It
was a frosty winter morning. The whole Ura valley was covered with a blanket of
morning frost, as thick as snow. It was bitterly cold and everybody was silent,
curled warm in their woollen blankets. Lethro peeped through his small window. In
the faraway mountains, he could see that the hermits had already started
performing the daily purification ritual. The incenses formed plumes of smoke
all over the skies of the hermitage, far and wide. It was the place from where Lethro’s
father had divined his horoscope. A horoscope which foretold that Lethro shall
become the king of the empty plains and
the possessor of the white and black jewels!
In
the nook of the village was Lethro’s house – an idyllic wooden cottage, which
he called a home. The spruce shingles were very old and rotten. When the snow
melts during the first sunny day after the snowfall, water enters the entire
room and soaks all his belongings: an old woollen blanket that he never washed
for almost a decade, a Chinese carpet and a pair of porcelain tea cup that his
late parents brought from one of their illegal trips to China, and some old
clothes. The entire room was black with much soot accumulated on it.
Lethro was a short black man with
great sense of humour, a barrel of laugh. Some people often whisper that he is
a son of Indian labourer who came to construct the first east-west motor road.
His eyes sunk deep into his skull and when he stared at something or someone,
he looked like an Indian scopes owl. His owl-like eyes were always on his
cattle day in and day out. He was a young and happy cow herder, with deep sense
of attachment not only with the cattle, but also with the wide green
pasture.
It was one overcast day. Lethro curled like an
armadillo and snored under an old spruce tree after eating his roasted potatoes. Hence
he dreamt:
He
found himself lost in the field of flowers. The whole scene was ablaze with the
sparkling of flowers – blue, green, orange and red from each angle. A glowing
rainbow hung high like a colourful scarf of angles. The sweet fragrances of
roses and marigolds filled the entire air. It was a real blissful time, an
episode of joy. But it did not last long. The sky grew dark. The rainbow
disappeared and a torrential rain arrived. A lot of flowers were blown away far
afield and down to the dust by the storm.
The camouflage Indian army
helicopter, flying over the azure sky of Ura valley with its rattling sound suddenly
awoke Lethro from his deep slumber. He followed the trail of the helicopter and
started to dream. “I wish I could fly like a bird”, he whispered. For an
uneducated, hand-to-mouth farmers like Lethro, dreaming of flying in the sky
was like building a castle in the air. Almost impossible!
Lethro’s day-to-day duties kept
on continuing as though like there was no end at all. Milking the cows, feeding
the cattle, grazing them the whole day, and bringing them all back home before
he went to bed. However, his ambitious dream of flying grew stronger and stronger
each passing day. He fantasized himself becoming rich, and escaping from the
stink of dung forever. Living in a good house, travelling in a car, and
feasting on the best foods kept on lingering in his mind like a shadow. Such
thoughts gradually started to affect his peaceful life with his cattle. He started
to lose interest in raising cattle anymore, and kept his eyes and ears open for
any possible exit from his hectic and monotonous life.
One day, as Lethro was grazing
the cattle in an open pasture along the road, he saw an antique car moving
towards him with a great roar. It produced a trail of smokes like cirrus clouds
behind it. His eyes rolled as the cattle scattered with the thunderous noise.
The engine stopped right near him. A tall bald man in a black gho came out of the car with a Chinese
cigarette in his mouth. He slammed the car door, and approached near Lethro.
“Good morning,” greeted the man.
Lethro swallowed his saliva that was
accumulated in his mouth, and greeted back. “Good morning, sir.”
The man puffed the cigarette and
released a huge amount of smoke from his mouth. “Is this all your cattle?”
asked the man.
“Yes, we the nomad’s depend on
cattle, sir,” replied almost immediately.
The man gazed at his cattle for a
long time, nodded for a while, and posed, “Do you have any plan of selling them
off?”
Lethro swallowed once again.
Thought for a while and nodded, “Yes sir, if I get good price, I thought of
selling them all. Life is chaotic with all these things,” he added.
“So, what’s your desired price?” asked
the man.
“Around Nu. 50000,” he said,
little embarrassed with such a huge amount.
The man once again looked at his
cattle. More carefully this time.
“If you really mean it, I will
come back after a week. I have to sell this car, and get you the money,” said
the man.
Lethro’s eyes directly shifted
from the man’s face towards his blue antique car, shimmering like a pearl in
the autumn sun. To his eyes, the form of the car resembled much like Norbusili, a rhinoceros. Lethro
remembered his late father mentioning that rhinoceros are considered as a
“wish-fulfilling jewel”. Thus, for Lethro it was a face-to-face moment with the
jewel. His desire to possess the rhinoceros-like car ignited like a winter wild
fire in his mind. The fantasies of driving a car amidst his dust-coated friends,
multiplying cash by hiring it, and prospering beyond bound came into his mind
again and again so that he even forgot to breathe for a while.
“Let’s do an old-fashioned
business then, a barter system. Take all my cattle and keep your car for me”, mentioned
Lethro, rubbing his hands involuntarily.
The man was taken aback for a
while. “Well, it’s absolutely fine to me, but we must consider some arrangement
and adjustment to carry all these cattle to Chamkhar, my village. It’s 48 kilometers, pretty good distance!” responded
the man.
The two had discussed the trade
like in a dream and had done a deal like in a delusion. Both agreed with the
arrangement and adjustment until the car magnificently parked in front of
Lethro’s cottage, and the cattle was far beyond from the old herder.
The next morning, even before the
stars disappeared in the wide sky, Lethro rubbed his eyes, and went near his
car. He touched it with his rough and ginger-like hands. He tried to discern
all dark and bright parts on his car.
“Ah! I am the possessor of white and black jewel”, he cherished the
moment. He fetched buckets of water and splashed until his arms became numb. The
car shone in the first light of the day, to the extent that it even dazzled him
with the reflection.
