Revisiting the attic @ aashishkoirala.wordpress.com

Well, Nepal has been a republic for a little while now. We don’t have a government yet — but who notices the difference anyway? At least we have a President — and a Vice President, also, for that matter — one who does not care much for our language, but a Vice President nonetheless — one that will live it up all he wants in Hindi in that nice little “palace” neighboring my favorite bowling joint. We have gone from being a dysfunctional monarchy to a dysfunctional republic. In principle, however, the latter is always better than the former.

I haven’t been to the attic atop Prithvi Narayan Shah’s Nau-Tale Darbar in Basantapur since I went there for the first time a couple of years ago and wrote about it in this very forum (see Bliss in the attic — http://www.everestuncensored.org/585/2006/06/04/bliss-in-the-attic/
). Not that I did not want to go — a couple of things got in my way. The first and obvious one would be that I am as lazy as anyone can be. The second one would be the fact that a woman threw herself with her child off that very attic and killed herself. Since then, they don’t allow visitors up there. I am glad I did go when I had the chance, though.

Anyway, my own memories of the attic are pretty vague at this point. The couple of years in my life following that visit were pretty eventful and contributed towards blurring my recollections of the so called “bliss” I felt that I refer to in my original entry. I just stumbled on to the entry and felt its relevance given that we are now a fresh republic. I foresee some other schmuck like me visiting a museum someday that will inhabit the current vice-presidential “palace” and hearing voices of the vice-presidential spirit that will haunt it then. It will probably utter one of the following lines in its ghostly, pro-Indian voice.

“This is where I was headed when I was asked to do something stupid. I did as I was told. The mob arose and asked me to back down. I did the right thing. My own people slaughtered me, but the country was saved for you to live in.”

“This is where I was headed when I was asked to do something stupid. I did as I was told. The mob arose and asked me to back down. When I didn’t, they strung me up. What could I do? If I had backed down, my own people would have killed me — and trust me, they are way more ruthless than any lynch mob. Anyway, that is what led to the state of extreme anarchy that you currently dwell in.”

“This is where I was headed when I was asked to do something stupid. I did as I was told. The mob arose and asked me to back down. I didn’t, and nobody cared. You see, Nepal used to be much bigger than it is now, but that was what led to the gradual process that caused Nepal to split into all these bits and pieces — and that is eventually what led to all the genocide and ethnic cleansing that is going on right now… oh, not to mention the famine.”

I have been told I am overtly pessimistic, but I don’t think it’s my fault.

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Posted by Heretic in Politics, Opinion on August 2nd, 2008  |      324 Views     Share This     Print This Post