What bad timing to schedule Traffic Week to coincide with the state visit of the Lankan president. It had got off to a fairly good start with volunteers acting like human road dividers, traffic cops threatening to decapitate motorcyclists if they ran the red light, and Baba-san distributing white gloves for police.
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Traffic was actually getting smoother before disaster struck. Monday and Tuesday saw some of the worst traffic jams in living memory in the capital. Good thing the Sri Lankans cut short their visit, otherwise Wednesday would have been bumper-to-bumper as well. If this is what happens when there is just one visiting head of state, imagine the chaos the next time the SAARC Summit is held here. Security for the presidential banquet at the Soaltee was so tight some invited guests couldn't even make it.
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But that didn't stop big-name gatecrashers from not just making it to the banquet hall, but even trying to seat themselves at the head table. At the last minute, Foreigner Minister Upadro Yadav got a couple of his cronies' invitations and they just barely made it through traffic. And the secretary-in-chief in full ass-licking mode got the presidential secretariat to fork out invites for First Son Prakash and First Nephew Samir, the wilfully defaulting ex-egg tycoon, and three other Terrific relatives.
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Bureaucratic and business circles in Kathmandu are currently bristling with talk of the two cousins interfering in appointments, license procedures and bank loans by dropping the name of Comrade Uncle. PKD has enough problems in his hands without rotten eggs in his family raising another stink.
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Just when we had started getting used to the western suit with topi or dhoti kamij, the rulers of the New Nepal are deliberately trying to confuse us with more variations on the national dress. At the guard of honour for the Sri Lankan president at the airport on Monday out comes the Foreign Minister in disheveled pajamas and chappals. If we are really already a dictatorship of the proletariat then night suit and slippers would be a perfectly acceptable national dress, but the last we heard, we are still a Federal Democratic Inclusive People's Republic of Nepal. All this was fine, but after the anthems Touristic Minister Yummy was overheard telling the Firinghi Minister: "Tapai ta aja pukka Madhesi jastai dekhinu bho." Our mole didn't hang around to figure out if Upendra took that as a compliment.
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After having been holed up in Nepal for nearly three years, Kingji is letting his hair down in India extending his trip to last a whole month. After the clan wedding in Bhopal, the naturalist ex-monarch went to check out the tigers at Ranthambore and a pilgrimage to Somnath in Gujarat. None of this should worry comrades in the pipal republik back home, but Red Flag and Tremendous are getting rattled that royal cousin Arjun Singh is arranging meetings with Sonia and Lalmohan. Conspiratorial as the comrades are, they are imagining that the baby king proposal is being revived.
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The cabinet, in its wisdom, approved the proposal to delete the month of Chait from the year 2066, but a committee of astrologers have so far refused to implement it. It's now getting late to start printing next year's calendars and most publishers are bringing out two variations of 2066 calendars: ones with Chait and ones without. The rumour is that the govt wants to prove that the Bickrum Sambat is unscientific and use this opportunity to introduce the Gregorian calendar. They may as well use this opp to declare Sunday a holiday and bring Nepal Time 45 minutes forward so we scrap this absurd 15 minute time diff with India.
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Kathmandu-based embassies have decided to cock the snook at the Foreign Ministry's letter asking them to reveal who they rent premises from and how much they pay because it contravenes the Vienna Convention. Comrade Rambabu wants to leave no stone unturned to nab tax evaders, but he should have checked with the lawyers first.
ass(at)nepalitimes.com
