Open Letter to New Thimphu Thrompon

Thimphu Thrompon 

Thromde Office

Subject: What Happened to Chubachu Footpath?

Dear Dasho Ugyen Dorji,

Congratulations on your electoral success. Your victory was people's yearning for change. Former Thrompon was a charismatic leader who has won hearts and earned respect from every quarter of this town, yet people chose you. Your victory comes with a lot of responsibilities. People's expectations from you will be overwhelming,  unforgiving and, at times, unreasonable, yet you must strive to remain faithful to your duty.

At least I have a firm belief that you will be seen as an insider, having been a Thromde staff so far, to enjoy the goodwill and cooperation of your former colleagues, unlike former thrompon. Dasho Kinley used to share how the senior staff members often ganged up against his decisions and didn't let him go forth with most of his out-of-the-box ideas. I know this cannot happen against you because you know the masterminds in the system. 

Well, Dasho, a hundred things are begging for your attention in Thimphu today. Everything seems more important than the other, and I wish you the composure and wisdom to see things with clarity and know which one deserves to be on the priority list. 

A footpath that became a drain

I write this today to draw your attention to a small footpath that seems to have fallen in the shadow. It starts from Chubachu traffic, runs along the stream to the bridge above Land Commission (Passing along the Telecom wall). It was a busy footpath used by hundreds of people who don't have or use cars, including students. Among the hundreds of people using that path was my former teacher, Pema Chhogyel, who is visually impaired since childhood. I saw him walking along that path independently using his white cane to get to his office in the Ministry of Education.

Sir Pema Chhogyel and his son on their way home from the office

Unfortunately, one day toward the end of 2019, we saw people and machine urgently digging up the entire stretch of the footpath. People could no longer use it. They had to find alternate routes, which were much longer detours requiring cars. I understand that for the city to develop, we need to tolerate brief inconveniences every now and then, and for bigger development, we have to make bigger sacrifices. 

But what I can't understand is that the urgency with which they had dug the footpath was not followed up with any other urgent activity. It's been two years, and the footpath is still unusable. The initial excitement was only to destroy the fairly good footpath and make it unusable. 

I am a witness to this failure, along with hundreds of officials working with the Land Commission, Health Ministry, Royal Audit Authority, Anti Corruption, RSPN, WWF, UN, Ministry of Education and Bhutan Telecom. 

Alongside Ministry of Health toward NLC

In February last year, I read sir Pema Chogyal making an online plea to Thrompon and urban planners asking them when the path will be made useable. It's his daily route to and fro office, and ever since it was destroyed he had to be dropped to the office by his wife and picked from office by his school-going son. When he wrote that you were in the office as an urban planner but now you are the mayor. Sir Pema must have thought that the ordeal would only last a few months but we are into May 2021 and nothing has been done. 

Dasho, since the unfortunate destruction of the footpath, we saw people struggling to manoeuvre through the dug up path and making do with the pathetic condition of the road until a group of workers came and started some concrete works and put short spikes of metal rods along the side as if to prevent people from using this already scary path. No alternate route was paved, nor the old one was made safe for use.

Footpath along the Telecom Wall (With metal spikes)

Dasho, I can see no justifiable reasons for such a long delay. If there was no budget, there was no need to rush and dig the path in the first place. If there is a budget and the work was given out then shouldn't there be a deadline? 

Dasho, I know that the entire Thimphu is dug up, and some places are dug more than necessary because of our incompetence yet we look forward with the hope that when the dust settles down we are going to have a better city. But when it comes to the footpath that suffered the unfortunate digging, and series of negligence from 2019 to 2021, I urge you to find out what really happened and do whatever it takes to give back the footpath to the hundreds of people who rely on that, including sir Pema Chhogyel. Let him get back the joy of juggling between his home and office independently. 

Thank you

(I don't use the footpath yet I care.)

Thimphu’s Traffic Turning Dark Red

From as early as 7:45 AM, Thimphu's traffic was in a deep mess. The traffic status on Google maps shows how bad it was (see the map), from yellow showing moderate to red and dark red showing severe jams in most parts of Thimphu. It's pretty unexpected for a small city. 

