Four marks of faith

25 April 2009

Seven years of prostration has worn the ground out, but not Sangay Dema.

At 72, Sangay Dema is frail and doddery. With one eye completely blind and the other with a failing vision, she is all but crippled by the vagaries of age and illnesses. But she has literally drilled holes into the ground with her sheer faith and determination.

Every day, she prostrates 50 times before the long mani dangrim at Pangrizampa Dratshang in Thimphu. Seven years of routine prostration at the same spot has resulted in four 30-centimetre-deep holes in the ground, a testimony to numberless times her palms and knees hit the dry ground.

Over the years, Sangay recited mani more than three million times.

Originally from Zhemgang, Sangay Dema has been living in Thimphu for more than 20 years now. She came to Thimphu to treat her eye which later turned blind. She got married and gave birth to three children but none of them survived.

After living in Dechenchholing for more than a decade, Sangay and her husband moved to the peaceful vicinity of Pangrizampa Lhakhang where they built a small wooden hut they call home. They have neighbours, but they are few and far between.

While Sonam Chophel, her 60-year-old husband, who works as the cook of the dratshang, takes care of household chores like cooking and washing, Sangay Dema is often found circumambulating the mani dangrim.

Early in the morning at six, Sangay walks to the mani and prostrates 25 times and circumambulates it a few times before going back home for breakfast at eight.

Afternoon sees her in the dratshang kitchen helping her husband prepare lunch. She is again seen at the mani at 4 pm. She performs 25 prostrations, goes around the mani a few times and heads home for dinner at six.

“When I don’t have to work in the kitchen, I am at the mani,” Sangay said. She said she hoped to continue her prostration routine as long as her health allowed. Pointing at the holes, she said that people often mistook them for ones that have been dug up. “But I swear they are my prostration marks,” she said.

Sangay Dema gets a monthly allowance of Nu 500 from the fourth Druk Gyalpo as kidu as she doesn’t have any means of livelihood. She applied for the kidu five years ago. Since then, she hasn’t seen any developments around her in Thimphu, confined as she is in her constricting little universe. “I get car sick. I cannot travel even a short distance,” she said.

The old couple is provided a monthly ration and free accommodation by the dratshang. For the past seven years, the couple has survived on Nu 1500 a month. With last month’s salary raise of Nu 1500, Sonam Chophel now gets Nu 3000 a month.

The couple has no plans to move anywhere, but in the twilight of their lives, they are worried about their failing health and lack of their own people around. “But we were told by the principal that dratshang will take care of us in the last part of our lives,” said Sonam Chophel, self-assured.

By Sonam Pelden

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