Bhutan: some random thoughts inspired by Nat. Geo

King Wangchuck quietly crossed the hall, the ancient Samteling tiles cold under his royal feet.
He could feel the wheel of heaven turning.
The gardens were spotted softly with lanterns, small red dragons with open mouths, and he walked to a bench and sat, wrapping his long sleeves tightly and tucking his hands close.
It was now, in the dog watch of the night, that the weight of his name pressed him most. He stared at the jet depths of the ornamental pool, blind to the golden glint of koi beneath the surface.
His name.
Jigme Singye Wangchuck -Druk Gyalpo-The Dragon King. Foreign dignitaries knew him as Singye, as did Choden and Pem, his oldest wives. His children when they were small had shyly called him Daddy Druk, and he smiled into the darkness.
Father Dragon.

Had he ever called his own father that, he wondered? Probably.

Dorji, Third Dragon King, was a warm man and an enlightened ruler. He read a great deal. He loved plays and poetry, wine and dancing (and one woman, one woman only). He was the first Bhutanese king to brave the skies in an airplane, and he loved his country with his whole heart.

Once, when Singye was only four year old, Dorji had stood on the steps of Dechencholing Palace and challenged a rioting crowd of hostile lords. They were angry with the way Bhutan was being run, furious with the 24 year old dragon pup who was scorning centuries of tradition by introducing dangerous changes under the guise of "democritization." Yet Dorji had faced them, standing on the steps in the pale October sun. He had been majestic, kingly in his gilded headpiece, as glorious as a priest in the dzong. His advisers refused to appear before the crowd; they were afraid. So he went out without entourage; he was the most striking thing on the horizon, and he knew it. He was their king, and they knew it.

"Our mountains are high, my Lords, but they cannot keep out the wind. The times are changing and we cannot hold back from these changes. And we should not, as long as they are good and bring good things."

Grim faces stared back at him, the faces of men with land, with armies, with ancestors and established houses- men who's mouths dictated what was just and unjust - men with power. King Dorji was going to free the serfs. He was going to end feudalism in Bhutan, and chink away at the wall of ignorance and fear that isolated Bhutan. The young Singye had watched with his nurse from a flanking terraced window, and held tight to her hand. His father sounded almost angry. "Would you have the Druk Yul be a place of peace, or war? For our actions here today do not go unwatched. Kings and princes and peoples of many tongues watch Bhutan."

1971 - Bhutan becomes a member of the United Nations. In painfully acquired English, Dorji makes a fifteen word speech. Lords and dignitaries and princes from the greatest nations under heaven listen to him. Bhutan is attempting the impossible; she is trying to leap the chasm from a Middle Ages form of existence into the 21st century. Dorji is determined that she will succeed. Bhutan is not just a tiny indentation on a hill straddling the China/India border; Bhutan is the Druk Yul "the land of the thunder dragon." Starving peasants and serfs with worn down teeth and hearts need to hear the dragon roar. As does the rabble of lords and nobles still an angry mass before the steps. Dorji was no dragonlet.

"They see our green land and venerable priests; they see our children and our well-tended dzongs. But they also see our starving and sick and broken, our bad roads and one-room hospitals." Your starving. Your sick. Your worked-out men and skeletal women. Your profits, and he looks them in the eye. The lords shift restlessly, feeling foolish in their traditional garb, their antique swords heavily in hand.
"Men of Bhutan, we must make war upon the weaknesses of this land, so that we may hold our banner high in the company of all. I ask you to make this your war, for I have already made it mine, and I wish for brothers-in-arms. Go to battle on your land- it is the end of oppression and hunger and disease!"

A small splash in the pool, and the October crowd disperses and King Singye Wangchuck is back in Samteling Palace garden, alone and aware that he is seeking comfort in ghosts and memories. He puts his chin down on his chest, wishing to be lost in memories again. He is old, and has been Fourth Dragon King since 1972. He was sixteen when Dorji died; he was the youngest monarch in the world, and everything he did for a very long time after, he did for Dorji. But times had changed in Bhutan, and both Dorji and his beloved wife, Queen Ashi Kelzang Chhoedon Wangchuck, were at rest under a green hill in Thimphu.

With the rising sun would come more changes. Assamese separatists had been using Bhutanese territory to launch raids against targets in India, and Bhutan was an ally of India. Singye had spent most of his rule fostering good relations with the giants of China and India. Bhutan was just a sliver of untouched forest between them, and if India decided that the Switzerland-sized nation was hosting terrorists, it could be the end of their autonomy.
Singye pondered his options.
But in his heart, he knew he was going to declare war. His adrenaline surged.
War.
The first military campaign in over a hundred years, and it came under the reign of the Fourth Dragon.

(good grief. so this is why you have to plan a plot BEFORE you start writing. well, wangchuck, you are boring. I'm gonna let you freeze your little Himalayan butt off staring at the pond full of koi until you decide you're gonna do something. Sheesh. You do have four wives, after all...)