 

However, it's a matter of great pride to observe that despite the jam causing frustration, there is hardly any honk or overtaking. In fact, the right lane is left absolutely free from oncoming traffic to pass without hindrance. 

PC: BBS

We are all well-meaning people causing this big problem unintentionally. How do we resolve this issue without compromising our lives?

I offer my two chheltrum to address the issue; from immediate fix to long term solutions

1. Immedicate fix: 

Odd-Even Rule. Allow vehicle with odd digit numbers to ply on odd dates, and even digit nubmer to ply on even dates. Nothing new. We have tried this before. This will not only reduce the traffic to half its mess but also encourage neighbours and communities to talk and start car-pooling.

2. Medium Term Solution: 

Improve public transport or at least add more school buses. Encourage or subsidise commercial school buses. One school bus can take away at least 20 cars from the road. Druk Ride should enter this game.

3. Long Term Solution: 

Enroll our children in the schools that are within our Zone, so that we don't have to crisscross into other zones and cause jams, or don't event have to use cars. We have seen how dividing the city into zones helps in more than one front.

4. Long Long Term Solution: 

Have a network of good footpaths linking every part of the city. Plant trees along the footpath and make walking to school and office a trendy culture. Once major cause of the current traffic mess is the sudden loss of footpath across the city. So many busy footpaths were dug up seemingly to do a major facelift but even after two years, we are waiting to see when we can use the paths again. If we were to wait this long, why didn't they rush to damage the old paths?

5. Not a Solution: 

DON'T increase taxes on cars following some ill economic advices. It solves nothing. It only makes cars unafforable for the poorer section of the society with no impact whatsoever on the growth in sale and use of cars. 

6. Stupidity 

If you hate traffic jam and don't want to be part of it then start your day before Thimphu wakes up. The road is hauntingly empty till 7:30. But the funny part is you have to wait near the school gates until it opens at 8 AM. This seeminly smart hack turned out to be stupidity. 

How Two Bhutanese Telecoms are Unfaithful to GNH

There were times we didn't have mobile phones. It came and changed our lives. We are grateful to BMobile for leading that change. 

In the early 2000s, the mobile service was at least five times more expensive than today. Without smartphones, the purpose of phones was limited to talking and sending SMS, yet it was so exciting. Bhutan Telecom enjoyed the monopoly and exploited the people's curiosity. The fascinated people didn't realise that they have been robbed until Tashi Cell came by to help us understand that it could be done at a lesser cost. For that, we remain eternally grateful. 

However, now the two telecoms seem to have ganged up and decided to watch each other's backs. Their products are almost identical. And they have chosen to misplace their values at the same time. Of the several things that don't seem right for a business in Bhutan, the following two top the list of reasons why they are so unfaithful to the core values of GNH. 

1. Paradoxical Data Package Costing

It's good that we now have various small data packages to choose from unlike in the early days where the smallest voucher we could buy was Nu.300. However, the way the packages are priced is shockingly so pro-rich. 

For Nu. 99 you get 1330 MB of data, and for Nu. 699 you get 22,370 MB. Do the maths. If you can pay seven times the price at once, you get 20 times the data. They may argue that it's a typical bulk discount scheme, but for Bhutan, such a paradox is insulting the core value of GNH. 

Bhutan Telecom				Tashi Cell
Rate (Nu.)	Data Volume (MB)	MB/Nu.		Rate (Nu.)	Data Volume (MB)	MB/Nu.
19	260	13.7		19	260	13.7
29	410	14.1		49	660	13.5
39	520	13.3		99	1,330	13.4
49	660	13.5		199	2,720	13.7
99	1,330	13.4		299	4,500	15.1
199	2,720	13.7		499	8,260	16.6
299	4,500	15.1		599	19,170	32.0
499	8,260	16.6		777	25,975	33.4
699	22,370	32.0		999	37,570	37.6
799	26,710	33.4		1,299	52,794	40.6
999	37,570	37.6		1,499	62,463	41.7
1,199	48,730	40.6		1,999	90,000	45.0
				2,499	120,000	48.0
				2,999	150,000	50.0

Obviously, it's about who can and cannot pay. If you can afford to pay more, you get it cheaper. We want to rain where there is water. If you can't afford it, you have to pay more. The margin is significant enough to raise the question; why can't they share that offer with those who have no means to opt for bigger packages, if so much can be spared? 

