Happiness is in small things
29 July, 2008 – After working as Kuensel’s eastern Bhutan correspondent for nearly two years, I was posted recently back to head quarter in Thimphu. I soon realized that the capital had more to offer than I’d bargained for.
Reporting from the eastern region entailed walking long distances for almost every story and my mine of information was the farmer. I wrote mostly about the issues and impact of development, profiles of the rural populace and vanishing traditional practices. The region had kind of grown on me.
Back in Thimphu, however, I was curious to try out urban life. It was not that I had not lived in a city before, but two years away seemed like a long time. I set out for my office on the second day with much excitement. The sun was bright and the sky a brilliant blue. My mood was buoyant. I started my car and ventured forth.
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| WOMEN AT WORK – The sweet of honest toil |
I had only moved half-a-kilometre when I had to slow down. The road was jammed with cars. Students, hundreds of them, with bags and boxes, negotiated their way on a curbside. There were blasts of horns. A few students tried to cross the busy street, barely avoiding impatient traffic.
Mainstreet Thimphu downtown crawled like the wake of a funeral parade. Lines of cars, buses and motorbikes dotted the road as far as the eye could see. Pedestrians jostled for space. There were more inevitable horn blasts. The din from the construction sites added to the confusion. Unnerved by the bedlam, I drove on, only to get yelled at by a traffic cop, who looked like he was stretched to his own personal limit by the pandemonium around him. I wondered how city folks fared with indistinct roundabouts and obscure traffic rules on a daily basis.
Everybody seemed to be in hurry, especially the men and women with glum faces behind wheels.
It struck me how Thimphu had changed in the space of two years. Compared with Trashigang, the capital was a megapolis.
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| COMPARE AND CONTRAST – Where is the happiness: Uptown or down country? |
Equipped with the latest gadgets in hand and garbed in the trendiest, most of the 90,000 Bhutanese in the capital enjoy the crème de la creme of modernity. It’s here too that much of Bhutan’s middle class family live. Most have a car to drive. Their children browse the web. They heat food in microwaves. If the family is bored with home food they drive to the city and dine from a wide choice of cuisines, traditional and foreign. They bring home the latest DVDs. At weekends, the city’s singles hit the pubs and discotheques that seem to have sprouted overnight.
Life in the rural east was quite another story. Forget trendy clothes, even a bamboo roof over their head was a luxury. Yet they seemed just as happy if not – dare I say it – more so. In families of the rural east, there prevailed a sense of interconnectedness, a feeling born of shared adversity. Finding happiness in small things was integral to their perception of GNH.
The meal of the day was devoured like manna from heaven; and boys played soccer with balls made of tattered clothes. Buildings were absent but there was the comfort and indulgence of forests.
Perhaps, because there is not much distraction, farmers share strong family bonds. They support one another, emotionally if not financially. Parents have time for their kids. Their simple meal together at the end of the day may be likened to small feast. If there is one thing that I have learned from my stint in the east, it is this – happiness comes in small sizes. I know I have heard this truth many times before but I had to experience it to believe it.
This brings me to my other observation. Will the countless infrastructure in the capital build up happiness? Friends tell me city life keeps them busy and away from sorrow. I don’t know about that. I know, however, that the city will suck me into its rhythm soon, and I’d become one like many, but I also know for a fact that, if I ever get tired of the city or need to get away, there is always a village in the east.
By Kesang Dema (Kuenselone)