The weather at this time of the year is unforgiving, but every evening, as I walk home, I see her walking home with a bag or two on her back, among a group of school children. But don't mistake her for an old woman going to school. It is but a burden of old age. Old age is the best time for prayers some say, but Abi Wangdi does not enjoy that kind of luxury for she has to drop her two grandchildren to school and pick them up in the evening.
Like all grandparents, my late grandma would call food 'tsampa rimpoche' and any fuss made about it would invite everyone's sneer and scoldings. Food is always treated with respect and is never wasted. "If you waste food in any manner," she would admonish us. "One day food will discard you and you will go hungry."
What remained from the previous meal would be turned either into porridge or sometimes leftover rice would be dried in the sun. The dried rice would then be fried into puffed rice and consumed with cups of suja. When there was so much food left, especially during big events, leftover rice or kharang would be mixed with a small amount of yeast and brewed into ara.
The only thing that I can vividly recollect from my primary school days is how we would be hungry most of the time. Food we were served was hardly enough to tickle our throats. We would be sent home only once a week on Saturdays and that was our opportunity to replenish our popcorn s…
What remained from the previous meal would be turned either into porridge or sometimes leftover rice would be dried in the sun. The dried rice would then be fried into puffed rice and consumed with cups of suja. When there was so much food left, especially during big events, leftover rice or kharang would be mixed with a small amount of yeast and brewed into ara.
The only thing that I can vividly recollect from my primary school days is how we would be hungry most of the time. Food we were served was hardly enough to tickle our throats. We would be sent home only once a week on Saturdays and that was our opportunity to replenish our popcorn s…
The pictures are disturbing for my soul. She may be doing it for the love of her grandchildren but the heavy load and the thick clothes in pling at this time of the year may not be her fav. She may want to sit under the shade of some tree near the Zangdopelri with other old folks praying... we often forget that our parents are not our babysitters, they have babysitted us and given us this comfortable life...now it's the time for us to grannysit them...
ReplyDeletePS: remove second, third and the fifth pictures...
Yeah PaSsu. I was disturbed myself and it took me sometime to ask her. Old people have had their share of work, as you have said it. But the reality is far bigger than the expectations. There is no happiness when old people have no time for prayers.
ReplyDeleteThanks PaSsu, I have removed those pictures you have asked me to successfully.