A lesson on Virtues

I don’t forget 19^th October as easily as any other memorable day. Neither will the two men who became the victim of their arrogance nor I for the pride I feel for being able to barge into their inhumane manners with the public.

It was Saturday, scorching and dusty in Phuentsholing. After the morning assembly I managed fifteen minutes of time to go and collect my quota of kerosene fuel. It was the first time for a new resident in town. I had collected token receipt for 10 litres the other day from the Trade and Commerce office below the auction yard. It had taken me two hours of standing in the queue to submit my Identity card copy and residential authorization letter.

At  9.15AM I drove into the BOD premises. I saw an Indian woman walking down the road with an empty jerkin slinging from her fingers. I was unsure where to approach for the kerosene.  I know where petrol and diesel is refueled from for the cars.  I went to the gentleman who was holding the pump nozzle taking him to be the right person to start my enquiry. He had his copper-coloured hair bound with a ribbon. ‘He must have been a brash student in his time,’ I guessed. The copper boy replied to my enquiry with indifference, ‘I don’t know, ask him,’ he said pointing to the man behind the counter who I assumed to be an account officer from the way he issued a receipt to a tipper truck driver. I bent low to talk him through the pigeon hole, ‘excuse me sir,’ I intoned humbly, ‘ daaju, yo kerosene tel chin ko lai din tsho wala…’  The man briefly stared at me and told me the manager would come at three in the afternoon. I was relieved. Immediately I returned to school and re-substituted my friend who substituted me half an hour before for the class ten trial exam which began a week ago.

During the lunch recess it was an unfortunate coincidence that one of my class student collapsed in the corridor from a stomachache and I had to reach her to the emergency room at the hospital. When I came to school it was three. I had missed my lunch too.

At about 3.15PM I drove to BOD once again before I left home. As I alighted, the copper coloured boy was near the pump fiddling in his cash bag. I asked him if the manager arrived. ‘He is in the office, go from the back door.’ He bawled with reluctance. Two women in sari were near the pump with a jerkin each. I proceeded into the dimly lit room peering to the door to locate the office tag. There was none. A sturdy man in ashen track suit was about to lock the door. Without much ado I beamed closer to him, showing my token receipt ‘Sir, are you the manager? I came for the kerosene..’ I could hardly finish my statement when he replied bluntly, ‘It’s time to close, come on Monday..’ I was exasperated at his answer.

‘Monday’ sent my heart go numb. I told him I came in the morning and was told to come in the afternoon. He froze for a moment. He opened the office door and went in as if he had forgotten something. I followed him close behind. His office, the manager’s office, was a no larger than three by three meter disorganized room with an old wooden table that used to be the teachers’ table during my primary school days.

A woman with a jerkin and money in her fist entered behind me just as the manager sat behind the desk. He looked once out of the window and leafed through some log books on the table. I wondered if he went back in to leaf through some forgotten memoirs or to give us his permission for the fuel. I became impatient with his discourtesy. I asked him again if we could have the fuel. ‘Monday ma aauu nu..’ he was adamant. The woman behind me with a curly hair pleaded that she had exhausted her cooking fuel at home. No statement seemed to move him. ‘Why was he behaving coldly, as if he owned the whole world?’ I mused.

I was collecting the kerosene for a  Bhutanese monk at retreat in Kalimpong. I was supposed to send it the other day then. I felt annoyed at the manager’s indifferent attitude and made my last request. I deliberately told him I was busy with the class ten examination duties at school and may not get time to come again. It was a deliberate reason to awake his obligation.After what seemed like a minute’s silence he gestured, ‘ak so bis deenu nu…’ I looked at him, ‘Oh! Do we have to pay?’ He affirmed nodding lazily. The woman behind me handed her money and the receipt. The manager tore a corner of a paper, scribbled something with a pencil and gave to her. I gave my receipt and money. He gave me a paper torn from the edge of an Indian magazine with a word written ’10 litrs’ with a lead pencil and nothing else. I wondered why he took almost twenty minutes to tear that fragment and write an insignificant number. Bureaucratic monopoly was more evident than the gross attitude of that mole hill of a man.

I walked out with a word of ‘thank you’ and went to the pump boy, the copper man, who I thought would fill my jerkin. The woman who went before me cut me short of the pump boy. She was grumbling and appeared annoyed. She had approached the other pump boy, the dark complexion gentleman, who was a meter away fuelling a taxi and was told to ask the copper boy. ‘I don’t know whom to ask, these boys are pointing to one another!’ She blurted to me. I asked the dark complexion humbly, ‘Who gives the fuel now?’ I was already agitated by their manners. ‘Ask him, am not the one’ he directed me to the copper man who stood leaning against the wall, his hands folded to display some sort of dominance in the area. Though irritated at his rustic way of speech I approached him anyway, ‘wai, the kerosene,’ I said, showing my fragment of news paper. Instantly he replied, ‘I don’t know sir; I have no authority to give…’ I went to the manager and asked him from the office door, ‘sir, who is going to give the fuel?’ He told me the ‘pump boy’ will fuel us. It was a confusing situation. The pump boy says they don’t know and pushes us one to the other like a ball and the manager calmly says the pump boy is responsible.

As I came out the dark-complexioned boy went into the managers’ office. I was about to ask the copper man again when the dark fellow came and tossed the machine key to him. My patience broke loose right there. I almost yelled at him, ‘ hey, you said you don’t know all this while and now you have the keys. What is this?’ He replied with an crude arrogance, ‘I said I don’t have the authority, the keys are with manager.’ his answered infuriated  me more. ‘Why couldn’t you say the keys were with manager before? Why did you push us between the two of you? We are your customer and this is not the way you deal with us.’

He stood there rooted against the wall looking at his toes. ‘You earn because we pay for your service, you could at least be customer-friendly when we ask.’ I lectured on. I went to the other pump boy,dark one, who was then refueling a car. “ Hey!’ I commanded to gain his attention. ‘What do you think we are? Animals! You said you are not the one to give the fuel, yet  you went in to get the key?’ I questioned. I was angry to the bone. ‘I told you I don’t know..’ He replied like his friend did and I realized that they harassed their customers in those uncivil manners. ‘Then how did you know the keys are with the manager? You should have said you will get the keys. You played with us. We are also servant of the nation, we know how to behave with the public.’ I railed for some more time and even asked him to leave the job if he did not know how to serve. The last thing I said to him was, ‘If don’t respect me in these national dress code, you are not respecting tsa wa sum. I could call police for that.’ His neck lost the energy to keep his hot head upright and lips were dumb.

I returned to the copper man, the pump boy, who had already filled the jerkin for the woman then. There as he filled my jerkin I continued my lecture. I apologized for being harsh and told him that we as Bhutanese are sober and generous and I had not anticipated a power-play and a demonstration of indifference from people as young as them. I asked him how he would feel if he came to my office and I behaved in the cold, unwelcome and bossy way. He had little to say. I thanked him with a pat on the back and drove home feeling even hungrier.

As I lay on the couch I wondered if I acted little too less or little too much for the pump boys’ reaction.Did my action reveal my arrogance and ego too? I still wonder if I was right in my brutality in the manner I spoke.

On  another occasion  I encountered an epitome of humility-in-service at the Dungkhag office. What a paradox?