ABORTION: THROUGH THE LENS OF LAW

As it is terribly hard for women to decide, it is even harder for a society to decide on Abortion. It is a question of ‘life’ and ‘choice.’ The issue is woven through the labyrinth of societal values, morality and faith. Through this piece, I argue that it should not be legalized, because it is an issue of child, not a choice!

Over the recent years, we have heard of heart-wrenching incidents where our women have crossed the border for back alley abortions many of which had either killed or caused grievous injuries to them. This is sad. Tremendously! This unequivocally calls for policy makers to intervene. It indeed induced our Civil Society Organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations and some of the senior politicians to call for the LEGALIZATION OF ABORTION. This I say is a coward step taken by our policy makers. They could have called for something profound that has far-reaching solution to this issue.

Those favouring legalization insist on the autonomy of women. Our Constitution enshrines the fundamental right to liberty and privacy. The right to liberty ensures the ability to do anything one wants to do without any arbitrary interventions. They say women can make intelligent and conscientious decisions of their lives and families. Hence, they must have the autonomy to act as per their personal convictions. The right to privacy also ensures autonomy. These two rights confer women the legitimacy to choose whether she wants to abort her pregnancy.

Simultaneously, our Constitution guarantees the most intrinsic and sacred right-a Right to Life-that cannot be pre-empted and derogated at any cost. The right to life is an inalienable right. The child within is preborn human and a distinct individual. If aborted, we are snuffing out an innocent human life. I call it a Murder! It is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. The premeditated malice to abort her pregnancy itself rules that it is a murder. Hence, abortion in the eye of law is a murder.

An individual can enjoy her rights only if such enjoyment doesn’t infringe or prejudice the rights of other. A woman enjoying her liberty to abort child actually prejudices the right to life of the unborn. Thus, abortion is not justified. Just because she is a mother doesn’t give her the legitimacy to kill her child.

Further, society has greater stake in abortion. Individual rights are secondary to public interest. If it is legalized, onslaught of feticide cannot be ruled out. Legalization gives legitimacy to abort thereby sowing violence and discord dehumanizing our society. Also, legalization would prone us to unprecedented social menaces such as sexually transmitted diseases and pre-mature pregnancies. For obvious reasons, less contraceptive measures are likely to be used. Hence, besides psychological trauma and guilt a woman who aborted her child has to live with, it has overarching adverse consequences on the society.

If we carefully scrutinize section 146 of the Penal Code of Bhutan 2004, abortion in Bhutan is neither ‘absolutely’ illegal nor legal. In our country, the legality of the issue is tested on a case-to-case basis. As per section 146, abortion is illegal if one aborts or induces expulsion on an embryo or fetus or prevents a child from being born alive. However, there are exceptions to this. It is legal if abortion is done in good faith in order to save the life of the mother, if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest and if the mother is of unsound condition. When abortion is legalized in such cases then what more should we be asking for?

The risk in legalizing further is that people might increasingly practice it. A call to further legalize abortion is no better than a call to legalize murder. It will not remedy and forestall our women crossing the borders for backyard abortion. I am sure those who wish to keep it private will anyway resort to such practices even if it is legalized.

Instead, the kind of stereotype and the social stigma attached to the type of pregnancy that actually compels abortion is something we need to root out. How to prevent unwanted pregnancy and to help pregnant women who has got abortion as the only option are something our policy makers should be concerned of. Our women deserve better than abortion!

There is no greater sin in killing a defenseless child for which they have to withstand the worst of their parents for no fault of theirs. If mother exercises her ‘right to choose’ then who will defend the ‘right to choose’ of the child within? If there is ever one to defend that, only a mother can! The child within knows no rights.  She only knows that her mother’s womb is the safest, securest and the most unassumingly assuring place to reside in.

The economic and thousand other reasons supporting legalization are not justified. Your mother has bestowed life upon you. So, contemplate honouring it and passing it down. Abortion doesn’t make you un-pregnant; it makes you the mother of the dead baby. Choose life because your mother chose YOU!

Memoirs of my Journey to School

One of the sons, in our locality, has to stay attached with the parents and help them run the family, in a way grooming him to be the potential heir. This, however, has almost disappeared today down the shelf of tradition. Then, my parents thought of invoking the responsibility upon me. I was, hence, intentionally held back and ruled out the possibility of educating me. As a youngest son, I was loved, cared and pampered. It must have been because of these reasons, my parents couldn’t dare to loose me away to school for sending me school meant departing from their loved son. Many of my contemporaries couldn’t attend school because of these reasons.

