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Chapter 5
The Circle of Karma: A novel
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Life and works of Kunzang Choden
5.3. The Circle of Karma: An Introduction
5.4. Critical Study of parameters
5.5. Conclusion
Works Cited
5.1. Introduction
This chapter discusses about the novel The Circle of Karma written by a
Bhutanese writer Kunzang Choden. Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a
landlocked country in South Asia located at the eastern end of the Himalayas. Bhutan has
good diplomatic relations with India. India has friendly relations with Bhutan in trade,
commerce and many bilateral talks have been organized between the chiefs of India and
Bhutan. Recently, the Prime Minister of India Shri. Narendra Modi invited the Prime
Minister of Bhutan Lyonchen Tshering Tobgay to attend the swearing-in-ceremony of
NDA government in May 2014. Thereafter, the Prime Minister of India Shri. Narendra
Modi visited Bhutan as his first foreign trip. Bhutan is a member of the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation i.e.SAARC, and it has no trade relations with
China, and so the study of Bhutan through literature is of extremely useful. Bhutan is the
only country to have officially adopted gross national happiness instead of the gross
domestic product as the main development indicator. In 2006, based on a global survey,
Business Week rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the
world. (“Bhutan”)
In the context of world literature, Bhutanese Literature seemed hidden in the
corner of this world and not exposed with its artistic writing. To meet the global standard,
Global Bhutanese Literature Organization (GBLO) was formed with common objectives.
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Objectives are to promote, protect, conserve and bring revolution in Bhutanese Literature
in the 21st century with new concept and ideas of all people, connect Bhutanese writers
all over the world, encourage and uplift the young generation in the field of literature and
education, keep old literature alive with respect and bring change in progressive way
across the globe, encourage all people in literary field making their active participation. It
is fully non political literary organization for all Bhutanese people. GBLO works for the
promotion of writers and readers at global level through different Medias. GBLO also
works to share art in literature with world community in progressive way. (Global)
There are a few Bhutanese writers. Kunzang Choden is a Bhutanese writer. Ap
Chuni Dorji is a Bhutanese poet and creator of the most famous Yak Song ever written.
Dzok Trun Trun is also a Bhutanese writer and notable literary scholar. He delivers
lectures at the Royal University of Bhutan, addressing social issues such as Gross
National Happiness and Buddhism. He was also a noted government advisor to the
cabinet of Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigme Thinley. Dzok Trun Trun was a recipient of
the Royal Order of Bhutan in January 2013. His first novel, Swollen Swallow, Green Tea
Leaf, was published in 2009. This novel deals with the rapid change of infrastructure and
opening up of Bhutan to the western world and rural people outside of the capital
of Thimphu who seem oblivious to what is happening. This novel has been championed
by the Dzongkha Development Commission who labelled the novel 'Bhutan Novel of the
Year- Silver Award 2009'. The works of Dzok Trun Trun have not been published in
English, but only in Dzongkha and Tibetan. (Dzok)
5.2. Life and Works of Kunzang Choden
Kunzang Choden is a Bhutanese writer. She is the first Bhutanese woman to write
a novel in English. Choden was born in 1952, in Bumthang District. She has a BA
Honours in Psychology from Delhi and a BA in Sociology from the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. She has worked for the United Nations Development Program in
Bhutan. She is a Bhutanese writer married to a Swiss. Her works include Folktales of
Bhutan , Bhutanese Tales of the Yeti , Dawa: The Story of a Stray Dog in Bhutan, The
Circle of Karma, Chilli and Cheese- Food and Society in Bhutan and, Tales in Colour
and other. (“Kunzang”)
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I. Folk Tale of Bhutan
This is the first attempt of a Bhutanese writer to record in English the oral
traditions of their kingdom. It has resulted into collection of thirty-eight Bhutanese
folktales and legends. She has also preserved Bhutanese oral tradition for everyone to
appreciate.
II. Bhutanese Tales of the Yeti
It is a collection of twenty-two stories set in four different regions of Bhutan. The
presence of the yeti is ubiquitous to the kingdoms of the Himalayas, where beliefs and
attitudes related to it go beyond scientific judgment and analysis. The Bhutanese consider
the yeti, or the migoi, to be an essential part of the backdrop of their existence. This is
second volume on Bhutanese folktales.
III. Dawa: The Story of a Stray Dog in Bhutan
Dawa is an old dog who spends most of his time outside Chandgangkha lhakhang
temple in Thimpu. This ancient temple, built on a hillock overlooking Thimpu, is a
historical landmark. Dawa has chosen to spend the rest of his life here only. He
understands Dzongkaha, he has an urge to see the world and his brave brain is matched
only by his compassionate heart. Dawa's story exemplifies the people of Bhutan, gentle,
hard working, devout and friendly. Dawa's determination to reach his destination could
have been a metaphor for the determination of the people of Bhutan to always be free of
outside influences. It describes the beauty of Bhutan where "Gross National Happiness"
is the country's motto and, the people are always smiling.
IV. The Circle of Karma
The Circle of Karma, published in 2005, is her first novel. It takes place in the
1950s, the initial period of imperially regulated modernization in Bhutan. The main
character, a Bhutanese woman is forced to deal both with the traditional,
restrictive gender roles of pre-modern Bhutan and the new kinds of sexism developing as
men gain economic freedom. The novel tells the story of Tsomo, a young Bhutanese
woman who embarks on the difficult and lonely journey of life. Tsomo's travels, which
begin after her mother's death, take her away from her family, and lead her across Bhutan
and into India. All the while, Tsomo seeks to find herself and a life partner, and grows as
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a person and a woman. The novel is enriched by detailed descriptions of ritual life in
Bhutan. The novel weaves a complex tapestry of life from a relatively unknown part of
the world.
V. Chilli and Cheese- Food and Society in Bhutan
This is a pioneering book offering insight into Bhutanese food culture within its
historical and geographical context, as well as looking at food-related beliefs and
practices. Kunzang Choden highlights the importance of food as a socio-economic
signifier and illustrates how food has meaning beyond nourishment, particularly in its
symbolic forms in religion and ritual. The author explores regional agricultural and
herding practices, the use of wild plants and the resulting food customs and habits.
VI. Tales in Colour and other stories
In this collection, all the stories take place in rural settings, to which creeping
urbanization brings gradual change, and tensions surface between the new and the old, or
the traditional and the modern. For many rural women, being able to connect to the city
and all its perceived power and glamour is a very real aspiration.
