When parking becomes nuisance

And today driving a car is not luxury at all. First, you don’t have money, but you need something to drive you around and the only option left is to avail loan from a financial institution. If you are lucky, you get the money after a great hassle. This is good because that’s how banks earn revenues for the government and you are part of that revenue-making process.

Second, you now have the borrowed money, you book a vehicle and once it is ready, you bear the burden of paying some extra borrowed money as tax. That’s good too because it contributes to the nation. Hopefully, a small fraction of this revenue reaches every mouth in the country. Third, you have to take this weird and nonsensical putting-in-the-box test to have the documents to drive, which is also good because if everyone is allowed to drive without driving license, we will have even a ten-year old boy from powerful family on the wheels.

And lastly, you pay the burden of paying to park your cars. I understand the companies that take the pain of collecting parking fees pay some form of tax to the government, but I fail to understand how their collection would take care of the immediate need of paving better road and providing better parking lots. We don’t see that happen if it is not for Dantak.

You would see young boys and girls wearing some odd looking jerseys chasing cars after cars. And even if you park for a minute you would be still paying fees. Well, paying parking fees to park your cars in towns makes sense, because there are limited parking spaces here.

The place where I stay is far from the main town. And here there are no traces of parking lots being marked. Mostly it is the residents and their relatives visiting who park here. But some people are already deployed there to collect parking fees. The amount levied is often based on the duration the cars lie idle there, but often they charge on baseless justifications. I understand why my uncle visits my apartment less and less now.

If you go to Siliguri, you will find what it means to collect parking fees. These people take care of your cars in your absence and help you to safely exit the parking lot. Do we have them in our parking fee collectors?

But for now, I make the pictures do the talking.

Comments

The Vanishing Currency of a Bhutanese Village

Growing up in rural Bhutan, the richest people in the village often had very little cash. They were known as chukpo , 'the ones with cattle'. And no one asked how much money a person had in the bank. No one or only a countable few had bank accounts, anyway. Wealth was measured in fields, cattle, grains, and the ability to carry a family through the seasons. Cash existed, but it played only a small role. Most exchanges happened through barter. Rice for chillies, soya beans for Sichuan peppers, cheese for eggs. I still remember that a ball of homemade cheese was worth two fresh eggs. Nobody needed a calculator because people simply knew. The most remarkable part of the system was the exchange of labour. During sowing and planting seasons, families needed extra hands, yet labour was rarely paid in cash. If I spent three days helping on your farm, you spent three days helping on mine in return. No contract was needed to be signed. No money changed hands. Wealthier households so...

Community of Bhutanese Bloggers Conceived

And finally it happened. I must say that it was by far the most attended Bloggers Meet. In the past we had bloggers agree to attend and cancel at the very last minute. But on June 24, 2015 – almost 100% of bloggers, who confirmed came. I would like to thank everyone for keeping his/her words, especially those who had to come all the way from Wangdue or Paro. Thank you! 35 Bhutanese bloggers met in Thimphu. We were honored to have the presence of senior bloggers like Aue Yeshi Dorji and Dasho Sangay Khandu. The meeting assumed more significance because of their presence. Equally, we were happy to have many young bloggers in whom we see so much enthusiasm and potential. On top of many things that transpired during the Meet, one of the most significant outcomes was the unanimous decision reached to form a formal group of bloggers, a platform aimed at encouraging and inspiring more bloggers around the country. The members decided that we will call it Community of Bhutanese Blogger...

The Hair Theory

When I first came to Perth, I did not notice much grey in my hair. Maybe a strand here or there, but nothing to worry about. A year later, things changed. My hair started turning grey in a way I could not ignore. Some friends told me it was stress. Moving to a new country, starting over, learning to build a life from the ground up. Stress can show up in strange ways, they said. I nodded, but I also had my own theory. Back home, as children we were told that salt makes your hair turn white faster. If salt had that kind of power, then why not salty water? I convinced myself that the Perth water was the reason my hair was changing. It made sense to me. I am yet to discover any scientific experiment, if any. But for now, that's a topic for another blog post. And then I noticed something else. The speed at which our hair fall. All of a sudden grey hair do not bother us anymore. The amount of hair I lost every week was shocking. Friends and acquaintances shared the same story. Almost ...

Ngawang Phuntsho

Search This Blog