Seven Boys (Those Empty Chairs)

A strange emptiness cloisters Tsimalakha Lower Secondary School today. Young boys and girls ask questions that teachers find difficult to answer.

“Are you sure they are never going to be back?” a student asks her teacher.

Not knowing whether to reconfirm them the truth or give them false hopes, teachers turn away with congestion in their chest and a crack in their voice.

But the truth is already palpable. The students know their seven schoolmates will never come back.

And their chairs have remained empty for the past one week. Only the names scribbled on the back of their chairs refute the emptiness.

The boys loved basketball, their friends recall. And a new court was coming up in the school. They were waiting for its completion.

Most of them excelled in extra-curricular activities, their teachers say.

“They were very special children. Each had his own strength,” said a class teacher.

They were well behaved and some of them led sports team from their class.

The youngest, Tashi Penjor, had done exceptionally well in his mid-term examinations, according to his class teacher, Dorji Dema. He held the second position despite being an average student.

Students BT talked to find it difficult to forget the familiar faces. They keep thinking about their schoolmates and they keep asking questions to their teachers and parents.

The school was informed about the tragedy at 6:30 in the morning. The news shattered them all, teachers and students. They regret they couldn’t be of any help to their friends.

Now they keep throwing guilty glances at the empty chairs - sanctuary that once belonged to their friends. They feel endless chills coursing down their spines.

And they know it will not be long before the empty chairs are removed from the classrooms.