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Published on Sep 02 2010 // UNTOLD STORY
By Govinda Rizal
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“Did you get your NOC?’’
Achievements
Jamyang asked me this whilst closing his umbrella, then proceeding to the police head quarter.
Commentary
“No, not yet,” I replied. I knew Jamyang through a few encounters. For the first time I saw him in Thimphu.
Human Rights Monitor

One of my brothers, Hem was studying in Khaling. Once Hem came to Thimphu with his class mates during their Interview
educational tour and stayed with me. I was showing him around the campus when an officer drove near to us,
stopped his car and asked us if we knew anyone from Khaling School. Hem started talking to him. The man was Main News
Jamyang. He had his nephew in Khaling School and wanted to send gifts as well as money to him. Hem agreed to
help him and as a token, Jamyang gave us some cheese pieces and some ngultrums (currency). We considered him Media Monitor
a generous person.
News Analysis

Months later I met him in a school auditorium, when he came to watch a drama, “King Gesar of Ling”. I was one of
NRB
the door keepers. He arrived late and was without a seat. Feeling pity on the good man I got him a chair. This was
my second encounter with him. Opinion

I again met him at the police headquarters in Thimphu. He was also there to obtain a No Objection Certificate Podcast
(NOC), in his case for his relative. We exchanged formal greetings and he asked me if I had received my NOC. I
told him it was ready on the officer’s table. He was pleased to hear my response however he had to wait a further Publications
two days. During that period I was in the police office. An NOC is a document provided by the department of
Reports
police only to those who, and whose family members, had never been found to have said something that the king
or the government had disliked. It proved innocence as well as loyalty of a family to the throne. It was mandatory The Bhutan Reporter
to possess it in order to receive benefits as a rightful citizen.
Untold Story
I requested the NOC for an interview. My NOC was ready some time ago however they had delayed it with a
question. I would stand at the end of the queue for the NOC, when my turn came and the officer asked me to Video
wait. I was again made to join the end of the queue. Every time my turn came, I was asked to wait for some more
time. Finally, I took the corner for my place and frequently requested for my NOC. Time changed, days changed
and people changed, their ways of interrogation changed but neither did they change their one question, nor did I Archives
change my answer. The only fault they could find was my second name matching a leader’s surname. The
authorities wanted to know my relationship with Tek Nath Rizal, a prominent figure they had in their net. Select Month

In two days, Jamyang got the NOC. He talked to the officer about me and in return taught me an affirmative
answer to their question and left.

Some familiar and many unfamiliar people came to the office. As some received their documents while others
didn’t, I could see the happiness and desperation dividing my school friends and country fellows.

That week, I experienced awful rain in Thimphu. From morning till evening I had to stay in the police office
expecting them to give me NOC, which was ready on their table. After the office closed I had to walk the flooded
streets searching for hosts to host me free for one more night.

I was eventually given the NOC on the day of the interview. It was too late for the purpose. By being a nomadic
guest for about a month, I had demonstrated my parasitism to all the people I knew who were from my village and
others who were not from my village. They had hosted me several times and I could not force myself to gatecrash
any more. I decided to return to Gayglegphug which took two days to reach.

Two days after receiving NOC I was back in my village heading towards my home from a bus stop when a storm
began to welcome me treacherously. My umbrella was a weak shield against torrential rain. I took the shelter at a
local school, which had been closed for a year. Rain came with such a force as if to move the school building from
its location. The corridor was too narrow to shed the downpour that went directionless like the wind. The only
place I could squeeze myself into was a narrow corner between the closed door and the thick wall. Unlike in
Thimphu, the lightning and thunder in Gayglegphug are wild.

After hours of waiting, the rain became less forceful but did not stop. I removed my shoes, carried them over a
heavy back- packed bag, covered with an umbrella and walked towards home. Aiming to avoid attention from
people in their houses I walked faster through those country paths. In other places I walked slower in order to
reach home later. I wanted to reach home later to hide my defeat of receiving my NOC late. Rain still continued,
followed by a bitterly cold wind.