The beauty of being a kid is the innocence. I was not an exception for I was as innocent as every child. The only thing I envied, then, was when I witnessed my parents sending my elder brothers to schools as early as six. I envied not because my brothers would be imparted education to live a decent life but because they were attired in new cloths when I had to retire, clothed in torn-rags, to thick jungles herding herds of cattle battling the ‘vampire’ leeches, battering the heat and adventuring the brunt of torrential precipitation where I only found bit of solace beneath the plastic sheet I was shielded by. Life as a Cow-herder was hard and it was indeed ‘yucking’ to always fade away into the thick jungles. To attend school, however, was not in the wildest of my dreams. I accumulated and mastered every skill a farmer would need to lead his life. I was young, pure and untainted farmer.

Destiny had its own mercy on me. Out of nowhere, a talk to send me to school cropped up. It was a month after having started the new academic year though. I faintly remember that my sister, who herself had nurtured grievances for having not sent to school, had spearheaded the idea. It was a blessing ‘u-turn’ to the life I was supposed to lead. Couple of days later, I remember descending down the hill along with my mother to Wooling Primary School. It was a barefoot walk. I could still recall how wild Hazelnut thorns pierced the callus of my foot. My mother ushered me to Headmaster’s office seeking my admission in PP. I remember her offering dozens of eggs and few Kgs of Butter and Cheese. Such offers were not uncommon during those days.

Headmaster quizzically studied me and outrightly rejected my admission. He was right. I was too old to be in PP. I was nine then. However helpless my mother felt, she was too tough to yield her determination easily. She sought the help of the then school Caretaker upon whose request the Headmaster accepted my admission. At that moment, I ‘childishly’ realized how things were working in this world, which still haunts me today. People who are similarly circumstanced as like me are bound to encounter thousands of injustices I  met with. Poor and powerless are always overpowered; no one is considering their voices considerately. This is happening not just round the globe but at an alarming intensity across the sections of GNH Land-DrukYul, even today. This is the brief memoir of my journey to school. 

The Essay I was examined on

Mr. Pema Wangdi, final year undergraduate of the Bachelors Degree majoring in Applied Mathematics at Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, has reproduced my essay, I have written as a  11^th grader in Annual Examination English Paper One, in his blog “Lotus’s Perspective- My Life Away From Home” which can be accessed at http://empoweredlotus.blogspot.com.

 It feels great to revisit the paper I was examined on. I was wondering if Mr. Pema could tell me how he could manage to get the paper, annual exam answer sheets, which were usually never shown to anyone. For this, he has his answer vividly scripted in facebook. I quote

“@Gyalpo: Yes, you had definitely written this essay, unless there was another Gyalpo Drukpa studying at Nangkor in that year, which we know was not the case. haha. Well, let me narrate the story here about how I bumped into your "English Answer Paper" while I was roaming around the Nangkor campus. It so happened that when I, with few friends, walking along the road running parallel to Yurungpa lam (path), I am sure you will remember there used to be a garbage pit right behind the Staff room, it was in that pit that I bumped into your paper. I thought I was on time to rescue your paper, when almost half of other fellows’ papers were lying charred! The marks you obtained stood out from rest of the papers, and caught my attention. Then I went on to read, and decided to include in my collection!” I would like to sincerely thank Mr. Pema who happened to be my junior for including it in his collection.

Amidst so many grammatical errors, when I read it now, I find I was trying to exude every bit of ‘negativities’ I could ‘prey’ on the parents and teachers. I might not have nurtured ill-thoughts toward teachers nor parents while I was essaying it, simply, I might have tried to justify the topic I was given to essay on. However, somehow when I read it now, I find I was revolutionarily toned and ‘been vocal’ in that essay.

I am reproducing it below. No proof reading is done and no edition is carried out to make it sound better. I am reproducing it just the way I had written it as a class 11 student then in 2004.

The Topic was:

“Parents and teachers teach children to always speak the truth. Not only is this unrealistic, it is also hypocritical.”

And I had written:

“Yes, indeed! Yes. To advice and instigate others to speak the truth has become almost like fashion. It is very unrealistic and to great extent hypocritical. In order to make other's mind bow, first and foremost thing, ones mind should be arrow. Before telling others, one should be perfect. But parents and teachers instigate students and children to speak the truth verbally. They, themselves are not perfect in this case. Our parents and our teachers teach the fatherhood of God without themselves acting the brotherhood of man.

