Kuenza's Diary

I said I lost a cousin to cancer two weeks back. Now, my husband’s uncle is in the hospital. His sickness has gotten worse and he is on morphine. I’m told he is given this medicine because he has so much pain and is restless. But this medicine keeps him in that – kind of semi-conscious state – all sedated and not fully aware of anything. I don’t like the thought of him being sedated but I think there is no better thing anyone can do to help him. I visited him only twice in the one week he has been at the hospital. When I’m at the hospital, I just sit on the sofa and watch him, or watch his relatives trying to do anything available to make him feel better. It is exasperating to see how they are ill at ease, not really knowing what they must do. They massage his feet, put a wet cloth on his forehead; they make him sit for a while. They make him lean backwards on a pile of pillows. I feel that the patient might feel irritated by this constant disturb...

I wonder if I’m not dying tomorrow. Death is hanging right at my shoulder. It is peeping at me now and then, as if to ask me if I’m ready and it is so disappointing to say that I’m not. Who is? And now, I wonder at the countless number of people I know die of cancer. The first time I got kicked by such news was when I heard that one of my classmates’ girlfriend was diagnosed leukemia and despite everything the hospital did, she died. She was undergoing her engineering course. Then I heard of someone I called ‘Ata’ die of the same disease. He was a teacher and he had just about started a family. He was referred to Kolkata for surgery but the disease, deadly as it is feared -- it takes life out of you mercilessly. He died before I could go and see him. The fact that he died left in me a deep hole. It was as if I could not cure from not being able to really grasp the truth that, in fact, he died and he was no more. Then came so many news in between, of that person, of this person dying...

I attended a parents-teachers meeting in Lungtenzampa Lower Secondary School last year. The teachers gave us a few papers on which are written questions that children usually have and what parents should do to groom them a good person. The following are what children usually have in their mind: (I’ll give my views on each of the question and how we could help our children with respect to each question.) Mother, why are you not telling me anything when I am roaming? => Parents should know where their children are. If their children want to roam around with their friends for a while, they must say so to their parents and they should not lie to their parents and say that they are going to their friend’s house to work on homework. They should not be forced to make up stories. Parents should foster an environment where their children can talk to them face to face. They can do so by not always disapproving what they say. Children are not completely ...

I have the habit of scribbling every small thing in my notepad. Now, this is bad because, I develop a certain kind of attachment to each of this notepad that I pain when I have to discard them. Today I am discarding one. Tomorrow I will have to discard another. I have a collection of letters. From long time back. They are like trash in a way because they occupy space. I like to keep my room as open as possible – meaning, I don’t like having so many furniture stuffed in a room. So I was thinking if I should throw the collection of letters, diaries, journals and greeting cards I have. No, I did not throw my diaries, journals and letters. I just pushed away my thought of getting rid of them. One thought says, I must get rid of them now, rather than have people read my inner thoughts after I die. And another thought says, I must keep them because what people make of them after my death won’t matter to me. Whatever, I’m keeping them for now. I threw away a few rough papers already – on wh...

My brother calls me from the village to tell me that a relative of ours is sick and was brought to Thimphu Hospital. He wants my other brother to go and see him because he says, he keeps asking about him. But I know, I have to go and see him too. I personally feel very down when I’m sick. I feel like I’m all alone in the corner of the world without anyone to care. So I know how emotional someone feels when he/she is not well. I decide to go. Yes, I go and see him with my cousin. He seems well, except for a very swollen belly. Doctors have not been able to diagnose the disease. He and his relatives are beginning to think it must be something to do with ‘dhu’ (poison). We talk to him a few words, tell him to take care and we walk out of the Surgery Ward. We also decide to leave because there are so many other people from our village coming in to see him. The bed is becoming rather too crowded. The new ward’s policy is that there should be only thre...

Being an ICT Officer doesn’t help me at all. I have really begun to think that the ICT Officer probably is synonymous to a complaint box. Walk in the office and everyone has something to tell you – of something of their computer or internet not working. And I wish, I could sometime turn deaf. I thought today was the last day I would have to listen to so many complaints but it was not. What makes things so worse is that, because my organization is small, I’m handicapped by not having anyone in the same field as me. Now, you will think how I cannot manage a small organization of 15 people. These 15 people are the most cyber savvy people I have ever seen. Because their work is to do with research, you bet what videos, audios and texts they download from varieties of websites. I’m glad their viruses don’t infect my laptop so much. I would have died, or resigned if they did. And now, coming to being handicapped, we requested the MoF for budget to buy a fully equipped, up-to-date make o...

It was nice to have so many people wish me on my birthday. I smiled right till I went to bed. I think I did have a good sleep too. Not dreamless though. I always dream of something. It was a mistake to watch a movie called 'Pulse 1.' Didn't make much sense to me but the eerie, haunting images kept coming back to my mind. It even disturbed my meditation. I no longer see birthday as a day to receive gifts and wishes. I see it as a day where I can remind myself of having grown a year older thereby nearing death that much closer. It is good to have such days to remind us of impermanence, as much as it is good that it reminds us of the good things and people we have in our life. Now, there is another dilemma. I will have to go to the field for the survey again. This time, it won't be so long, but it is decided that I will be one of the staff going there. I have many valid reasons why I can't go. But I have no energy to put up my reasons to the decision maker. He knows ...