It's much like the Duty-Free shop where the prominent people in society with all the means are given handsome discount quota. In contrast, the people who desperately need these discounts are selectively deprived—such a paradox. 

2. Unlimited Plans to Ruin a Generation 

The cheapest data package on offer with our telecoms is the unlimited plans sold at Nu.55 by BT and Nu.57 by TCell. But the catch is it's effective between 1 AM to 7 AM, the prime sleeping hours. If I have no other means, and I get unlimited downloads at night that's right for my pocket, I might as well put aside my sleep. Thus, thousands of people, mostly youths, are sleepless every night, ripping the benefit of this misguided scheme and missing on real things happening during the day. We are creating a generation of strange young people, who haven't met their parents for days because when they are awake, their parents are asleep. And vice versa. 

TCell Sleepless Scheme

BT Sleepless Scheme

When the telecom sales team sat to brainstorm and invent this 'brilliant' product, have they considered for once what would happen if their own children fall prey? When they watch the night traffic soaring, they see the money flowing in but do they put faces and stories to those numbers? It reminds me of the movie, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008). I don't have to explain this. 

A still from The Boy in Striped Pyjamas

My friends are petitioning against this scheme. Here is the link. I am signing the petition. We need you to sign and put pressure on the telecoms to do some soulsearching. 

There is a book called Proposed GNH of Business by The Centre for Bhutan Studies (CBS). The summary of the book on BOOKNESE reads;

The idea of incorporating GNH values into business was first proposed by Prime Minister (2013-2018) Dasho Tshering Tobgay in 2015. He mentioned that the current business model of overemphasizing profit maximization and increasing shareholder values at the cost of environment and community was unsustainable. He expressed the need to recognize and manage these costs and risk and called for integrating GNH values into the business operation. Essentially, it meant measuring the success of a business by its ability to serve, facilitate, and engage with its stakeholders. -

Habit of Writing Without Publishing

Writing is a pleasurable hobby. It's an easy job. A cup of tea. It gets difficult only when we plan to publish it. Suddenly. Then we spend hours watching the cursor blinking (like I'm doing right now). Writing a line. Deleting it. Editing even before anything is written at all. I ambush my own thoughts and words before they come out. I stop myself from writing. 

My Old Journal Notebooks

The following anecdotal story from Atomic Habit opened my eyes;

The Danger of Aiming for Perfection

On the first day of class, Jerry Uelsmann, a professor at the University of Florida, divided his film photography students into two groups.

Everyone on the left side of the classroom, he explained, would be in the “quantity” group. They would be graded solely on the amount of work they produced. On the final day of class, he would tally the number of photos submitted by each student. One hundred photos would rate an A, ninety photos a B, eighty photos a C, and so on.

Meanwhile, everyone on the right side of the room would be in the “quality” group. They would be graded only on the excellence of their work. They would only need to produce one photo during the semester, but to get an A, it had to be a nearly perfect image.

At the end of the term, he was surprised to find that all the best photos were produced by the quantity group. During the semester, these students were busy taking photos, experimenting with composition and lighting, testing out various methods in the darkroom, and learning from their mistakes. In the process of creating hundreds of photos, they honed their skills. Meanwhile, the quality group sat around speculating about perfection. In the end, they had little to show for their efforts other than unverified theories and one mediocre photo.

This story revealed to me where I got messed. I was expecting too much from every piece I was attempting to write. I was not allowing myself to enjoy the process of writing because I was too focused on publishing it. I needed to start writing for the love of writing without the nagging pressure of publishing on my blog or anywhere on social media. I needed to do some private writings, ones that are not to be made public in any form. 

When I finally did that I found it extremely liberating. The spontaneity of my thoughts surprised me. The flow was smooth and beautiful. I rediscovered my ability to writing.  Like the 'quantity group' in the story, I began writing more. And the more I wrote the more I loved the process. I felt my confidence coming back to me. I could see myself getting better at writing. 

Besides improving my writing, I revived my habit of daily journaling. I had made a mistake of confusing journaling with writing articles for my blog. Now I know that I should never put the burden of publishing on private journal writing. 

