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I have been a long timer at Yangchenphug. It was then known as Thimphu Public School, the most favoured new nurturing crib of education to flood the nascent but burgeoning Bhutan\u2019s civil service. The king, as its patron, would take pains to pick up the best talents from around the country to be part of it. And, as the school was king\u2019s favourite, we the handpicked rustics, had to be groomed into the apt \u2018\u2018Driglam Namza\u201d\u201d, Bhutan\u2019s famed way of etiquette of which we were blissfully unaware of the future (de)fame it would bring in the country.<\/p>\n
Drilam Namaza is not what many among us tend to believe. It\u2019s an aged form of mannerism borrowed from Tibetan gentry and dictated by the Lho-mon Ridakpa lords and land owners upon their serfs who were not just their food growers but the militia defenders who had to lay down life in regular skirmishes with the neighbouring peers or someone more powerful from the other sides of hills. The century old medieval glamour was so mesmerizing that the king, on the active behest of his cronies, zealously made it a state diktat during the fag end of 20th century. This was most unfortunate.<\/p>\n
Everyone of us has grown up being told how to behave in home and social milieus; greet everyone and be polite and discreet in manners. Cover mouth while yawning and not to chew loudly while eating; salute a superior and acknowledge juniors’ greetings, but to cheer loudly when a toast is raised to celebrate. At the dining table, we got a fine whisk on the knuckle for not confining our hands within the knee-folds, or keeping the elbows off it. Besides the home grown ones we had to soak-in the western etiquettes too. At the table eating with fingers was a clear no, and no fork and spoon\/knife meant no food for the day too. The clink of cutlery had to remain consciously muffed. The Diglam Namja commands use of fingers to eat but using it in elite company and western etiquettes is an unthinkable sacrilege. It was hard lesson to learn and do things polite; the correct way as expected of us. We were always in dilemma about the elbows or the use of God given fingers being ordinally inappropriate.<\/p>\n
My most memorable brush with etiquette came when one of my teachers \u2013 incidentally our favourite among the lots \u2013 asked me into his house to share some bananas. It was a warm Sunday afternoon and he had just come back from the veggie market. Among his purchases were the bananas, a truly exotic fruit during 70s for a high altitude place like Thimphu.<\/p>\n
My teacher, with all his oddities, was good at his subject \u2013 maths and physics. The effects of the subject seem to bear on his home life too. Waiting for him to come back from the pantry room, I looked around the clutter of books and notes and half corrected assignment papers. Then in he walked – steady as the physics bearing and maths formula – with saucers that held two peeled ripe bananas each. On the saucer there was a teaspoon too.<\/p>\n
Like any teenager, I picked up the peeled banana and took a good bite \u2026 and then without even glancing at him.. I could feel the silent fury rise on the face of my teacher; eyes throwing daggers at me \u2013 the boorish little fellow who had no etiquette to eat bananas properly.
\n\u201cHopeless boy, don\u2019t you know how to eat bananas?\u201d \u201cNobody ever taught you? Shameless! No manners! Such country bumpkin!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
I was so stunned. The sudden outburst froze me, half banana still squeezed between my fingers… I didn\u2019t know what sacrilege I had committed eating banana he had offered me just few seconds ago.
\nTimidly I asked him, \u201cSir, this is how we eat bananas … is something \u2026.?\u201d
\nBefore I finished the sentence, he picked up the teaspoon and showed me \u2013\u201cThis is how you eat.. Use the spoon and cut and scoop it to eat.. That\u2019s the proper way\u201d
\nSo, I sat there holding peeled ripe banana laden saucer in one hand and using the spoon to cut manageable scoops and eat it slowly listening to his holy sermon. It felt eternity to finish eating.<\/p>\n
\u201cSavour the flavour, don\u2019t ever wolf them down … These are good variety that grows down in plains … hard to get here.. I was lucky today .. and always remember \u2013 how you eat bananas.\u201d
\nA good lesson learned. That was the longest I ever took to eat banana. And even today every time I peel a banana I can\u2019t help but think about that particular day at my teacher\u2019s place. Etiquette learned the hard way.<\/p>\n
Sometimes etiquettes have to be thrown to the winds. Once while trying to use a fork and knife to carve a tandoori chicken at hotel in Delhi, I suffered the (in)dignity of my chicken flying off and landing perfectly on the plate of the lady diner sitting opposite to me. Before the surprised friend could covet it for herself, I use my fingers to quickly and deftly retrieve it back muttering quick apologies. Years of my etiquette training had failed; and since I do make use of my fingers to savour my food whenever possible.<\/p>\n
I am sure every one of us has had to face such unceremonious accidents once or twice if not often. But, do we know why we have to keep on observing these niceties?<\/p>\n
Most of these courtesies called etiquettes can be traced back to the middle Ages, the age of knights and chivalry, the kings and queens and the grandeur of status. Some were created to be polite, some merely symbolic, and some simply as matters of logic.<\/p>\n
All of us shake hand at least a few dozen times everyday. So much so, even a country bumpkin would prefer a handshake rather than a raising his hands for a mundane Namaste. But, does anyone realise that, an empty hand presented forward to another person was the easiest and most recognizable way to show someone that you weren\u2019t holding or concealing a weapon. The other man extending his own empty hand then showed that he too was unarmed. Therefore, a handshake meant the friendly atmosphere and there would be talk instead of a fight.<\/p>\n