Days turned into week and weeks
turned into month, but Lethro couldn’t get a single person to teach him
driving. By now, he had washed his car for hundreds of times and circumambulated
for thousands of rounds. The brand-name label “Dadi Musso” faded owing to
excessive scrub, and the grasses started to dry around the car due to his excessive
footsteps going around it. Village people even started to call his Musso car as
Lethro’s chorten or the stupas.
It was early hours of Thursday, pshayza, the bad day of a week for
Lethro as per his horoscope. The moon sunk behind the western mountains, but the
sun had long way to reach to the eastern hills. The whole world was in total
silence. But Lethro was awake. The only sound he could hear was a hoot of an
owl from the roof of his cowshed. It called to his mind one unpleasant story of
an owl from his late mother:
“Owl
is considered as the bird of evils. Its hoot is a presage, warning that
something unpleasant will happen. Even worst is to hear the owl muttering like
a group of aged people together. It is a real presage, cautioning that someone
from the village will be taken away by the lord of death.” He contemplated on
this orthodox belief for hours, until the sun peeped from behind the mountains.
The next day fetched a real surprise
for Lethro. As he opened his door, he saw a real abnormality in both paint and
form of his car. He dashed like a high wind towards it, only to see his
shimmering antique car reduced to mere crumbled metal box. The pieces of
windshield scattered like a sugar on the ground. Head lamp, taillight and
mirrors were all smashed, and out of order. Marks and scratches on side-panel,
bonnet and also on grille looked like a intricate spider web. Two tyres flat to
the ground.
Lethro sobbed his heart out. He
stared at his jewel and felt sicker at heart. He missed those gone by days,
sitting on a branches of old willow trees, legs dangling, eyes on his cattle.
He missed each and every tree and boulder that dwell like his childhood friends
in the wide pastures of his village. The more he looked at his damaged car, the
more his heart ached.
That night Lethro couldn’t sleep.
The image of his damaged car kept on haunting him throughout. He felt the
hardest kick in his life, as if all his misfortunes saturated for thirty-two
years of his life burst out at once. A farmer without a farm like him had no
options on the table in such situation. It reached to the point that he even
when he thought of surrendering his life to the god of death. He thought of
dying before death, but his courage didn’t let him. Thus, even suicide was not
an option for him. He rolled right and left in his bed, until the birds started
to chirp. It was already morning.
The next day, Lethro heard much
commotion in his backyard. He saw some village people surrounding his damaged
car. Below his window was a Tshokpa, the
village leader. Lethro got out of his house with his heads bent low to greet
the crowd.
“Good morning, friends,” greeted
Lethro in his lowest voice. Lethro was a man with a bundle of laughs, and
perhaps, that was the first time he spoke in such a serious tone.
“Good morning,” greeted the
people in unison. At the back, people started to talk in low voice.
The Tshokpa took two or three steps forward, and expressed their grief
on seeing Lethro in such agony.
“We are deeply saddened to see
you in such agony. We are here to pay our deepest condolences for the loss. We
wish there is something we can do in such a difficult situation,” said the
Tshokpa.
From the back, people started to
express their grief in unison.
Lethro wiped the tears that
rolled involuntarily from his eyes, and started to thank all who came there. “I
spent all my cattle to purchase this car with lots of dreams and aspirations.
But now, as you can witness with your own eyes, my dreams are shattered,
aspirations blown apart. As such times, up over me is the wide sky and down
beneath, the barren soil. Nothing left for me,” said he in a voice little over
a whisper.
The Tshokpa changed the tobacco
in his mouth, spitted from the half-opened wooden window, and said, “We are as
worried as you do. It is natural for us to make mistake in certain stage of our
life. Sometimes, it can be something irrepressible, totally pushed forward by
our fate and fortune. But the successful people are those who realize their
mistake and stands up again with a bunch of lesson.” The people nodded their
head together.
The word ‘fate’ stroke Lethro
much. He rolled his tongue while he thought deeper and deeper about his fate. A
destiny of a humble cow herder! A dream that he had long time ago came into his
mind like an Indian movie flashbacks: A dream of a harsh weather that blew away
many flowers far afield and down to the dust. He recalled his horoscope. Missed
his black and white cattle.
At that point, Lethro realized
that his Lethro or the destiny was
never with automobiles. He cleared his throat and declared, “My dear village
mates, I understand that my Lethro is
never with the automobile. I am going to get rid of this ugly monster instantly
at very reasonable rate. I will find someone who can buy this monster.
Meanwhile, you all may also like to help me advertise this information far and
wide. Otherwise, I will wait for the God to send someone who can buy it back,
just like how he had sent it to me.”
The villagers praised for his
splendid decision, and all scattered into their fields again, and started
swinging the rhythm of their day-to-day life.
After two days and three nights
of heartache, Lethro saw an unfamiliar man walking towards his monster car. A
skinny man with a white suits walked like his right leg was shorter than the
left one. He inspected the car thoroughly before Lethro could reach the scene.
“Are you Lethro?” asked the man.
“Yes, I am Lethro.”
The man threw a packet of money
and said, “Here is your money.”
Lethro was numb, unable to utter
even a word. But deep inside, he understood that the Tshokpa must have
negotiated everything for him. He turned back to his car, and never looked back
again, thus it was never seen again.
Lethro found that there is
Ngultrum thirty-thousand in the packet. Contemplating for days and days, he
understood that raising cattle was the most suitable work for uneducated,
single farmer like him.
Finally, Lethro
bought two cows – black and grey from his neighbour. He took them to the same wide pastures of
Ura, and once again started his life as a happy cow herder. He had become the
king of the empty plains and the possessor of the white and black jewels!
