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!