When gambling habit takes root
21 February 2009
A family life was built strong and firm. But gambling ruins it. KINZANG CHODEN reports.
The house is made from scraps. Sources said the family used to live in a big house. At the doorstep, a warm welcome from Pema (name changed) and his wife. Their children had left for school.
Pema was never a serious gambler until he turned 23. As a young boy, he would play cards with his friends and family for fun. “It’s a fun so almost everyone in our neighborhood would play all sorts of card games,” he said.
“Yam was very popular. My dad would sit down for hours with his friends, playing it,” Pema said. He would sit beside his father and enjoy watching him play. Pema studied for a few years, and when he was in a junior school, he dropped out to work with his father, a small-time businessman.
For many years, he worked under his father until he started his own business. He owned a shop in the east. He had his daily customers, money was good, and he had a beautiful wife. Everything was sailing smoothly until he started playing cards.
Pema played cards during and after work with his friends. In the beginning, he played at his friends’ place or in a bar. Later, he started calling his friends over to his place, and they gambled for hours.
“In the beginning, I was a little worried as my husband drank while playing, thinking that it would hamper his health. But I was never against him playing cards. As he worked hard, I thought he wanted to have some fun as well,” recollected Pema’s wife.
Business was flourishing. They were happy and financially sound. Life was good. But, as money started coming in, Pema started betting on card games. He would spend more time with his friends than his wife and children. Pema never realised that he was developing a gambling habit.
His wife did try to stop him but he never paid heed. “He started playing almost every day. At first, it was only three friends he played with. Later, there were some 12 men in the house. I couldn’t say anything to stop them from coming to my house as my husband himself invited them,” she said.
“I could not control the impulse to gamble, even when I knew gambling was hurting me and my wife,” Pema said. “I thought about playing cards all the time and all I wanted to do was to play cards and nothing else, no matter what the consequences were.”
Things got worse when Pema started drinking. Since his wife was uneducated, there was no one to take care of the business. This went on for almost four years during which time everything changed.
The business went down. They could hardly pay the house rent and other bills. By then, Pema had become a compulsive gambler. He borrowed money from friends and family to pay off loans. They even had to cut back their expenditures once they realised that the loan could not be cleared.
“I lost hope and even wanted to commit suicide,” Pema recalled. “I felt so miserable looking at my wife who stood beside me, no matter what happened.”
Their hard times were never ending. While the family was struggling, Pema’s wife gave birth to twin baby girls. After three years, she gave birth to a baby boy. “We had not planned this. We wanted to start a family but after the twins …” he paused for a while and continued, “More children meant more expenditure.”
“After our third child, we decided to come to the capital hoping to start a new life. By the time I recovered from my gambling habit, I had already lost everything, even the small plot of land we had bought. Life out here was tougher than we thought,” Pema said.
Pema now works as a peon in a government office. He earns about Nu 3,000 a month. His wife tries to find work anywhere possible. She brings home a few hundred ngultrums in a month doing small chores like cleaning, washing clothes and running errands. Pema says, “I cannot go back to what I have already done. I try not to think about my past. I always make sure that I teach my children about good habits and life as a whole.”
“I know I am not the only one, who has been through such times,” Pema said. He said that through his story, he wanted to tell gamblers to sit with their families and talk about it, adding that, when gambling habit spread, it destroyed everything one owned.
“I am glad that I didn’t do anything stupid like committing suicide,” he said. “Now I am happier than ever and have never felt better about myself. Doing away with the habit was the greatest achievement.”
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A person who plays gamling, alys think of take of others money, In every action behind, there is a White man n Black man for our justice, it is a negetive thought, intention is to take of others money, in this case God does not help. he may give chance once/twice. These type of people will never prosper rather, making once own Live useless, n may surely turn to a big Crime.
A human finds a hard time in judging out the real fun in games or sports. The bhutanese tradition is so contradictory that we mislead the games in unhygenic activities of life which, usually termed as GAMBLING. People are so ignited within by the fuel of desire to become rich-too-soon or let’s say, a heavy risk on shaky standing despite the good words that their forefathers have whispered “Pls. do not stake your life uselessly”.
But, on the other side, story speaks of different sentiment of survivality. In the sense, the pleasure that they mull makes them intoxicated, forgetting the unavoidable responsibilities that they have sweared when stepping unto this beautiful world……to make it more lives by practising what they ought to do. so Shakespeare wasn’t wrong in phrasing……life is a drama, world is stage and we are the actors………
hey,all sits to gamble wth same intentions to take other’s money, and if that is the punishment of the god, definitely will be on all those gambles and in the bargain all should be faceing the same consequences. that means who wins? there should be some winners while some loses no? i am puzzled. but it is very true that gambling is not good.