Lost in directions

Years of modernization and customizing every likeness of the developed world outside, the country is shaped itself fairly ‘very up with the times,’ per se. And that would be talking inclusive of roads, bridges, buildings, automobiles, air services, health facilities etc.

Street names and addresses for places, however, are two things that have not entirely succeeded in serving their purposes. It doesn’t create issues at a national level, but the nature of inconveniences it causes during emergencies does make one reflect and desire for a better functioning method.

Except for Norzin Lam, the street that runs straight through main Thimphu town, others largely remain painted on the road markers or sign boards (not freshly and effortlessly on people’s minds). People can hardly locate a destination in the capital city if they have to depend solely on directions that rest on street names. And to begin with, addresses of places are themselves not completely helpful.

For instance, a person asking for directions hears something like this, ‘A yellow building near the Changangkha Lhakhang which is right next to a grocery shop building, the Bhutanese-styled house behind the BHU.’ Basically, a destination can never be pinpointed without resorting to prepositions such as above, below, near, behind.

Generally, every other person uses landmarks, structures like lhakhangs or chortens, government or well-known private offices to guide themselves or others to a specific address or vicinity. And street names rarely make it into the extended instructions that are compiled into directions.

In this, it is not to say that authorities have not done their bit to ease the process of maneuvering a person to a particular point. Buildings, individual houses have been numbered, colonies and complexes have received names in which houses are numbered and the Thimphu Thromde office also issued a long list of new street names that would supposedly replace the existing ones in August last year.

Under this initiative about 36 streets in the capital including the Norzin Lam were to be renamed and the nameless streets would also receive names. The city office however decided to retain the old street names, taking into account responses from Thimphu residents. It came to pass that the inconveniences caused in establishing the initiative would far outweigh its objective of easing the process.

The capital city and its horizons are expanding and would require better and effective measures in place, sooner than later. For now, residents seem to have forgivably adjusted with what was and is in practice.

Published as Business Bhutan Editorial on July 12, 2014