Who Cleans the Toilet in your School?

Besides teaching, the extent of a teacher’s work nowadays has reached to toilet cleaning. So often, I think about the real job of a teacher? To teach or to clean a toilet. And I question about wholesome education?  This wholesome education has made teachers hell. It has made teachers into bits and parts.

The dignity of labor is what many may call to clean the toilet. And model or epitome description have become quite cliché now with teachers. What students expect at the end are good passing marks. No big deal! The real imparter of wholesome education (jack of all trades -knowledge) themselves are unwholesome. “Everyone cannot be whole but be a part,” was the answer from a naughty student in my class that blackens my face in front of the class when I complained about his indiscipline in the class. And this is true and this is dangerous to our society; to be a jack of all trades and master of none. This is what our system teaches; to be of no specific skill but to have blunt poles that would never jab inside the soil. And teachers' stories are no different these days. Teachers not only should teach, but also take off clothes and kick the ball in the wide posts or hit on legs!  Teachers not only teach but also dance a monkey’s dances. Teachers should also sing to the loudest and demotivates pupils of singing in their future! Teachers should also dig the ground to sow the seeds of a fruit, which may not grow! Teachers not only should teach but also be a guide, a parent, a mentor, and teachers are the father of all, though they have fathered none.

Toilet cleaning is a new trend happening in Darla MSS. Darla is the father of toilet cleaning if it's followed by other schools. And where the hell is Darla? Darla was previously named Tala, Tala is now a money grinding machine in Bhutan. Hydroelectricity checks the balance of trade in Bhutan, especially with India.

In 2010, out came the teachers' toilet cleaning routine and to everybody’s surprised, it was unexpected. Some laughed at the foolish idea, some made funs, some didn’t want to use the toilet and clean so. So many odds and ends came out. This pushed a day with a stressed mind.

Those thoughtless Chamchas groups just did whatever asked, and the other half questioned whether it was good or bad. It is an order from the head, many submitted it into silence, indicating one had to follow. Head is the progenitor of all. He is considered an omniscient-all knowing, type of charlatan.

The dignity of labor is very important and the basic of all is cleaning the toilet. The huge routine was displayed (two lady teachers and two gent teachers) every morning and evening. To make this matter worse, there were some hues and cries amongst students. In one of my morning SUPW duty, I heard clearly some students talking resentfully that it best suits teachers and especially that discipline Lopen (name withheld) to clean the shit.

The fact that we have to clean the toilet was there was no wet sweeper in the school and the Dzongkhag wasn’t willing to give one despite so many unemployed scamps around. And that dry sweeper loved only dry one but wet boys!

Nobody took it seriously for more than two or three months, and I guessed nobody bothered to clean the toilet except a few paranoids. Within this period the matter worsens, instead of cleaning the shit, the huge heap of shit was purposely messed near the door of the toilet and either side of the pots. It was intentional and this matter reached the mastermind. And soon, there was three hours meeting on about shit and it was the shit meeting--to vomit some hard, undisclosed, and hidden words. Disagreement, agreement…etc…and to come up with the big solution. One-evaluation criteria will be from cleaning the toilet was to be understood by all. People must be forced into this democratic country sometimes! “This school is really becoming shit.” Our Lopen, who keeps his senses only through high alcohol, ended the meeting. The end of the meeting is always welcome and many a time I wish of ending the meeting before it starts. And beware, not with this life’s ending!

The story of cleaning toilets became quite successful because of the fear of losing PCS marks. The day’s cleaner would wake up early, reach before anyone could, flush the toilet, sweep the passageways and deodorize. And when school closes, the same routine is followed. Many did and many didn’t and now I feel sorry why I malingered and absconded from this civilized work for some days. And I, half sort of promise, when I join back, I will be the first one to go inside the toilet and the first one to come out. Haha.

Relish with Dishes

Tawa, Bamya, Dolma, etc. What are these? If you have knowledge about multi-cuisines, you may know these are some of the names of Iraqi’s food, just like we Bhutanese have Ama Dhatse, KewaDhatse, Shakam, etc.

They have typical ways of preparing food. The rice is fried. It gets mixed with lots of oil and little water. Such as steam food is rarely cooked. And the curry strews up with tomatoes, lots and lots of tomatoes in Tawa and others like we Bhutanese use lots and lots of chilies in all curries. Hike of tomatoes price can’t do away with it, like we can’t do with chilies. The tomatoes were cut into the tiniest pieces and that too with others like cucumber, carrot, etc. The curry tastes sweety-salty but delectable. The overall cooking takes a very long time, almost four hours.

