Page 24 - FATE & DESTINY

FATE & DESTINY

“Take this!” He walloped me across my face, left and right. “How dare you challenge a teacher?”
My head whirled. “What just happened?” When the blood oozed out of my nose, I wailed. “Please have mercy,
Lopon.”
“Go clean your nose!” he said.
I washed the bloodstains at the water tap and jumped over the hedges, and slouched into the bushes. There, I
sobbed for like hours. “Go to hell, you curmudgeon!”
A gentle tug at my sleeve woke me. Radhey Shyam, the class monitor, looked down at me.
“I have been searching for you everywhere.” He sighed. “Lopon is calling you.”
I paused in sobs. “Did you say Lopon?”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “He won’t beat you now.”
“Tell him you didn’t find me, please,” I said.
“He wants to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to see him, please.”
“Please don’t worry.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Come, please.”
I traipsed after him into the classroom. “May I come in, Lopon?”
Lopon nodded with a weird face. I settled down in my seat and kept my head low. The bell rang. As Lopon
shuffled out, we all rose. “Lopon Kadrinchen la!”
He turned back and said, “Dorji Wangdi.”
“Laaa!”
“Come,” he said.
My heart leaped as I slogged after him. “Drat, why don’t you strangulate me?”
Outside, he tucked my bloodstained sleeve and stroked my tousled hair. “You shouldn’t have done that. I will
make sure Mr. B.N. Batarcharjee bears no grudge against you.”
His words of wisdom hurt me more. So, before he finished, I sniffled and scuttled back into the classroom.
Rhadhey Shyam said, “Did he beat you again?”
I shook my head and covered my face and sniffled as much as I could.
The next day, Mr. B.N. Batarcharjee walked into the class, lifting his chin. He grinned as he wrote on the board.
“Copy this, please.”
I frisked my satchel. “Pema, I lost my pen. Can you lend me one?”
“Please write, Dorji,” said Mr. B.N. Batarcharjee.
“Sir, he doesn’t have a pen,” said Pema.
“Oh, never mind,” said Mr. B.N. Batarcharjee, plucking out a Mitsubishi pen from his shirt pocket. “Here.” His
teeth gleamed as a big grin spread across his face. “Don’t hesitate. Use it, please.”
I couldn’t refuse him, but I can’t remember if I returned his pen.
Back home, Dad scowled at me. “What do I hear?”
“Hear what?” I said.
“That you went against a teacher. How could you go?”
“Who told you?” I asked, mouth wide open. “I did nothing.”
“Got beating?”
I remained silent for a while, tapping my feet. “Yes, Dad.”
“How bad?”
“I became senseless after he slapped me,” I said, tears welling in my eyes. “There was blood all around.”
His glaring eyes turned sympathetic. He stroked my hair. “I am just a security guard. Nobody would pay heed to
our complaint, son.”
“It’s okay, Dad. It was my mistake.”

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