Silly but a lesson

Desperate friends

Unexpected things are always a surprise! People are good and bad at times. I and my friends were on a ride around the streets of Thimphu at night right after head banging some music numbers. It was a pleasant night with light drizzle. But only to encounter with tire puncture and with no tool-kits in our car to fix the tire issue. We knew no one from the vicinity. Called a friend but to no avail. Finally, stopped several vehicles including taxis just to borrow some toolkit to fix the unexpected but in vain.

Several taxis seemed to be deprived of the tool-kits, requested them but we were told that they got none. After all, money counts for them and especially Fridays and Saturdays are what they expect to earn more than the normal routine of other weekdays and in addition providing helping hands was not their priority. Fortunately, a taxi driver, who is a friend of my friend provided us with some tools but it did not really seem to fix the problem, since the ranges turned out to be larger for our wheel fixation. Yet, we stopped several vehicles and they seemed not to care for the troubled strangers.

Punctured wheel

This reminded me of how the tourists always praised Bhutanese for their kind gestures and hospitality. Our hopes started to decline for just to obtain some good helping hands. Waited for hours waving our hands to the vehicles passing by, only to receive blank and dumb glances. I cannot really explain the expressions of the friends, don’t even know what kind of expression did I expressed.

Police patrolling was on full swing. Fortunately, we managed to stop one of the cop's van after waiting for more than an hour and got the problem fixed finally. That’s when I noticed that my friend’s smiles were just as fascinating as one could expect.  Realized that cops are always there for the citizens even if it’s for minor issues at any time.

This was my first experience, but to many it seemed, it’s just a normal process of their life. I am almost on the conclusion that we hardly receive any help from our own fellow citizens. Thimphu is traveling with time at fast pace and the time is precious too, whether people carry out important or useless tasks.