“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it up.” My fried Hashim repeats Arnold Glasgow, an American humorist’s saying. True.

I told my friend Hashim about our kind of food, I even made him taste chilies, and his stomach went wild for the whole night and he damned me to be borned as chili. That is another story. Sometimes I would call him Tawa and as much as I’m Amadhatse’s guy!

I have fine-tuned with his food. What I may like to call, I am ‘use to.’ One reason for this is; I have less work to do when he cooks; most of the time I just help him to peel off some vegetables’ cover and wash it. The rest, he would do it all by himself. My job is to reach to a dining table whatever had been prepared and eat and take to the washing basin but most of these, he does.

I eat and eat but slowly. I have learned this technique in my school days-to eat slowly! When I was in a boarding school, I used to eat slowly, let others take and go, while I would aim for another second share as I waited to finish others and go. Many times it works in the school, when the mess in charge called for the second share and a similar technique is what I used to eat with him, lol. “Take it, take it.” is all I hear now. This technique has become a habit to me and even in parties or some gatherings; I would be the last one to go and get the food.  Slow but lots and a lot of of food. But this is no good now as an adult; I feel at least. Last and more, and sometimes last and none. Even if it were none in school days, our mess would provide another special preparation for it.  Sometimes with butter, fried food, etc. Good that we waited. Did anyone have a technique like mine? To be last in eating and first in eating?

My Rickety-tricky Journey

Excitement comes in good times. Hope and excitement are two brothers. When there is hope, there is excitement. 

Last month, I had a break from my tough studies, and god, I have had never stayed that long separated with my beloved ones and my place. I had longed to go and go…and guess what time I woke up. The truth was, I never slept the whole night. I had a friend going to the airport from Bangalore. And it was he who needed to reach at 6am in the morning but my flight was at 9am. And sharing the cost of taxi would be just a matter of fact, I went.

My excitement fought the cool winter night in the airport. We waited for 10 or more hours. I received a message on my mobile that my schedule was changed to 7am flight instead of 9am. As luck may favor, or supposed if I had come late, I would have missed the flight. My friend was the god to me in this case and he talked about the god and human life in many instances. It was his lively discussion about the meaning of life, we had almost forgotten the people around. People looked at us with their big judging eyes when our noises reached them to some extent.

“Are we terrorists to get the beguiling looks,” I asked my friend.

But Abdul jumped to his good conclusion, “Life is like that, to look and learn.”

Our topics touched on many subjects like life, old age, meditation, development, India, Bhutan, and concluding with girls. One general fact came from him. He told me that girls were the real authors of all problems, and every problem occurred from them. Think. He gave me many examples and that I surely would agree with it. In between, we went to the toilet outside the hall two or three times. We thought that the toilet was better than many living rooms of some of our poor people.

By and by, it was 6am in morning. We went to the ticket counter, we followed the process, and the process was all in the procedure. I liked that, but I didn’t like the behavior of  a friskier police to frisked thoroughly in a tough manner. Soon we boarded our Jet flight. We were in a different seat. I felt bored without Abdul. We waved our hands time and again. The man next to me was an old man; he slept throughout his journey that forced me to sleep too.

It was in a blink of an eye the plane landed at Kolkata airport. Since I had to change my flight to Bagdora, I bade Abdul goodbye, who will soon fly to Guwahati. After 20 minutes or so, I boarded another Jet connect. I counted the time, as I was excited to reach my home. One minute, two, three… in almost one hour seven minutes the plane landed-too long. But when I reached there, as luck may not have a good turn on me. There was a strike and no vehicle plied towards Phuntsholing. There were some Bhutanese, they said it would be better if we could go and board the train from Siliguri. And that was how we went in a rickety risky Rickshaw for 250/- each from three of us. We booked the train ticket that would be only after 2 hours. I banged my head on my bag. Why this day?

At around 5pm, the local train came. And... I heard the train would be the fastest mode of service, and who said that. That train was running at a snail's speed. My heart was boiling, and my mind was all incensed when the train stopped every one or two kilometers. I bang on the train to move fast as I have to reach Tala; my beloved wife and son. I banged and banged and I cursed. And two Bhutanese friends had another awful news that we have to take another one or more hours journey from Hashimara in a rickety risky Rickshaw. “Maro, Jadha.” I shouted in the voidness of the running train.

