Page 78 - FATE & DESTINY

FATE & DESTINY

“Where?” said Sangla, glancing around.
I wheezed. “Over there!”
“Hold on, that’s an old man,” said the youngest.
I peered at it. Yeah, an old man was hobbling up with a black backpack on his back. At a glance, he resembled a
black bear scampering towards us.
I held my chest and sighed. “Oh, God! What’s happening?”
“Be alert, please,” said Sangla. “You might have a heart attack.”
Soon we arrived at a lugubrious hicksville, where subtropical trees were in abundance. The makeshifts were
clustered. A girl was sitting under a bamboo-thatched parasol with a few bottles of coke and beer.
“Which place is this, kid?” I asked.
“Khalatsho,” she replied with her timid face.
“Why is Khalatsho infested with elephants?” I asked, looking around. “Aren’t you scared of them?”
“No, they come out at night.”
“But it’s riskier at night. They’d kill you in sleep.”
She stopped grinning. “What do you want to buy?”
“How much for a small Coca-Cola?”
“Fifty.”
“One bottle, please. What else you got?”
“Biscuits and potato chips.”
“We don’t have time for such things,” said the eldest from a distance down. “We should continue.”
“Please continue,” I said. “I will follow you.”
I sat beside the girl and refreshed myself with coke and a packet of potato chips. “Bye, stay safe.”
She waved. “Travel safe, la.”
The next few hours were laborious. Sweat dripped from my head in rivulets in the blistering afternoon sun. In
fifteen minutes, we arrived at a riverbank. Three bamboos were laid across the deep gorge. Without railings. My
travel mates crossed it to the other side of the bank.
“Come one, sir,” shouted Sangla from the other side. “Walk across.”
My nerves overran me. “I can’t!”
“Come on,” shouted the youngest one. “You must do it!”
“Can you cross the river?” shouted Sangla.
I nodded. “I guess so!”
I climbed down to the bank and stood there, trying to pluck up courage. When I stood there, my travel mates
disappeared into the woods.
“Oh, no! They are leaving me,” I said. “I must cross it.”
I waded across the freezing river, deeper and deeper. “Oh, I am sinking.” I swam across, but the current swept
me farther down to the other bank. I sat on a rock and glanced at the river, knees wobbling. “Oops, that was close.”
I staggered into the dense wood. The risk of encountering wild animals still loomed. Soon I schlepped up the
mountain. The ruthless heat felt like nothing at the base, but within ten minutes of climbing drenched me in sweat.
They trickled into the eyes. That there was no one around increased my fear. I could have sat and wept in loneliness.
Footsteps seemed to follow me from behind, pacing up the already extreme thudding of my heart. I couldn’t make
out if it was sweating the ruthless heat had produced or tears my eyes had shed. One thing was certain—my heart
cried as much as I sweated. “God, why is this happening to me?”
Rashes around my pelvis troubled me. I limped for the rest of the journey that seemed to take forever. Dizziness
worsened as I schlepped up the steepest part of the mountain. I jolted every time I felt something move, even when
the wind rustled through the leaves. It reminded me of a Dredpu’s myth told by a Brokpa. Brokpas were the semi-
nomadic highlanders of Sakteng and Merak in Trashigang, eastern Bhutan. They said the abominable snowman
mimicked a human voice to coax its prey. Once the prey was within its reach, Dredpu lunged at it with its open
pouch. Brokpas were familiar with the Dredpu. They said their forefathers had named the elusive creature as
Dredpu.
In winter, they came to our village and halted at their host’s place. Each Brokpa had a host called Neypo. They
went around the village and bartered their dairy products with grains. The most expensive dairy product was Yosha,
processed by storing it in a yak skin-bag. It emitted a rancid scent, yet I enjoyed the yosha-flavored curry the most.
“Dredpo is huge like a gorilla,” said our Neypo. “It is black and furry and smells of garlic.”
“You saw it?” I asked.
“My grandfather told me when I was a kid. We worship it as a deity for protecting our pasture. It’s a harmless
goblin unless provoked. But once aggravated, it would attack anything that comes its way.”
“Really, how did your grandfather know about it?”

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