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When car keeps you indoors

6 February 2010

 

 In the age of the car, an old car-phobic woman is consigned to a constrictive life. Sonam Pelden reports.

 She was born and brought up in Thimphu. She uses a Nokia mobile phone with modern rigsar song ngesem ngesem as ring­tone, and she can operate an MP3 player. But she is an odd one out because she cannot travel in a car.

Seventy-five-year-old Chi­mi Dem, aka Aum Bao Tsitsi from Lungtenphu, Thimphu, has never travelled in a car in her life. So she has been vir­tually physically cut off from the world. Notably, she has never been to a pilgrimage site within and outside the country.

Today, each of her four sons owns a car. Once she tried one of her sons’ car. The moment she got in, she felt as if everything around – trees, buildings, and mountains – were collapsing upon her, and she got nauseated. She is not made for the car.

 Of average build, Aum Tsit­si wears her kira way above her ankles and puts on a knit­ted bobble hat. In her youth, she had been to Punakha once where her parents owned some land. Later, she had been to Paro once to deliver some government consign­ment as part of woola (labour tax). That’s all about her jour­ney outside Thimphu.

She has seen beautiful places only in pictures, mov­ies and imagination. She rec­ollects visiting Dechenphu Lhakhang only four times in 75 years. She has never been to Tango and Cheri monaster­ies. Sometimes, she curses her car phobia. “It doesn’t feel good when I hear of my friends going on a pilgrim­age to Bodh Gaya, Nepal and Manali. I envy people visiting religious places around the country,” she said, rueing that she can never get rid of her

 phobia. Today, she doesn’t have friends who travel on foot to pilgrimage sites.

Aum Tsitsi is devout at heart. None of the family members dares to disturb her when she is watching videos of sacred places, lamas and religious performances. Noth­ing stops her from attending the Thimphu Drubchen and Tshechu every year. She gets up at dawn, cooks, eats, puts on her finery and walks to the dzong at around 5 so that she gets a good place to sit and watch the dances. She says that she is looking forward to attending this year’s festivals as well.

Mother of four, grand­mother of six and great grandmother of three, she always has someone accom­panying her to the hospital or town. Despite her age, she still holds the fort and man­ages family affairs ably.

 Today, Aum Tsitsi always stays home looking after her grandchildren and do­ing household chores. She stopped field works six years back.

Her youngest son and his family stay with her while the rest of her children stay in rented apartments. She has her sons and their fami­lies visiting her often but she hardly visits them.

Aum Tsitsi’s mobile phone contains the pictures of all her contacts. That’s her refer­ence point.

But Thimphu, her native land, the place she knows best, has no reference point for her today. It has now be­come a confusing concrete jungle. She says that she doesn’t know the way from the town to Tashichho Dzong. “If I have no friends with me, I will get lost,” she smiles.

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Posted by Chime · Filed Under Feature 

Comments

One Response to “When car keeps you indoors”

  1. nala on February 13th, 2010 11:08 am

    “one of her sons’ car” is this correct?to me it doesn’t make any sense.
    i think following make some sense.
    1. one of her son’s cars
    2. a car of one of her sons
    hmm…

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