5.3. The Circle of Karma: An Introduction
The opening locale of the novel is set in Thimpu in Bhutan. The novel opens with
a prologue and it narrates the events in flash back. Tsomo, the protagonist, goes to meet
Lham Yeshi. Tsomo complains about her foot. She talks about a man who stays at a
chorten i.e. stup and has a girl friend-an old woman. Tsomo continues her talk saying, “I
never want to think of men or sex. Men and sex have caused me enough suffering to last
many lifetimes”(ix). Lham Yeshi is a migrant and the municipality is evicting the
migrants who construct their unauthorized huts in and around Thimpu town.
Tsomo is the third child and the first daughter among twelve siblings. She was
very weak in childhood. She was born in the Year of Monkey as per Bhutanese calendar
and it has been forecasted she would remain restless, always wanting to travel throughout
her life. The astrologer predicts from her horoscope that material prosperity would elude
her but if she practices religion, she will be born as a man in her next life. Right from
childhood Tsomo has been made conscious about her womanhood. She asks her mother
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‘Where is the furthest I can travel to Mother?” Her mother replies: “Where can a girl
travel to? Perhaps as far north as Tibet and as far south as India” (2). The orthodox
background of her parents is revealed in the beginning and there is a drastic change in her
personality as the event progresses.
By the time she was fifteen, they were only seven siblings. Five of her brothers
and sisters had died in infancy and the last died with mother before it was born. Thus,
Tsomo has grown up in a typical patriarchal family system where she, being a girl child
has to care her younger siblings. Her house is big and her ancestors had been known as
the Wangleng chupko or the wealthy of Wangleng. The economic condition of her
ancestors was very sound and they were proud of being tax payers. The municipality is
charged with the unpleasant task of evicting the migrants who construct unauthorized
huts in and around Thimpu town. Tsomo’s father is a gomchen or a lay monk. He spends
most of his time performing rituals in and around the village. Tsomo used to listen from
him about the importance of karma which makes our next life happy. When Tsomo longs
to be able to read, write and learn religion, her father says, “You are a girl. You are
different. You learn other things that will make you a good woman and a good wife.
Learn to cook, weave and all those things. A woman does not need to know how to read
and write” (21).
Tsomo’s second oldest brother marries to a girl from village and becomes a
farmer. Choden narrates incident of playing of sensual games by school boys and girls.
They swim in muddy –deep water and then touch and pull the organs of the opposite sex.
Tsomo is a stubborn child. There is a mention of wedding ceremony and how girls
become pregnant and they have to undergo purification ceremony. If a woman does not
perform tshangma, she would be held responsible for any natural catastrophes that befell
the village that year. For Chimme, a girl who has pregnancy of four months, no male
comes to claim the father of the child and so she becomes defiant. She says, “I am not the
first woman to go through this and I will not be the last and this helped me to appear
unperturbed. How did I look? Frightened? Ashamed?” (43). The father of Chimme’s
child is a gaylong or a celibate monk who may lose his celibacy if he confesses about
Chimme’s child. Chimme could not go for abortion as it would have sinned doubly,
making a gaylong lose his celibacy and killing her own child.
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Tsomo regrets at one stage for not getting started her menstruation till the age of
fifteen and feels that it is because of her karma that she may be deprived of having a baby
in future. Tsomo had seen her mother either pregnant or sucking a child at her soft
sagging breasts. Her father believes ‘Dangpa mi yi long choi, nepa choygi long choi,
sumpa junor long choi.’ (Means ‘first the abundance of people, second the abundance of
religion and third the abundance of material wealth’) (56). Tsomo’s mother dies in a
labour pain and could not deliver a baby. Her family believes that, “The unborn child
must see the light of day…Leaving it in the womb will cause it similar obstacles in its
future lives” (60). Tsomo’s mother’s body was cut with a knife to remove the fetus. Her
mother is cremated and on the same day the baby’s body is put into a tiny box which is
immersed in the river. The post death rituals continue up to forty-nine days. Tsomo’s
father decides to remarry a girl named Tashi Lhamo, almost few years elder than Tsomo.
He says, “A person in my position cannot do without a wife. There must be a woman to
welcome, entertain and see off guests and see to the daily affairs of the house. The house
should not feel like a cold cave” (64). Tsomo being elder child, she has more
responsibility now after death of her mother. She has become mother to her siblings. Her
father, a religious person does not care much about kids. Kesang is seventeen year old
sister of Tsomo who helps in weaving fabrics. Her seven year old brother Nidup Tshering
wants to become a gomchen. Another brother Kincho Thinlay is sixteen, but he is slow
and partially deaf, so could not become gomchen. They try to cure blockage of his speech
and worship deities for his cure.
Tsomo is grief stricken for the death of her mother. She thinks of going to
Trongsa and light butter lamps for mother’s first death anniversary. She leaves for the
first time alone. Tsomo starts her journey to Trongsa alone. On her journey, Tsomo meets
a man-Dhondulpa, his sister Ani, and Wangchen, his son. One night while Tsomo is
sleeping in the open around the fire, Wangchen approaches her for sex and she likes it.
After departure of Ani and Dhondulpa, Tsomo and Wangchen live there, they make love
and enjoy sex. She goes at all the temples with Wangchen and offers butter lamps at all
the altars. Tsomo decides to go back to home as she remembers her siblings. Tsomo is
unaware of the fact that Wangchen has already been married and has kids also. Tsomo
and Wangchen start return journey. After three months Tsomo finds her pregnancy.
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Tsomo thinks about the prestige of her father and what she has already done. She thinks
of writing a letter to Wangchen but as she is illiterate, she could not. Though Wangchen
married in childhood, he agrees to marry Tsomo. He hides the fact of his earlier marriage
and kids. Tashi Lhamo, the step mother of Tsomo knows about Tsomo’s pregnancy.
Tsomo gives birth to a dead child premature. Tsomo’s belly is swollen because of illness
and she considers it is because of her karma. Later on Wangchen falls in love with
Kesang, younger sister of Tsomo. She marries him and has a child also. When Tsomo
knows this fact, she feels very depressed and thinks about going far away.
Tsomo reaches Thimpu. People from all over Bhutan come for reconstruction
work on the Thimpu dzong. At that place where people work for road construction,
Tsomo meets Tseten Dorji and his wife Ugyen Doma, and lives with them. Though she
gets involved in the activities, she longs for Wangchen. Tsomo works as a maidservant.
She feels jealous of her sister Kesang. All sorts of people are being employed on the road
construction sites between Phuentsoling and Thimpu. She dreams to do better than just do
labour on roads. She wants to learn, read and write and to practice religion and become a
nun. She dreams of becoming a good woman, - a good wife and a mother of big family.
She wants to make her family prosper and wants to show Kesang and Wangchen that she
is worth something. Later on Tsomo plans to make a little money to pay for her journey
to look for her brother and then she will practice religion and get out of this cycle of
suffering.
