Ata Chenga La is hearing impaired. But that is not impairing his work. Sitting on a sewing machine, he is engrossed in his work. If the music or the noise is not reaching his ears, his concentration improves.

Chenga La, 40, graduated from the Deaf Unit Center in Paro in 2009. To the relief of his parents, he is not a dependent. Likewise, Chenga La with his job is helping his parents. When his parents learned that he couldn’t hear, they knew he would lose his speech and that he will be dependent on them for the rest of his life.

With a secure job at the Taj Tashi hotel, one of the most popular hotels in the country, Chenga La is not worried and so are his parents. His father Kezangla said they are responsible to teach him tailoring and education when he turned 20. “Ata Chenga La was a smart boy and we knew he will do something,” said Kezangla who got his son training in tailoring and even brought tailoring machines for him.

Chenga La did well and even did an advanced course in tailoring. Today he works as a housekeeping staff at Taj Tashi. He can stitch Kuthangs and Thanka.

At the hotel, Chenga La is not a problem for the rest of the staff. The hotel’s human resource officer Sunil Kumar said Chenga La is like any other staff. “He may be hearing and speech impaired, but his work is not affected,” he said.

In the beginning, he had some issues -communicating the hotel rules. He was recruited as a contract worker and after seeing his potential, they took him as permanent staff.

“Chenga La is a creative boy,” said his father. “Every day he tries his hand on repairing electricity defaults at home, mechanical errors in cars,” he added. “After he joined Taj Tashi, he looks wiser than before.”

Chenga La earns more than Nu 15,000 a month in salary and earns Nu 500 to 1000 every day doing tailoring at home. Communicating is a problem, but Ata Chenga writes to communicate when his sign languages are alien to others.

“He can hear and talk when he was nine but at the age of 10, he got sick for a month. After that he lost his speech and hearing,” said his mother, Karma. “We are at the village (Tashiyangtse) in 1982. We didn’t have a hospital nearby that’s why we couldn’t help him.”

Citing Changa La as an example, his parents always advise younger brothers. “Today, I appreciate my son Chenga rather than three younger sons,” said his father. “He looks after us and helps us financially.”

“We are proud to be his parents,” said Karmo, his mother.

“Nowadays I can see that most of the parents are ignored by their sons and daughters but Chenga La has given us the potential to depend on him and he can stand on his own feet,” she said.