A Nocturnal Tryst

“You monster, are you not going to utter the truth?” Rechung heard a distinct voice in the darkening of the night. It was the same voice of that ruthless constable who just got out for his nocturnal duty. He looked totally exhausted as he was trying to interrogate with the cell captive with his hard dowel.

This man was not from the well-to-do family. He was known for locally brewed wine addict. The officer in charge had rough time in correcting his unprofessional police conduct. He would be all the time kept standing with a sack of sand on his back under the scorching heat of the sun. His drinking habit caused his life.

Chocho was treated inhumanly in the internment of Ngungzor Central jail by this drunkard constable as he was deputed to question Chocho.

Chocho was prosecuted, charged and imprisoned for trespassing, burglary and theft.

On the right side of the river Dangmechu, there is a small elevated ridge, where the eastern central jail is perched - deemed as a dreaded prison. All the anti-nationals are believed to be imprisoned here.

In the vicinity of check point, the prisoners are out for their laborious works. The sun was hammering on the anvil of the ground with all its might. The shimmering afternoon heat burned the faces of all the cell captives – giving the ripple effects to them. All were exhausted; and even the policeman on duty was dozing off.

Chocho too felt dreamy-drowsy of scorching heat. Near that work site there was a tiny cave and under this small outcrop of the rock, Chocho took a short rest as the constable was deep into his afternoon slumber. He could hear the breakers roars of Dangmechu, reverberating far and wide in to the gorges of the Trashigang Dzong and the village Gongthung, adjacent to the police station. In the cavernous of his mid-day reverie, his mind nostalgically drove back into the days of yore recapitulating his nocturnal trysts with his beloved, Dolker.

All things were joyful in his village. His village, Jamkhar was well known for hand woven clothes. The people’s main source of income was from hand made clothes. The young girls and women wove the woolen fiber clothes with complete dexterity. The females did most of the indoor works and males did outdoor works. This village was blessed with water pipelines, electricity and the firm road. Thus, the standard of living became better compared to the past.

Chocho belonged to a hand-to-mouth family. His mother died when he was an infant, leaving him behind under his only poor father’s care. His father could not put him in school. So, he grew up with rustic life style without any education.

Though he was ignorant of education, his intrinsic human instinct taught him how to work, play and love.

Tsheringla was as unfortunate as Chocho. They grew up in their same village. Their friendship banded together as each one found simply compatible to each other.

At the very young age, these two boys started to embrace the custom of Night Hunting – a nocturnal rendezvous with the young girls at night in the bed. They have flirted with many girls. But these young minds never realized the future contingencies of Night Hunting.

Their infatuation practice ran into the voids of many nights……………

Unlike other village girls, Dolker was renowned for her faith, simplicity, integrity and helpfulness. She was the apple of everybody’s eyes. She was a school drop out from class six. She was from the slick family background. She had an artistic hand that wove the woolen clothes and hearts with perfect dexterity.

As usual her main door creaked with “Om ma ne pe me hung, om ma…..” She went out for a pee, enchanting the holy verses. She did not need any one to accompany her as her parents think of her as a daring girl. This routine continued for pretty good number of times.

Could she really go out in the middle of the night, all alone! Was she really going for a nature's call, a piss?

Who should be waiting there….?

But the poor Ap Sun’s son, rendering her bonny sweet heart with a loving kiss. She would then grope back into her room, uniting her soul and heart with him. She would get up very early, before the morning light to see him off.

Since then, their concealed and secret love affairs continued for many months.

He felt head over heels in love with Dolker. He did not know exactly how he fell in love with Dolker. He only could remember how he first slid his body into the wooden shutter of her room in the darkness.

She accepted his love as he wooed her with coating words over many nights. He was bestowed with the art of wooing. He promised to be her fiancé. Their love enter -twined with the growing timbre of nightly cacophony of stray dogs.

Indeed, they fell in love on the fifteenth night of fourth month of Bhutanese calendar – on a full moon night.