One day Dechen Choki, a twenty one year old lady, comes to Tsomo’s hut. She
looks like her sister Kesang. Initially Tsomo denies but then agrees to allow her to live in
her hut till she gets another arrangement. With the arrival of Dechen Choki, laughter and
warmth reappeared in Tsomo’s life. After completion of work at the site, the workers are
directed to join for the new site. Tsomo and Dechen Choki decide to go with them. At the
site, the first thing done is to dynamite the rocks so that there are enough stones for the
women to hammer into gravel. It is extremely dangerous work. Dechen has been
molested by her step-father and now the employer. After this, Tsomo and Dechen decide
to go Phuentsoling, situated near border of India. At Phuentsoling, Dechen has regained
some of her confidence and spontaneity. The change of place is good for her. Kalimpong
was a just a day’s journey from Phuentsoling. Tsomo had heard in Thimpu that her
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brother was there too, as a gomchen with Karsang Drakpa Rinpoche. They plan to reach
up to Siliguri and from there to Kalimpong by taxi. She imagines, “Kalimpong was the
place that was going to give her a new life. A life of religion and prayer. A life of peace
and forgetfulness. She wanted to forget all that she had left behind” (130).
Tsomo and Dechen reach Siliguri. They go Kalimpong by a jip full of passengers.
There she finds people from Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet. Kalimpong is almost like a
Bhutanese village. Tsomo has come to Kalimpong for searching her brother. On the way,
Tsomo finds one person who resembles her brother and on inquiring, she finds him to be
her brother. He manages about their boarding. She talks about her family with Gyalsten.
He comes to know about his mother’s death after six months of her death. When Tsomo
informs Gyalsten about her family, Gyalsten says very true fact about human being that
one can never be free of our attachments through our bodies. There is a yearning that
calls for family. Families are connected through blood and bones and there is a restless
anxiety that haunts one all the time. Later on Tsomo informs about Kesang and
Wangchen. She wants to learn religion, but as she is not educated, she can’t. Thereafter
they go to get Lama Karsang Drakpa Rinpoche’s blessings.
Dechen starts weaving bags with specific patterns and colors as her profession
and Tsomo creates hobby in gardening. They meet Pema who has a son, Tenzing, twenty
one years of age. Tenzing falls in love with Dechen and marries her. Tenzing decides to
go to Sikkim, as there are more opportunities for taxi driver there. After departure of
Dechen, Tsomo thinks that she is a cursed woman, having no children, no home. Pema
Buti informs Tsomo about news of Tenzing and Dechen in Gangtok. They are doing well
in Sikkim and they have bought a second jeep. Dechen gives birth to a baby boy and her
husband inherited property from his uncle in Gangtok. Tsomo feels envious that happy
things are happening to people all around her and nothing much happened in her life.
Tsomo’s brother comes home from Kurseong and decides to go back to Bhutan
and do a series of retreats in the holy meditation sites, starting with Paro Taktsang,
Singhe Dzong in Kurtoi and in Bumthang. He asks Tsomo to join her but Tsomo does not
want to return home like a beggar. Her brother leaves for Bhutan. Tsomo has met some
people with whom she feels at ease and she is not so lonely anymore. One day Tsomo
decides to go Dorjiten (it is Bodhgaya) and manages money required for that. Even as a
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small child in her village, Tsomo had known that every person should strive to visit this
holy place at least once in a lifetime. Tsomo considers her to be lucky because of her
karma. At Dorjiten, Tsomo goes with her companions to all the main pilgrimage sites,
lights butter lamps and prays.
Later on Tsomo plans to become a nun. She dreams how she would look as a nun.
She decides to join the Bhutanese pilgrims going to Kalimpong when they travel back.
Some other pilgrims plan to go Tso Pema in Rewalsar in Himachal Pradesh; it is the
place where Guru Rinpoche had transformed the burning pyre into the soothing waters of
a lake. Tsomo wants to return to Kalimpong and not to go any further. Going deeper and
deeper into India, she fears may swallow her in its vastness. She regrets that she missed
the opportunity to return Kalimpong first with her companions and then with Ani Decho.
Tsomo changes her decision and goes with her companion at Rewalsar in
Himachal Pradesh. At that place, an elderly man proposes Gomchen Lhatu for her. Lhatu
is a good man and he is quite well educated too. His parentage is clean, tax payers on
both his parents’ sides. Though Tsomo refuses Lhatu, Tsomo feels that she has been
neglected by her companion, lonely and isolated. Tsomo likes his company and later on
they get married. They move towards Dehradun. They meet high lama Rinpoche, and he
suggests them to go to Mussorrie, where there is an American hospital. Rinpoche is
dedicated to copying Buddhist manuscripts because so many of them had fled their
country without their scriptures and the Chinese were engaged in the systematic
destruction of all religious artifacts and scriptures. Tsomo’s illness is supposed to be
cured. She has been sent to an Indian doctor and an interpreter who interprets in Hindi. At
Dehradun, in spite of physical comfort and mental well-being, her health has deteriorated
and she has begun to experience more discomfort and pain. Her belly grows hard like an
over pumped ball and becomes heavier. Her appetite disappeared. She has been taken to
an American hospital at Mussorrie. The doctor examines her but the medicines given
make her uneasy and drowsy and her belly aches as if with childbirth contractions. She is
miserable. Gradually, Tsomo feels optimistic and rejuvenated. She starts weaving. After
a few months in Dehradun, Tsomo goes to Delhi with Lhatu on advice of Rinpoche. He
says that Lhatu will get job as scribe in Delhi and greater market for Tsomo’s Bhutanese
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woven bags. So that they may get more money and pay for her medicine and operation
charges.
Lhatu and Tsomo reach Ladakh Vihar in old Delhi. She starts weaving and Lhatu
as a scribe Tsomo goes to Chandani Chowk. One day a Tibetan, Sherab comes to her
home inquiring Lhatu. Lhatu has been lying Tsomo that he has some additional work at
office. Tsomo and Sherab go on a three wheeler scooter to eat Tibetan food up to far
place from the city and that place is Tibetan refugee camp. She finds him gambling.
Gradually Tsomo and Sherab come closer and they like physical contact also. Sherab
advises her to go to Kalimpong. Tsomo thinks about herself:
All these years and all the yatras that I wove, allegedly for the doctor,
went to support his gambling habits. I began weaving even before my
operation wounds were healed properly. I, the fool, the idiot, a complete
cow minus the horns, am weaving one which he commanded that I should
finish today so that he can post off tomorrow. (251)
Lhatu and Tsomo reach Kalimpong. Tsomo becomes weaver here. She weaves
not because of economic compulsion but because she needs to do something before she
lost all sense of purpose. Lhatu and she maintained a cool, detached and dispassionate
relationship. Lhatu has young Bhutanese female friends also. He discontinued gamble.
