Uniforms to Help Financial Crunch

In this so-called financial crunch or crisis, one must be ever careful with cash transactions. Money has become tight. One must know what to buy. The burning desires for material things have been tempered by economic inflation. With no salary increase and government budgets being slashed across developmental activities, money has become genuinely hard to come by.

The real problem is the rupee shortage against our ngultrum. Government reports paint a scary picture, suggesting it may take five or more years to recover from this financial crunch. Millions in debt remain to be cleared. Meanwhile, millions of our currency notes are floating in border towns, now useless. I was told by a storekeeper in Jaigaon that these notes are being eaten by rats inside their cupboards. That's it. I don't really understand the full picture. Now the cost of everything has skyrocketed. Yet, on the other hand, millions of rupees are earned every day from power exports. It is difficult to comprehend our economic situation.

At this juncture, some schools in Bhutan have come up with a good idea to help themselves and to teach people how terribly wasteful it is to spend money across the border—buying more than we need. Teacher uniforms, for instance, have become widely popular in schools. Darla MSS is a living example: teachers have adopted a dress code during working hours. Excellent! This helps not only individually but also financially. It helps one's family, society, and the government. The help may be just the tip of an iceberg, but it still makes a difference.

Our lady workers have kiras competing anywhere. They tend to buy very expensive kiras and tegos almost every month to show off to their friends. This is costly. To curb this trend and to reduce the accumulation of many useless kiras in favor of one useful dress, I think the uniform is a good idea. But of course, there are again personal rights—freedom to choose, freedom to wear—but that is another side of the coin.

Our male workers are done with five or six ghos in a year; they don't need to dress extravagantly. They already have dresses. Their ash-white, ash-black, or blue ghos are sufficient. There is one Lopen in Darla who always wears an ash-white gho the whole year round. That is too much on one extreme. On the other extreme, there was a southern Bhutanese math teacher (my fellow countryman) at Jigme Sherubling HS in Khaling who had just one ash-white gho for two years. I stayed there for only two years, and I didn't expect him to continue with that single gho alone. But I was truly struck when I saw the school magazine of one of the schools (name withheld). There he was, seated in the middle with his old ash-white gho—that man has become a principal! He is a calculating man, I guess. He really understands plus and minus.

Now, feeling somewhat hyped, I counted my own ghos. I breathed a sigh of relief. I have not been a real jerk when it comes to ghos. Within eight years of earning, I have sixteen ghos stuffed inside my cupboard shelf. They barely fill the whole step of shelf number one. Not so much, I thought. I have also given many old ghos to my people. I remember clearly that I have given away almost seven or more by now. I am not a gho freak. I have only two very expensive ghos: one Lungserma given by my parents, and a Sershog gho that my wife forcefully bought for me. These two expensive ghos are staved and bedded inside a suitcase. I hope they won't lay eggs and double. The last time my wife looked at them, there were some bugs creeping in between. Soon, they will make a home out of my precious but useless ghos.

Like all men, my favorite ghos are plain ash-blue and ash-white ones made across the border. I have five or more ghos in these colors, and I am afraid that some people may feel I have learned from my math teacher in Khaling.