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’ 2/3^rd 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 11^th of December 2012. Ten days before the world was prophesied to come to an end (Remember 21^st 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.

Posted on 11:53 by Tippu Sultan in Bhutan, Travelogue, trip | No comments

Left, Right and Center

You check the petrol level and for another day procrastinate checking the tire pressure level as once again you are running late for office. You share your destiny to reach office in 25 flat minutes with no one else, despite the traffic blockages. You have the power that none can afford to have – For a city filled with cars, you are the lone shining star. You ride the Activa. You don’t give a damn about lane traffic. You crisscross the traffic as if everyone else is obliged to give you way. You think to yourself, “Lanes are just a state of mind, fulfilled by the neatly lined cars”. When the cars and other heavy vehicles have two lanes per road, an Activa has three – Left, Right and Center.

When I enter the flyover, I choose to enter it via the left lane. There is a lot of crowding at the left side of the road, since everyone wants to climb up the flyover and the only way to beat the one on your right is to cut him across. The left lane is accommodative to everyone and doesn’t differentiate despite varying levels of hard work, talent and the kind of bike you ride. Everyone moves at the same speed and everyone is treated equal with no regards to their social standing. You ride are as fast as the leader bike, which in your opinion is always the slowest. The leader bike has all the expanse of lane estate in front of him, but because of his’ ineptitude, he would be dismally slow. He would point fingers at the car guys complaining that they are not allowing him to move forward by blocking and cutting him. He will ask everyone behind to create a ruckus by continuously honking at something that doesn’t exist, but making the pack believe that he is fighting for the common cause. You may start your life as a leftist, but only to realize that it isn’t sustainable if you want to move forward and reach your office in the next 15 minutes.

I shift lanes. I watch my rear view mirror carefully and jump at the opportunity presented. The center lane is one of the most dangerous positions to be in. You are neither here nor there, but you know you will have to keep moving forward at a brisk pace, otherwise the car guys would just eat you up. You entertain the crony car guys with space and barter it for your personal protection. You either have no ideals or not capable of exhibiting one. You look to your left and laugh at the leftists for being so slow and unproductive, but decry the idea that your own fundamentals of stepping onto the flyover was embalmed by their ideals. I am reaching the end of the flyover and get the realization that I need to take the exit. I don’t have a choice but to change lanes once again to become a leftist for a brief amount of time and then discover my way around.

Unhappily I change lanes, become a leftist and take the exit and try to maintain the left-centrist position. When you are near Dadar circle heading into Tilak Bridge, you have no freaking idea on your leaning. You are just opportunistic and head for the right to enter Tilak Bridge – the gateway of Parel. You are on the hot zone now – the right lane. You have just 10 more minutes and you realize that you will have to be that animal to cut off every head that comes your way to reach office on time. You don’t bother about what other people think or how they may react. Your current goal is to take the right at any cost. You don’t estimate the cost because that is not borne by you. You don the hat of rightist, leftist, centrist, zigzagist and make your way through.

When the frenzy dies down, you look back in retrospection of the last 2-3 minutes. What have you done? Was it right? Yes. It was the Right way to do things. Was it wrong? May be. Who cares! I have survived.

I reach office in time and head to the parking. There again, they make me play the same political games that I played in the last 20 minutes. Alright! Game on!