Monday, August 3, 2015

Of Zen and starry skies - Part III

This is part 3 of the series. Part 1 and Part 2, will add a little spice to your Ema Datshi

Bhutan wasn’t any random place that Prashant and I had chosen to backpack and explore. After all, we were not in search of Zen and inner peace. It was a simple childish reason that tied the two most important cities of Bhutan – Thimphu and Paro – with us. Thimpu rhymed with Tippu and Paro was Prashant’s nickname. Thimpu had always been my dream, ever since the age of 8 almost. With time, this had transformed into an obsession. And I realized this as I reached Bhutan, inhaled and felt alive!
Our permits allowed us to laze in Bhutan for a week. We headed for the bus station. The Phuentsholing bus stand didn’t look all as grand as imagined entrance. There weren’t the flying dragons painted on overhead shades with buses zooming in and out of a wide, interdisciplinary road and conductors shouting “Howdah, Howdah, jabe” as I’d imagined it to be. In reality, it was on a two lane road, with an overhead shade to accommodate a maximum of 15 people and there was no line of buses waiting to zoom away. With broken English, Hindi and the evergreen, eternally lasting sign-language, we learnt that the buses had to be booked at least a week in advance. There were only two buses per day to Paro. Though we were the early birds here, with no bus tickets, there was no worm we could prize ourselves with. As hopes drowned ounce by ounce, we figured that the only other alternative left was to travel by a cab.
A cab. All the way to Paro! How expensive can that be? Numbers took the centre-stage inside my head as addition/subtraction kicked out the art-lover who was seated comfortably in that right-center part of my brain until then. With no other alternative, we reluctantly left to the cab stand and found it buzzing with activity. The locals, apparently, used more of the cab service than the buses, owing to its speed and convenience, may be? We found out that the minimum fare to Thimphu or Paro was 400 Ngultrum (Ng). The nagging feeling in our heads was about sharing a cab with total strangers. But soon we realized that it was not going to be all that awkward. They didn’t understand our language, we didn’t understand theirs and any attempt to speak the only common language we spoke would have forced Wren & Martin to kill each other and call it a suicide.
It would have been a crime to fit 4 passengers in a WagonR for a 6 hour drive to Paro, just 160 km away. But, Bishnu, our concierge, for-the-moment-travel-guide, helper and cab driver, had better ideas. With just one Dzongkha speaking gentleman, we were only 3 of us headed to Prashant’s city. Bishnu’s irrefutable offer was to take just the three of us, if each of us paid 100 Ng more. At, the thought of our bodies rubbing against each other and Avomin tablets working over time, we decided that 100 Ng extra per person might not be so bad after all! The temperature was around 20 deg C. Right there, we started our beautiful journey.
Photo by Prashant Arora
One hour into the amazing drive, we stopped twice - once for verification of our permit papers and then for a nature’s call. We were climbing, ricocheting, rejoicing and remembering that the faster you climb, the easier it is to vomit. But we, as true gentlemen, unflinchingly and unapologetically have been vomit free since 2003. It was getting colder, but not enough to get your jackets on. The two-lane road was as curvy as Kylie Minogue with the blind spots caressed by some effective use of lights and careful driving. Not once did Bishnu use horns to drive someone mad on the road. One interesting feature of this drive was that the hill peaks were connected by a long string of prayer flags. Who on earth would tie two hill tops with a string of prayer flags! Definitely a modern day miracle. With lush green hills on one side and deep abyss on the other, the Dzongkha songs were music to our ears which was spoilt by Bishnu’s penchant for Hindi songs. The grass is definitely greener on the other side!