When I reached the place where my house used to be, an incredible apparition of nothingness blurred my vision.
To my unpleasant surprise, there was no house and not even a sign of a house in the place where it had once
stood. In the areas where the beds, kitchen and ovens used to be, there were tall broom grasses growing, freshly
planted. Then, I realized, my parents were no longer in the country, and proof that a house had existed was
erased completely.

………………………………………………..

“Do you have some ropes?” asked Dhimal Dai.

“I am not sure; I will have to ask my parents”, I replied.

“Look around and give me some if you have”, he insisted.

“Look around and just take it”, I replied.

Dhimal Dai, a good neighbour in the newly established asylum seekers’ camp in Beldangi in Nepal, wanted a string
to tie his flapping plastic sheet strapped between two bamboo woven nets that gave him a roof.

I did not know where the items were kept in my hut. I was a chronic guest in my hut. I had a bed and a book rack
made from bamboo, and a few books and papers. My mother would cook and serve me. Sisters arranged my
clothes and hung them besides my bed. My sanctum in the prized hut was made up of bamboo walls, plastered
with soil and newspaper pasted on top of it. We lived in a matrix of tiny, beautiful huts. They looked like freshly
painted huts on grey soil background with a few tall trees. The slums were panoramic to see but were not so
pleasant to live.

No sooner had the above conversation ended, when

my parents came home running, breathing louder
than athletes after a marathon. It was an afternoon
in early September 1993, when a storm began to
hover over the bamboo huts. In times of storms, the
people did not evacuate as they never had a safer
place in the neighborhood to resort to. My parents
took out a coil of string and began tying the ends of
the roofs to bamboo poles and to stones on the
ground. The children were outside running wild,
their guardians running closely behind. The clouds
grew dark and swirled. It was eerie to see kids
playing outdoors. It was an opportunity for them to
take a satisfying bath in the natural shower.

The storm soon became worse and the loosely tied

Rizal writes his 'untold story'. Photo/Shanta Rizal
roofs began to seek freedom from their places due
to the increasing wind. People struggled to hold the
roofs from being blown away by the wind. Lightning began to throw flashes and flames. If it had not been for the
lightning, the afternoon was as dark as night. The wind and rain disturbed all forms of hearings. The plastic roofs
amplified the rain’s beating and the wind’s howling. Within minutes, roofs were taken away; floods began from
inside of the huts. Narrow spaces between the huts were filled with twigs and leaves from the trees; bamboo
sticks from roofs and the walls. Although a few huts could retain their roofs, most of them had been blown away.

After about two hours the world was different. Cloud was gone, blue sky looked down sympathetically, and the
sun peeped from the distant west. Birds were back on the trees and there were pools of water on the ground.
People began to remake their disturbed roofs. I wanted to explore the true might of the catastrophe. Shoes were
useless, we had no boots and slippers would not accompany our feet for the second step through the muddy soil.

Jewan, a relative accompanied me. We decided to travel with our bare feet to see the destruction. We walked
across the camps.

“A complete devastation”.

To rebuilt huts, most of the owners had to restart foundations. There was nothing we could do. We talked with
people, whosoever we met, on the range of destruction. Half way through the camp, we had to cross a small
canal. There was a short bamboo bridge to cross it. When we were on one side of the bridge, ready to step on it,
a big branch fell down from a tree and hit the bridge. We were saved by seconds- a narrow escape. We returned
to our respective huts. Father had repaired the roofs to his best ability. There were papers scattered everywhere.

“Check if the papers on the floor are important”, father told me.

I found newspaper cuttings, which I had conserved as important, scattered all over the flooded floor.

There was a thin clean paper floating on the muddy water, it was my NOC.

———————————–
The first and unique of its kind, the column “Untold Story” will continue to carry stories of suppression we
had faced back home in Bhutan. It might sometimes look fiction in nature but they are real stories. BNS
encourages you to contribute your “untold story” about the suppression you or anyone in your
family/neighborhood faced. Anything such as physical or mental torture, imprisonment, rape, harassment,
among others will become an untold story. We also kindly request you to contribute related photographs, if
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with us prior you start writing it. Please remember that it has to be a real story, not a fiction. We highly
encourage you not to exaggerate anything but remain focused on the real happenings while writing untold
story.
– Editorial Team, BNS (editor@bhutannewsservice.com)

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