Post-Election Stress Syndrome

Ladies queueing up to cast their vote

Bhutan went to the polls on July 13, 2013 and voted to power the opposition – People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The erstwhile ruling party – Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) will be the reluctant shadow to the government.

An election often brings out major changes. If the incumbent party returns to power, there won’t be major changes. However, major changes can be expected if the opposition who has been baying for blood for the last 5 years wins an election. After all, nothing can affect the citizenry more than a change in government.

Politicians are wont to make promises and pledges during the electioneering period. Sometimes, it sounds and reads like a competition of who can promise louder, never mind the do-ability and implementability of pledges. The newness and relevance of the pledges provide the clues for change. 

The Bhutanese electorate is maturing rapidly, but it is still naïve and emotion laden. This is evident from the victory it handed out to DPT in the primaries and the drubbing it bestowed on the ruling party in the general elections – both within a time period of about six weeks. Ever heard of a better voter swing?

No matter who wins an election, the counting of the ballot is usually followed by emotional let down and explosive reactions. The shaping up of events after July 13 must be seen in this light. How politicians react and behave after the final results separate the leaders from the rest. In such cases, the opposite of leader is not follower. When all followers vie for the limited leadership space, both the leader and his followers behave more like a pack of hungry hyenas. Just like the loud-mouthed animals that move in packs and eat rotten, the vanquished in an election start laughing (i.e crying) very loudly. The idea is to gather all the like-minded together and try and snatch the kill from the tiger! It is a common and basic advise that if you want to be a leader you got to act like one. You can’t act like a hyena and aspire to be the lion. 

The moment after the ballots are counted can be overwhelming to many, especially the aged, the over-involved, and the self-perceived invincible. It is then that we hear of highly prophetic views as, ‘the unimaginable happened’. Anyone who cannot imagine his own defeat is least prepared for victory. He reeks of arrogance and is highly impolite to his opponent who beat him.

Actually you don’t fault politicians for the way they behave and communicate after losing an election. They are struck by, what psephologists and behavioral scientists call the ‘Post-Election Stress Syndrome. The disease seems to renders losers quite incapable and depraved of the grey matter in the aftermath of an election.

Within a short span of democratic traditions, Bhutan has already experienced a highly stressful election because of numbing news fatigue and continual media over-exposure. Yet, one worries that the real problems may be yet to come. Personal anxiety, professional panic and poorly thought out decisions may be on the horizon regardless of the campaign period high mood.

The heat is yet to subside and the dust has not fully settled on Bhutan’s second parliamentary elections. Has it taken rather long?  The day after tomorrow on the auspicious nineteenth day of the sixth month of the water female snake year, His Majesty the King will formally pronounce Tshering Tobgay as the second prime minister of democratic Bhutan by offering the sacred dakyen. Soon after that, the cabinet will be announced and the new government will be raring to go. One hopes that the reluctance of the DPT to sit as the opposition party will have fully dissipated by then and that it will be ready to support PDP to steer our land into the next strategic 5 years. The PDP, DPT, you, I, and indeed all the Bhutanese people will have a role to play. We are a team and together everyone achieves more!

Parents, Nature and the Future...

My two boys with their cousins Adeep & Eshan

I often take long evening walks with my wife and our two children. We are proud parents of two young boys aged eight and four years. As parents we often worry about them – their education, desires and ambitions and the values they learn. I wonder about what my eight year old son thinks when we go on such walks or what rummages through the mind of my four year old. 

On one such evening walk the sky was slightly overcast with a smattering of white and grey clouds over long patches of blue. My elder son pointed to the blue in the distant sky and asked me, “dad, what is that?” I encouraged him to find the answer by himself. “Think about it”, I told him. After a few seconds he answered, “Sea”!

My wife merely smiled at him. As a doting young mother, she neither wanted to correct her son nor wanted to reprimand him for being silly. I took up the job and explained to my son that the blue in the sky was nothing but sky itself. He looked at me with disbelief. He wrinkled his brows and looked one more time at his ‘sea’. Taking the geography lesson further, I told him that seas are a meeting place for many rivers. Bhutan is a landlocked mountainous country and the majority of its people have not seen a sea. To people living in the mountains, seas are in the sky, in the tiny imagination of a child or even the matured fantasy of an adult.  

