I boarded the city bus after work. In the bus, I met a student in his fourth grade going back home. I could see, his socks were slouched and he kept pulling it back up. Lagey, which should be as white as the winter snow, was murky green. His school uniforms were chaotic and stained. But the boy seemed matured enough to know how helpless he was.
“The boy must be notorious.”, whispered someone from the back of the bus. Others comically poked the boy with sarcastic comments. Finally a lady, who seemed to be in her fifties, asked the boy why he looked messy. The boy replied, “My father doesn’t give me money to buy new uniform and socks.” “He doesn’t come home when I am home”, he added. The same people whispered again, “Poor boy. He is just a kid. His father should be handed to the police.”
At that very instant, it occurred to me that people are judgemental. Irrespective of their knowledge on the matter at hand, their judgement will be rapid. The boy might have told a lie. The kids these days are very good at it. The father may have been looking out for his son but be financially unstable. The public presented their opinions based on the appearance they witnessed.
I was taken back to my unemployed days at Lingmethang in Mongar. It didn’t matter whether I tried or not. It was an impossible task to get a job residing in a place as small as Lingmethang. Owing to this, people there would look at me as though they wanted to say, “He finished college but still depends on his sister.”
They were, of course, not related to me in any ways. Judgement doesn’t require anyone to be acquainted to be passed. Judging someone is never okay. It doesn’t have a constructive aspect.
The Dragon in Gho 