Life on the other side of chasm

Night fell and darkness engulfed Khengri village. Somewhere in the distance, a lone jackal howled.

Fire crackled in the old mud oven in Yeshi's house. Water had been boiling in the soot-stained aluminium pot for sometime now without rice. Rag-clad children waited around the mud oven, their hollow eyes fixed on the pot.

"Mother, we are hungry!" cried the children.
"Where is the five-kilo rice I bought yesterday?" her husband Kencho demanded.
"Someone might have stolen it when we were away. It is not there." she cried in dismay.

One thing led to another. Negative energy built up. Kencho began to hit her as usual. It is true that economic hardships sometimes lead to family discord.

But he hit her harder this time. She collapsed on the uneven floor of her old hut.

As usual, he then went to sleep outside guarding the maize field from wild animals.

Children cuddled up against each other in the corner of the house. They went to sleep without dinner.

A dark morning dawned. Thunder roared, clouds fumed and July rain showered hard and heavy. A few drops even trickled through the roof as usual.

Yeshi tried to get up. But she couldn't. She cried. How could a mother lie down when her children were hungry?

Life had never been easy for Kencho and Yeshi. In the scorching summer sun as well as the thundering monsoon rain, they toiled. But half of what their infertile terrain could yield went to the wild animals.

Prices had increased. Money was hard to come by in a remote village. So much so that five kilograms of rice meant so much to them!

Especially July is a hard time when the previous year's grain is exhausted and this year's crop is just growing.

Kencho regretted. He took her to hospital. But her battered body couldn't hold any longer.

The court gave him 'one-year imprisonment' for the beating in the absence of a concrete proof that his beating caused the death. But that leaves the children without a father too for a year.

Children had long before dropped out of school. Half-clad and barefoot, they run errands for others to feed their own little stomachs. And the cycle of poverty will continue. Theirs is a different Bhutan from that we know. The chasm deepens.