The salute too also has similar origins. A knight in a full suit of armour had to remove the face concealing barrier with his hands. And when a knight lifted his visor, his hand ended up at his forehead, arm parallel to the ground actually holding up the visor. Thus the lifting of the helmet visor showed that the knight could talk instead of fight. The gesture was imitated through the centuries and continues even to this day as a salute.<\/p>\n
Today, anyone with a “glass” in hand is bound to ‘cheer’ everyone around him. In fact, its become a new social etiquette to \u2018toast\u2019 and clink your glass incessantly at every sip and at every refill. Making a toast, oddly enough, is a tradition that comes from the knights and soldiers with fighting codes versus poisoning your friends. Making a toast, with the clinking of the glasses together, was originally done so that when the wine-glasses clattered, the drinks \u2018tossed\u2019 and sloshed on impact. This meant, whatever was in one drink (poison, drugs, aphrodisiacs), would slosh into both the cups. Anyone trying to drug would himself be the victim as well. So the \u2018toss\u2019 (toast) was to not let your friend drink an evil drink.<\/p>\n
The other origin for the toast was that king in a friendly gesture would invite another for a cosy dinner together. To show to the guest(s) present that it was safe to drink, the host would first pour the drink into his drinking horn, raise it for all to see, and then would quaff it down in full view to allay all fear and doubts of it being poisoned. The customs still continues, especially at formal state dinners to this day.<\/p>\n
In Bhutan, the people mastered the use of sly methods so well; it went steps ahead in concealing devious motive in the garb of Driglam Namja. Rivals were poisoned with one side of a knife blade smeared with poisonous and then slicing a nuts in half in presence of the rival and eating the good half and offering the laced one to the foe. Similarly, warring \u2018penlops\u2019 (lords) infected a newly woven cloth or blanket by letting a small-pox stricken person to use it for few nights and then offer it ceremoniously to the rival lord.<\/p>\n
Even to this day, the Driglam Namja dictates, each individual to carry an eating plate and a cup (\u2018phob\u2019). The plate is at times shared by the family but the \u2018phob\u2019 is personal and never shared with anyone else. A common large vessel, visible to all, holds food allaying any doubt of food being laced with poison.<\/p>\n
Many of you must be yawning reading this. But, do remember to cover your mouth when you yawn. It has two logic to it and both quite sensible. The first was religious. When yawned with mouth wide open, it was believed that the Devil could reach right in and yank out your soul. And, there was no sense in losing your soul just because you were drowsy. The second but much more practical and understandable reason, was that during the Middle Ages, all forms of cleanliness was lacking, and especially oral hygiene would have shocked the modern dentists. History says that the French King Charles, created the trend of dousing oneself with the headiest perfumes to hide body odour. It is said that he took bath twice in his lifetime, once when he married and the other time when he was crowned. Bathing was considered unhealthy and a scourge to invite death by cold. Not just the peasants but the nobility stank too. And while yawning, people had a very real chance of swallowing one of the many flies that swarmed and buzzed around them. It\u2019s very bad form of etiquette to choke on a fly at a formal party.<\/p>\n
Bhutan did not have access to heady perfumes, but a day in a year is set aside and decreed as \u2018thruebab\u2019 (the blessed rainy day). The day falls during autumn when everyone is expected to wash off the yearlong grimes of toil and be clean before the winter sets in. \u2018Driglam Namja\u2019 still in vogue in the country.<\/p>\n
Finally, about those elbows: \u2018Always keep your elbows off the table, its rude!\u2019 But why? In the old days, people sat down to eat differently than we do today. People squeezed onto a long log tables set in rows. Each person was, therefore, packed very tightly with people on either side of him, and didn\u2019t have much manoeuvring room to eat. The elbows weren\u2019t allowed on the table because to rest an elbow on the table would be in the middle of the next person\u2019s food plate (a wood slab). It was a courtesy made out of necessity. If one had his elbows on the table, the neighbour couldn\u2019t eat. So keep the elbows off the table.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure, there are more absurdities all around us and taken for granted by all and sundry, because nobody really has the time to question them. There are things we take for granted, without trying to know why. Some safety precautions or physical requirements, mooted more than five hundred years ago, have continued to pass down through the years as \u2018our\u2019 custom. Most such etiquettes have been relegated to history books but few continue inadvertently as social custom relics. The sad part is Bhutan imposed similar obsolete medieval etiquettes as national \u2018manners\u2019 that too just at the dawn of 21st century. Normally social customs are a pride and unify all but Driglam Namja has divided the nation in a racist way.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s good to uphold tradition but to continue to carry it on without knowing its base tenet is stupidity.
\nAnd, to make \u2018etiquette\u2019 a national mantra \u2026.!!!!???<\/p>\n