Bhutan's queen mother's India connection opens lit fest

From loving Indian cinema to her growing up years in a small village, Bhutan's queen mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck Thursday shared little-known things about her childhood, love for the Indian cinema and belief that Indians have the highest intellectual level in the world.

The Bhutanese queen mother was declaring open a three-day literary festival here.

The literary and cultural festival - Mountain Echoes - began with the queen mother's session "Invoking Tara" where she spoke about the goddess Tara - embodiment of compassion - and elaborated on the need to invoke compassion for all necessary things of life, including preservation of the environment.

"We all need to invoke Tara because that will invoke compassion," she said.

"We (in Bhutan) have policies in place to preserve environment and it is a collective effort of every one to preserve our culture and heritage. It becomes easy because Bhutanese people are very mindful," she added.

Talking in a jam-packed hall at Tarayana Centre, the queen mother was dressed in a traditional blue-coloured 'keyra'. She is the first wife of King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the fourth king of Bhutan.

Her India connection dates back to school days when she came to the hilly town of Darjeeling in West Bengal to study. That journey had a lasting impression on her mind because it was for the first time she had got into a car.

"The first time I got into a car was when I went to school in Darjeeling. I remember it because the journey was first made in a jeep and then in a bus," she recollected.

"That jeep was smelling bad and it wasn't the best road trip of my life," she added.

Coming from a small village in Bhutan, where there was no electricity and no roads, she remembered how there was a time when she used to milk cows and plant vegetables.

But this journey was going to transform her life as her learning in India made her an independent thinker and a go-getter.

"That phase in India was very important because it gave me an opportunity to educate myself," she said.

It was also the time when she grew up watching Bollywood films.

"Bollywood was an integral part of me at that time," she said.

This humble background has formed a firm foundation of compassion that has shaped her life, and she admitted how her love for India has grown over these years.

"I love India. I respect India, and I was educated in India.

"India is so diverse, so rich and I firmly believe that Indians have the highest intellectual level in the entire world," she added.

(Shilpa Raina can be contacted at shilpa.r@ians.in)