Australian Dream of a Cabby

It is already past lunchtime when we reach the last car wash along the Thimphu-Babesa highway. After failing to find an empty car wash at Olarongchu, we head south along the expressway, peering into one car wash after another. There are about a dozen on the left side of the highway, but all are occupied and busy.

My co-brother decides to leave his car at the service centre and go home for lunch. ‘Bhai, please wash my car and park it properly. I will come and collect it by 3:00 pm’, he says, handing over the key of his Ford Ecosport to a burly boy with a squint in his left eye.

After we leave the car wash, we realize that we are a good five kilometers away from home. With no conveyance.  ‘No problem’, I said. ‘We will find plenty of taxis from here’.

We don’t have to wait long. A grey Suzuki WagonR with a young driver pulls up and looks at us expectantly. We are on the wrong side of the expressway, with a road divider in between. ‘But we want to go to Changedaphu’, said my co-brother, suggesting to the cabbie that we have to turnaround.

‘Las la’, he retorts in the usual politeness of Bhutanese cabbies. ‘But where is Changedaphu?’ he asks.

‘Kala Bazaar, near Azhi Building’, I jump in. The driver nods.

He doesn’t know Changedaphu, but knows Kala Bazar.  A certain part of Thimphu, above the Druk School Junction and leading towards Rinchen High School is popularly known as ‘Kala Bazar’. The moniker has its roots in the low shacks roofed with flattened bitumen drums occupied by daily wage workers from both within and outside the country. That was in the 70s to early 90s, but the name stuck.

My co-brother and I enter the cab. He gets into the back seat. As the paying passenger, I get into the front seat and face the driver. The taxi identity card issued by RSTA betrays some of his personal details. His name is Sangay Tshering. He lives in Dechencholing, a suburb of Thimphu. Physically, Sangay looks like an average Bhutanese cabbie. Slightly unkempt hair and mildly shabby. He has a set of brownish denture. Remnant of red ‘doma’ (doma, known as paan in the Indian sub-continent, is a potent mixture of areca nut and betel leaf with a dash of lime, chewed for its mild kick)  juice is drying up on the far corner of his small mouth. He doesn’t smile.

As it is a fairly long drive, we soon start chatting up. It begins with my co-brother observing, ‘your car is wobbling a bit. Either your tyres are too full or need to be refilled’, he opines. Sangay’s forehead squirms. There is silence for about a minute. Then Sangay decides to be a sport.

‘Perhaps, it is because my car is old’, he says. Then he shares that his cab is about eight years old. He bought a second hand cab.

Then I enquire, ‘business must be good?’

‘Well, it is only enough for rolling, sir’, he said. Sangay doesn’t mean that he uses the money he makes to roll around. He means that the money helps him make a decent living, but not too much to save.

‘I have been in this for six months only.  Getting a job is difficult these days, sir’, he continues.  

‘How far have you studied’, I ask. For a change, he ups his narrow shoulders and responds in a louder voice, ‘I am a university graduate’.

Sangay completed B.Com from the University of Bangalore a year ago. After failing to get a government job that he had always dreamed of, he decided to run a taxi.

‘I know it is very difficult. But doing a business is always better’, I comfort him. Then I look at him enquiringly. He understands my unspoken question.

‘If this doesn’t work, I am thinking of going to a third country for job’.

‘Dubai?’ I ask, perhaps undermining his intentions.

 ‘No, Australia, sir’, he responds.

‘But, I believe it is better to go to Australia with a partner. One studies (or pretends to do so), while the other works and earns’, I offer him the common refrain offered to wannabe Aussies.  

‘My wife is in Samtse’, Sangay informs us.

Sangay is married. His wife is completing her B.Ed from the Samtse College of Education. He tells us that they are already planning to apply for Australian study visa.

The ride from the car wash to near the Azhi building, Kala Bazar takes us about fifteen minutes. As the cab halts, I pay him his fare of Nu. 160.

