Rather
out of the blue for Ngodup’s knowledge Dorjee came to him after the writing
class at noon. Ngodup had stopped attending master Jangchup’s class despite
Dadul’s frustration and rebukes. Dorjee didn’t attend such class either. Lighting
up his scabs and scars infested dark face with a smile followed by a friendly
frown he at once began why he came to him. But Ngodup had thrown out his
bedding in the sun and put his rocking bed on its side against the crudely
distempered green-grey wall. Ngodup pre-empted Dorjee’s urge to break first.
‘See,
those bugs, blood-sucking ones. During the past years I hadn’t felt that much
disturbance at night. Now I can’t bear it. I haven’t been able to sleep well at
night. I put that much kerosene on every part of the bed. See those bloated
ones, those dark patches marked with white dots, their eggs.’
‘I
have had problem too. You know as I stay at hostel where the case is worse like
those in the next doors migrating into mine. There is no use of keeping them
away so. As I have learned, it’s better to keep clean, especially under one’s
bed. Not to keep anything under bed, but let it be free of any clutters and
clean by sweeping every day. I am thinking to do so. Well, I come to tell you
something. I think you haven’t heard about it, the upcoming big day,’ said
Dorjee with a grin that suggested more than usual weekend holiday.
‘No,
I don’t have any idea. What you have got to tell. I think you’re excited so
far. I think you are thinking or want to celebrate your birthday that you don’t
have any grounded proof to claim so like myself. Don’t think to mimic so. But
it’s okay if you wish so. I want to join.’
‘No,
Ngodup. Not my birthday. But His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been shortlisted
to award Nobel Peace Prize soon, right after three days. I have learned it’s an
internationally acclaimed coveted prize. So the big day. I went to the camp
this morning. The representative office has set out for putting up the green
strip of cloth banners with praise-stanzas in whites across the roads and an
old Commander jeep combing through the camps and monasteries announcing about the
day and the prize. But you haven’t heard anything. That’s strange,’ said Dorjee
now with a smile suggesting his being ahead.
‘Oh,
that’s great. No, I haven’t learned anything but have been preoccupied with
fighting with these troublesome bugs. Then how many days? You know?’ Ngodup was
elated more with the knowledge of such accidental luck for having holidays.
‘I
think three days break like Losar or Gag-ye. I am thinking to cycle.’
Ngodup
was sure about it now. The strong kerosene smell muffled air inside was
unbearable. Dadul had been busy so far
with his Gelug Board examinations to pass Geshe degree. He had been preparing
rather vigorously for the last examinations next year with his study-group
somewhere. As per his mother’s wish he was planning to go to Tibet after the
title being conferred by the monastic abbot and the graduation ceremony marked
by offerings made to the monks during the congregations on the day. That cost
much for a simple monk. But he had been able to manage mostly from home in
Lhasa and some from Ngodup’s home. Ngodup found him mostly reading those fat
books and one of his study-group, a lanky one younger than Dadul but with
rather easy-going air as his angled eyes spoke and his being bright pampered
himself, often came to Dadul. Dadul regarded him as someone far learned one.
When he came, they would discuss for hours sometimes while Ngodup, if he
happened to be at home, listened blindly but could make out vaguely that Dadul
was slow in learning.
‘Well,
I have got things to do now. I should arrange my bed and bedding. Yeah, for the
day. Do come to me. We will go to the camp together and attend the function in
the morning. There must be such lazy function to mark the day. We should attend
as the day is special for us. The air isn’t good inside too,’ said Ngodup.
‘It’s
okay. Then I will help you to arrange it.’
‘No,
I don’t need your help. It’s just easy. But you can leave and do come to me on
the day.’
Dorjee
left. Ngodup arranged his bed marked with dark patches and candle drops. His
sun-burnt bedding smelt of strong rancid odor of bed-bugs discharges. He didn’t
like his bedding with the quilt mattress that got infested with bugs. But today
he was more animated in setting them back. He hadn’t intended to put them back
that soon but he needed more time for thinking about the day. And towards the
evening he learned more about it, especially from Dadul’s small black radio.
Ngodup thought Dadul had learned about it much earlier but he hadn’t told him.
Dadul had been aloof in terms of personal relation. They had never had an
intimate conversation but complete taciturnity like he had been training Ngodup
to be on his own. But now he was more preoccupied with his upcoming
examinations that he took like the last barrier to pass through.