“Where is the sea, then?” my son continued. “Can we go to see one?” I drew an impromptu map on the footpath and showed him where we were as a country. “Look, this country south of us which looks like a taproot is India. And on the shores of India we can find the sea”.

I remember the first time I actually touched seawater was when I was attending an international training programme on rural development at Pataya, Thailand. I think it was the South China Sea. As I cupped up some water in my hands I had been disappointed. The water in my hand was not blue but grey, brown and dirty. “Where is the blue sea?” I had wondered as I surveyed the coast of the polluted sea.

In the mountains we feel much closer to nature and everything that comes with it – worms, insects, beetles, butterflies, birds, animals, grass, bush, trees and mountain after mountain. In my country religion is a way of life and mountains are everywhere; where one mountain ends another one begins. And religion and nature have a common path and a peaceful co-existence. We name our mountains and highlands after gods and goddesses. Gods and goddesses in turn protect our mountains, passes, valleys and the wild. There is a reverence between man and nature!

In Bhutan going on a picnic means sharing food with the birds and the monkeys. I often feel sorry for the many men, women and children around the world who have not seen a tree in the wild, touched a beetle as it claws its way out of the dung, seen a bird carry twigs to build a nest on the areca nut tree, or fed rice husks to the tiny tadpoles and school of fish in the mountain streams.  

My son is in standard III. He has seen nature from a close range. He has heard nature in its natural tone not just through the narrations in the National Geographic channel. He has seen monkeys jump from tree to tree and not squeak in tiny rusted iron cages in the zoos. He has seen birds fly about in full regalia and not merely flap their wings at the call of the jester in the park. He has even seen a snake when one crossed our path on our way back home after visiting my sister in the village. Last December I took him on a vacation to the neighbouring Indian town. There we saw a motley crowd gathered around a bearded man playing on his gourd pipe and a grey snake slithering around in apparent dance steps. My son was scared of the snake and terrified of the charmer.  

However, my son has not seen the world. His world begins at home and ends at his school classroom. He has recently been introduced to map reading as a part of his environmental studies. He now knows that there are many more countries besides Bhutan. He recognizes the map of North America when I show him a slightly flattened photocopied version of the map; for that is how his teacher introduced the map in the class. He finds it hard to understand that in many parts of the world people drink water from a bottle. He finds it amusing that cows in other parts of the world deliver condensed, powdered or packaged milk for he has seen the cows in our village give white and delicious liquid.

Lately, my elder son has started showing interests in news and current affairs. As with most child of his age, he watches a lot of television. Although Cartoon Network with its myriad of characters and Pokemons is his favourite, he often ventures into Natural Geographic and Animal Planet. At times he is compelled to sit over BBC and CNN with me. He finds an analogy in much of what is shown, be it CNN or Animal Planet. “In your news I see that people are killing other people. In Animal Planet, I find one animal killing another”. He looks at me. I know he is looking for an answer.

Today my son cornered me again. He asked me, “dad, what is earthquake?” I said “earthquake is a shaking of the earth…” He folded his tiny eyes, looked at me curiously and asked, “How does it happen?” Now, I have forgotten my twelfth standard geography except for the formation of an oxbow lake. “Don’t worry”, I said, “you will learn about it in your class five or six...” He was not convinced. He wanted to know then and there. I was caught on the wrong side of my intelligence. This was not the first time either. He did it the day-before when he wanted my analysis on the content of the TV channels. Within 72 hours he caught me napping twice. How long can this pretension go? How far can I be a hypocrite? How long do I pretend to be a walking enclyclopaedia??  I quickly gathered my composure and said, “I don’t know. I have forgotten the details…”  

I know he was not satisfied with my stance. I have a feeling that from that day he has begun to realize that his old father doesn’t know everything after all. To an eight year old, his father is the epitome of knowledge and a reservoir of answers. Last month when my son asked me a question and I was unable to answer, he had remarked quite dryly: ‘didn’t your teacher teach you about this?” At his age he is able to find answers to most things that he needs to know from his teachers. He would expect that I would have been taught everything by now. I think at the end of the day, it is better for your son to realize that his father is no know-all fellow. I feel much better since the day I decided to give up. 

