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A Desi in Thimphu
If you’re thinking of visiting the Himalayan country as a tourist, don’t. Bhutan is best explored when you go there as a traveller. Yashica Dutt advises.
We were absolute ladies, with thorough ladylike manners, cooing occasionally at pretty things and photographing everything in sight, when I first saw it. Red, sculpted and varnished, it lay, so much at home among the fitfully coloured masks, that it could have almost gone unnoticed. Until, like a really simple anagram, once you saw it, you couldn’t have mistaken it for anything else. The sacred symbol of Bhutan shaped in the likeness (almost too well) of a male organ, poked right through my thinly veiled pretence of poise and the gloves were off. Giggling, I pointed towards the object in sight in the most gauche way.
A regular sight for the salesmen in the quaint Traditional Paper Factory in Thimphu, the capital of the Himalayan kingdom, but not for my fellow travellers. The senior members of the journalistic group studiously ignored me, while contemporaries coolly confessed to prior knowledge.
Clearly, I was the most plebeian of the lot. So, the next time I saw it painted on posters and calendars, cast in moulds, dangling from keychains, pinned as brooches, painted on brick walls, hanging from Bhutanese-style wooden doors or simply as replicas strewn carelessly in every tourist shop, I tried to be as composed as I could.
"There was a monk; slightly crazy but also enlightened. Every time he scared off demons, he would take it out," a school-going sales girl had informed me in the local market when I’d taken off on my own for some exploring. "It’s nothing to be ashamed about. You should nail it to the door for good luck. It really works." Not the advice I thought I’d be getting when I landed after a shaky ride in the Druk Air ATR plane, amongst the watercolour green and blue of the expansive Paro airport.
Apart from the piercing cold, the clean lines at the airport and the softly curled, Disney-like cloud motif, what stood out most were the huge, congratulatory posters of the royal wedding of the fifth King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and his wife Jetsun Pema, held last October.
Being a young democracy (four years old; there were huge posters urging citizens to vote too), the love for the king was evident every time our ebullient guide, Karma, mentioned him. He is, not to forget, incredibly handsome and has a stellar looking (I heard someone mention ‘superhot’) wife. Probably the real reason behind their sweeping popularity, I guessed.
Dangerous Love
But like always, love is not enough. Reverence and respect bring a natural balance to the royal equation in Bhutan. I realised this fully while visiting the Tashichho dzong, a two-storied fortress built in the typical Bhutanese style of multi-coloured wood frontages, glass windows, brick walls and sloping roofs, housing the throne room and the offices of the king. We were promptly asked to remove our scarves and shawls and uncover our heads despite the biting cold. And walking down the cherry tree-lined track to the main gate of the dzong, Karma had a warning handy. "Don’t look at the building opposite the river [Dechencholing Palace, where all the members of the royal family live – except the present king]. Not unless you have permission."
The warning came back when we almost met the fourth king (former King Jigme Singye Wangchuk) as he cycled away with his bodyguards, making us wait for 15 minutes for him to pass, to avoid accidentally running into him. "No, you can’t take pictures or look directly at the king. The royal bodyguards will break your camera or throw it in the river," cautioned Karma. "If you ever meet him, you can’t shake hands with him, it’s not our custom."
Though we were informed later, it’s not that one can’t talk to him at all. In fact, he was known to have had a conversation with some unsuspecting European tourists. But it was the one time I truly cherished India’s ability to throw a shoe at anyone we wanted, back home.
Indian in Bhutan
That however, wasn’t the last time I was a happy Indian in Bhutan. I overheard glowing recommendations of the Indian educational system over an exotic jam-and-bread-basket breakfast in the mountain-facing Thongsel restaurant of the Taj Tashi hotel in Thimphu. Reading newspaper mentions of how important Indian currency was for the local economy, I felt oddly patriotic. But that didn’t make me a foreigner, at least not one who was gullible enough to be overcharged for goods that were mostly imported from India. Apart from handicrafts and the local artefacts, almost no product looked Bhutanese, something I discovered on visiting the popular weekend market in Thimphu. You can reach the market after crossing an ancient wooden bridge over a river. (I found the exact jewellery I’d bought from Janpath in Delhi). I ended up buying some fine Bhutanese chilli and cheese, the ingredients in almost all their dishes.
The TV channels I watched at night, as I lay stretched out in the richly carved wooden suite (there’s no nightlife in Thimphu), were also Indian. The exceptions were a few Bhutanese channels which either showed promos of local movies or stage shows, in which local teens performed to dated Bollywood numbers. Apparently, no original content is allowed, yet.
Art Your Heart Out
Dance and song are closely connected in Bhutanese culture and are known to ward off evil spirits. I never felt as touristy as when the Taj Tashi organised a welcome dance by the Chipdrel dancers, who hopped and clapped on our arrival. Or the same night when, at a dinner organised in the courtyard, we witnessed about eight different dance performances, all religious and evil-warding. The general manager of the hotel, Ravi Nischal, even managed to drag our unenthusiastic group on to the courtyard. Dressed in the traditional costume for women – kira (a silk wrap-around), we eventually stepped on each other’s toes.
