The good news is that from next month there will be no more load shedding. The bad news is: there will be no more electricity. The government is very logical: if there is no load, there can't be any shedding. And it looks like rents are shooting up in the Gaurighat neighbourhood because there are no nocturnal powercuts since the vice-prez lives there. Similar situation in Har-de-har Bhavan area of Pulchok where ministers reside. The powerful seem to have all the power.
***
It's been two weeks since Pukada promised there would be no more power cuts after unceremoniously inaugurating the Middle Marsyangdi Project. But it seems no one had the heart to tell the prime minister that the much-delayed German-built70 megawatts plant isn't generating a singe watt of electricity for at least another six months. It just had to be inaugurated in 2008 for some bureaucratic reason, but the third turbine hasn't even been installed, and even if the plant was generating power the transmission lines haven't been completed yet.
***
It was probably after he realised this that Comrade Ferocious has given up on trying to generate 10,000 megawatts from hydro and is scooting off to Scandinavia next month to look at wind energy. Why doesn't he just google 'windmill'?
***
Unless it was an elaborate planted leak, the Ass deems it unlikely that kingji is going to share any inside information anymore with the Indian ambassador, who in turn is not going to tell Pukada anything in confidence henceforth.
When Prime Minister Lotus Flower summoned media to Baluwatar for a tetetet recently, he really got into the swing of things and started confiding a bit more than he should have. He said that Excellency Sood told him that KingG had told him (Sood) that many of his (KingG's) ex-royalist supporters were defecting en masse to the Maoists. (It turns out that was just an aside because the real reason for the meeting was to organise details about the latest visit to India by Nepal's last king in Feb which comes just after Nepal's first president makes his own first visit to India.)
***
Anyway, the reason Pukada was leaking out this sensitive bit of information in an on-record meeting with hardened hacks was to prove the point he was making that the Maoist cadre base now has all kinds of undesirable elements and he is not totally in control of them. When a delegation of civil society stalwarts came to see him on Monday morning to get him to twist the tails of baddie goons who were trying to close down Model Hospital, Pukada repeated: "Our party has been infiltrated by all kinds of ex-royalist radicals." Nuf said.
***
What's with these garlands anyway? From where did we import the tradition of making politicos wear 21 kilogram garlands when they inaugurate something? Let me guess: Darbhanga? At the rate organisers are competing with each other to bestow even weightier wreaths on various ministers, they are going to contract spinal injuries. Someone should tell them they look like complete asses wearing those things around their necks.
***
Speaking of which the ass-licking is getting a bit too far. When Prachanda choppered off to Jiri the other day to attend Imtiaz' South Asian media do, the local police chief discretely asked Baluwatar what the prime minister would like as a present. So just as the Fierce One was about to board the helicopter for the ride home, Jiri's finest presented him with a couple of blood pheasants. Hey, aren't those birds supposed to be protected species?
***
It's really getting difficult to differentiate between the Humans and the Pigs these days. The prime minister rides around on Gyanu's 9N-RAJ, he is presented kalij by local officials, and after he flies back the road to Maharajganj is cleared of all traffic. When the irate driver of a taxi bearing this donkey was stuck at Chabahil, he asked a traffic police why there was such a monstrous traffic jam. The policeman's reply didn't bear a hint of irony when he replied: "Sarkar ko sabari."
ass(at)nepalitimes.com
