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Monday, April 1, 2013

In Response to the Writer's Workshop

Today is my Transfer Anniversary. As I flipped through the pages of my memory, I remembered the sole reason for opting for transfer. 

When seeking transfer, we are either asked or we do have rationales to cement our own proposals. I was working in a Chaskhar Lower Secondary school under Mongar district then. So, ‘trying to get placed into any Middle Secondary Schools to keep in touch with my electives Physics’ has occupied the first space of options. I didn’t have the second but rather it was followed by the explanation of the first.

But ironically, I had ONE reason why I have asked to reassign myself to any other school. Punakha, Bumthang and Paro failed to give me a room to write the name of other dzongkhags as my option. Thanks to the Ministry of Education: I am placed to Punakha, where the sacred Pungthang Dewai Chenpoi Phodrang takes a magical stand. Wow! I have never been inside keeping aside seeing it in reality.

That isn’t one idea for me to celebrate. I have another. I am away at a new school. The school with a new language, colour, shape and size: Kabesa Middle Secondary School.

Last year, on the 3rd of October, I received a fax letter from the Director of Paro College of Education. The subject read like this: Invitation for Writer Workshop on the Modules in Diploma in Sports Science. The field coordinator Mr Lungten Wangdi, took pain to waste some of his balance in passing me the message across from his cell. 
You are asked to participate because you have the experience of writing it. Like the one we developed HPE teachers’ manual with the Japanese counterparts in the college, it’s the work of the kind with a different name’ he reinstated.  
I was excited. ‘That wasn’t an ordinary privilege being offered’ I sighed with deep contentment. Consultants from Australia, Dr Judth Miller and Dr John Haynes were in the lead. I wrote a lengthy mail to my wife who was in Malaysia doing her studies, pouring in the lyrics of happiness I bought after getting this invitation. 

Working with people of high profile and having a cup of tea (which I don’t drink) aside from them is one crazy thing that always tops my hobby list. Through the microscopic lenses of my imagination, I could see it would be an amazingly amazing intellectual osmosis.

However, like an abrupt change of the scene in Hollywood motion pictures, it did eat with the same taste in my offer. The faxed letter from the Director has been smashed with the paws of fake reasons and rebuffed with injustice by my boss. His cruel fingers have punched the reluctant keyboards to manifest his teeth of ego into soft official lies like this: Subject: In response to the Writer’s Workshop.

This shameless note bored sufficient spells to cataract the brain of the Director and has made to see the scene as he did. The dzongkhag education officials were infused with the heavier dosage of similar anaesthesia to numb their brain to shun favouring my release. And no matter, how hard I tried to spice my explanation, either with calmness or cries; it could not pass through the auditory canals of those officials. 


To him and the officials, I justified with these grabbles of words; A reply to his letter, line by line.

Since WHEN did he realize that our school is in short of teachers? Never would it be very different when I leave for just FOUR days to attend a workshop?

Most surprisingly, I was engulfed by the tentacles of shock after seeing his ability to metamorphose into a local doctor who could pre-pond the delivery date for one of our madam. The Mongar Regional Referral Hospital announced Madam Norbu’s delivery in late November but my workshop was from 14th till 18th of October. He took her pain as his weapon to relate without a slight relation and bar my movement. Thus, a new mathematician evolved from a geography background who could devise an equation to relate this operation. A genius indeed! A genius for the cruel cause.

Interviews are held in Thimphu. So there’s no question of asking whether I should be available in the school after being asked to report.  The journey from Chaskhar to Thimphu is officially three days and would double when we return.  And attending one day interview adds another feather to be seven in total. I asked him to feed me with a mechanism whereby I can stay in the school and simultaneously attend the interview. He remained mute like suffering from tetanus, commonly known as lockjaw.

I am not very crazy about football. Because I was a football custodian in the college and made appearances in a few tournaments, Yadi Principal might have heard from my colleagues teaching there. After much compulsion from my own boss, I joined their team and suddenly, my position of defence came to be their relief. I joined them because the wires of my reluctance were disconnected when my boss said that my failure would corrode the bridge of his relationship with the former Principal. But after a successful tenure of being an ambassador in promoting his ties, this same reason is coined as my weakness. What a bold leader to eat his subordinate alive? 

Have we seen anyone not using their Casual Leave? Genuinely or not, we use it, but with a purpose. I had many instances noted with a clear date and told the officials concerned of him lost without any notification in the school. The downpour of my words has not been successful to give them even the slightest drench over the coat of acceptance and consideration. 

I wasn’t on any official tour or being sent after his arrival. But that plain excuse, where he wrote ‘he went on the official’ did magic in the eyes of those inquiry team. I erected the attendance register to slogan a proof but to no avail.
The brutal claws of his ego and envy had the courage to write him that the nomination is done directly creating grey areas. If he is bestowed the power to nominate, even a man built of patience cells like Lord Buddha, would flee the scene and give up Enlightenment. But the people who had the ability to disguise and say a cow as a bull and dance with respect and praise even for his weaknesses can win his heart. I am never of this sort. I say, cow as cow and bull as a bull. I am Jim Carey, the actor in Liar, where he finds it difficult to lie and say that the blue pen is red. I say what I see, not through the lens of others.   

I lost the privilege but not my hope. He gained his satisfaction but I survived with patience.

By writing this, I don’t mean to cast even a slice of blame for anybody. Nor, I even design one for them. 
But in the meadow of my blog, I would like to sow the seeds of reminders that are best expressed with a phrase: be aware of the Wolf in the sheep’s clothing.
"Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you"  Marilyn Monroe

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