We passed Chukka, the educational hub of the kingdom of Bhutan. Crossing Gaeddu College of Business Studies, thoughts of my Bhutanese counterpart students, who will be working in the future to fulfill someone else’s dreams, filled my mind. Chukka is one of the largest contributing districts or Dzongkhags to Bhutan’s GDP. A country known to measure its progress in Gross National Happiness (GNH) attaches itself to GDP measurements only to appease the outside world. It’s probably a win-win situation - keeps the outside world happy with the race of a GDP growth, while within, they’re contended with their GNH progress. Chukka is also the financial capital of Bhutan, but not the way we have known financial capitals to be. For starters, there are more trees within the Gaeddu college campus than the whole of Bombay put together. Chukka knew better to chew its food and swallow rather than leaving it to the stomach to over-work and then blame the resultant gastro problems on stress. Speaking of food, it was time for a hot meal. We stopped at the road-side inn overlooking the Chukka Hydel Power station – again, one up over Bombay in terms of green energy!
We stepped out of the car, and, bam! The cold hit me. It felt fantastic! It was time to fend for my gloves. I wondered how Bishnu could wear that traditional dress – Gho, in this cold. To explain what a Gho looks like, it is a Mundu/Veshti (for all the Northies- yeah! yeah! a lungi!) cut in half and stitched at a go with your bathroom gown, with some amazing colors and designs predominantly being stripes. If you want to know about a Kira – the women’s wear, it is pretty much a nice bright top and a full length Mundu/Vesti in varied colors. Gho and Kira, makes the folks look so much prettier and the colors scintillating colors leaves one mesmerized in the ‘70s East man colors. But, the question still remained a mystery. How do they bear the cold? Here I was, wearing three layers of clothing with hands covered in woolen gloves, and in contrast, there is Bishnu and the likes seldom showing any emotions w.r.t the weather, lest it was extreme.
We entered the inn and what a relief it was. A nice wooden floored inn, overlooking the Chukka Hydel Power station and wherever one’s eyes went, it met with the photos of His Highness Jigme Khesar Wangchuck and his beautiful wife Queen Jetsun Pema. How can someone be so pretty! Their photos adorned the walls and we were constantly in the loop of the gossip about how the king has told that he will have only one wife. If Jetsun Pema has to be someone’s wife, she could only be his, fittingly a queen. After being floored by the royal beauty, we went to the counter to order some food. Still shy of ordering a Bhutanese cuisine, we ordered in for some fried rice. If you call McD’s burgers tasty, you should probably take the efforts to climb Mount Everest and jump from there! This was one of the best fried rice I have ever, ever had. Like Ever had! It wasn’t the bland original Chinese fried rice, nor was it the Indianized version either. After a sumptuous meal, we thanked the inn-owner for his kindness and the hot water and paid the bill. The saga of paying in rupees and getting Ngultrum in return, continued.
Photo by Prashant Arora
Off we descended this hill and made our way to the next. We continued our journey through beautiful bridges decorated with prayer flags, ravines, streams and fresh, pure air. Things around looked so pure and pristine that one could easily get consumed in the guilt of causing harm in riding that diesel car through it. We came to a junction, where if we take a right, we go to Thimphu and a left would lead to Paro. There was once again a big picture of the king and queen. And she was still so adorable! We were checked for cigarettes and permits and let off to the drive along the Paro River to enter the city of Paro.
We were at least an hour away. Barely holding on to the excitement brimming up, we changed the songs, exchanged notes on how cold it was in Paro and how hot it is Bombay. We were also tuned in to radio for some news on the upcoming National Day celebrations and Dochula festival. This was something new – Dochula festival. It was a new addition to set of festivals in Bhutan and is celebrated to commemorate the commencement of the military expedition in 2003. What expedition, when and why? We knew zilch about this. Bishnu and the other passenger started coaxing us to attend the Dochula festival. I mean what??
The date was 11th December and to attend the Dochula festival on 13th December, we are supposed to get a permit from the Permit office in Thimphu to venture to Punakha valley. If we make it to Paro today, we would miss this festival. But, if we take up this invite and attend the Dochula festival, we would miss the 17th December National Day celebrations at Thimphu. Well, the problem was, we will have to cover Paro as well and can’t afford to spend all our time in Thimphu which we would if we decide to go with Mr. Dochula. Understood nothing? Exactly what we were feeling too!

