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,...