Most of the parents of this advanced world are known evil. They are much more undignified and bounded by low personality. They are the one who spoke false before the society. They might have done many unwholesome deeds but how pathetic is it to find that, having themselves spoiled, they advise children to always speak the truth? Children has been staying with his/her parents by birth itself and thus he is bound to copy what his/her parents are doing. If parents are morally disciplined, the child would be as so. But if parents are morally ruined, it is definite and sure that child will be ruined similarly. A very pretty lie may be told by parents before his/her children. Suppose, if children wanted and demanded their parents to bring them a new trouser when they were leaving to somewhere, but on returning, he may convince his children that he has forgotten but not brought intentionally. Thus, children are the best copiers and they would copy it and next time the children will practice it. He or she will inherit the character of parents.

Similarly, teachers in the school are the parents of children. Taking the responsibilities of parents, they always advices students to tell the truth and even penalize them for having told lies. This is really hypocrisy. Teachers seem dignified in the school premises, but outside they are acting like barbarians. They tell the lie if it is needed and acts in violent manner if it is needed. Teachers are the lender of last resort of students, thus, if having themselves undisciplined, how can his students listen to them? First thing, he should act what he says. Teacher should be an epitome to students and children so that they may act and shape their future.

For instance, some teachers take leave from school leaving his students in vain, intentionally pretending that there are some genuine reasons after feeling bored in teaching. But in fact, they are just going for loitering somewhere else like an undignified man. Also in some cases, teachers are found lying and boasting in the subject matters. They act as if they know all neglecting to research further. Thus, they misguides and mishandles the human brain. Some teachers wait for bribe from students for some matters. They take partiality to some students. They themselves saying that to take partial is sin, yet they themselves are involving in unwholesome deeds.

Thus, parents and teachers of modern world may say anything from mouth. It is very easy to say than to be done. They convinces children and students to say this and that but it is just paradox. Hence, the instigation of parents and teachers to speak truth is not only unrealistic but hypocritical to great deal. Coincidence in words and actions may be found in rare cases but majority of the cases are paradoxical and hypocritical.” Courtesy Pema Wangdi [http://empoweredlotus.blogspot.com]

If you [readers] were my English Teacher at that point of time, what is the mark the essay is worth of? Locate the grammatical errors in it and leave the corrections and mark you might have given as a comment below.

….the morning that should be…Blessed Rainy Day is back..

23^rd September 2010, the Blessed Rainy Day that transcends every section of Bhutanese Society is back again. Greetings to all of my fellow citizens.  Wish you a wonderful Thrue Baab.

Here in Hyderabad, nostalgic self made a point to wake up early. I went out of the room heaving-in the fresh morning air to check if the bucket I left at the Courtyard the other night had collected  blessed rain water to rinse my body so that the external dirt is cleansed, whisk away the misfortunes, troubles, worries and at the extreme, purify the sins I have committed by the blessed drops of rain I have harvested in the Bucket.  

I was confident with the mindset that blessed rain not only rains in Bhutan but the entire world on this auspicious day. I was never deprived of this. I saw inky clouds have thickened the air. It was unusually cloudy outside teasing the bucket I had left wide open with occasional kiss of showers. It made my day; indeed a Blessed Rainy Day. I took shower chanting ‘thrue…thrue…thrue…thrueee…’ the legacy my parents ordained me to adhere. I closed my eyes and wished….I wish I were at home to share the festivity of this joyous day!

The very morning was marked just the way it should have been. We endeavored to entwine-in totally ‘Bhutanese’ in everything that was in our menu. A mouth-wateringly delicious pork ‘Thukpa’ was prepared by Namgay Om and Chencho Om who graciously sacrificed their sleeps to have it ready on time. It was totally Bhutanese in taste. The aroma of the ‘Thukpa’ wafting in the air around was mischievously hard for everyone’s nose to shunt away with.  Every one felt an urge to surge it down the throat. Everybody hummed…“it’s yummy”..having gorged in the much awaited Bhutanese cuisines. ‘Dresi’ was the other thing in our menu. Energetic and enthusiast manager of ours, Tshering Dorji, churned ‘Suja’ for almost half of the hour. A sip of it was refreshing, rejuvenating and absolutely ‘homecoming’ for it reminded our homes. ‘Dzaw’ and ‘Sip’ were the other items that were in our Menu. I salute everyone for initiating and materializing the bit of our plan successfully.

 We marked the day as it ought to have been. As a Bhutanese, wherever we are, we embrace the occasions we celebrate back home; we stay attuned to the whole gamut of our traditions and keep our national flag ‘fluttering high’ through the rhythm of breathe we inhale and exhale.

Had it been holiday, we could have resorted to ‘Khuru’, which unfortunately was not. After Thukpa session in the early hours of the day, we waded off to our respective classes.

