rather than criticize bhutan, its peoples and king most of the time, we may do well to take off our refugee blinkers once in a while and strive to see bhutan for what it is and learn from them as well. no matter the legendary diplomatic skills of bhek b thapa, narendra vikram shah and the like, they were painted in a tight corner, 'castrated' and 'rendered impotent' by their bhutanese counterparts in the joint talks. King Jigme has spoken out. internationalising the issue has not stopped donors from pouring money into bhutan, still the last Himalayan shangrila, ranking 45 (against nepal's 85th position) among 145 countries in the environmental sustainability index report. a land of the thunder dragon! i feel that most nepalis, nepali leaders and nepali media have not been able to understand the bhutanese mind and resolve, and this is where the former have repeatedly blundered. if they asked themselves: what makes them tick, why they are intensely nationalistic, why they pursue GNH, why its environment strategy is called 'middle path', why they pursue restrictive tourism, why they have banned tobacco sale, why they pursue 'cautious development' while everyone else is liberalizing blindly, why they are suspicious of outsiders, why they make strategic investments in education, why they enjoy such close relations with India, why they do not allow christian missionaries to practice in Bhutan, why their civil servants are among the brightest and the most efficient in all of South Asia, why there are not many embassies, consulates, UN agencies and I/NGOs in Bhutan, why Bhutan is the way it is, why the Bhutanese king and prince actually went to 'flush out' the Indian insurgents from the Bhutanese soil (when was the last time our king and prince actually went to the battlefied to fight the Maoists and raise the morale of RNA personnel as some one put it in Nation Weekly?), then some pattern begins to emerge. I concede there is logic and rationale to the pattern. my point is: unless the nepali leaders learn to read this intricate and mysterious pattern on the Bhutanese fabric (so to put it), it is unlikely they will succeed much in their diplomacy with India and Bhutan (or other countries) on the refugee front. and, moreover, it is unlikely they will noticepattern, let alone make sense of it, as long as they have the refugee blinkers on.