Road Rage

My elder son Prateek: Needs to learn about road rage!

Road rage is a serious problem in countries around the world. Like in most criminal fronts, both juvenile as well as adult, Bhutan doesn’t fare too poorly in this. A couple of years ago, there was a reported case in Paro where two people attempted to see the end of each other as an offshoot of road rage. ‘Having outs’ of smaller dimensions are common in Thimphu, where I live. My friends and relatives from other urban centres can share their tales and woes.

What is road rage?

Road rage is an angry or violent behavior by a driver of a motor vehicle. Such behavior includes rude gestures, verbal insults, deliberately driving in an unsafe or threatening manner, or making threats. In extreme cases, road rage can lead to arguments, assaults, and collisions, which result in injuries and even deaths. It can be thought of as an extreme case of aggressive driving.

What are the signs and symptoms of road rage?

Road rage has many manifestations and incarnations and the following are the most common ones:

·      Aggressive driving, including sudden acceleration, braking, and tailgating.

·      Cutting others off in a lane, or deliberately preventing someone from entering a lane.

·      Chasing other motorists.

·      Flashing lights and/or sounding the horn excessively.

·      Driving at high speeds to terrify other drivers

·      Rude gestures (such as "the finger").

·      Shouting verbal abuses or threats.

·      Intentionally causing a collision between vehicles.

·      Hitting other vehicles.

·      Assaulting other motorists, their passengers, cyclists or pedestrians

·      Exiting the car to attempt to start confrontations, including striking other vehicles with an object.

·      Threatening to use or using a firearm or other deadly weapon (this happened in Paro).

How can we reduce road rage?

Most of us drive. The number of cars and the number of people behind the wheels are increasing by the day in Thimphu. As per RSTA statistics, there are about 36,000 cars and 46,000 driving licenses in Thimphu region. For Bhutan these are big numbers.

It is you and I who engage in road rage and become victims of road rage. It is you and I who can make a difference. Together we can help improve the image of drivers in Thimphu and reduce road rages.  I offer the following by way of suggestions to reduce and eliminate road rages:

a)    Wear a smile on your lip: Positive thoughts lead to positive behaviour and positive actions. The moment we get behind the steering wheel, we should forget any negative thoughts and tensions we may have had at home or at work.  Very often, we behave aggressively on the road because we have been frustrated at work or at home. It could be because your boss advised you to roll up your sleeves or you had an altercation with your spouse.  Come to think of it, it is unfair to pour (and often empty) your frustration on people who have nothing to do with the cause of your frustration. I am not advocating that you should do it on your boss, for it may cost you your job!

So a simple mantra (and quite a workable one at that) is: every time you are in the driver’s seat try and wear a smile on your lips. It doesn’t cost you anything except some Vaseline to heal the cracks!

b)    Let the other be: Many road rages occur because of people who drive rashly. There are people who are in a perpetual hurry. There are also some who want to overtake you with the presumptuous idea of showing off their purportedly bigger and better cars. Then there are trucks and taxis.  Leave them alone! People driving these motors belong to a different generation. Sometimes I wonder if they are dropped from Mars.

Knowing that there are all kinds of ‘funny’ people from the boisterous spoiled brat who wants to advertise his ill-gotten Honda to the wrong-brained taxi driver, what do you do? Join them, beat them, or let them be? I suggest we just let them be! Ignore them; let them overtake you as you trudge up in your hard earned Alto.

c)    Enjoy your driving: The spoilt brat and the taxi driver are in a hurry. You are not!  Enjoy your driving. Put on a nice soothing music. And engage your soul with the music and the lyrics, not with the cacophony of the rude driver honking behind you. With Kenny Rogers  (or who have you?) soulfully gasping on your car stereo, you are less inclined to snarl at the incoming car, or at the one that just overtook you.

