Bhutan: Lynne O'Donnell reports from Paro on the changes which have seen Bhutan leap from the middle ages to the 21st century in less than 50 years
When Michael Rutland was asked to teach mathematics to the future king of Bhutan, he had never heard of the remote kingdom which could have been modelled on Shangri-La. Forty years later, he has the pride of looking on as his favourite pupil coaxes the remote mountain kingdom out of its isolation and into the modern world.
The opportunity to be the life-long tutor of the absolute monarch did not initially spur much enthusiasm from the white-haired 67-year-old.
He made the "logical leap", associating the word Bhutan first with butane, then Iran, assuming that the post was in the Middle East, but then did some research and found Royal Geographical Society maps showing most of the country as "unmapped". That sealed his fate, he said, and with a sense of adventure he set off first for Calcutta and then took the bone-shaking flight to the border town of Phuntsholing, squeezed among tea-chests in the cargo hold of a Dakota DC-6, which landed in a field.
Recalling the day, he remarked: "I could see from the window a small child with a stick chasing cows off the landing strip."
Bhutan still retains that air of primitive mystery, but at the weekend King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Rutland's now middle-aged student, took a big step towards a very different future. After long deliberation by monks, who consulted traditional astrological charts to determine the most auspicious date, Bhutan published the draft of its first written constitution last Saturday.
In taking this step the king appears set on relegating himself to a symbolic role to ensure that the tiny, vulnerable nation perched between the giants of Asia continues to survive and thrive. The monarch is pushing his reluctant subjects on a trek towards democracy.
To Rutland, it is the ultimate proof that the country is being served well by its enlightened leader. "Bhutan has been jolly lucky with the kings they've had," he said. "I'm convinced that he really is dedicated to the future of Bhutan. I know that sounds sycophantic, but I've known him for a number of years in a wide variety of circumstances."
The outside world may think that change has been glacial in Bhutan. But, within its borders, many people, young and old, are bewildered by the speed of the king's reforms since he assumed the throne, aged 17, in 1974.
At a time when monarchs are not trendy, as the foreign minister, Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk, put it in a recent interview, the Bhutanese people - who number anywhere between 600,000 and 2.3 million, depending on the source - appear to almost universally revere King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who ruled absolutely until 1998, when he removed himself as head of government and empowered parliament to sack him as head of state.
It is a measure of the nation's reluctance to devolve power to the people that the parliament rebelled and overturned this power until the king ordered it reinstated.
Rutland has known the Bhutanese monarch and his immediate families - he has four wives, all sisters, and 12 children - since 1969, when he arrived in Bhutan, aged 32, straight from a teaching post at an Oxford public school.
Recruited after a chance meeting at a dinner party, Rutland said initially that he had no interest in crossing the world and leaving behind the comforts of provincial England for the predations of one of the harshest environments on the planet.
After touching down on the landing strip, Rutland was driven along the narrow, winding Himalayan roads - paved by the Indian military for the transportation of hardware to the Chinese border on the other side of the country - to Paro, almost 3,000 metres above sea level, where he became master of mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology at the Ugyen Wangchuck Academy. Among his 16 teenage pupils was the then crown prince.
He was put up in a "comfortable little house" built for him above the Paro valley. Then a quiet idyll, Paro is now a thriving community of 70,000 people with a bustling township of shops, cafés, at least two night-clubs and, nearby, Bhutan's only airport.
"More than 90 per cent of what is here now didn't exist then," Rutland said as he pulled his car to the side of a road overlooking the valley to take a picture of a vista he has photographed often, meticulously documenting the changes which have seen Bhutan leap from the middle ages to the 21st century in less than 50 years.
To the newcomer's eye, the scene is breathtaking, with no industry to dull the deep blue of the Himalayan sky, which is punctured by soaring, snow-capped mountains skirting verdant valleys of terraced fields and houses that must, by law, be built in the traditional style.
