The Survivor (11/03/25)

The Survivor

(I first posted the following story on my Facebook profile on 17th June, 2018. I have modified the story for the benefit of some of my readers.)

Recently I did a short course on ‘How to Make A Poem?’ by courtesy of Future Learn. It was a wonderful program and I learnt for the first time in my life that Poetry Writing could be fun too. One way of making a poem is, we were taught, how to make a poem out of a poem. Now that has kept me thinking – if a poem can be made out of another just by acknowledging the source then one way of making a short story will be by making it with the help of another. That will give us so many fables and parables, not to forget the hundreds and thousands of stories, we can choose from! God! Can you imagine what we can create as a result? So, here is ‘Yours for ever’ trying out something new for the first time in life. Hope my effort meets with your approval. The story my story is based on, is one of the most classic and popular of all time, O Henry’s “The Last Leaf”.)

THE SURVIVOR :

“No, you don’t worry, RNB Sir. This plant can survive on its own.

Why I want you to take it is- it is believed to bring good luck,” Madam Sangay told me, handing to me and Ms. Chencho, my colleague at school, one each of the plant.

Oh, sorry, mates. A story should have a propah Exposition. So here is the setting. We were taken by our VP, Madam Sangay, to someone’s cottage after attending a program at Gedu HSS. It was a lovely place with a multitude of plants and flowers blooming and adding colours to the environment all around. I was playing ‘Catch Balloons’ with the kid inside when Madam called me from outside. They were inspecting, discussing the benefits of some of those plants just outside at the doorsteps.

Her last words rang a bell somewhere. Something related to a plant, a sick girl lying on her deathbed and the dreamer of a painter.

But Madam had, in the meantime, already bounced back up the wet trail to her car parked by the side of the road. So without much ado, Ms. Chencho and I followed suit. On the return journey I came to know about Madam Sangay’s love for flowers and plants. I was also taken by her broad-mindedness. Even if she had not asked for our share of the unnamed plant, we couldn’t have complained because just to take us to the house of someone known to her, was magnanimity in the first place.

I was back to my own place at the crack of dusk and just to honour her words, found an empty tub somewhere, an empty tub half full of soil. I took the very healthy-looking stem in my hand, dug a hole of some sort in the center with my bare hands and covered it with the loose soil, having already lowered the sapling in the hole. It looked up to the sky above majestically, most probably thanking The Almighty up there for a fresh lease of life.

That evening for the first and last time, I watered it with vigour and hope. Something flashed through my mind as I got back inside my room from the veranda. The next year (2019) was to be my last year at CCS once the new Contract Agreement was finalized between the RCSC (Royal Civil Service Commission of Bhutan) and me. The contract of every expatriate Indian Teacher was renewed normally for 2 years by the RCSC. And a civil servant (The Teaching Cadre falls under the Civil Service in The Blessed Country) was supposed to retire at the age of 58. I had joined the teaching profession in The Happiness Country way back in 1990 at the ripe, old age of 28 years some months. Thinking that I would have turned 58 by May, 2019, I had applied for an extension of my existing contract till the end of December, 2019 – an extension of my contract for an additional 7 months. I was apprehensive if my contract would be renewed as I had hoped for.

The thought uppermost in my mind was – What if the plant died sometime sooner? Probably, something bad would happen to me like my contract might not be extended till December, 2019. I might fall sick or be given the sack summarily for some loopholes in the discharge of my job. What did the dying girl in that classical story tell her roommate? She would die as soon as the last leaf fell off the branch of the tree after the neighbourhood was whacked by a violent storm, didn’t she?

Days rolled on into months, and months into years. Soon, busy as we teachers are, I forgot everything about that Madam Sangay’s gift. Once in a while, when I went out to the veranda, I’d notice the plant, standing still majestically in the tub but the leaves didn’t look healthy anymore, the leaves had started yellowing. It looked lonely and withering.

 “God!”, I cried out to myself, “The plant is going to die soon! Something terrible is sure to happen to me! When I come back after the Winter Holidays, I’ll find it dead or used as a dead, dried stick by the crows to sharpen their beaks on!”

But for some reason, the plant, as Madam Sangay had told us on the day, proved to be a Survivor, a fighter of the highest order. I had to give it to the plant. By the time, I remembered the plant on my return to school after the Winter Break at the fag end of January, 2018, it was still there! Lonely but showing signs of being still in the rat-race for ‘the survival of the fittest’. What a wealth of knowledge we humans can derive from these tiniest of plants! We start doing drugs, give up without a fight and don’t mind bringing an abrupt, undesirable end to life when things do not go our way and here was this small plant still holding on to the last bit of life! It simply would not submit without a fight.

Anyway, to come to the end of my story and let me remind you here, dear reader, that a story is no story of any real worth if there is no twist in the end. So, like I was telling you, the year 2017 ended with both the plant and RNB surviving in their respective fields.

The year 2018, on the other hand, arrived quite unannounced. A new year meant a new beginning, a new hope. The plant outside on the parapet of the veranda, looked surprisingly strong. It was going to grow. It would survive, come rain or shine, I said to myself. Thus assured, I handed over the next day the application regarding my extension of the present contract with the Government of Bhutan to Madam Sangay, who happened to be the Officiating Principal of CCS by then.

How did O Henry’s story of epic proportions end? The struggling painter worked through the night and fixed his masterpiece of the leaf on to the plant outside. As the roommate opened the window after the storm had wrecked havoc on the previous night, the sparkling rays of sunlight trooped into the room to the amazement of the sickly, dying girl. She rubbed her eyes and looked out the window down to the tree. Lo and behold, the Last Leaf was still holding on to the bare branch, looking forward to the day’s challenges ahead!

She knew then that she was going to survive.

************************************************************

I was relishing the paratha with ezey (prickle) in the Staffroom when I received a call from Madam Sangay. She was sitting behind the table in her office.

“Sir,” she called out to me as I removed the curtain to seek her consent before getting in. Looking grave and solemn, she simply handed me across the desk the letter from the Ministry of Education. I took it with a quivering heart, unknown to Madam.

What news did the letter inside the envelope hold for me? Was my contract going to be renewed or was it going to be terminated?

With trembling hands, as I tore open the envelope, my heart leapt out in sheer relief and delight.

The Ministry of Education IS PLEASED TO EXTEND YOUR CONTRACT FOR A PERIOD OF…………….

I leapt up in sheer ecstasy as Madam Sangay extended her hand out, beaming, to congratulate me.

“Sir, besides your contract extension, we are thrilled to know that you are one of the 4 recipients of K5’s Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Teaching from this dzongkhag. Let me congratulate you once more. We here at CCS, are extremely proud of your achievement.”

It was like the icing on the cake. I felt so grateful to the country, Their Majesties and the people that I had tears of gratitude and happiness coursing down my cheeks.

“Thank you, Madam for recommending my name and thanks for that unimaginably fighter of a plant, remember?”

The end 

(The above story was subsequently published in StoryMirror.Com on 17.06.2022)