In a compound in a clearing on a hill, about ten minutes drive out of Thimphu, sits a newly-built and imposing statue of the Buddha. Though sealed off at night the spot still attracts cars packed with youngsters once the revelry in town gets over; the view down over the scattered lights of the valley is spectacular and there are no neighbours to complain about the noise. The Buddha Dordenma is 51.5 metres tall, made of gold and bronze, and filled with over 125,000 miniature replicas. Despite the universal Buddhist aspirations, the statue is primarily a domestic symbol, embodying both Bhutan's image as a spiritual idyll and its own aspirations to serving as the ground for better ways of living and governing.
Back down in the city at 9 am, small groups of college graduates dressed in smart kira and gho cluster in front of the main gate at the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources. Inside, portraits of the royal couple look down over the bureaucrats who control one of the gateways into the elite cadre tasked with negotiating Bhutan's cautious path to 'modernity'. Abroad, this path is represented by a collage of spirituality, the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) and the most photogenic Himalayan royals since Hope Cooke and Palden Thondup Namgyal of Sikkim. At home, a far less exciting fixation with bureaucracy and civic life, fuelled by decades of aid and support from India and other foreign donors, has taken root. The famous experiments with happiness are taking place in what is probably the most bureaucratised corner of Southasia.