Her face adorned a thousand posters, commemorative plates and badges that had been made to mark the occasion and her demure looks apparently won over the public in the country famed for its invention of ‘Gross National Happiness’. She was 21, a student at Regent’s College in London when her life changed forever.
He was 31, an Oxford graduate and a fan of basketball and Elvis.
They met for the first time at a picnic when she was seven, and he was seventeen. Struck by her beauty and the glow of inner goodness within, he got down on his knees and said, “when you grow up, if I am single and not married and if you are single and not married, I would like you to be my wife, provided we still feel the same.”
The wish of Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the fifth king of Bhutan - and the “prince charming of the Himalayas” came true on 31st October 2011, when he married Jetsun Pema, dubbed ‘the Kate Middleton of the Himalayas’ the daughter of a pilot, fluent in Hindi and English - as well as Dzongkha,the national language of Bhutan - but modest despite her accomplishments.
As the youngest queen in the world right now, on her wedding day the young bride glided along in a traditional wraparound skirt and ornate coloured heels surrounded by red-robed monks,in a small, private ceremony mixing Buddhist spirituality and medieval tradition, in the heart of an ancient monastic fortress in the country’s former capital.
Dressed in the most wonderfully colorful array of national costumes for her multiple wedding celebrations, she yet looked slightly nervous as the king solemnly placed an embroidered silk brocade crown on the head of his beautiful bride, to make her his queen. He then sat back down on the Golden Throne and placed his Raven Crown on his own head, his new wife sitting to his left and a giant golden Buddha towering behind them.
Earlier, in the most sacred part of the ceremony, the king, his father and the country’s chief abbot, the Je Khenpo, had sought the blessings of the Shabdrung Namgyel, a lama who unified the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan in the 17th century and whose embalmed body is preserved in a small chamber within the fortress. Access to the chamber is so restricted that not even the royal bride was allowed to enter. Instead, she prayed and prostrated herself in an outer chamber before the king’s father emerged to place around her neck five scarves blessed by the Shabdrung, and presented her with a golden chalice containing curd that had been transformed into holy ambrosia.
Later, the ceremony moved to the throne room where she prostrated herself before the king himself. She then presented him with the cup of ambrosia from which he sipped, before crowning her. Monks chanted blessings for the royal couple while long trumpets droned and offerings were made for their well-being and long life.
The ceremony kicked off three days of celebration in the Himalayan land. In the afternoon, thousands of people gathered by the side of the white-walled dzong or fortress of Punakha, where the king was entertained by traditional dances. As usual, he spent much more time mingling with wedding guests and ordinary Bhutanese people than sitting still and listening to the entertainment.
Deeply in love with Jetsun the king renounced his right to take multiple wives and vowed that she was the only woman he would ever marry. After the ceremony, he told a small group of reporters how happy he was. “I have been waiting for quite some time to get married,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter when you get married as long as it is to the right person. I am certain I am married to the right person.”
Meanwhile, Karma Tshiteem, the head of the Gross National Happiness Commission joked: “You can be sure that our happiness too, is increasing”.
- Aditha
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