At Khuruthang, a circle is a triangle

Life, they say, is a circle.

Living in Khuruthang, the rhythm of this circle is dictated by the melody of the first drops of tap water that ceremoniously beat down bathroom buckets twice a day, for exactly an hour each: once in the morning and then in the evening.

For me, the most powerful man in this town of rising apartments and new cars is the man who opens and closes the main water tank. When my husband - who wakes up early and finishes his daily walkathon - announces that the waterman is approaching the tank. I jump out of my bed, rubbing my eyes of a malevolent dream that my buckets have developed holes and thus unable to contain water.

A few meters away from the Bank of Bhutan building where I stay, the mighty naughty Punatsangchu chuckles past, mocking at my efforts to design life around a tap trickle.

It was during one of our family walks to the other side of the river that I realized that life need not be a circle always. From a higher plain I could see my apartment, my school and the lhakhang.

Eureka! The three structures formed three points of a perfect triangle.

That made perfect sense: Family, Work and God.

Morning tea, pressing cloths, helping my son to wear his school gho, and sharing with my husband the pains, lessons, and joys of living in the Khuruthang triangle: This is home. In the triangle, the waterman is not a separate entity; he becomes a part of our existence. But when the material bug strikes, we discuss on the virtues of buying a second-hand Maruti 800 car dreaming of driving to the drupchu two kilometers away and fetching enough water in colorful jerry cans.

But once I take my school books, and walk to the next triangle point, life drifts into a different realm

Once in the school campus, the mind effortlessly moves to a different space, like a skillful squirrel that glides from the branch of one tree to the other. Like water worries at home the school also has share of woes. But the faces of students sitting before you wipe away everything. Like you can’t step into the same Punatsangchu twice, you can’t step into a classroom expecting the same nature of students. They keep changing, and you also change with them. Between interval bells, you sip a cup of hot tea and reignite the spirit.

I get time to listen to my breath only when I walk down to the lhakhang with the golden sun setting behind me. There, I recharge my notes of rhythm wondering sometimes how the dim butter lamps, the self effacing smile of the Buddha, and the mani dumjurs teach me more than this-is-how-you-should-teach lectures.

There, my inner aura is strengthened. As my husband fine tunes his dzongkhag with the little monks, I make another round of the lhakhang with my son who asks what is for dinner.

Life, sometimes, is a triangular circle.