Remembering the Tshimasham tragedy

Those empty chairs have been replaced.
Students of class VI C laugh and talk and pretend not to see that their classmate has been missing for a year.
Seven school boys were washed away by the Wangchhu in the wee hours of the morning at Tshimasham on July 27 last year.
Yesterday, the family members of the seven boys marked the first death anniversary of the boys.
One year after the tragic incident of the seven boys at Tshimasham, the memories of them have begun to fade. Only the parents of the deceased know that their children, and that particular incident, will never leave their lives.
“Are you sure they are never going to come back?” This was a question that the teachers of the seven boys were asked constantly for months after the incident.
They really didn’t come back.
Today, the new basketball court is ready at the school. Thirteen year-old late Sangay Dawa had then waited for the completion of the basketball court so that he could beat the lone survivor of the incident, Tshering Samten, in a game.
The students do not ask the same question any more and are now convinced that their friends are never going to come back again.
On July 27 last year, helpless parents and a panic-driven rescue team witnessed a nightmare which perhaps will never leave them.
“Today when I look back at that night, I still shiver,” said a dzongkhag worker who was there to save the boys. “I don’t look at the trail the boys took that day anymore,” he said.
The trail from the ‘zero point’ that the boys took to go down to the river has become a ‘must see’ point for travelers.
While most of the parents of the deceased still live with the nightmare in Tshimasham, 14-year old late Tashi Phuntsho’s family have been transferred to Dagana.
As for Tshering Samten, after repeating the same horrific incident to visitors many times, hearing his friends’ screams in the middle of the night and having survived the incident, now studies in Class IX in Zhemgang.
Speaking to the media last year, he said this incident will haunt him for a long time and that this will never leave him the same again.
Monks chant prayers in the rooms once occupied by the boys today while the visitors talk about the incident. The same was the scene a few days after the incident last year.
But today, the details are little and the memories have become a blur.
A son of Karma Dema, a parent in Tshimasham, studied with late 14-year old Kinley Rinzin. She said her son often remembers him.
“If Kinley Rinzin was still alive, they would be working on carving darts,” she said.
According to the principle of Tshimasham Middle Secondary School, Norbu Gyeltshen, the classmates of the boys still talk about the seven boys and are frequently remembered by the school, especially during the morning assembly.