Dzongkha and Me. Part I

My most vivid memory of a Dzongkha class in my primary level is the Dzongkha teacher’s stick. I remember one incident in class three when our Dzongkha teacher smacked one of my mates so hard that the boy shit in his gho. I can’t forget the teacher or the painful ashen face of the boy with whom I studied for six years.  As for me I can’t remember getting any serious beatings, may be because I was always on the guard, as I always managed to copy my homework on time and struggled to memorize my text though I always received little beatings every now and then but they were not considered beating as everyone got them. I escaped the serious beatings because I managed one way or the other. I was not good in Dzongkha. In fact I hated the subject. I am not proud to say that but as a child Dzongkha period was the longest period of the day for me. I remember how the clock ticked by painfully slow. I use to pray my Dzongkha lopen would meet with an accident. I would play the accident over and over  again in my mind; my lopen on his battered Indian chetak scooter straining to make the up hill road to the school and suddenly a big truck running down out of control. There would be no Dzongkha class and it will be taken by our class teacher who use to teach us nursery rhymes.

These were my thoughts then as a child and now even as an adult my opinion for Dzongkha has not changed much. Though I feel the need to improve my Dzongkha I never actually tried. I am ashamed to say that I don’t know how to read or write Dzongkha nor can I speak formal Dzongkha though I am a Bhutanese. I was so ignorant of the importance of this language that my conscience is now tainted with guilt.