AWOL

I was absent without leave (AWOL) from my blog post for almost two months. Yes, two months. I feel guilty—not because I abandoned my loyal readers, but because I didn’t even bother asking for permission from my own blog.

In my defense, I was busy. Busier than a giant sleeping crocodile. I just wanted to rest after teaching and working until my brain felt like overcooked noodles. So I did nothing. For months. And you know what? Life went on. Life, that sly old fox, doesn’t care whether you’re climbing mountains or lying on the floor questioning your existence. You do the most, you have a life. You do the least, you still have a life. I tried to do absolutely nothing, and life just shrugged and carried on without me. Rude, but efficient.

Anyway, it was the perfect time to be with family. We sat, we talked, we ate, we slept. Glamorous? Because otherwise, where was the time? Oh wait—here’s where:

Breakfast: 7am. School: 8am. Classes: 8:30am–4pm. Staff meeting: 4–5:30pm. Household chores: 6–7pm. Dinner prep: 7–8pm. Goodnight sleep: 9pm.

Nothing in between. No gap for wondering, “Who am I?” No slot for “stare at ceiling and contemplate caterpillars.” I hate this timetable. I wish life had no timetable—carefree, no fella says anything, nothing to conform to. But apparently, people fear that without a schedule, we’d all become feral, immoral creatures robbing banks in pajamas. And honestly? They’re probably right. Conformers gonna conform.

Back to my two months of glorious, guilty silence:

First, we stayed at home. Not our home—we don’t have one of those. We have a rented-our-home. A home that belongs to someone else but temporarily smells like us. We collected firewood for the bhukhari to fight the biting winter. Then, most evenings, we had warm ara. By “we,” I mostly mean “me.” By “warm ara,” I mean “the official drink of ‘I’ll deal with tomorrow tomorrow.’”

Watching TV and movies was a pastime. Now it’s a trauma. We’ve watched enough to last three winters. I’ve seen so many bollywood movies that I now hear the dishodisho in my sleep. 

Then came the BCSE Class X evaluation in CST, Phuntsholing. Oh boy. I thought of writing pages about it, but most of it would be unfit for polite education department —or some one might report me to authority. I’ve learned that positive things are rarely taken in. You must be diplomatic. Otherwise, you’re a loser. So let me be diplomatic: the evaluation happened. I evaluated English. So did everyone. Except one teacher.

One brave soul arrived drunk on the first day. His evaluation ended on that first day. He had to go all the way back to eastern Bhutan. His drinks, apparently, were more important than exam papers, money, and family. I don’t know whether to salute him or spit on him.

The rest of us? We were familiarized with the paper. Thoroughly. In fact, the paper familiarized itself with us. We became one with the paper. Then we were divided into groups: essay, letter writing, language, grammar. I was in letter writing. Every day, we corrected nearly 1,200 papers. Let me repeat: 1,200. In reality, that would require more days, fewer papers, or more evaluators. But, we just hurried and hoped for the best. Errors? Possibly. Especially in awarding marks. But who’s counting? (Hopefully not the students.)

This tedious, back-breaking, soul-squeezing evaluation went on for twelve days. No breaks. No mercy. We worked tenaciously to the final day. And at the end, every teacher was more bankrupt than ever before. Phuntsholing had eaten our cash like a hungry goat. Many of us spent to the last ngultrum, dreaming of TA and DA. But our TA and DA? Not given. Not deposited. Not even a week after the work ended. Teachers had no money to top up their cars. No money for the drive back. They left contorted—like human pretzels of financial despair.

I don’t know what BCSE does all year. Maybe they practice. Maybe they meditate. Maybe they count paper clips. All I know is: the money came after a week. Good or bad, things happened. And we—single-handedly—cannot blame anyone. Because in the great comedy of life, there’s always enough blame to go around.

So that was that. Then we came to Gelephug, where we are stationed now. The heater is weak. The Ara is strong. And the next blog post? Let’s not make any promises we can’t keep.