“Excuse me, sir, do you
know any Drayang around here ?”, I asked a shopkeeper. It
was already an hour since me & my partner had been looking for
Tashi Tagay Drayang in Thimphu, capital city of the Kingdom of
Bhutan. We got mislead a couple of times before getting a definite
reply from an old man, “You are standing right under it. Go
upstairs on second floor from the backside”. We looked up,
surprised, to not find any signboard, but complied.
Drayangs are small
budget bars in Bhutan, probably just one or two in number in whole
town, uniquely characterised with traditional dance and song
performances.
We found our way up
through the residential building and led ourselves through an open
blue door into a big hall, decorated with Bhutanese artworks,
artificial flowers and paper lamps. Within seconds, we forgot that we
were technically inside someone's house. The place looked like a
regular watering hole, with a brightly lit stage in the front.
We ordered our beer and
settled down. Soon Bhutanese music started playing in the background
and some really pretty young girls appeared on stage in their
traditional attire of wrap around ankle length skirts with full
sleeve collared shirts. They started dancing, which can, at best, be
described as simple sway of waist in either direction and tapping
feet.
The bar started getting
filled, and soon we noticed, a couple of performers were hovering
around us, competing with each other for our attention. They all had
a notebook in their hand, so we could make an entry there along with
some tip and make a 'request' for performance.
Slowly we got chatting
with these girls and realised, most of them were coming from remote
mountains of Bhutan where schooling and managing livelihood is very
difficult. They pointed us towards a young blind couple seated in one
corner who were singers. We couldn't help but request a song
performance from them. And what melodious voice they both had !
After almost three hours
and having had enough of music, dance and stories from lives of
perfect strangers, we decide to leave after saying goodbyes.
As soon as we reached the
main street of our familiar world with shops, neon lights and
traffic, it suddenly struck me, how did I end up in a Drayang? It
seemed like a closely guarded secret of Bhutan. A place either
completely ignored or lost to anonymity.
For my complete story on Bhutan, please follow this link.
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