Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [55]
“Okay, okay, everyone, thank you for coming,” Sir Tenzin said, standing before the group. Fearful of his notorious temper, everyone quickly quieted down. “I need your attention to an urgent matter.”
Watching him work the crowd, I wondered whether he would get the political bug and run for office when the time came for elections. Sir Tenzin was at his most charming when groups of visitors toured the studio. If he could sit still long enough, he’d have made an effusive on-air personality.
“Madam Jane here is going to make an important announcement.”
I stayed seated on one of the frayed upholstered benches in the room, to appear casual, to defuse my message. The room was so silent that when my stomach gurgled loudly, I wondered if everyone in the room could hear it.
“First of all, I wanted to say how great it’s been to see all of Thimphu get so excited about SOL. The whole town’s been talking about it, as you know, and that’s a great sign of how successful you’ve made Kuzoo. So congratulations for that.”
Thujee led everyone in a cheer: “S-O-L! S-O-L!”
He’d just graduated from high school and was anxiously waiting to see what kind of scholarship he might get for college, his sights set on the United States or Europe. It was becoming vogue for young Bhutanese to save up so they could sit for the Test of English as a Foreign Language, administered in India, and then hope to find a scholarship or private sponsor so they could be educated in the West. For each student who got to study abroad, five more got the fever. To pass the time, Thujee had been hanging around the station a lot lately, picking up slots as a volunteer deejay. With his cheerful demeanor and sense of confidence, he was a born leader as well as radio announcer—more poised and eager than most of the paid staff. Beside TT and Lhaki, he was the most popular of the volunteers—on the air, and off.
“Quiet, please,” Sir Tenzin shouted over the din. Years of being a high school administrator made him deft at teenage crowd control. He nodded for me to continue.
“You’ve all heard me talk about what a huge responsibility it is being on the air. You probably know that Sir Tenzin used to be a principal.” I paused for dramatic effect, looking out at the group so they could nod their yeses. “Now, what if he told you that his daughter was going to win a big prize at his school, simply because she was his daughter? Would that seem fair to you?”
I knew no one would answer. Bhutanese didn’t like to call attention to themselves in a crowd. So I called on Lhaki, who was sitting on the floor up front. She was still clutching her guitar, suppressing her strum.
“Umm, well, I guess not.”
“Right. Even if she was really, really, really great, and really deserved the prize, that wouldn’t seem right, would it?”
Thujee spoke up. “No, it would seem corrupt.”
“Exactly, Thujee. And it would be hard for you to trust Sir Tenzin if he told you his daughter had to win, even if he truly believed that she deserved to win.” A few heads timidly bobbed in agreement. “Well, that’s what I wanted to call your attention to today. You have all worked incredibly hard for the past few weeks on this contest, and you’re the reason why it’s been such a huge success. But you’ve also worked hard to gain the trust of the audience. And how do you think they’d react if the people who won the contest also ran the contest?”
“But we deserve the hamburgers,” chirped Khandu from the back of the room. “It doesn’t seem right that we don’t get to win. We’ve worked so hard on SOL.”
“But don’t you see? You do win. You get to be on the radio. You got to make up the contest. That’s the most important part about this station, you know. You have this amazing way to communicate with the entire city—soon the entire country. People depend on you for information and entertainment. That’s your reward.”
Remorse washed over the faces of the Kuzoo youth. Lhaki, TT, Thujee and some of