads and trails. They are seen hanging down from every loose leaves waiting for the prospective source of hot red blood. They invade even the houses to fill up their hollow pipe. People in Chukha don’t have to visit the blood bank in Thimphu hospital to donate blood. We are literally donating more blood for this creature than the blood bank in Thimphu. People in Chukha by this time have lost litres of bloods for the interest of these never satisfying creatures.

"The tour for civil servant is time for yet another loss of blood"

The tour for civil servant especially in the areas where we have to traverse through the jungle is also equally torturing. The tour for civil servant is time for yet another loses of blood. The salts, tobacco and wine are basic tour packs to get rid of these creatures. People here have to buy extra kilogram of salt in summer than they usually consume in winter to compensate the amount we use as the weapon to combat it. These wriggling creatures in Chukha are found in stripe red, deep black with varying sizes and colours.

The domestic and wild flocks perhaps also have to face no better fate. Every single grass the cattle pick up to eat, the leeches are clinging to it. It is the chicken that enjoys the fleshy menu. Therefore, people out here have now switched on to raising more chickens than other domestic animals. This is also the reason why farmers are interested in poultry backyard than other lucrative business.

"If people living in leechy area don’t feed them, who will?"

Chukha is not the place for the people who fears and hates the leeches. There is no way one can keep out of it if one is living in leeches colonized Chukha. But certainly people have now started learning to coexist with it. We now take leeches as the part of nature. We now value their own roles they have to play in sustenance of life on earth. If people living in leechy area don’t feed them, who will? We don’t mind the blood we lose for as a Buddhist, with every single drop of blood, we are doing something beneficial to help live others.

So, welcome to Chukha to people who are allergic to leeches. You will definitely get to know the leeches. We have our own share and we are glad that we can live with it.

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