By the way, daily Journaling helps you organize your thoughts and give you clarity. It can help you in self-reflection, goal setting and driving personal development. It's said to relieve stress, boost memory and unleashes creativity. I am taking it more seriously than I ever did. 

Nothing beats the experience of writing physically in a notebook with a smooth fountain pen, but if you want to make it exciting and revealing, try writing on 750Words.com. It's an online platform to write privately, exactly the kind I explained. 

What's exciting is the way you are tempted to come back every day to write your 750 words because you are awarded points, and you will get beautiful stats that analyze the feelings, themes, and mindset of your words. You discover a lot about yourself more from your writing. The platform makes you a disciplined writer, you need to be on time, and your speed is tracked, even your distractions. You can write more than 750 words, which is approximately three pages. Your daily quota is only counted if you have crossed the 750 words mark. You cannot be lazy.

The site was created by Buster Benson and his wife Kellianne. 

Stats on 750Words

The mindset of your words

Feelings

In helping find my way back to writing I want to thank three people; Dr Adrian Chan for inspiring me to write daily journals, Nawang Phuntsho for introducing me to 750words.com, and Bjob Ganchu for taking me to Audibles where I listen to Atomic Habits. 

A Bhutanese Local Guide on Google Maps

I must have confused many of you when I talked about Google Maps as a thrilling online activity. I made it sound like a game. It's a game when you are into it. I have made 4653 contributions as a Local Guide to this day (20th Jan 2021), accumulating a staggering 16 million views on them. If you are new to this subject, let's work on finding some clarity. 

A Local Guide in Bhutan

Well, we all use Google Maps to look up places. Google didn't come around to add those places on their map. Local people like you and me added them. Anyone with a Google account can sign in on Maps and add, edit or review places. Once you begin doing that, you are a Local Guide. I got into it by accident and it started getting exciting when I discovered I was earning points. And Badges. I reached Level 8. Google really knows how to use people to happily work for them for free. But the benefit is mutual and that's why I don't mind doing it. 

Action	Earning Points
Adding New Place	15
Reviewing a Place	5 per review
Review with more than 200 characters	10 bonus points
Adding a Photo	5 per photo
Adding a video	7 per video
Editing a Place	5 per edit
Adding a Road	15 per road
Star Rating	1
Answering a question	1
Fact-Checking Others’ Contributions	1

I try, without success, to influence young people to play around with Maps instead of PUBG. Three years from now the hundreds of hours and infinite data put into paying the games will leave you with nothing to show. Even the chicken dinner is fake. But the same effort on Maps would have earned you thousands of points and massive credibility as a local guide, with a chance to win surprise gifts from Google and to go to local guides conference in San Fransisco. I have won 100 GB space on Google Drive some years ago. 

Places I reviewed (Most Viewed)

To be an effective local guide, you must go to places, take pictures, observe things and write about the place. You would have travelled to so many places, taken thousands of pictures, written so many reviews and created a lot of memories, which can't be done by playing some mobile game. It's an exercise that will help you be in the moment and be aware of things around you. Once you are into it, you will find it exciting to explore new places. While it seems like you are thanklessly working for Google, you will realize that you are only contributing toward improving the accuracy of the map of our local places. We are helping ourselves and not Google. 

Top 4 most viewed photos I posted

If we could add all our places accurately on the map, then we are ready to embrace map-based services such as taxi app, home delivery services, etc. Even the postal service will improve. We can get to any address using our phone. We need not tell the colour of the building or the name of the building owner. 

As you earn more points and climb to higher levels your credibility as a local guide becomes stronger. The places you add get approved faster. This gives you the power to help add small businesses on the maps. It could be an alternate career, going around adding places and reviewing them. Businesses may pay us to add them and write reviews. Sometimes, we get to name a place.

One Place I named "Yak Monument" in Haa

And finally, if you just want to have fun on Maps and do none of the above, let me tell you how you could virtually visit all the places you have ever wanted to go. If you want to be more adventurous, go to Doklam or visit Nubtshonapata or hundreds of lakes on the northern frontiers. You could measure the dimensions of the lakes and declare which one is the largest. I found out that there is one lake that is bigger than Nubtshonapata in Haa, but it's not as popular because it's closer to the Tibetan border.