Friday brings out the best in people. Enjoy your Friday! Happy Weekend! 

Drive to Work

Ever since I moved to DHI, I travel five kilometres every working day to reach office. Another five kilometres down the Changangkha hills and along the outskirt of the RICB colony, unto the entrance to Kalabazaar and along the ring road takes me back home in the evening.

When I reach home, the first thing I notice is the expectant looks on my sons’ faces. They are looking for clues to decide whether their ‘apa’ is in good mood or bad. I make it a point to smile at the boys and call each one of them by their pet names. Buku still likes to snuggle up to me and hug me. Prateek barely extends a hand.

By then, I find that my wife is looking at me expectantly. Like our boys she is also searching for clues. However, she is interested in finding out whether I have had a good lunch or not. Lunch, away from home, can be rarely good. She offers me tea. I usually ask for some anti-oxidant herbal brew.

It is a little past eight in the morning, when I drop my boys at school and head towards upper Motithang. At the Druk School and Kalabazaar junction, traffic is chaotic. Horns are blaring, men are women are snarling, and children shrieking over nearly being crushed by moving motors.

During the five kilometres, I come across a myriad of human faces, characters and automobiles. My old friend Madan pulls his car window down and displays his ‘doma’ stained teeth. I return the greetings, with my own yellowish green. A red car behind Madan doesn’t quite appreciate this camaraderie in the midst of scowling traffic. He honks. The look on his face says it, ‘I have a much bigger car than yours. Get out of my way’.  I drive on and by the time I hit the RICB junction, the road gets narrower. From the opposite direction, I see a young lady come rushing in her velvet Ford Figo. One of her hands is on the steering wheel, while the index finger of the other is deep in her nose. Yuck!  I thought women didn’t pick nose. At least not young and likeable ones.  200 metres on I see madam Tshewang, the highly efficient and energetic principal of Druk School. I wave at her. As usual she doesn’t see or doesn’t care!

By now I am at the base of the Changangkha lhakhang. It is a steep climb. The Maruti Van taxi in front of me has slowed down. I am forced to lower my gears.  I rev up the engine and trudge along the snaky road until Motithang School comes into view. Now, I am almost there. Traffic gets thinner and the road broader. My Hyundai i20 heaves a sigh of relief. Another drive successfully maneuvered. 

Where are you from?

Some shots from the visit to my ancestral village - Dec 2013

Been living in Thimphu, the capital city of Bhutan for over twenty years now. What a time! This has been the longest that I have lived anywhere. 

I first came to Thimphu in March 1983, when the Ministry of Education sent me to Yangchenphug Central School in class IX after the completion of class VIII at Pema Gatshel Junior High School. To a small boy from remote Bhangtar, Thimphu was a big town even then. It is bigger today.

I completed my Bachelor studies in 1990 and arrived in Thimphu in July that year to attend the national graduates orientation and driglam namzha programme. I took shelter with kaka Rabilal Pokhrel, who is my ‘sadu daju’ today. As they say in Nepali, 'the wild cockroach chased away the domestic one' and soon I was the legitimate tenant at Ap Phochu house, Metog Lam, Thimphu. That was 1993. 

I left Metog Lam at the end of February 2010 and moved to DSB building. Where? Above the Call Centre, behind Hotel Holiday Home. It is where Changzamtog ends and Changbangdu begins. The immediate premise is dusty and dirty, but the apartment is likeable. 

People often ask me, 'where are you from'? ‘Neoly....Bhangtar....Samdrup Jongkhar...', I reply. But then, I have now lived longer in Thimphu than anywhere else. When I cross Semtokha or Babesa on return from my tours to other parts of Bhutan or from abroad, I feel I am home. Where I live is not my own house, it is DSB’s. But then, even in Neoly, where I have my census, I don’t have a house. Home is where the heart is, as they say. And my heart is in Thimphu. It is, after all, where I work and live, and it is where the people, who matter the most to me today, live.