Tashi Deleck 

Good things come at huge cost

   

I remember Isaac Newton’s third law of motion “for every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.” Drawing an analogy from it, there is a collateral damage in every action we ensue, or rather has always been! Good things don’t come for free. It comes for a cause with cost.  The other night I bumped into facebook status of one of my friends. It read “knowledge doesn’t come for free”. He must have hinted the pecuniary burdens on this privatized education system that has adversely sidelined the economically weak ‘aspiring lots’ to have an easy access to education, just the way like any other thick-pocked lots.

It could be a common man’s reasonable view that when one is having a particular goal set to achieve, come what may, one doesn’t care what comes on his way. The goal comes at a collateral damage, however. In economic parlance, ‘opportunity cost’ can be dovetailed in here. The next best alternatives have to be given up to have the best on our court.

While good thing has happened to me lately, I had no choice but to forgo and forfeit some of the beautiful persons in this world. You guys never faltered as the one you are which I adored the most.

 I made an option not to prolong the revelation for I count that earlier I reveal the facts lesser you guys would be hurt. If you guys are reading this piece, I wouldn’t wonder for having you found me mean for I left you people in pursuit of my happiness and the best for me….and as the truth unfurls, I got to admit I had been mean.

I left not because I found you ‘guys’ not the best, you were the best, but I was just not worth you guys and the world you guys live in. May be I made a better option for it definitely forestalled our ‘otherwise would have been disastrous’ future. Life can be lived once only for it cannot be remapped and thus the way we approach it ought not to be mistaken.

Ultimately, everything boils down the point that good things come at cost. It gets painful at times though and so I am. Hope time heals everything…fingers crossed..

I am sorry, people

When the given thing doesn’t get submerged, one is compelled to negotiate other alternatives. I was making a point to attend International Trade law class until I found it too monotonously toned and intricately woven by the fibers of legal jargons and issues I found way difficult to comprehend. The weather outside was cloudy and raining mildly, but in an incessant fashion that propelled me to reminisce the life I had sailed thus far. Deep down me I started visiting my past.

Things I did as a younger-self started flashing by, pondering of which some of them made me remorse. Nonetheless, most of the memories, for sure, cater a smiley curve on my otherwise grim face.

However, I find it devastating remembering the fact I had captained during my school days.  This was the memory I wriggled against while I was in the class. I am sure I have faltered as a captain. I might have ended up hurting some of you while adjudicating the duties I was obliged to shoulder on.

I deeply remorse for all the mean things I might have said, I am sorry for all the things I did or didn’t do what I ought or ought not to have done as a Captain. I apologize for having made you all feel bad.  I can only wish you guys could understand I was ordered and commanded to do the things I have done.

Apology is offered not because I did all wrong deeds that jeopardized your well beings but because I think I ‘might’ have had inadvertently ended up hurting you all for the fact being I captained you’ll. I am truly sorry.

Beyond Family: Angels in Human Form

I heard someone saying outsiders are way helpful, kinder than one's own relatives. No wonder, I wondered how it could be believable, believe worthy! Change in what one has believed happens for a reason. I have to admit I didn’t believe in someone saying that.

The truth is that now I believe in what I have heard ‘someone’ casually saying. There is truth in it, wisdom in it, well thought-out truly truth-laden words they are! I got immense of ‘helps’ from people I barely know. May be they are too divine to have sensed the difficulties I was wrestling against. I met them online around couple of years ago but I didn’t anticipate our relation will be bloomed up to this degree.

I did ask my siblings for help to no avail. Yes, the world has better people to offer. Two important ladies of mine have just drawn the curtains on the stage of financial drought. This has indeed given a confidence to believe in what I actually heard someone saying. It is true, I realized it is. At times, outsiders are way nicer than one’s closed ones. Thank you the two saviors of mine! Your meritorious aid will always be engraved in my heart with a wish to help you guys back one fine day. Salute!!!

Love, Separation, Pain….

Probably I was destined to pen down this ‘pain’. Despite hectic schedule I was shackled to, I hopped in to visit some of the prolific bloggers’ page. “Agony of Valentine’s Day” by spontaneous writer Tashi P Ganzin, seriously hooked me up. Perusing through, somewhere I was stuck, how is that being ‘Single’ and ‘Alone in love’ differ? I categorise them as one and the same. While Tashi is, atleast, having Almighty as her valentine, it is my bad luck I am alone in love, staying thousands of miles far from someone I dearly love. It is worse than being single, believe me, thinking of having someone to staywith when she is not actually beside you is way far worst. Indeed, coping with separation especially when we are in love can be one of the hardest experiences life hands us.

