That was Friday night. We friends got together in Minbhawan for small Friday night party after all weeks work. That night we drank till well after midnight and as we were getting ready to get some sleep, couple of helicopters started whirring in sky. We wondered why those copters were hoveing over on Kathmandu sky deep in the night. But we were too unconscious for such paltry thoughts to bother us.
The telephone rang around five o'clock in the morning. I was sleeping in the same room as the telephone was. Bijay picked the phone. He started talking in excited voice as if something big had happened. We also became alert. After he dropped the cradle, he suddenly said, 'Saathiho, Shah bamsha ta dhwasta bhayechha ni. Deependra le sabailai maryo are.' We were dazed. For some instance, we couldn't understand what he was saying. We asked him again. He went to the TV-room shouting behind him. We also got up and followed him to the TV-room. Nepal television was not showing anything. That was too early for them. But all other cable channels, CNN, BBC, and some Indian cable channels, were zealously reporting the massacre in 'Vishnu's temple.' We just kept on zapping the tv channels for almost six-seven hours. Even when they were not saying anything new, we felt like listening to the same reporting over and over again.
This time, I am not there and Gyanendra disconnected all the telephone lines, cable channels and other private TV channels, Internet, radio (FM too), and any other form of communication media, except for the state-run Radio-Nepal and Nepal Television. I feel so out of touch. Yesterday, I got one email from my brother back in Nepal just before the Royal Announcement at ten o'clock local time in Kathmandu. He was saying that something big was going to happen and was asking me to be vigilant. Couple of hours later there was no connection. Even though I sent an email, I am pretty sure it didn't go through. I also tried calling couple of times and but it didn't go through.
In such a pandemonium, I just read a news that a posse of about 50 motorcyclists raced through Kathmandu roads waving National flags and the passerbys staring blankly at them, thinking may be of the unknowable yet to come. Has the absolute monarchy raised its head now? I am wondering. Of course, there is nothing to wonder because it already has. But still I cannot believe and I think: Is the Royal Army all it needs to take control of the country? I just listened to BBC Nepali on the internet and they were reporting that in Nepalgunj, army and police had started using the vehicles of other administration offices for patroling purposes.
Over all these confusion, when I talk to Nepali around me, I become disappointed. They make such passing remarks that I just cannot listen to them. They make fun of everything and say as if after King taking over everything, all the problem will be solved just like that. But not accepting there is a problem, you cannot make the problem go away.
posted by dipeshb @ 7:11 PM
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