Shangri-la, continued

On a grey day last August, the sixth edition of the Mountain Echoes literary festival got underway in Thimphu, with all of the exotic promise of a tourist brochure. Dancers from the Royal Academy of Performing Arts spun and twisted through the drizzle, and the Queen Mother, Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, accompanied by very little security, walked among the traditionally-attired crowd. Two masked jesters skirted the dancers and lunged comically at the audience, unsheathing formidable wooden phalluses from their pockets and thrusting them under people's noses, to confront and dispel the illusion of embarrassment.

The auditorium of the Royal University of Bhutan was packed, the adults in seated rows and the stairs filled with cross-legged teenagers, some with their notebooks out and ready for the opening lecture on Emperor Asoka. Vasundhara Raje, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, was second on the bill, but was summoned away on urgent government business. In stepped a blonde scholar from England, clad in the traditional Bhutanese gho, who recited a poem about becoming a Buddhist, and dedicated it to the Queen Mother. The rest of the morning was taken up by a photo exhibition on the journey of the 7th century Buddhist pilgrim and scholar Xuanzang and a passionate discussion on food by Rocky Singh and Mayur Sharma, hosts of the popular NDTV show Highway on My Plate. In the afternoon Patrick French and historian Nayanjot Lahiri bantered about the relative morality of Asoka and V. S. Naipaul. A puppet show ended the first day, and the organisers – looking relieved – set about securing more chairs. The audience ambled out into the cool evening air and back down the hill into town for cheese and chilli.