I live on without her by my side, the mornings greet me and the nights bid me to sleep, and yet, their sweetness is not just the same as of those being with her. Deep down me there is always a feeling of something missing, emptiness… I just wish like having the most tedious days of life which in a way will keep me engaged to fill a void that is always present within me.  But as the day slows down, the memory of her catches up, the longing of my aching heart begin to creep up within and the hope that someday both of us will be together again is the only thing that keeps me going.

However alone in love I am, however desperate I seem to spend Valentine’s day, every other second, minute, hour and day  with her, somewhere I noticed time and separation is actually strengthening our love for I know it is not an infatuation  which gets weakened with time, distance and separation. I am happy for I sustain a great pain because a pain of separation only happens when we are in true love. I am convinced ours is a true love. Truer the love greater the pain is something I learnt through this separation.

“There is one pain I often feel, which you will never know. It is caused by the absence of you.”

I am alive

It has been quite a time I surfed my Page. Nonetheless, I am back, I am alive and I will update. It was neither an exile nor self-imposed isolation but ‘impossibility’ left me cut off, absolutely! I couldn’t access internet from the countryside I belong, the facility I desperately missed. I knew how much I was kept engaged, informed, and exposed consistently only when I was left deprived of accessing such human-filth-dimension- the Internet.

Now I come again wishing you all a very happy and prosperous year 2010 ahead. Hope the regrets we had in the year 2009 will revamp our determinations for 2010, which I am pretty sure, will be farreachingly successful. ‘Loads’ of expectations are being hoarded in every one of us. Hence, let’s nurture them. Tashi Deleck!!!

Back Home

It has been a week having thronged in myself to Thimphu Town. I find it chillingly cold. The freezing breeze of Thimphu valley is giving me tough time. It is so cold, you can’t believe me.
I started joining Royal Court of Justice, High Court since yesterday, 12th November, 2009. I am interning which would span for a month and half. The environment in and around court seems so dreadful. I find every litigant bowed in respect, wrapped in their Kabneys and Rachus. Sometimes one is forced to wonder how one could put up the arguments when they themselves are shattered.
However, I feel good to be at home. I like being in Thimphu. I find myself free from academic pressures. I pride our capital progressing in every field. It is developing uniquely.
The irony, however is, I can’t go to my village. I crave to meet my old parents in vain. They live miles away in east. Nothing much can be done than accepting it. Within a wink’s time, the day to depart the town is sure to come. Thinking of this leaves me haunted.

Happiness in fifty Paise

As the ‘Guwahati Express’ chugs on at 7:30 AM tomorrow, I am destined to witness facets of inequalities the world has got to offer. The need of guts to travel in the train, especially, if you are one in the Sleeper Class is disturbingly not an exaggeration, at least to me.

We get to see so many disheartening things going on around the world. Do you think begging is oldest profession on earth? Most of us would be affirmatively toned. All kinds of beggars whose period of begging spans from five minutes to years can be seen within the bogies of the train. One can’t help wondering if they are beggar by choice. The answer seems too mysterious to comprehend.

Blind men playing melodious flute through his nose, the elderly, the disabled, the Lepers and Destitute having graduated to this profession, Lamed traversing the compartments on his shrunken butt who always wishes for the limbs, Amputees heart-renderingly appealing to the passengers with is innocent eyes, Juvenile as young as five mopping the floors to whom parenting seem too alien, eunuchs who rule the train setting the minimum from each Rs. 10 which leave travelers disgruntled enough to complain ‘that is quite a loot’, etc, etc, etc.

While, for some, begging seems the only option, some are admittedly suspicious and deceptive though. They are everywhere- on trains, at traffic signals, peering into taxi windows, bedraggled, haggard and breaking into a sudden smile when a few coins are dropped into their palms. A fifty paise contribution on our part makes the unfortunates smile revealing their never ever brushed ‘once in a while got edible particles tainted’ on their teeth. This is their happiness in fifty paise.

The journeys ensue leaving so much of helplessness firmly rooted in its depth within me. Nothing much can be done than accepting, lamenting, and realizing the harsh realties dovetailed in the form of inequalities. I have already hoarded the coins and I will contribute bit of it to each of them. Hundreds of them, before I wrap up my destination, are for sure to come by. Come what may, I can’t afford to turn them away.

 In between, I am too fragile that every such journey leaves me wounded somehow sometime, finding myself shackled by the memories of the miseries those unfortunates I encountered are writhing through.