Pema Buti feels happy that Tsomo has come back to Kalimpong. Dechen Choki has TB
and she has become thin and weak. She does not like to take medicines and go to the
special hospital for TB patients. Tsomo enjoys Hindi movies there.
There is a change in Tsomo’s attitude. Although she performs the daily rituals of
offering water at the altar and lighting butter lamps and saying a few prayers, all her
actions seem hollow and cursory. She thinks of religion as “Another time, at a later time,
When I get older” (258). Tsomo and her husband are jolted back to reality when their rich
patron suddenly left for Bhutan. Her husband and she are invited to join them, but Lhatu
makes some excuses. Tsomo is aware that Lhatu’s business takes him to Phuentsoling,
more frequently and some time he does not return for weeks at a time. She learns that he
has a mistress, a young girl. Tsomo feels a lot and she thinks, “It was not so much the
anger and the loneliness but the question of being so valueless that hurt her. How could
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she be cast aside so easily after all these years? She was not like an old shirt that could be
easily discarded and forgotten” (262).
At Phuentsoling Tsomo meets a young girl who is sixteen years of age. The girl is
pregnant, carrying Lhatu’s child. Tsomo thinks that her married life is now on the dying
stage. Tsomo thinks that women internalized their problems and grief and believe that
they are all at fault. Women are the thieves, stealing husbands from each other, living in
suspicion and hate. While reaching back at Kalimpong, Tsomo comes to know that she
has really forgotten to lock the house and everything of any value that she owes has been
stolen. Her friend Lhadon helps and says her to live with her. Lhadon allows Tsomo to
live in that house until her house is re-established. There is a mention of foreign priests
called father who give out the food. The novelist shows that how Christian father
provides help to children. The people call them ‘milk Christmas' and ‘rice Christmas’.
The fathers get lot of money to help the poor.
Tsomo wants to be a nun. She shaves her head. She has stopped going to the
cinema for which she was very much fond of. She continues to distil alcohol for sale. It is
easier and faster than to sell fabric. She hears death of Rinpoche and his body has been
taken to Thimpu so Tsomo goes there by bus. As Rinpoche is no more, she thinks that
there is no reason for her to live in Thimpu. She lingers on the idea to go back to
Kalimpong. Her own relatives come looking for her. There are children from her sister
Kesang and her former husband, Wangchen. Tsomo feels that she is a poor woman with
shaven head and not even a space of her own that she could call home and yet these
people come to her, calling her sister, aunt, granny, expecting nothing in return. Tsomo
has come to Phuentsoling for a few days just with her bag. She would have to go back to
Kalimpong for that is where she belongs. She takes the early morning bus back to
Phuentsoling after about two weeks in Thimpu. Her relatives come to see her off. She
feels that she belongs to each of them and to nobody in particular. Her relatives, ‘mine’,
‘my’ are words full of the burden of responsibilities and obligations.
During her journey from Thimpu to Kalimpong, Tsomo decides to live in Thimpu
as she likes it. Most of the Buddhist lamas have left Kalimpong. Bhutan has many lamas
and the religious atmosphere is much more serious. It is severe winter in Bhutan. At
chorten, she keeps herself busy in circumnutating or prostrating. After several months,
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the caretaker helps her to apply for a government stipend. Her obligation is to say a
certain number of prayers every month for which she is given a sum of money. Tsomo
does not want her relatives to bear the financial responsibility for her death. She wants to
be able to bear her own expenses even when she is dead. She wants to go in dignity and
does not want her death to be the cause of quarrels, discord and disgrace in the family she
has abandoned long ago.
After several months in Thimpu Tsomo is convinced that she has made the right
decision to come and live there. She likes meeting the different people there, relatives and
friends. Thimpu attracts all sorts of people who come there for its work opportunities, its
medical facilities, to meet their families or simply to see the big town. She has chosen to
be there because she feels she belongs there, with the aged and devout who centered their
lives around the chorten. Wangchen has come to Thimpu to get his cataract operation. He
has become weak and old. He is simple her former husband, Kesang’s husband now and
her brother-in- law. Wangchen has to be helped around the house because his left eye is
still blind and his right eye has not healed enough to be uncovered. Thimpu keeps
growing and laws keep changing and so the location of Tsomo’s dwelling has to change
because she has to move each time her hut is declared to be on an unauthorized area
within the municipality. Tsomo thinks, “It is not easy to live like enlightened buddhas if
we have the bodies and minds of human beings. A whole life time’s endeavor is not
enough to do that. Tsomo thought. But who was she to expound on human weakness or
the virtues and religion?” (311)
In the epilogue Lham Yeshi under the gate of chorten, tries to see if Tsomo is
there among the people who are circumambulating the holy monument. Tsomo
announces that she is going to the Kalachakra Wang in Siliguri as His Holiness, the Dalai
Lama is coming. The Dalai Lama is the true Buddha of Compassion. Then she wants to
go on to Bodhgaya for the Great Prayer Festival. This will be her third and final year at
the Prayer Meeting and the last big pilgrimage. After coming back she will spend the rest
of her days in Bhutan visiting all the holy places here. Tsomo is seventy five years of age.
Tsomo has renounced the worldly pleasures and joined Buddhism as a nun. She is at
chorten experiencing circle of her karma.
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5.4. Critical Study of parameters
The researcher has carried out extensive narrative analysis to study various
parameters to understand the elements of diaspora in the novel. The same are discussed
as under.
I. Time and type of migration
The purpose of migration may be political, religious or economical. Here, Tsomo
feels the weight inside her for the death of her mother. She could not weep properly after
the death of her mother. She thinks of going to Trongsa and light butter lamps for her
mother’s first death anniversary. Perhaps the act will hasten the healing process and help
in dealing with mother’s death. She is leaving for the first time alone. Her father agrees
and asks her to light the lamps properly for the dead mother. She feels cheated by
Wangchen who promises her to marry but later on married her sister Kesang. So Tsomo
wants to get rid of both of them and leaves her home. Thus in the novel, the initial
purpose of migration of the woman protagonist is different than other novels under study.
It is voluntary for spiritual quest. Tsomo has not conducted her journey for career or
because of marriage.