Read this handmade MS Paint relic to clear the confusion:

The decision was made. We will attend the Dochula festival and for no reasons on earth, were we gonna miss it! We were on the outskirts of Paro, where we dropped our co-passenger. Do we get back to Thimphu? Bishnu told us that he will charge us 200Ng/person more for the drop. He was still being an ass, but would turn into our companion much later in the trip. In life, when there is a decision to be made between money and experience (to be fair, anything), it always has to be experience (anything). You may earn or lose money in the long run, but you will never lose the experience. Thus, the mad men in the rear seats chose to head to the only capital city in the world with no traffic signals! Being this mad becomes a rarity that you cannot live without it at times and places like these!

Monday, June 29, 2015

Of Zen and starry skies - Part II

This is part 2 of the series. You can read the earlier part here.

Phuentsholing is a small border town on the Bhutan side of India, while the Indian side of India calls it Jaigaon (Apparently, India ‘phunds’ 2/3rd of Bhutan’s annual budget). Phuentsholing is pronounced as Phun-Show-Ling by tourists and Phun-sleing by the natives – it requires heavy practice. The practice sessions starts every morning at 5, requiring you to take a dip in the swimming pool and breathing out the word underwater. Be warned that the chances of you drowning are more than you ever getting it right. The road leading from Jaigaon is plundered by potholes to meet a grand border structure beyond which it looks like the Middle Zealand of The Lego movie with happy people. You may even start humming “Everythiinngg is awesome!” automatically (especially if you have crossed over from a town in India). The only difference between Middle Zealand and Bhutan is that, in the latter, the happy people are real! Construct a similar smooth road in India, there are likely to be more cases against which Salman Khan will be, obviously, acquitted.
Phuentsholing is a small town with a couple of straight roads, equal numbered smiling Bhutanese and polite, down-to-earth and decent behaving Indians. The latter are likely to be loud and boisterous raccoons if you put them on the other side of the border. The Phuensholing Bhutanese are easily distinguishable. They are the lovey-dovey pink-cheeked people who can speak a little bit of Hindi (of course, better Hindi from Tamil people) and words-strung-into-sentences-English (the competition here, with our Tamil people, couldn’t even hold a candle!) and can be extremely courteous. They can be so courteous that the British would be put to shame for their courtesy.

It took us a bit of lazy, aimless walking to find a place to crash. But for 700 bucks, we found an amazing place overlooking the Permit Office. We were time-travelling by half hour between India and Bhutan and every time we entered Bhutan, we got out pockets checked for cigarettes. Bhutanese cannot carry-in any tobacco products and any foreigner (we forgot that we were foreigners too) has to pay 100% duty on the value. A maximum of 5 packets of cigarettes are allowed. Public smoking is banned (like, really banned, no way around the law) and if caught with cigarettes without the duty receipt, cleaning tables in the drive-away restaurant might be the most sought after career option.
The Royal Army (Dantak) of Bhutan welcomes you
Prashant and I were under the assumption that momos are a delicacy here (apologies for being racist), but the ground realities were different. There WERE momos alright! And they came in two types – cheese and beef momos. The cheese momos may be made with yak milk cheese, sure you wanna try? When it comes to food in Phuentsholing, almost everything you order is make to order – meaning fresh, soft, supple and edible. We had an Indian dinner (the last one for a very long time) and the prices were comparable to Jaigaon’s. So we paid in INR. Phuentsholing is the only place in Bhutan where our 500 Rs. notes would be accepted. Due to high instances of counterfeit notes, transaction in 500 Rs. notes were banned. Not like the cigarette ban, the transaction would be at the Bhutanese’s risk. So, it was time to convert our 500s to 100s and it became a huge burden to carry them. With almost no ATMs and no card swiping services, Bhutan makes up for the lack of technological development with evolved social traits of honesty, sincerity and low (almost nil) theft and crime rates.
In the streets of Phuentsholing

Good morning Bhutan, it was 11th of December 2012. Ten days before the world was prophesied to come to an end (Remember 21st December 2012?). If I were to die, I thought, I will die in the happiest country in the world. With a copy of our driving license/voter’s identity card/passport, we were the second in line that was waiting outside the Permit Office, at 8 a.m. The office opened at 9. We submitted our documents, got our photos clicked and left for breakfast. As we were leaving, there was an exodus of Indians (mostly migrant labours) waiting for their photographs to be clicked. Almost all the laborious work for developmental activities is carried out by Indians, while the masters are also Indian contractors under the contractual employment of the Bhutanese government. We came back after an hour to get our permits and I was left greatly disappointed that my passport still remained a virgin. No stamping on the precious Indian passports - Bhutan’s policy - in exchange for preferential treatment in terms of zero processing/visa fees, freedom to roam around without a guide with the exception of the birth right of every Indian to spit anywhere.

