All the tv coverage this past week of ex-kingji being chased by paparazzi in Nepalganj, and giving tv interviews, made some fellow-Asses nostalgic for the bad old days when Nepal was still a Himalayan kingdom.

Now, if only KingG was humble, low-key and simple as he is now ("I suffer load-shedding and water-shortage just like everyone else") perhaps the country needn't have thrown the babyking out with the bathwater. But one does get the feeling that the once-divine king is still looking for divine intervention to put him back on the throne.

Babusaheb told his interviewer he wasn't going to be drawn into making political statements, but went right ahead to say he was double-crossed by
the political parties...and maybe a certain neighbouring country that begins with the letter 'I'? Just like the late Girjau breathed his last without disclosing what the 'Grand Design' was all about, perhaps we will never know who stabbed who in the back in 2006. The Mule's educated guess, however, is that during the crucial maharajah-to-maharajah meeting between Karan and Gyan on 22 April, KGBBSD received a message from Man Mohan (Singh, not Adhikari) guaranteeing that if he restored parliament the monarchy would be retained. The ex-avatar of Vishnu obviously feels betrayed, and with support in public opinion polls for a return to the monarchy now in the single digits, is appealing to higher-up authorities in the Hindu pantheon.

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But we digress. This week's real story is what is going to happen on Saturday. What to do if the Assembly goes into a coma on Friday at midnight? Will the CA be rushed to the ICU? Will the three parties commit euthanasia and pull the plug? Will it be revived only to go into relapse?
Do they all want it dead, but are too afraid to say so for fear of public wrath?

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To find out, the Ass posed as a fly on the wall at one of many tripartite meetings this week between the three leaders of the triumvirate. Here is an unofficial transcript:

MKN: I'll step down, but only if you agree to extend the CA term.
PKD: Nope we will only extend the CA term if you resign first.
MKN: OK, I'll give you my word. Cross my heart.
PKD: Can you put that in writing?
MKN: Only if you put it in writing that you will extend the CA.
PKD: Nope. No can do.
MKN: Then, no can do, too.
RCP: The prime minister won't resign until you demobilise and return our stolen property.
PKD: But he just said he's ready to step down.
RCP: We won't let him.
MKN: Oh yes, I forgot, I won't step down until you empty the cantonments and disband the YCL.
PKD: All right, let's start again. You have to resign because I have to be PM before we agree to extend the CA. We also want all our fighters integrated into the Nepal Army and we want a consensus government from now
on, not a majority government. And, by the way, I want a refill.
MKN: (fills PKD's cup) Agreement first, then resignation.
PKD: Resignation first, then agreement.
BRB: (clearing throat) If I may just interject here. What if we all agree to extend the CA, Madhavji resigns and I take his place?
PKD: No way, Jose.
RCP: Yeah, no way. When Madhavji steps down, I take his place.
RBY: (makes grand entrance amidst fanfare) OK boys, it's two seconds to midnight, off to bed. Leave it to me now.

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The Bajuwa Bajes of the Baddie central committee pale in comparison to the trans-Atlantic war that has broken out over the Nepal revolution between the Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA (RCPUSA) and the World People's Resistance Movement Britain (follow WPRM-Britain on Facebook). American Maoists, interestingly, seem to be more hardline and brought out a critique of the comrades in Nepal, terming them 'revisionists'. In commie circles accusing someone of 'revisionism' is like calling them the offspring of female dogs. Which is why WPRM has lashed back with a 5,000 word anti-Yankee-Maoist diatribe containing hard-hitting sentences like: 'These infantile "communists" who have miserably failed both in practice and theory, virulently spew forth their resentment on anyone with whom they are in the slightest disagreement. Can this be to cover up their many failures and gain some attention so as to overcome their isolation, both in the US and abroad? The first and the most important problem is grasping the ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In this context, the UCPN(M)'s ideological development by adopting the method of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to involve working class and the masses in major two-line struggles within the Party, provides guidance to grasp the proletarian ideology.' WRPM: 1, RCPUSA: 0.

ass(at)nepalitimes.com