On her journey, Tsomo meets many people and continues her journey from one
holy place to another, arrives in India at Bodhgaya. She also visits Tso Pema in Rewalsar
in Himachal Pradesh; it is the place where Guru Rinpoche had transformed the burning
pyre into the soothing waters of a lake. Later on Tsomo comes in contact with Lhatu and
visits Dehradun to cure her swollen belly and from there at Ladakh Vihar, in Delhi where
Bhutanese live in Ghettos. She feels victim of circumstances and comes back to Thimpu.
Thus the migration of Tsomo may be considered as temporary for spiritual and religious
purpose and it is not for settlement at one place. Tsomo’s brother becomes a priest and so
his migration is for religious purpose.
II. Glimpses of homeland in the novel under study –its
geography, polity, economy and locale
Kunzang Choden vividly describes the locale of her native land i.e. Bhutan. The
opening locale of the novel is set in Thimpu in Bhutan. Through Tsomo’s father and
mention about her ancestors, Kunzang informs about the status of people in Bhutan,
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about the problems of migrants in Bhutan from Nepal. Tsomo’s house is big and her
ancestors had been known as the Wangleng chupko or the wealthy of Wangleng. The
economic condition of her ancestors was very sound and they were proud of being tax
payers. The municipality is charged with the unpleasant task of evicting the migrants who
construct unauthorized huts in and around Thimpu town. Tsomo’s father is a gomchen or
a lay monk. He spends most of his time performing rituals in and around the village.
There were peach, pear and walnut trees surrounding her house. Lovely spring season of
Bhutan is mentioned. The orthodox beliefs of the people of Bhutan are mentioned. Her
aunt Dechen feeds the spirits to make them contended and keeps any evil away from the
villagers. Throughout her childhood she listens to importance of karma which makes our
next life happy. Her father informs her about karmic illness.
The economic condition of Bhutan is narrated in the novel. The serfs are
descendants of the plains people, who are brought as slaves and are considered to be of
the lowest class. The tenant farmers are considered to be a little higher up the social
ladder. The tax structure and collection of taxes is mentioned. “Each household was taxed
differently based on the number of people in the house and the size of their land holdings.
This was the time the taxpayers envied the serfs and the other tenured farmers who
worked for their master everyday but did not have to worry about any taxes ”(54). The
general economic condition of the people of Bhutan is mentioned in the novel. People
from all over Bhutan come for reconstruction work on the Thimpu dzong. They work at
the site, hauling timber, breaking stones. “All sorts of people were being employed on the
road construction sites between Phuentsoling and Thimpu. Some of the people at the
dzong construction site were planning to work on the road after they had done their
mandatory labour contribution, in order to earn something to take back home” (99-100).
There is an acute scarcity of vegetables in Bhutan in winter. They cook turnip
throughout winter because it is one vegetable that keeps well for several months. Choden
describes pleasant spring season in Bhutan, “The willow trees around the village wore
various shades of green, the pear trees carried a profusion of soft, white flowers with the
palest yellow in the centre and the peach trees were covered with bright blossoms. All
around the village ponds were clumps and clumps of primroses covered with soft
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powdery dust” (46). Tsomo used to play sensual game with the school boys and girls.
They swim in muddy –deep water and then touch and pull the organs of the opposite sex.
Thus, Choden as a writer in English from Bhutan has given the idea about
geography, location and economy of Bhutan.
III. Glimpses of hostland in the novels under study -its
geography, polity, economy and locale
The novel depicts journey of Tsomo in search of self and for spiritual salvation.
Tsomo and Dechen decide to go Phuentsoling, situated near Indian border. Choden
describes the scene of that place. In those days, it was not like it is today. There were no
high buildings and not so many shops. There were as many Bhutanese as there were
Indians.
Tsomo’s journey in India starts from the way to Siliguri and then Kalimpong
through train and Jip. She finds hill in an endless maze of zigs and zags. The condition of
Siliguri railway station in India is narrated thus:
Just then there was a tremendous push and Tsomo was thrown into the
crowd in the train, falling on top of several people, who began berating
and shouting at her…The small windows were jammed with people
pushing in their luggage. Even screaming children were being pushed in
through the windows. The compartment was full, so full that they could
actually feel each other’s breath on their necks. (176)
Religious places in India is described here, “Tsomo stood below the Mahabodhi Temple
and titled her head to look up. The pinnacle of the stupa seemed to pierce the blue sky
above. She felt herself being lifted into the clouds. All around people were praying,
prostrating and circumambulating. Monks and nuns sat in meditation” (179). Tsomo
decides to visit for pilgrimage to Tso Pema in Rewalsar in Himachal Pradesh; it is the
place where Guru Rinpoche had transformed the burning pyre into the soothing waters of
a lake. There is a mention of an American Hospital and Tibetan refugee camps in India.
The highlands of Bhutan are clean and arid so, many Bhutanese suffer from Tuberculosis
and die in India as they could not adjust in hot and humid sub-tropical Indian plains.
They even become addicted to alcohol in India. The religious and political issues of
South Asian nations are mentioned in the novel. Rinpoche is dedicated to copying
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Buddhist manuscripts because so many of them had fled their country without their
scriptures and the Chinese were engaged in the systematic destruction of all religious
artifacts and scriptures.
The people in India have a strong belief that evil times bring evil illnesses. In
India, a magician a trickster has been approached to cure Tsomo’s swollen belly. The
trickster brings a long string of rudraksha beads and chants mantras. There is a scorpion
and it is considered that if a candle is flamed and poured over the belly of the scorpion,
then the pain may be removed. But Tsomo’s pain continues and she has been sent for
operation.
India as a secular country gives equal values and respects all religions. Rinpoche
has been invited by the Tibetan community in Mussorie to come and consecrate the
monastery they have recently built. Tsomo reaches Delhi with Lhatu. Buddhist religious
places at Delhi are mentioned. Tsomo visits Ladakh Vihar, Buddha temple and Chandani
Chowk. The scene of India is narrated through Chandani Chowk in Delhi, where they
could get everything and anything if they could manage not to get lost among the endless
alleys of shops crowded with noisy and loud traders and equally rowdy customers.
The novel describes the people, geographical location of the hostland but not
much about the economy and polity.
IV. Attitude of the diaspora group towards other migrants and
the homeland
In the novel, Tsomo starts her journey from Bhutan, without proper goal to visit
various places. She meets people during her journey and decides to go further for
pilgrimage. During her journey she has become victim and harassed physically by her
own people who travel with her or whom she meets during journey. Dechen Choki is one
who has suffered like Tsomo in a male dominated society. Tsomo allows her to live with
her in a hut. With the arrival of Dechen Choki, laughter and warmth reappear in Tsomo’s
life. After completion of work at the site, the workers are directed to join for the new site;
Tsomo and Dechen Choki decide to go with them. These poor people have to live a
migratory life as per the need of workers at different places. Choden narrates the incident
that these people have to shift many times after completion of work at a particular cites.