But
when the day came marked by the morning function outside the representative
office with the usual chore of raising the national flag up the iron post while
singing national anthem followed by boring speeches and a few performances, the
significance lay not in the usual chores or programs of such but in those faces
celebrating the historic event just by sitting on the unpaved open yard in
front of the simple clay tiles roofed representative office. In those brightened
faces despite the beating sun darkening them secondly, especially those aged
men and women who had waited and lived with the cadence of both lingering
chronic hope and nascent ones marked by His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s gaining
popularity across the world. But the lingering hope was virtually like waiting
for a miracle as per their lassitude of being aged.
Ngodup
and Dorjee took the place at one end of the yard next by a small mango tree. An
aged man like in his late sixties with grey hair was seated a pace off them
with many other aged ones from Old People Home. But he was the most active one,
mostly talking alone. He was lanky and frail. His wizened face with bleary yet
actively speaking eyes and the moving grey whiskers growing from a dark
protruding mole on one end of his chin marked the height of his elation within.
His bright half-sleeved shirt looked glaring over dark cotton trousers. His
swiveling head above the rest around him and the broad straight shoulders
confirmed his height. He was busy. Ngodup looked raptly at him while Dorjee
listened to the speech being delivered by an Indian dignitary said as the
president of Indo Tibetan Friendship Society.
‘Gyalwa
Kheno, only you see! Good luck, good luck. That’s what I have been waiting for.
I know I can go back to Tibet before I turn 95. I am 69 now, 26 years ahead. I
have calculated beforehand. I know I am going to have at least 10 years to live
in Tibet and die in my own land, my native place, Kham Jupa. I was 26, so
young, when I first came into exile through Nathula. I am so happy today. You
see! Do express yourselves like how I do. I can’t hide it inside. Tibet will
gain freedom soon!’ He then became more animated like preparing to stand up and
speak so loudly.
The
aged woman, who looked older than him, seemed to be his wife. She was hunched
back and small but actively mouthing something all the time punctuated by
saying something vaguely. When she saw him preparing to do something
embarrassing, she stopped him with a short shrilly note. He was subdued
forthwith but his open hands moved up and down like silencing her. A few behind
them smiled. But he was yet agitated like he wanted to say something aloud
towards the dignitaries on the verandah. By looking at him Ngodup felt a pang
of eye-opening jolt inside, such spontaneous hope he hadn’t seen in his own
parents. But he remembered once his mother had pointed at the silhouettes of a
far off range from their estate and said their home lay beyond them. Ngodup
hadn’t had any idea then what she was talking about. So the day could be the
turning point for him to get the basic idea of what he was, his generic status
in the larger picture.
The
remaining days and the celebrations were marked by screening Tibet related
documentaries in the front yard of Loseling library building by the smiling
monk like in his forties. The smiling monk, who Ngodup had seen actively
walking around with camera and VCR recording camera, manned the color TV set on
a low small table on the frontal concrete step and the connected black VCR
device. He began each short documentary with an introductory speech. The
spacious unpaved front yard was full. There were some men, women and small
children present from the nearby camp. The West-made documentaries with the
familiar footages depicting Chinese brutal atrocities like pale-green clad and
cudgels wielded police attacking on the fleeing monks at Jokhang temple in
Lhasa. The repeating harsh views of how those robotic cops slid down from ropes
from the temple terrace on to the top floor verandah, how they chased those
fleeing in thick maroon robes, how they hit them down with showy martial art skills
and bound their hands with white ropes with such wild vigor, how they dragged
them like logs… It was unbearable to see those cowering ones even with their
hands bound behind, to see how their dark-red faces contorted in pains when
those mindless cops hit their joints with black cudgels.
But
it was a great day. Screening such footages was both like reminding to many and
revealing to many as well. It was both to open eyes and enjoy the latter show,
the one clip dedicated for the day by TIPA, a group of bright complexioned
Tibetan women in dark Chuba and colorful Pangdhen before standing mikes signing
the famous song Gawa La Dang Gawa La, Kyipa La Dang Kyipa La (Delighted and Happy).
But the proper footage of brightly smiling His Holiness the Dalai Lama accepting
the prize and delivering his milestone-speech with the serene expression was yet
to come. So the day ended.
As Ngodup
and Dorjee were walking back after the show at night on the last day, Ngodup was curious
to learn about something.
‘Did
you cycle?’
‘No,
I couldn’t this time. I would do later like during next Losar.’
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