One school, one teacher

The day was bright sunny day. Sitting on a rock, Jigme hummed his favourite tune. Everyday, he sat there for hours, as if in anticipation of someone dear to him, someone he lost. Life in a remote community strange.

After graduating from college, Jigme opted to become a teacher. His first placement was in one of the remotest school in the country. Since then, the rock served as his favourite spot.

One time while playing Rinchen Namgay’s “Blta na mi gi ma mthong la moi ryab” on his cell phone, reposing on the rock, he decided to make a phone call to his family back home. Interrupting the song in the middle, he dialed the number. It was impossible to get connected.

As dusk approached, he moved to his room, puts on the light and suddenly light goes off due to continues rain. Silent dark creeps in slowly to give him usual nightmare. He lights the candle. Innocent crickets, moths, cockroaches and many other insects, which gets attracted towards light gets burned and thus reminds him about the fear factor that he watched with his friends while he was at college. Many trivial things matters a lot. Yet he has long way to go and lot to do before he sleeps.

He prepares his dinner, which reminds him about the bad picnic day with his friends. After having dinner he starts to collect insects attracted by his candle to teach his children because tomorrow his lesson is on insects and that’s how teaching aids are arranged. By then it is almost midnight. He clicks through his cell phone to watch family photos. Smiling and crying. He talks to his mother, sisters, brothers and friends in the photo because he has no one to talk to. He takes a closer look at his father’s photo; who passed away long time back. He takes the photo close to his heart and then cries “father, you once told me to study hard and be a doctor but today am not, I am teacher. I couldn’t make your promise. Forgive me.”

Then he puts on his radio to listen to the latest news because newspapers come with only outdated news. That’s charm of remoteness. After much tuning, when he gets the frequency, he hears Sonam Yeshey singing Mnga’ bdag rgyal po, followed by his majesty’s speech “ Future of our country lies in the hands of our children”, instantly he asks himself, in whose hand then lies the future of our children? Definitely, it is in the hands of teacher. Future of our children should be bright to ensure the bright future for Bhutan. Thus, he continued working on the plans for tomorrow till midnight.

The day then begins as old as it is to end in a similar way as the previous day with the similar faces in a same old place. That’s life of a solitary teacher of remote school. He thinks that ‘One nation, one people’ is fine but ‘ONE TEACHER, ONE SCHOOL’ is so tough but rewarding at the end.