Night after night, their secret love rendezvous multiplied.  Some time, there would be rumour mongering among the young boys that Dolker was pregnant. But it would never be a true story. Some time Dolker would insist Chocho to reveal the truth to her parents.

“But will I be able to ask them for her hand?” questioned his mind.

He promised her in a slurred speech that he would beg for her. But he asked her to watch, wait and look for him until the time for him to come by daylight.

Dolker’s parents were boisterous of their wealth. They owned a petty shop. Many villagers had to depend on them in terms of kitchen stuff. Her parents really looked down upon the poor people. If they lent money, the interest they charge would be very high. They would never let their sons and daughters marry with the impoverished people.

Though Chocho knew her parents were after the temporal wealth, he was optimistic that he would woo them for her hand. His love knew no bounds.

Chocho’s trusted friend Tsheringla also loved Dolker from his soul. He had been eavesdropping over their conversations from the outside of the window, every night. He started feeling at enmity with his companion as he could trace the germinating love bond between the two night lovers. He gave the nocturnal company ever since Chocho fell in love with Dolker.

One bleak night, Chocho in his dream saw himself trotting on the ghostly moon-shaded path. He was wearing a ragged silky silver shirt, tattered slippers and worn out trouser with fringes stripped down on to his ankles. He carried a milky blue Chinese torch which gave an iridescent dim-light. He could hear the dogs barking into crescendo. The ominous signs were prevailing everywhere.

He saw his to-be-called uncle and aunt shouting with rampage and brandishing their silver made rapier up in the air and chasing him from their house.

He was sobbing terribly. His dream of despair deserted him when there was heavy nudge from Dolker, which woke him up in the middle of night. He had been dreadfully experiencing an ominous dream. He had almost forgotten that he was sleeping with Dolker.

Suddenly there was a heavy tap on her door. The silence prevailed. “Who is it?” asked she. An undercurrent disgruntled voice rumbled, “Dolker! Open the door”. That was her father’s voice. The chilling sensation ran in to their spines.

“What do you want, father?” she said in a counterfeited nonchalance. Her father inquired who was with her.

“Nobody is here”.

“I hope I trust you. If you get pregnant and defame us, you will be chopped to death”. She nearly missed her heart beat when her father’s voice rumbled into the door. Chocho left the room, that early dawn, from the shutter. He squeezed out with difficult maneuvers. She felt sorry for him.

The next morning, she woke up late as compared to the earlier time. There was chaos outside. Her mother looked completely dump struck.

“Our house is burgled. The window shutters are broken. Yalama! our precious stone, cats eye is also vandalized; now our house is haunted; who had done this?” her families all panicked.

Within a next couple of minutes, the village head, the people representative, messengers, village seniors and many more from the nook and corner of the place came to comprehend the scene. The villagers instantly started to investigate the case. They interrogated her parents if they suspected anybody. They were simply dump-founded. Every one seemed grief stricken, including Dolker.

Two days later, three police men came from the Dzongkhag headquarter to look into the matter. No sooner had they arrived than they started to trace Chocho. Without a word to Chocho Gyeltshen’s parents, they announced that the culprit was him. And he was handcuffed instantly.

Chocho tried to explain his relationship with Dolker. He stated that that night he had trespassed into their house only to meet his lover. But every body turned deft ear to his words. Dolker was helpless though she knew he was innocent. The people started making face at him. They cursed him for disrupting the image of the village. His poor father couldn’t convince the village heads and the police constables. He was taken to central jail, the very next morning.

In the depression of the cell, Chocho was questioned day and night. He didn’t accept the charge and listen to their questions thinking the God might help him, but to no avail there came a help, instead the punishment grew hasher and harsher. His body was ironed with the iron machine. The drunkard constable had burned his skin, and oozed his body with pus and lesion. His body was lacerated mercilessly. He couldn’t resist the pain. So, he reluctantly told that he was the person behind the burglary.