“Having made their decision they dismantled their hut and put the bamboo sheets and
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poles together. They folded the ragged old tarpaulin, which was their roof, rolled up their
bedding, packed all their belongings and waited for the vehicle. All along the road
everybody was doing the same” (110). At the new camp site, there is a lot of squabbling,
cursing, shouting, pulling and pushing because everybody’s bamboo sheets and wooden
poles looked the same. At the site, the task is first thing done is to dynamite the rocks so
that there are enough stones for the women to hammer into gravel. It is extremely
dangerous work.
After arriving at Kalimpong and then at Himachal Pradesh, Mussorie and in
Delhi, the attitude of Tsomo and other migrants with her is positive towards the hostland
and here, there are no feelings like colonized and colonizer, oppressor and oppressed. But
the universal problem of refugees and their settlement remains unresolved.
V. Attitude of the diaspora group towards the hostland and
citizens of hostland
Choden narrates the migration of people of Bhutan to India. The purpose of the
protagonist is to get salvation through pilgrimage. So, in the novel there is no issue like
racial discrimination of the immigrants and hostile attitude of the immigrants towards the
hostland people. Tsomo gets help and abode at all the places of India. She visits
Kalimpong. At her brother’s place also, she gets place to stay and the people cooperate
her.
Her swollen belly has made her life miserable. She gets cooperation at Mussorie
to cure her illness. She also gets information about cure of her disease in Delhi. Thus, in
the novel there is a harmony among the citizens of the hostland and the diaspora. She
feels insulted and harassed physically as a woman, but that is a universal problem that
women are facing across the globe.
VI. Search for identity and feelings of alienation
Tsomo feels that she has been born to take care of her siblings since childhood.
She could not study and make her career as after the death of her mother, she has
performed the role of a motherly caring person for her younger siblings. At Trongsa,
Tsomo finds some time for herself and likes the company of Wangchen. She thinks that
Wangchen may fill the gap in her life. After departure of Ani and Dhondulpa, Tsomo and
Wangchen live there, they make love and enjoy sex. Wangchen has already been married
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and has kids also which Tsomo does not know. After three months Tsomo finds her
pregnancy. Tsomo feels victim of Wangchen’s lust. Her feeling of alienation is
accentuated when her own younger sister married Wangchen.
She plans to go to Kalimpong to search her brother who has become a gomchen.
Her alienation is reduced when she meets him, but it remains transient as he leaves for
pilgrimage and she denies joining him. Here Choden describes how food is a part of
culture and it matters a lot for recognizing one’s identity. “Soon the lady brought three
steaming bowls of thin soup garnished with fresh coriander and onion leaves. She placed
three plates with eight momos each in front of them. Then she brought a big bowl of red
chilli paste saying, ‘Bhutanese people eat too much chilli’ ” (141).
In the novel, food becomes a part of identity for Tsomo and others who come to
India from Bhutan for religious pilgrimage or for getting employment. After many days
Tsomo and Dechen are having good breakfast. It is cooked by Dechen, aromatic rice and
churned thick rich butter. There is a zesty salad of fresh chilli with onions, tomatoes and
ginger mixed with cheese which is garnished with coriander leaves.
There is a feeling of loneliness among the immigrants. The loneliness would go
away or she would get used to it. Tsomo replies her brother, “I like Kalimpong. I will
stay here. I do not want to go home” (164). She wishes to return only when she could say,
“Look what I have made of my life all on my own” (164). Tsomo feels that what she
would show at home. She does not want to return home like a beggar. Later on, Tsomo
decides to go with her companion at Rewalsar in Himachal Pradesh. She keeps thinking,
“Why I am being propelled from one place to another? Was this the fulfillment of a last
wish made in a previous life or was she the moth circling around the butter lamp?” (195)
Choden has narrated Tsomo’s feeling of alienation. Tsomo feels as the ‘Other’ at
various places that she visited for pilgrimage and she finds Bhutan as her own place of
belonging. Regarding this ‘otherness’ and feelings of alienation, Jasbir Jain says, “the
kind and quality of space invariably plays a dominant role in moulding societies and
people, even ideologies”(4). It is for various reasons viz., loss of mother, father’s
indifference, missing siblings, yearning for brother, being left by husband etc.
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VII. Nostalgia, memory and their role in the present
Longing for place and relatives is common human instinct and in diaspora text it
is reflected through the memory of the characters. At the place where people work for
road construction, Tsomo meets Tseten Dorji and his wife Ugyen Doma. She lives with
them. She frankly tells them that she has problem with her sister and husband and so she
decided to come away for a while. Though she gets involved in the activities, she longs
for Wangchen:
Everyday Tsomo hoped that there would be a message asking her to come
back. She imagined that Wangchen would send her a message begging her
to come back. ‘I am sorry. Please forgive me. I was wrong. Please come
back. You are my true wife.’ She saw Kesang, tears caught in her thick
eyelashes, ‘It was a mistake. Wangchen loves only you’. (98)
After meal with Gyalsten, Tsomo and Dechen reach Chomo Basti. Many people
from Bhutan live there. It is almost like a Bhutanese village like ghettos. Tsomo talks
about her family with Gyalsten. He came to know about his mother’s death after six
months of her death. At that time he was in a three year solitary retreat and could not
break it. The novelist brings the reality of life that even though Gyalsten follows a saintly
life, he remembers his past and relatives. When Tsomo informs Gyalsten about her
family, Gyalsten says very true fact about human being.
When I left home I Thought I could break away from all attachments,
from my parents, my brothers, sisters, my village, my country and
everything. I wanted to become a celibate monk and be completely free.
But you know something? Even if we free ourselves from all mental
attachments, I think we can never be free of our attachments through our
bodies. Within the very being in me there is a yearning that calls for
family. Families are connected through blood and bones and I think there
is a need to connect. If this connection is denied then there is a restless
anxiety that haunts you all the time. (144)
Tsomo dislikes Indian food so at the hospital in Dehradun, she does not like food. She
longs for Bhutanese food. As Rinpoche is no more she thinks that there is no reason for
her to live in Thimpu. She thinks to go back to Kalimpong. But she lingers on and the
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more she lingers, the more people she meets from her village. Her own relatives come
looking for her. There are children from her sister Kesang and her former husband,
Wangchen. She immediately knows that they are her niece and nephews by definition but
closer because they are her sister’s and her ex- husband’s children. Her brother Nidup
Tshering has become a cow herder. He has joined army and marries the widow of his best
friend in the army. Her father died within three years after her departure. Her brother
Kincho Thinlay died soon after she has left. He fell of a tree while lopping off the
branches for the cattle one winter evening. Tsomo feels that she is a poor woman with
shaven head and not even a space of her own that she could call home and yet these
people come to her, calling her sister, aunt, granny, expecting nothing in return.