People wear traditional dress - the knee-length "gho" with socks and sturdy shoes for men, the embroidered "kira" for women. This attire has not changed for centuries and it has also been mandated by law as part of the government's policy of cultural preservation. The rule is relaxed on Sundays, when young men wear jeans.
Going back to its former privations, Rutland recalled his very English reaction to Paro. Establishing food supplies to maintain his customary diet took primary importance.
"Of course, it was so different from living in Oxford that one was initially rather bemused," Rutland said, sweeping an arm across the valley.
"I had to learn how to be self-sufficient. There was no such thing as a supermarket on the corner, as I'd been accustomed to. Paro was just a row of single-storey wooden shops, all selling the same thing, and nothing very useful - yak cheese, large black bricks of tea, hand-beaten aluminium pots from India.
"Food was very difficult in the beginning and it took me a while to realise that, if I wanted eggs, chicken and the like, I'd have to do it myself."
Pausing for a moment, he continued: "A Japanese agriculture expert was exceedingly helpful. He gave me hybrid sweetcorn seed, which I planted and watched grow and was licking my lips at the thought of.
"I decided one day that the next day I'd have corn on the cob for breakfast. I got up feeling so excited, but the whole lot was gone, and everything was flattened, and there were bear paw-prints in my garden. I sat down and cried."
Eventually, Rutland developed his garden and, food worries solved, tackled the task of adapting his teaching methods to local circumstances.
"I used to try to teach in an active way, so that instead of learning pure theory we would go into the field and fire arrows (archery is the national sport). I also taught my lot mathematics through archery," he said.
The future king, he said, was first among equals. "While there was no playing on his status, I always addressed him as 'Dasho' (prince), though I'd like to think I never treated him any differently. I was very courteously treated by everyone, and the role gave me the feeling that I was grooming the future king," he said.
Now 67, Rutland retired five years ago. He is Bhutan's honorary consul to the United Kingdom and heads the Bhutan Society of the UK.
He escapes the searing Himalayan summer to Surrey. But otherwise he lives close to the capital, Thimphu, with his adopted Bhutanese son, daughter-in-law and two young grandchildren.
"I feel totally at home here," he said during the 90-minute drive from Paro along a winding, terrifyingly narrow highway to Thimphu. He carries with him a white, raw silk scarf which Bhutanese men wear when entering public buildings and monasteries and during attendance at official functions.
His mobile phone trills with calls from ministers of state, high officials and - one suspects, but Rutland will not confirm - members of the royal family. He says he has never made money from his association with Bhutan's rulers, despite attractive offers, and he describes those who profit from close proximity to royalty as "disloyal, lacking in integrity and tacky".
In the early 1980s Rutland began to put his knowledgeto public use after being invited to make a speech in Oman, and he is now consulted by international organisations for advice he gives freely, but discreetly.
The unstated aim of the royal reforms is to avoid the tragedies which have befallen neighbours - Tibet, Sikkim, Ladakh, Nepal - through colonisation, incompetence, corruption and plain bad leadership.
At stake is the country's unique blend of culture and religion.
Even self-professed reformers fear that the introduction of a written constitution and the relegation of the king to constitutional monarch will make Bhutan more, rather than less, vulnerable.
"Here is a king we like, who says that he as an individual is not important, that you can't leave the fate of the country in the hands of one man, and one chosen by birth and not merit," said Kinley Dorji, editor-in-chief of the national newspaper, Kuensel.
"A lot of people feel that they want the king there as a safety net, but he has asked: what if this country has a bad king?"
It is the king's hope, say his ministers, that the constitution will see the National Assembly split into two Houses as two publicly-funded political parties are created to contest a general election as early as next year.
"It's visionary, very brave and stands a good chance of succeeding," Rutland said of the reforms.
Another Rutland legacy - the thousands of photographs documenting the changing face of Bhutan since the early 1970s - may have to wait. He is too busy to sort them, let alone arrange them into a book.
"Someone else can do that later," he says with a smile.