In due course, the Trashigang district court gave the verdict for 20 years of imprisonment for his first degree felony. Chocho Gyeltshen was then imprisoned in the captivity of Eastern Central jail at Ngungzor for that stipulated period of years.

Back at village, Gyeltshen’s father hung himself tragically from the pillar of the house for he couldn’t think of staying all alone at village. He thought he had lost his duck of boy and there was no place for him in the world to stay. Thus, he let the death lay its icy hand on him.

At the tenth year of Gyeltshen’s imprisonment, he got an epistle written in sketchy handwriting. It was from his beloved who watched him by moonlight since his departure. Going by Rechung’s side Gyeltshen reluctantly pleaded him to translate the content of the letter.

Rechung read the letter with his limited knowledge but while he was reading through the letter, tears were rolling from his eyes like the summer rain. His voice became husky. He narrated the content of the letter to Chocho Gyeltshen in a mumbling curse.

Gyeltshen lamented as he recollected the very scene that he was charged, handcuffed, and arrested by his village seniors and the police constables. The letter pained his heart as it brought heart breaking news. He could also vividly reminisce how his lover’s parents sued him to village head for trespassing. He couldn’t think of the torture he got from that drunkard policeman. He was punished by the God as if his sins were not cleaned up and followed up to his present life.

Dolker’s letter read, “My parents have not lost their precious stone – turquoise and cat-eye, Zee”. Nobody had broken into their house. It was their work.

On the night of 19^th January, 2005, Dolker’s parents knew the presence of Chocho with their daughter in her room. The selfish parents instantly planned to put Gyeltshen in thick soup. They woke up at peak of the midnight and robbed their own house. They broke their own windows and left their shopping stuff all pell-mell over the floor. In the morning they counterfeited in disgruntled voices that their house was robbed. A perfect sinister trap was planted to ensnare Chocho.

At last! Dolker knew it.

She was eavesdropping over her parents’ conversation about the circle of karma. They were expressing about the fate that Chocho met with. He became the victim of her parents’ cruel and malicious deception.

They played that drama just to keep all the worldly wealth with them. Dolker’s mother being the eldest sister, she was given to be the treasurer of the house. But, Dolker’s grand mother and father were succumbed to fatal death as they had eaten poisonous wild mushroom, and they did not get time to distribute whatever wealth they possessed to all their children. As a matter of fact, the elder sister was supposed to distribute the things equally to her younger siblings.

But, she wanted to keep all by herself, and she had been contemplating day and night for appropriate means to keep all the forefathers’ wealth with her.

At last, Chocho became a guinea pig and got trapped in the cruel snare of Dolker’s greedy parents.

Dolker did not compromise the blunder caused by her parents and made appeal to village Head to bail out her innocent lover from the prison. The very next day, the Gup, Chumee, mangap (vilage heads) and few other villagers went to talk to Gyeltshen at Ngungzor, Trashigang.

They regretted for their wrong actions. Some were cursing Am Wangmo for exhibiting her disgusting act in the village. Some were saying, “We should have brought Aum Wangmo and Ap Dorji dragging with us now like moths”. Some worried how they would approach Chocho.

But, Mr Gyeltshen had already forgiven them. He was nowhere to be seen in the captivity of the prison. All the policemen and the team from the village searched for his whereabouts. But, all went in vain.

The day was bright. The birds were singing in dulcet tone and there was joyance in their song. The sky too was as clear as crystal. There was a meadow of green pasture land. The yaks were grazing nonchalantly. At the other side of the field, Gyeltshen saw a shadowy figure similar to that of his dead father. He couldn’t believe. He rubbed his eyes and reassuringly looked carefully. It wasn’t the tricks of his eyes. That silhouette was his father. He ran towards his father like an alerted deer. His father had been waiting for him over many years.

His father hugged him with his icy cold hand. And instantaneously there was a ringing of a heavenly knell for the two rejoining souls. 

 

Meanwhile,  Aum Wangmo still won in the end. She did not have to go to the prison as she won the court case against her daughter and the village head.  The rich always won in the district court of Gangtse.