Tsomo goes to Phuentsoling for a few days just with her bag. She would have to
go back to Kalimpong for that is the place where she belongs. She takes the early
morning bus back to Phuentsoling after about two weeks in Thimpu. Her relatives come
to see her off. She feels that she belongs to each of them and to nobody in particular.
Thus, the novelist mentions that in spite of feelings of being cheated by her relatives, she
feels something missing in their absence even during her pilgrimage.
Regarding Tsomo’s recollection of memory, Neera Singh, “Without history you
were nothing, a nobody, one of those fluffy seed- heads floating in the summer breeze,
unaware of your origins, careless of your destination. Meaningless, mythless, shapeless”
(26). Memory, remembering and forgetting are tools to reconstruct the self that had
become psychologically as much as physically unmoored. Dislocation and relocation
creates issues related to the construction of the self.
VIII. Issues related to alien language, social mobility and politics
of struggle for survival in the hostland
Choden mentions that Tsomo has lived in a small village in Bhutan and she could
not read or write anything. So, when she feels more alien during her journey. Tsomo
decides never to go back home. She wants to learn read and write and to practice religion
and become a nun. She dreams of becoming a good woman, - a good wife and a mother
of big family. She wants to make her family prosper and wants to show Kesang and
Wangchen that she is worth something. She goes to Phuentsoling, where Indian soldiers
are tarring road. They take women to break stones for gravel. Tsomo has a lot of dream.
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She dreams to do better than just do labour on roads. Here the novelist narrates the efforts
of Tsomo to get adjusted with alien atmosphere. She imagines:
Kalimpong was the place that was going to give her a new life. A life of
religion and prayer. A life of peace and forgetfulness. She wanted to forget
all that she had left behind. For although she was physically far away from
home her mind hovered in Wangleng. Room by room, face by face, she
saw them all. The smallest corners of her mind were filled with memories
of the life she was trying to escape from. Her mind refused to obliterate
the images of her brothers and sister as they would wake up in the
morning until they went to sleep at night…All these images of endearment
and affection were constantly disrupted by the single flash of memory of
Wangchen with his arms around Kesang, taunting her wordlessly.(130)
Diaspora is a journey and so when Gyalsten plans to go Kurseong for spiritual voyage,
Tsomo thinks this journey in philosophical terms, “We all are pilgrims on earth, but the
choices are not the same for all” (150). The novelist mentions how Tsomo makes efforts
to assimilate in new environment. Dechen starts weaving bags with specific patterns and
colours as her profession and Tsomo creates hobby in gardening. She plants ginger,
pumpkin beans, peas, chilli plants. She says Dechen on the matter of crossing roads that,
“Haven’t you seen that I am getting much better at crossing the streets? You know that I
must learn, if we are to live here” (153). Choden also mentions about the efforts of
Dechen in a foreign land. After marrying Tenzing, Dechen goes to Sikkim and makes
efforts for adjustment there.
Tsomo decides to go Dorjiten, which is Bodhgaya, for pilgrimage but needs 600
rupees, so she sells her old Bhutanese textiles to a foreigner in the market and gets
money. Tsomo bargains a lot and gets 500 rupees. Tsomo has problem in her belly, but
she continues weaving and earns for livelihood. After a few months in Dehradun, Tsomo
goes to Delhi with Lhatu on advice of Rinpoche. He says that Lhatu may get job as scribe
in Delhi and greater market for Tsomo’s Bhutanese woven bags. So that they may get
more money and pay for her medicine and operation charges. Tsomo gets adjusted at
Delhi, though Lhatu is not faithful to her and even economically not settled. After
reaching Kalimpong, Tsomo continues weaving, not because of economic compulsion
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but because she needs to do something before she loose all sense of purpose. Tsomo
enjoys watching Hindi movies there with friends. Tsomo for the first time uses lipstick
and other make-up cosmetics. Later on, Tsomo wants to be a nun. She pulls out silver
earrings from her ears and bracelets. She shaves her head. She stops going to the cinema
for which she was very much fond of. She continues to distil alcohol for sale. It is easier
and faster than to sell fabric. Although this is her livelihood, guilt consumes her and she
finally decides to stop the sinful business. Tsomo does not want her relatives to bear the
financial responsibility for her death. At the end, Tsomo wants not to be the cause of
quarrels, discord and disgrace in the family she has abandoned long ago.
The novelist has depicted the efforts of Tsomo right from her childhood to adjust
the situation and compromise, though it leads to unhappiness to her many a times. Tsomo
has to struggle a lot while adapting a foreign environment.
IX. Issues related to religion, racism in homeland and hostland
Choden mentions about the beliefs in religion and superstitions in Bhutan.
Religion and traditions inherent in it is a part of culture of a nation. Here, Chimme gives
birth to a baby girl and there is a mention of purification ceremony as birthing is
considered unclean. The novelist narrates about beliefs among the villagers in Bhutan:
that eating garlic while feeding a child is good. Tsomo’s father believes ‘Dangpa mi yi
long choi, nepa choygi long choi, sumpa junor long choi.’ (Means ‘first the abundance of
people, second the abundance of religion and third the abundance of material wealth’).
Choden narrates the incidence of death of Tsomo’s mother and rituals in Bhutan.
Tsomo’s mother dies in a labour pain and could not deliver a baby. Her family believes
that, “The unborn child must see the light of day…Leaving it in the womb will cause it
similar obstacles in its future lives” (60). Tsomo’s mother’s body was cut with a knife to
remove the fetus. Her mother is cremated and on the same day the baby’s body is put into
a tiny box which is immersed in the river. The post death rituals continue up to forty-nine
days.
After departing Wangchen, Tsomo plans to make a little money to pay for her
journey to look for her brother and then to practice religion and get out of this cycle of
suffering. The novel narrates many issues and belief related to Buddhism. Tsomo
considers her swollen belly as result of her karma. She wants to learn religion, but as she
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is not educated, she can’t. The novel provides kaleidoscopic picture of various religious
places and practices of Buddhism. Tsomo and her companions go to the place where
Buddha had attained nirvana. This is the pilgrimage of a lifetime. Even as a small child in
her village, Tsomo had known that every person should strive to visit this holy place at
least once in a lifetime. Tsomo considers her to be lucky chance because of her karma.
