Sunday 8 February 2015

The other side of smile

Dema (name changed) lives in the heart of Thimphu with her husband along with two beautiful kids. She is a house wife, but weaves all day long after she sends off her kids to school and husband to office who is driver in one of the ministry. Thimphu is an expensive city for people like Dema whose husband’s salary is too low to survive. She has therefore resorted to weaving Bhutanese clothes to sell and supplement the expenses of their survival in capital. For now she has been doing well. She is uneducated; life has been cruel for her that when other siblings of her got education, she couldn’t because she is the eldest and had to help her parents.
Dema is from eastern Bhutan, from a large number of families. Her parents are both peasants. Everyone knows eastern parts of Bhutan are famous for producing baby-sitters and so was her village. At the age of 10 she was also taken to Thimphu as a babysitter with the hope that someday she will be able to help the family. The family with whom she stayed wasn’t welcoming. It was not just the babysitting but also all other house hold chores like cooking and laundry. The head of family- father who was like her second father began to treat her different after she became young adult, teasing and waiting for any good opportune moment to take advantage of her. His wife witness and catches this on the spot one day and the fate of Dema is then changed forever. She was chase out of the house. Luckily, as the fate has it, she comes across a boy, her present husband whom they fall in love instantly and decides to marry.
Since then the sun of happiness although dim started to shine on her life. This is blessing in disguise for her she now at least can shed tears of smile, although behind that, she does have a dark shadow that haunts her every now and then. Not all smiles come from that genuine happiness, some are just forced, the fake ones while some are just the reflection of pain inside. For Dema, her smile is not just her acknowledgements to the above for sparing and knowing her plight, but also the reflection of her past, hardships and struggles.

So you see there is nothing as free lunch in life, everything comes with price tag and some day or other we ought to balance or the nature will do for sure. A clear and clean atmosphere is always waiting after horrible hurricane. Happy day folks…..

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