There is a slide photo in my possession of a young man standing in bright sunlight. The ordinariness of the photo is striking. The features of the man are those of someone from Tibet or Bhutan. But instead of the traditional kira, he is wearing a greased khaki shirt and khaki pants that are two sizes too small. He is barefoot, staring at the camera unselfconsciously. He is holding out a box, as if to hand it to the photographer. The box is a cube, the kind you might give to someone as a Christmas present, except that it is pure white. Because of the low angle from which the photograph has been shot, the board above the man is visible and it reads HOTEL GAHSEL, Thimpu and a line below it says Pure Vegetarian Restaurant. Diabetics are always acutely aware of their body's blood sugar levels; alcoholics know the opening and closing times of the liquor stores in every city they visit; and chocolate lovers know where every last piece of chocolate in the house is tucked away. In the same vein, strict vegetarians make it a point to know all the vegetarian restaurants in whichever place they are going to. On more than one occasion my wife and I have altered our travel arrangements to adjust to the availability of vegetarian restaurants.          All of this preamble is just to say that therefore, when we were staying in Thimpu, we ended up going to the Gahsel vegetarian restaurant morning, noon and night.          In the restaurant, I got talking to Bhim, a waiter there. Almost all Bhutanese speak very good Hindi, because of the country's proximity to and its dependence on India. They have not been taught Hindi in school, but they have picked the language up by hearing and speaking. They also usually speak good English.          Talking to the locals is one way to peek behind the elaborate façade that has been put up for the tourists. It is one of the reasons why going to a place beats reading about it. During the course of several meals that he served us, I pieced together Bhim's life story. He was 23 years old, and he had gotten married when he was 16. (Which usually means that his wife would have been younger still.) They had two kids, but one day his wife's parents had come and taken her away from him. They took her and the children away, that's what he said. I didn't pursue it further, the subject being a delicate one.          A long time ago, he had gone to Delhi to learn some electrical work -- repairing TVs and fridges. But when he had returned to Bhutan he’d taken up a job as a waiter. I didn't understand this switch. He had then decided to take a break from being a waiter in Thimpu and had gone back to his native village.          Bhim's village was two days walk from Phuent Shilling, the Bhutanese town bordering India. There were no drivable roads between Phuent Shilling and his village. In fact, there is really only one highway in Bhutan, the road that connects Phuent Shilling to Thimpu, which makes it the country's sole artery for all supplies. So, whenever Bhim walks to his village, he sleeps in village shops, shops which usually accommodate walkers for the night.          He had spent several months in his village, doing agriculture. He had even built himself a house. Many homes in Bhutan are shanties -- four basic brick walls topped with rusted, corrugated tin. Then he heard the siren call of the big city and Thimpu lured him back. There is one statement that the King of Bhutan has made, which is widely quoted by travel agencies and guidebooks to promote tourism into Bhutan. "I am more concerned about the Gross Domestic Happiness of the country than about its Gross Domestic Product," he has reputedly said. Unarguably, it has all the ingredients of a great sound bite. But after having walked the side streets of Thimpu (where tourists don't normally venture) and having seen the pitiful dwellings that pass off as houses, I am not sure that the king's statement is such a good thing. In Bhutan, abject poverty is there for all to see. If only the tourists will stop focussing on the touted splendors, will take their blinders off.          The Bhutanese, men and women and especially the kids are soft fun-loving people with soft features. But the adults have appalling teeth with many of them having fallen out from the incessant chewing of betel leaves and areca nuts. Their mouths are perennially red from the chalk lime that they apply to the betel leaves. And when they smile they smile with their whole face, their eyes completely disappearing leaving behind only wrinkles. Bhim had that same smile. I wondered what he would have thought of the king's statement. My wife didn't accompany me when I set out for Gahsel on our last day there. The jet lag and the arduous journey to Thimpu had made her fall ill. She just didn't have the energy to accompany me and was resting in the hotel.          I headed straight to the restaurant for my coffee. Thimpu is essentially a one-road town with shops and commercial buildings lining both sides of the main road. It was past 8.30 a.m. but there was hardly anybody walking.          Bhim served me my coffee and breakfast, and because the restaurant was empty he hovered around to chat. His big thing in life was to get promoted from being a waiter to a cook. Referring to the vegetarian things I was ordering and eating, he said in perfect Hindi, "Vegetable cooking tho mamuli hai." (Cooking vegetable dishes is too simple for me.) He said that he was trained in cooking meat dishes, which to him was a lot more difficult, and there were a lot more dishes that could be made. Also, he said, he could earn more money if he became a meat cook.          I asked him for the recipe for the chow mein dish that I had eaten previous night, and he filled me in on the finer points of making a good noodle dish.          Since I didn't want to outright ask him what his salary was, I asked what a cook made. Anywhere from 2000 to 3500 rupees per month, he said. Apparently, he once used to make over 5000 a month, but not anymore, since he was just a waiter biding his time.          I had seen him around both on weekdays as well as during the weekend, so I asked him about his days off. He said that you worked 7 days a week whether you were a cook or a waiter. But you can take 2-3 weeks leave and go to your native village. His tone of voice made it seem like a perk. When you went on leave you were not paid, but Bhim didn't seem to mind this at all.          When I asked Bhim to pack some breakfast for Rupal, he suggested a couple of chilly paranthas. The Bhutanese are so fond of red chilly peppers that they use it in every dish they can.          After he brought the paranthas in a small white box, it was time for me to pay my bill and leave. Sensing my imminent departure, Bhim seemed to want to apologize about the fact that he was divorced.          "India mein aisa divorce nahin hota hai, nah?" Divorces don't happen very much in India, no? he wanted to know.          "Nahin, aaj kal tho hota hai." No, nowadays it happens, I said.          Actually, he was right by all accounts and statistics and I was not being completely truthful. The divorce rate in Bhutan is several times higher than that in India. But surely I could be forgiven an innocent lie, if only to keep someone else's illusion intact?          I asked him to walk outside with me so that I could take a photograph of him outside his restaurant. He carried the Paranthas box.          After I had crouched low and clicked the photo so that the restaurant sign was also visible, I asked him about what his future held for him.          "Hope to be a cook, maybe work in a restaurant that serves meat-dishes."          "And maybe get married some day?" I asked.          He smiled shyly.          "Dekhenge." We'll see. Ram Prasad August 2002 BACK to the Main Page