Dzongkha Lopens

One of the weird kinds of people that we encounter in our life is our Dzongkha Lopens. They have a typical way of misbehaving and dealing with people. And they tease girls like anything! And happy would be if female Dzongkha lopens behave such to boys. But I tell you, they are timidly naughty too. Though looked at as the upholder of good ethics and discipliners in the school, they themselves are utterly breakers of all these. Their disorderliness and unruliness are the order of the day. They seem to be acting very strict; smack or beat students but they are not really so; I say this now with regret (I would have climbed on their heads if I had known in my school days). Their personalities can be the worst of any humankind sometimes. They sometimes think they are the only people around.

I was disciplined by so many of my Dzongkha Lopens. One Lopen in Pemagatshel Jr. School was known as Lopen Goenpo Lhudrup (nicknamed), cause he used to tell us the story of Goenpo Lhudrup every time. The story interested us so much so that we felt almost sleepy in the class. Lopen Goenpo Lhudrup had a habit of drinking and coming to the class. He, in his drunken, sleepy state used to ask us to pluck his beard from his face. The smell of alcohol made us depleted in the class.  We were not as stupid as Goenpo Lhudrup had thought; some of us took out the sharpest pins from our Lhagay and pierced on Lopen’s chin. The Lopen stood up grunting. Tiny blood oozed from his face. Stunned, he would go.

For that whole year, the Lopen didn’t ask the class to pluck his hair from his face.

Lopens, especially Dzongkah Lopens are heavy drinker. Lopen X in Darla MSS (name withheld) revolves his life around drinks and women. Lopens are usually not good womanizers but indisputably good in drinking. They don’t have a patient to pour sweet talks and wait; they just jump into conclusion with many contacts on forbidden parts of the body. But this Mr. X, once he drinks, he becomes wild. There is no word as shame in his dictionary. He speaks around in whatever he likes. He moves around carefree. He dances on the stage -less stage. He becomes one and he thinks he dominates the world. Such is the height of his sense.

One day, I asked him why he was so desperate that made him behave like dog. The response Mr.X gave was even worse than a dog’s barking. It was somewhat like a cat’s meowing. “Don’t just catch rats.” He said. I guessed what he really meant to say, it would certainly mean that one should do everything in life. The cat must not sleep hush near the fire and wait for rats. The cat must behave like a mouse, like a bird, move around the holes. That was absolutely true. Mr. X was right.

With the change of time, our Lopens have changed a great deal. Lopens, who are supposedly responsible and are exponents of Dzongkha language, have become fans of the English language. The twists of their mouths and producing different accents make English more popular in school than Dzongkha. I have seen Mr. X communicating and making fun of his English accent right from the morning with colleagues. In this way, Dzongkha is forgotten by our own Dzongkha Lopens. I remember Lopens translating almost everything in English to make his lesson understand better, and it seems like giving more importance to English.

Our Dzongkha Development Commission (DDC) has done nothing to upgrade Dzongkha. English enthusiast Dzongkha Lopens will one day speak Dzonglish - a mixture of Dzongkha and English. DDC must promote Dzongkha learning through fun ways. It should let loose of its fixed phonologies, words, grammar, etc, and make it easier like English. Our Dzongkha Lopens are sometimes tough on silly little mistakes. It demotivates learners so much. Mr. X has only one particular word for maize as ‘Gayza,’ limiting vocabulary. Why not ‘a:shome?’

Note: The above article is the memories and observation of the author and doesn’t intend to hurt anyone implicitly or explicitly, especially some of our dedicate Lopens.