‘All the best, brother’, my co-brother and I wish him well.

I know I have my story for the day!

Autobiography of a Pothole

Greetings from the depth of the ill-conceived, badly designed and poorly constructed roads of Bhutan. I am a pothole – that’s my family name. Our first names are usually, ‘small’, ‘big’, ‘shallow’ and ‘deep’. I am a Bhutanese pothole and live on the roads of Thimphu.

I hear that I have first and second cousins spread around the world. Indeed, one of my friends was recently given the moniker ‘Maruti Pothole’ because onetime an entire Maruti Car disappeared in it. But that is on a road between Gelephu and Samtaibari in India. Maruti and I are not related. We are simply good neighbourly potholes!

I was born a week after the corrupt, lazy and inefficient contractor completed the road. I am the child of an illegal marriage that takes place on a regular basis between corrupt municipal officials and the equally corrupt contractors and their workers. Depending on the thickness of the tarmac, soil conditions and presence of water seepage, it takes up to a month for me to mature. On the roads of Thimphu City, I am beginning to grow and proliferate pretty fast thanks to the connivance of contractors and the damn-care attitude of municipal officials.

People do not notice me unless I am bang in the middle of a road. If I am on the side of the road, they avoid me with mere twists of the steering wheel of their cars. Life as a pothole is exciting as well as tough. It feels nice when it rains and I get filled up. Each time a car passes by when I am full, water is splashed on it creating music. I like those moments. Life is tough in winter, when it is dry. I cough a lot and blow up dust from my guts. However, once I have my children around me, it is hard for drivers to avoid us altogether. They slow down and pass by gently caressing us and cursing the contractors and municipal officials. Every day, hordes of cars drive over me. As I get older they hate me and curse me with their choicest of words!  ‘Jedha’, ‘Saala’, are some of the words I hear every day, depending on the linguistic capacity of drivers. I am not sure who they are cursing, me or my parents!

In case you have not seen a pothole!

My maternal uncles used to live on the ring road below Druk School and Pelkhil Losel School. Unfortunately, one day a dark automobile with tar and gravel came by. With the machines came equally dark people covered in bitumen. They first washed and cleaned my uncles with hard and soft brooms. Then they aired them. My uncles were excited to get some fresh air, for it was quite difficult for them to breathe deep down there. They didn’t know that the black team was up to something sinister. Afterwards, they filled my uncles up with soil and gravel and applied heated bitumen on top. My uncles took their last breaths when a heavy road roller walked over them. I believe all my uncles on the ring road are dead now.

My paternal uncles live on the road below the Changangkha Lhakhang. They are blessed by the deities living in the Lhakhang, for they remain always healthy. Indeed, my eldest uncle there is said to be more than two years old. He has many children and grandchildren in the area.

Facebook tells me that in some countries people are so frustrated that they plant flowers in the potholes. Some even fish in them! I envy those potholes; they must look beautiful.

I have heard that the municipality has started covering and killing potholes in Thimphu. However, it will not be easy for them. We will fight back. As long as my parents (the contractors and municipal officials) continue to mate and make love, we will reproduce. Perhaps, in another road, another town, but we will be born again. My own wish is to be reborn as the incarnate of my Ring Road Uncle, somewhere on the recently inaugurated Damchu Bypass. I am sure my parents will make love there too!

As a pothole, I am pretty happy to be born in the land of GNH. Or at least I pretend to be so; potholes always pretend here. So much so that we have convinced some ill-looking foreigners that potholes are actually good for everyone’s wellbeing and happiness. That it is sinful to remove potholes as they are full of sentient beings!

However, given the constant cursing I receive from drivers and passersby, I am afraid my soul will not achieve nirvana. I want to renounce worldly desires. I hope the Municipality and the Contractors will divorce from their active unhealthy relationship soon and stop producing the likes of me on Thimphu roads.  Maybe, the Government will one day neuter the contractors and municipal officials to render them sterile!

Until the next bump!