Choden has mentioned about religious beliefs, especially in Buddhism. She has
not mentioned any racial issues in homeland or hostland.
X. Issues of subaltern, especially condition of women in
homeland and hostland
Choden, being a woman novelist, has depicted the condition of women in
patriarchy and their subaltern status and different codes of conduct for men and women.
Tsomo, being a girl child, feels deprived of her basic rights as a human being in
patriarchy and Choden has given voice to her feelings. Tsomo asks her mother “Where is
the furthest I can travel to Mother?” (2) Her mother replies: “Where can a girl travel to?
Perhaps as far north as Tibet and as far south as India” (2).When Tsomo’s maternal
uncles and aunts married and left, she was told: “You are the oldest girl, you have to
learn to take the responsibilities of the household” (8). Tsomo longs to be able to read
and write and learn religion, her father says, “You are a girl. You are different .You learn
other things that will make you a good woman and a good wife. Learn to cook, weave
and all those things. A woman does not need to know how to read and write”(21).
In Bhutan women are supposed to undergo purification ceremony when they get
pregnant. There is a mention of wedding ceremony and how girls become pregnant and
they have to undergo purification ceremony. When a woman becomes pregnant she is
obliged to announce it and there is a purification ceremony called tshangma for a
pregnancy is seen as unclean unless purified. If a woman does not perform tshangma,
she would be held responsible for any natural catastrophes that befell the village that
year.
Chimme has pregnancy of four months no male comes to claim the father of the
child and so she becomes defiant she says, “I am not the first woman to go through this
and I will not be the last and this helped me to appear unperturbed. How did I look?
Frightened? Ashamed?” (43) Choden puts forward the reality for women through girls
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like Chimme that “Men are really lucky. They can do something and then deny all
responsibility. But for us women there is no way we can get away.” (43)The father of
Chimme’s child is a gaylong or a celibate monk who may lose his celibacy if he
confesses about Chimme’s child. Chimme at one time thinks about abortion, but it would
have sinned doubly. Making a gaylong lose his celibacy and killing her own child. Tsomo
being elder child, she has more responsibility now after death of her mother. She has
become mother to her siblings. Her father, a religious person does not care much about
kids.
At the construction site, poor women work with their infant kids. “The women
brought their baby baskets to their workplace and kept them nearby. Many of them had
babies tugging at their breasts as they hammered away at the stones” (103). These poor
working women are exploited by their masters and even they are sexually harassed and
molested. Dechen Choki has been molested by her employer. Tsomo tells her about
Kesang and Wangchen. Then Dechen Choki says, “Our stories are similar and yet so
different. Everything happened because we are women. You loved a man and suffered. I
hated the man and suffered” (109). Tsomo believes that men take advantage of every
situation. Dechen feels that she has been molested by her step-father and now this
employer. The novelist brings the reality that about a woman when Tsomo denies going
to Bhutan, her brother says, “A woman can’t live by herself so far from home. What if
you should fall ill or something?”(164)
Tsomo feels that a man may not be faithful to his wife and a woman is responsible
for it to some extent as she keeps relationship with a married man and spoils other
woman’s marital life. Tsomo considers that she stole Wangchen form his first wife and
later, her sister Kesang snatched Wangchen form her. Tsomo says, “Because she stole
my husband. We all know that a man is a man and he will stray sometimes but a woman
should know when a man is married and not lead him on” (269). Tsomo thinks that
women are the thieves, stealing husbands from each other, living in suspicion and hate.
Regarding the issues of subaltern and its depiction in diaspora writing, Gayatri
Spivak’s essay “Diasporas Old and New: Women in the Transnational World” offers the
role of the nation-state in the context of diaspora. More specifically, Spivak challenges
conventional articulations of diaspora in terms of “global hybridity” from “the point of
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view of popular culture, military intervention, and the neo-colonialism of the
multinationals” (89). Instead, she aptly argues, diaspora should be read as a result of the
“failure of a civil society in developing nations. … The undermining of the civil
structures of society is now a global situation … [and] the manipulation of civil social
structures [takes place] in the interest of the financializaton of the globe” (91). Spivak
squarely situates diaspora within a critique of the postcolonial nation-state and insists on
the limits of diasporic concepts of identity as they are embodied in the figure of the
indigenous, female subaltern. In the context of Bhutan, the rituals and patriarchal
restrictions have controlled women’s identity even in the post-colonial period.
5.5. Conclusion
The Circle of Karma is a novel depicting the predicament of a woman, who is
brought up under patriarchy. Tsomo feels alien in life as she has been cheated by her own
relatives viz., sister and the society in general. Regarding the feelings of rootlessness of
human being, R.S. Pathak quotes Erich Fromm et.al, “ the alienation from oneself, from
one’s fellowmen and from nature; the awareness that life runs out of one’s hand like
sand, and that one will die without having lived; that one lives in the midst of plenty and
joyless”(25). Choden has vividly narrated the geography, economy and polity of Bhutan
as well as India. Tsomo gets help from the immigrants in hostland and their attitude is
positive, however she becomes victim of man folk in patriarchy. She longs for her family,
her native and at last decides to live near her homeland. The novel narrates various rituals
in Buddhism but does not mention about any racial or religious conflict in the novel. One
of the reasons may be the countries in the novel are neighbouring countries and the
religious practices and rituals resemble in both the countries as well as people of both
the countries are racially common and there is no issue like colonizer and colonized or
white and non-white race. The novelist has made an outstanding effort to bring the life,
geography, economy, polity of Bhutan at the global level in English language as she is
the first novelist who has written in a language other than the regional language of
Bhutan.
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Works Cited
“Bhutan.” Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. Web.15 Jan.2012
Choden, Kunzang. The Circle of Karma: A Novel. New Delhi: Penguin Books India,
2005. Print.
“Dzok Trun Trun.” Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. Web.15 Jan.2012.
“Global Bhutanese Literature Organization.”
globalbhutaneseliteratureorganisation.webs.com. Web.5 May 2012.
Jain, Jasbir. ed. Cultural narratives: Hybridity and Other Spaces. Jaipur: Rawat 2012.
Print.
“Kunzang Choden.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunzang_Choden. Web.17 Jan. 2013.
Pathak, R.S. Modern Indian Novel in English. New Delhi: Creative Books,1999. Print.
Singh, Neera, ed. Diasporic Writing: The Dynamics of Be/Longing. New Delhi: Book
Plus. 2008. Print.
Spivak, Gayatri. “Diasporas Old and New: Women in the Transnational World.” Class
Issues: Pedagogy, Cultural Studies, and the Public Sphere. Ed. Amitava Kumar.
New York: New York UP, 1997. 87-116. Print.
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