The first woman in Bhutan to be published in English, Kunzang Choden, in her memoir Telling Me My Stories, gives an account of belonging, loss, and displacement, against the backdrop of the rapid modernisation in the country in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Exploring superstitions and customs of Bhutanese culture, the book features a colourful cast of unusual characters—yetis, angry spirits, deities, kings and queens, nuns and lamas.
Choden, who was sent to a boarding school in Kalimpong, West Bengal, at the age of 9, writes about the social structures of mid-twentieth-century Bhutan that subjugated women. Her mother was married to her father by force. When Choden was nine, her mother pointed to a whole piece of dried fish on a wooden peg and said, “Fish for me symbolises sorrow. This is a fish from a load of fish that was included among my wedding gifts. Fish is the symbol of sorrow for me, and I carried my sorrow with me.” Choden’s father strayed into infidelity while his wife was treated as an outsider. In fourteen years of marriage, her mother gave birth to six babies and suffered miscarriages. Being the mistress of a landed household, she was tasked with distributing food to workers. The quantity and quality of food were decided according to the workers’ place in the social hierarchy.
Despite her mother’s suffering, Choden held idealistic views about her father, a feudal lord. As the story progresses, her nostalgia for a fast-disappearing Bhutan—one steeped in social inequalities—becomes difficult to overlook. The first half of her recollections focuses on her lineage. She was born into religious nobility, and her father descended from important spiritual masters of Bhutan. She stresses her family’s proximity to the ruling class of Bhutan. Several pages are filled with details about relatives who are either descendants or reincarnations of influential priests and rulers.
Her privilege is evident, which presented Choden with opportunities that would be denied to other girls growing up in Bhutan. However, these opportunities came with unapprehended misfortunes. Travelling in India without any adult supervision, young Choden was molested by a man. Orphaned at a very young age and separated from her brothers, she was lost in a place with strangers who did not speak her language. The teachers and the students at her school in Kalimpong treated her as an outcast. Though she was infatuated with the outdated and unjust societal structures of Bhutan, she married a foreigner who believed her family to be responsible for maintaining inequality in Bhutan. Marriage to foreigners was discouraged in Bhutan to maintain blood purity. Choden went against convention and married the man of her choice in the late nineteenth century. It is in these moments of bravery and resilience that her story really comes out.