The Bus Missers: Life Left in the Dust

Notably, in a GNH land—where flags are hoisted high and walls are adorned with phallic symbols—we place excessive faith in happiness, a state we scarcely experience ourselves. With a spade in hand, the pen struggles to find equal footing for celebration. We boast about the current ECCD settings designed for the 'haves,' while children on the bus are offered solutions to problems that remain unresolved. In the name of inclusive and special education, buses for native children are equipped with top-notch facilities, ensuring that everyone has a seat. Yet, under the banner of 'education for all,' even the fortunate find themselves crowded into an overstretched system.

As everyone scrambles to board, many of the 'have-nots' are left behind, unable even to glimpse the roads they cannot travel. How can we genuinely assess our progress when many of them remain outside the bus? How can we, with integrity, claim to work towards a global cause while turning a blind eye to the countless children stranded beyond the bus route?

The expatriate parents of these children, who work on our roads, are not labouring for the development of their own country but for ours. Have we paused to reflect on why these children are missing the bus? Exposed to dust and deprivation, these children are a victim of our negligence. Are we not complicit in their suffering? For these children, missing the bus is not a temporary setback but a future lost due to our indifference. Like our own children, they too have the right to education, a right that should not be denied due to economic hardship. As barbets mark time, is it wise for us to destroy their nests?

With UNESCO offices committed to addressing global issues, it is crucial that we do not ignore these underprivileged children, particularly those of Indian migrant workers. As global citizens, their lack of access to education must not determine their future. Like our children, they too deserve a seat on the bus. Establishing ECCD centres near labour camps and providing quality education for non-native children would shed light on the darker side of GNH. Are these children not part of our society? Can we boastfully claim success while children in this GNH land are still denied the basic right to learn?

Sarva Mangalam

Impoverishmentism

I was toxic to many,
And a blessing to few.
Many have been hurt deeply,
And few have been healed.

I was wrong in many ways,
And only right on rare moments.
I believed too much in myself,
And never thought of others.

I was unaware of being present,
And fooled by my own thoughts.

 

Sarva Mangalam

Label-ism

The unbalanced ride is perilous in itself;

The unsettled emotion is restless in itself;

The unnourished mind is ignorant in itself;

The uncontrolled anger is destructive in itself;

The unguarded thoughts are venomous in itself;

The undisciplined actions are disgusting in itself;

The unfabricated rigpa is luminous- ‘as it is’ in itself!

Sarvamangalam

Unjudgementism

Judge a man neither by his origin nor by his position.

Judge a man neither by his strength nor by his weakness.

Judge a man neither by his questions nor by his answers.

Judge a man neither by his appearance nor by his behavior.

Judge your thoughts neither by their arrival nor by their departure.

Judge to unjudge everything neither by judgement nor by unjudgement.

Sarva Mangalam

With an undying peace in the heart,

There will be an undying peace at home;

With an undying peace at home,

There will be an undying peace between neighbours;

With an undying  peace between the neighbours,

There will be an undying peace in the villages/cities;

With an undying peace in the villages/cities,

There will be an undying peace in the nations;

With an undying peace in the nations;

There will be an undying peace in the world;

Worldism

From animal realm to human realm, nation to frontiers, Buddhism to  Christianity, ethnic to race, dogma to taboo, the path to flyovers, cheese to turmeric, whiteboard to the online class, dawn to dusk, conventional to modern, space to the crowd, cold to sweat, gho to jeans, friends to foes, laborer to a prostitute, noble to the assassin  - in a relative stand, one cannot coalesce the crests and troughs of the differences into commonness. We must celebrate the differences and appreciate the multiplicity of variations as everything is unique in itself.

 I am neither a brahman, victim, scholar, slave, Adivasi, priest, tycoon, Buddhist nor a Hindu, male, refugee, teacher or a heartthrob. These social constructs are all created by human minds, seeing things only through their own windows. Our doors for OPV are often locked and the gates for proposition are usually opened and hardly we make an attempt to see things from the roof different lens. For those who think roof as an apex must look at the sky and feel what world would you see if you are to view it from there. We cannot charter anyone’s route of thinking at an ordinary level. Do we need to disclose what we feel for others? Unfortunately or fortunately we have our own world totally uninterpretable and unseeable by others. What you see or think of others and what others think of you is just an attempt to explain what you see from your own window. Despite our window being often comparative, channelizing, selective, and conclusive we however attempt to draw a closer picture of what is too far and ‘there,’ thereby compromising the essence of what really is ‘there’ in its stand. Your window is your world!

Servicism

The Nation's Becoming Drivers

 Fully determined, the boys of Moshi primary school greeted me with loud Kuzu zangpo and then I reciprocated by smiling back as I was on my way to Phugayoe. "Uncle drop us to our place," uttered the youngest one. "Why do I need to lift you, boys?"  "Sorry uncle," replied the boy in a white gho as he began to pull his youngest friend aside.  "Get inside, I just wanted you guys to get home very late."  "Kadrinchoela."

With aura of their puerile innocence and inoffensiveness, my way of treating them differently didn't bother them at all. In the mid of our silent journey, one of the boys dared to ask me, " Ata where do you work?" I turned back and replied, "I am a driver."  "Wow! We too aspires to become a driver," shouted the boys from the back seat of a car. 
"Then why do you walk to the school every day if you aspire to become a driver?"  "I attend school every day to become an educated driver," replied the eldest boy.
 "Why do you boys prefer to become drivers to dashos then?"
"Do dashos drive trucks?" asked the eldest boy.
"No. That's not their job."
"What do they really do?"  I tried every second of our journey to convince and influence those little kids but it went all in vain. Before we finally depart, we stopped for a while and I intentionally reasked them, "What do you want to become?"
"I want to become a driver," replied the youngest boy.  "Because both dashos and drivers can drive the nation forward," responded the other two boys.
"Yeah you all are right. Like dashos, drivers too work for the nation, " I reaffirmed them as I bade goodbye to those determined boys.

(Reflecting upon their responses, am I not wrongly educated? But it's morally unsound to blame the system!  Singularizing my attitudinal outlook towards the stratification of jobs, I learnt that I am too parochial to segregate it based on the social structure. Delving into what is really unseen, almost all of us fail to see what and who really keeps us surviving!  Sans any interdependent relation, a lion can't become the head of the system simply by sidelining the works of the poor earthworms. Thus, for the nation to prosper both the lions and earthworms must play their roles and respect each other's job.)