Bhutan, a country frozen in time.

Sandwiched between the world's most populated countries, India and China the kingdom of Bhutan is buried in the eastern Himalayan Mountains. Bhutan is almost impossible for the first timers to locate in the world map. Until 17th century, Bhutan existed as a salad of struggling fiefdom when Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel pooled the country. Although Bhutan did measurably fall under the British Empire in 20th century sickening war against the empire Bhutan couldn't action back more than its brusque mountains did, and later it proved costly as mountains couldn't fight for the plain Duar areas? However, still we enjoy the bilateral relation with government of India since its independence.

The state religion is Vajrayana Buddhism, and population barely 700000, predominantly Buddhist, second to which is Hindu. The total area is deflated to 38,394 square kilometers from 46,500 km2 after a dubitable humble Chinese bite. Thimphu is the capital and the national language is Dzongkha. Bhutan is a constitutional monarchical country with the reigning King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk and is a member of United Nations and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

For occasional visitants, Bhutan is honestly a Shangri-la, allegorical country cloaked in bluffs, but we are very much cool that such a landlocked can’t genuinely be a Shangri la with day to day reality at hand there is less time for dreaming. The lives of the peasants are fossilized with household chores, field works and livestock care, scarcely mechanized. The only moments of rest are the religious festivals, pilgrimages and secular holidays, which punctuate the reckless life.

With 80 percent of the population trucked within agriculture or raising livestock, Bhutan remains a sylvan country almost devoid of industry except few in the South. The beauty of the pastoral landscape is beyond ABCs, and it can seem hallucinatory to wayfarers from the industrialized world: houses inked with elaboration and roofs shingled, patch works of paddy fields and plots of maize closed off and fostered from oaks and boars by intricately woven fence. A man watching keen on his aged cabin waiting for the harvest, a woman stitching her torn in the open air, a baby laced into a horse’s saddle bag, butterflies dating the spring flowers, grasshoppers hoping green in the grass, cattle busy browsing in the bushes and birds singing harmoniously free in the vault of heaven.

Such scene would never stop you from dreaming forever. However, it is the symbols of Bhutan’s religion, which leave the deepest impression: the Chortens and monasteries freckling the mural, prayer flags wobbling, prayer wheels gyred by cracking mountain streams. Red robed monks preside over all events: wedding, departures, festivals, ceremonies, promotions and foundations.

Religion, tradition and ancestral custom constitute Bhutanese seemliness, the most notable elements being respects for all religious institutions and wearing of national dress. These emphases on traditional values are rather a deliberate policy of the government for the better socio-economic development and environmental preservation, which forms the base of Gross National Happiness (GNH).

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is originally coined by Jigme Singye Wangchuk, the fourth King of Bhutan in a hope to calibrate holistically the social progress in addition to GDP. It is now the vital cog in Bhutan's five years developmental planning processes. The four pedestals of GNH are:

1. Promotion of sustainable development,
2. Preservation and promotion of cultural values,
3. Conservation of natural environment and
4. Establishment of good governance.

Although commoners are churned to confusion by the GNH concept, they are all satisfied without keeping up the true meaning of it. This concept has interested some other nations in the world but the musical buzzer has also the tail sting, criticisms. Critics point out it as being very introverted and a difficult model for international well being analogy. I would say these critics have nothing to do with it since it was primarily put into practice for the people of Bhutan.