Winter of 2013

During the snowfall in Feb 2013

It is winter and schools and students across Bhutan are on their winter vacation. My sons too are on vacation. The cold winter days and the fact that I don't need to be on my sons' duty mean re-scheduling of my daily life.

The days are shorter and the sleeps longer. Between the Korean kerosene heater and the chinese electric blanket one tries to find warmth in the harsh Himalyan winter. At this altitude the afternoon wind can be harsh. The sun, which geography has taught us tilts towards the Australians at this time of the year, seem artificial. It is bright and sunny...but where is the warmth??

This is also time to 'neighbour-up' ( a phrase I have designed to mean...steal into your good neighbour's place towards evening and wait until they invite you over for dinner). But then, in return your neighbours also 'neighbour-up' to you. It has to be reciprocal.

Winter also reminds you of the volume and quantum of construction activities going on around in Thimphu. When the bitterly cold and crisp air blows up into a wind and deposits some micro silica in your face and 'hemchu', you know where it came from. It is from that heap of sand and boulder on the pedestrian path.

Christmas is here or so! We have a saying in Nepali, which translates as "to a blind ox...it is neither full-moon or new moon". Yet I know the significance of this auspicious day. Some of the finest people I have met or know are from the community that celebrate yuletide. Merry x-mas folks...I mean it from the bottom of my heart!

Letter to a son...

The international students' house where I lived

Dear Prateek,

I hope all of you (you, mom, Buku, Purna dada) are fine. It was nice talking to you last week at Bada’s place. I am writing this letter to tell you about my life here and also to find out how you are doing there.

The name of this place is Groningen. It is a city in the north of the Netherlands. It is a cold place. I live in a student house. I have one room, a little smaller than our bedroom. I have a table, chair, a reading lamp, one shelf, a cupboard, one lounge chair and a bed in my room.

My school is about 15 kilometers away from my house. Every morning when I go to school I have to walk for about 15 minutes to reach the bus station. At the bus station I get into bus number 15 and go to school. The bus takes about 10 minutes to reach my school. I pay 1 € (Euro) for my bus fare. 1 Euro is equal to about Nu. 65.

I have about 20 students in my class. There are three students who are older than me, a few are of my age and the rest are younger. I have classes only upto about lunch time. I don’t have classes upto 4 pm like you do at Druk School.

I hope you don’t find it a problem walking to school everyday. When it is not raining it should not be a problem. Once in a while ask mom to take you to school by a taxi. I hope you are working hard in studies. Always check your books for any homework once you come home and eat your lunch. Ask Purna dada for help if and when you need.

How is Buku? Always be nice and friendly with bhai. Don’t tease him and make him cry. He is smaller than you. You must learn to take care of him. If you study hard and be a nice boy I will bring nice presents for you next year.

During weekends you can go to our relatives’ place once in a while. But don’t ask mom to take you to relatives’ place in the middle of the week. From Monday to Friday – you must work hard. Of course when you have holidays it can be different.

Our big festival ‘Dashai’ is coming. It is on the 9th or 10th of October. Although I will not be there, you should celebrate and enjoy. You should go to Bada, Thulabau, kaka, and other relatives. Mom will give you some money. In November there will be holidays to celebrate the coronation of our beloved king. After that will be your exams and winter holidays. So, you see there are not many days for you and Buku to go to school this year. Study hard and ask Buku to study also.

Always go to bed on time. I think you should go to bed by 8:30 pm. Once you are in bed you can read something for 10 to 15 minutes and latest by 9:00 you must put off the lights, close your eyes and sleep. Please don’t fight in bed with Bhai. Ask Buku not to fight as well.

I think your sports day is coming. Are you participating in any sport? Do participate; whether you win or not it doesn’t matter.

I hope mom is fine. Don’t bother her too much. Eat well, sleep well, study well and be good boys. Mom will be really happy with you. Convey my love and greetings to Sarada didi, Bindhya didi, Preeti didi, Rupak dada, Gaurav, Adeep and Saurav.

My love to Buku, you, Purna dada and mom.