At almost to 9pm, we reached Hashimara. The two friends had somebody in Phuntsholing and since they had called that somebody. Luckily, the man was waiting with the Tucson car and the car sped made me gape with small laughter. And within half an hour we reached Phuntsholing.

On the way, my wife called me saying that Phuntsholing cousin would be coming with the car. I asked him to wait at Tashi Commercial building. My Indian voucher balance reached minus and it stopped working. Such a glitch in the critical time! At Phuntsholing, I waited but he was not in the rendezvous place as said in Tashi commercial building. I waited for almost twenty minutes and I decided to take a taxi but the last quick turn I made, I saw his car coming from the Gold building. The Gold building is no gold, it’s a rusted and ramshackle building.
“What is this? Mis-communication.”

We went to get my car. I shivered to drive after a long time. Alone, I started the journey from Phuntsholing, in frenzy and happiness to meet my family, I drove the car and it reached within an hour that usually would take one and a half or more hours. And the rest…happy ending…

Below are some photographs of my journey.

Day in and day out Bangalore airport is busy

Sperms of light outside the building in the night

This is how Abdul and I waited talking about life and in-between flashing 

The tunnel of life

We need wings to fly

Aerial view of Kolkata city

Local train from Siliguri to…? chugging without passenger and running at a snail's speed

Back to Where we Begun

A few weeks ago, our second semester has started. I told myself, “Back to square.” And this is too with life, whatever we dream of, whatever we do and whatsoever life lingers on. It’s always back to the square, back to the square to death. But some mates try to break the rules of nature, back to the square and I myself wanted to; the result was I joined the semester late. Good that I was late, as some even didn’t come for weeks. (But at the back of my mind, it says learning is the first priority). That one fellow (name withheld) has a habit of turning up to the class once in a blue moon. He wheedles with his life’s wife all the time and hearsay has conjectured that he might be scared of his partner's affairs with trespassers…he he. During the last semester, which was our first semester, he just came to do his exam and god knows what he wrote. Let his result come, I am pretty sure, i will take his place if he succeed.

Let me now write about how we wrote our first semester and the last exam. Uh…to start this true narration is a disturbing one and it upsets me and I become slightly eccentric at times. Good things come and with those good things, bad things also lurk behind.

I’ve been writing exams so many times and let me count; I’ve studied for sixteen years and every year comes with two exams with no fewer than seven subjects. So 16(years) ×14(Subjects) =224 times. It seems I’ve done hundreds of exams and I sometimes wonder what benefit have I got. The only one I can assure is fear, tension and lots of hairs fall.

Here again, after seven years, a person who gave exams to students is doing exams again. Hard nut to crack. The story of exam tension, exam miscreants, and bullies fill the air during the exam period.

I have a friend who wins through his talks. His speeches are like outbursts of a dam, rowdy and over-powering, who speaks through hard-loud-sound. His speech subdues anyone and is daring and forceful. Such tongue is needed in many states of affairs especially while buying stuff from Indian cheaters. He would cut the price with his forceful words to half. I would like to call his language ‘bazaar language,’ rough and crude. And people who know him know as ‘he speak like that’ or ‘his nature is like that but this nature ‘like that’ didn’t go everywhere. He has given me the liberty to use his name in any writing. He always asked me to write his full name Omar Khalid Hashim, ‘Hashim,’ and it is nice that his name becomes legendary. Anyways, the legend is also like the roaring lion caught in the net, he too suffers the consequence of rowdy talks.

An unlucky university exam was it. It was the final paper, Hashim wrote something on his question paper that was not supposed to. It was two or three words. The stern supervisor found out and was asked why he wrote on the paper. And Hashim spoke his bazaar languages that made the supervisor mad and crazy to hear his noise. “Why you are speaking like that?” and there were some intense exchanges that disturbed the whole of the exam mates. The supervisor took the paper that made him barmier, rushing after him and exchanging over again outside the room, somehow lost his time. The paper was given to him after saying it was the last warning to him. Such is the advantage of a good talker in a disadvantaged situation.

Everything is back to the square in this second semester, our lecturing, our superfluous debates, everything. Everything. Except for our HOD, Gender Studies lecture Dr. Umashankar left the college. We missed his sweety-moot-y, crafty-witty talks on masculinity, femininity, and trans-gender. Nevertheless, our new HOD plus Gender lecture Dr. Prahbha would continue the human notion of stereotyping sex. Good!