Packing our backs in no time, we reached the local bus stand and waited to embark on our journey - a journey into one of the most beautiful cities ensconced by mountains and a river after which the city was named – Paro.

Friday, June 19, 2015

Of Zen and starry skies - Part I

This wasn’t the usual Coromandel Express ride: the one that starts at 9:05 sharp and makes you smell mustard oil all the way. This one was minus the friends; one that makes you think that that the true essence of life is to be busy; one which brings out the realization that everyone has something worthwhile to do in life that being on a 26 hour train journey is the last of their things to do. With a mind full of hope of getting my passport finally stamped, I boarded the Coromandel Express which started at 8:45 a.m., again, sharp.
The Calcutta Chromosome is a good train read. Although it had a few bits and pieces of a futuristic Calcutta, it wasn’t too different from the present day city. Only a few cities have that charm to not let time take over and Calcutta will be at the pole position, every single one of those times. She is a city that has all that the future holds, and yet can coexists with the past simultaneously. 
A simple example would be the transportation system in Calcutta. Get down at Howrah -> take a ferry to Babu Ghat -> walk around the old British architecture buildings, whiling away time with a Kachori and cha around the court corners -> hop on a tram -> get down at Esplanade -> take a metro to Park Street -> have nimbupani -> come back in a bus to Madras CafĂ© -> have a tummy-filling South Indian meal -> head back to Babu Ghat. Whaddya know - it’s already dark! For anyone not from East, the sky becoming pitch dark at 5:30 is a phenomenon, but that’s how our IST standardization works. Welcome to Calcutta – the futuristic city of the ‘60s!

My train to New Jalpaiguri (it took me some Bangla training to get the pronunciation right. So let’s just call it NJP) was at 5:30 p.m. It’s the December cold that makes the matki-cha wala, a millionaire (in paisa terms) on the platform. Burdwan (or Bardhamman or Vardhamman) invoked the Bengali in me, but it was after office hours and it wasn’t difficult for me to put him on the “Hobe Na” mode. One gets to meet interesting characters in a train journey and the most common thing amongst them is the level of distrust their eyes convey. “So, you are travelling alone eh? I despise you! And don’t think you can steal my kid!” Perceptions change when you take out a withered copy of 1984. Then they trust you like how they would trust a condom. “I trust you, but I pray that you don’t tear up that trust and prove to be a rogue”. Tell them that you are a pseudo-intellectual from NIT-IIT, and you are already family. No one pays any heed to that pseudo-intellectuality though. Brand plays and pays for the free luchi puris that you just shared.
The only good photo I took on the trip
Kamrup Express was on time and NJP was cold. Cold to the extent that the juvenile pleasure of smoking without even lighting a cigarette was possible. I waited and waited for a train from Delhi which was already 4 hours late. Prashant finally made it to the NJP station at around 9 and soon after, we went searching for shared autos to the Siliguri bus stand. The last bus to Jaigaon was about to leave at 11:20 a.m. and we were lucky enough to get seats on the overcrowded bus. Taking the hilly terrain into consideration, a journey of approximately 150 km would take us about 5 hours. The hopes of seeing the sun setting in India looked glim, but the excitement of being in a different country for another 10 days kept my spirits up!
Photo by Prashant Arora
It was 6:30. The sun had set 2 hours ago. And we were still travelling. Google Maps put us at least 20 km away from the destination. At 7:30 we disembarked the bus. The pressure in the groin pushed us straight in the direction of the nearest toilet. If one has to describe that out-of-the-world feeling, you could say we accelerated faster than gravity. How do we know that? From the relief one gets after withstanding this torture for more than 3 hours. This relief could be called as closest to that of a cluttered mind attaining Zen.
Photo by Prashant Arora
With broken Bengali, we found our way to the border. We paid the share-auto-guy in Rupees and he returned the change in Ngultrums. Our first ‘phoreign’ currency exchange! With much fascination, we crossed the border. Wait, wait! Hold on for a minute now. I had to take a step back and peer into India before moving forward. Oh my Gawd! What is this place? Is this how Bangladeshis feel, when they step into India? Serene, clean, orderly, lesser people and smiling ones too (bloody they even use indicators to take a turn). Welcome to Bhutan – the land of the thunder-dragon and I hope you are not carrying any cigarettes!
Photo by Prashant Arora

