Across Many Mountains by Yangzom Brauen

Author:Yangzom Brauen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

SEPARATION

With their hearts heavy and their thoughts dark, Kunsang and Sonam disembarked from the train in Dehradun and took a bus to Mussoorie. Yet when they arrived at the children’s home, their spirits rose. Mrs. Taring welcomed them warmly. She had shiny black hair and wore a Tibetan chupa and the traditional apron of a married woman, made of three vertical panels of brightly colored striped material, with the upper corners bordered in a floral tapestry pattern. She read Geshe’s letter attentively and studied the excellent reference Kunsang had been given for her work at Stirling Castle. My grandmother told her about their escape from Tibet and how she and Sonam had fared in Shimla, although it was not easy for her to speak to such a highly revered woman, whom most people called ama lhacham kushok, meaning “divine noblewoman.” During the entire conversation, she bent low in a bow, showing proper respect.

Despite her high standing, Mrs. Taring seemed warmhearted and generous. She told my grandmother about the “children’s village” she had established, with twenty-six residential houses. In each house, twenty to twenty-five Tibetan orphans lived with a married couple who cared for them like a mother and father. Mrs. Taring offered Kunsang a job as a caretaker in one of the small residential groups. She would live in house thirteen. The “father” of the group had died not long ago, and his widow couldn’t cope with the workload on her own. Kunsang would help her take care of the children. Sonam could move into the girls’ hostel and attend an Indian school. All classes at the school were held in English, but as Sonam had already been to an English school, Mrs. Taring didn’t anticipate any difficulties. Kunsang and Sonam were extremely relieved and grateful; this was more than they had expected.

The only downside was the fact that the girls’ hostel where Sonam was to live was in Dehradun, some thirty-five miles away. The children’s village was much too far away to travel from there to the school every day, and even if Sonam had wanted to make the journey, Kunsang would not earn enough to pay her daughter’s bus fare. Mother and daughter had never been apart for longer than ten days in all their lives. They had always lived together, had overcome all their problems together, and were as close as only brothers and sisters or parents and their children can ever be. And now Sonam was to live in a different town. Kunsang understood that this was a great opportunity for her daughter, and she knew that she must take anything Rinchen Dölma Taring proposed as an order that she couldn’t refuse. In old Tibetan society, the suggestions of a noblewoman such as Mrs. Taring would always be followed to the letter, and Kunsang expected the same was true here.

Kunsang was glad that her daughter was to continue her education. The world of old Tibet, where a girl could aspire to being nothing more than a hardworking farmer’s wife or an attentive herdswoman and a good mother, was gone for good.

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