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Calm down Entropy

The elbows are firmly held against the walls. Sometimes they are stable, a few other times the friction is unbearable. I think the skin is off and the wall is in direct contact with my flesh. I try to use my forefinger and thumb to find what the wall is made of. No use. I give up. Will I be able to scratch the surface, find a hole, insert my finger and break the wall open with as minimal force as possible. No hole anywhere and not much of mobility as well. My feet is stuck and the knee is jammed between my forearm and biceps. I am not able to open my eyes. I think I am blindfolded. Let me use my hand to open the blindfolds. Or am I really blindfolded? Try. Try. Try. I am not able to move my hands. My elbows are still up against two walls. Am I entirely sitting on a plank of some sort? Am I? Am I in a stable position right now? Is my external entropy zero? Or am I increasing my entropy by asking such pointless questions?
So, in fact I am sitting in a comfortable position. Or should I say squatting? Yeah! Squatting is the word. But why am I blindfolded? No! It can’t be it. Let me summon up all the energy possible to lift my head. One. Two. Three. Can’t. I give up. I have this strange feeling in my stomach. This feeling of desiring something. Something can be anything, but I need something in my stomach to make this desire vanish. Is it hunger? I can’t pinpoint as I have forgotten how hunger feels. This feeling is strange. It will make you do things which one wouldn’t do in a normal state of mind. What is the point of this feeling? I can smell something. Oh! Is it my own sweat? I need to take a shower as soon as I get home. So salty my sweat tastes!
I let time pass.
Limbs have given up. What next? Ears. Oh my lovely ears. Hear! Hear the gossip that the mates next door are talking about. What are they cleaning? Why should they waste so much water? Good Lord! I need to talk to them right now and stop them wasting any more water. “Hey next door neighbours! Secondly, stop wasting so much water. Firstly, where are we? Help me out of here! Is anybody there? Are you guys dumb? Help me out of here, I say! Ok. I am sorry. Help me out of here, I plead. Please. This is killing me” What arrogant bastards. They don’t even acknowledge me, but keep doing their work.
Give up. Just give up. There is nothing more to this life. Plain, eternal, string of worries, one after the other. Just give up. It is simple.
I let time pass. I give up. Suddenly.
Where the hell am I? Why am I squatting? What am I doing here? Control. Your entropy is increasing. An increase in entropy is going to increase this strange feeling in stomach. But this feeling can make you do anything. Like lifting your head up. Bingo! Increase this strange feeling. Yes, head! Now listen to me. Up. Up. Up. Look up. Yes. I have done it. Phew! Now eyelids, listen to me. Open. Slowly open Sesame. Darn! What was that flash of light? I don’t want light. Shut the eyes up!
I am not blindfolded, but I am used to darkness by keeping my eyes closed. I can’t take in the light. Yes I can’t. No I can. Don’t listen to that voice which says you can’t do a thing. That you can give up and enjoy your slumber in darkness with your eyes closed. Now, listen to me. Slowly open your eyes. It will be difficult, but the juice is worth the squeeze. Come on. Do it. Open. Painful. Bang. Aaah! Stabilize. Yes eyes stabilize. Calm down entropy, you are doing fine. You are able to take in the light. It’s a clear blue sky. I am feeling a drop of sweat trickling down my chin. It’s a bright sunny day. Look around. I am inside a box. I can stand up inside the box with little extra effort. I am losing balance. Oops! Why am I sliding? Oh my Cosmos! Where am I?


In the middle of an ocean stuck inside a box!