KIRAN PANDAY ALL ABOARD? Tea-time at the Prime Minister's Helipad on Tuesday.

Sorry to keep harping on and on about the Great Gateway of Nepal but it sticks out like such a sore thumb that anyone arriving or leaving Nepal ignores it at their peril. On the positive side, this erection is sure to win an international prize, if ever one is given for a phallic symbol with the most complete non-functionality. The moola spent on the Arc de Triumph could have been invested instead in upgrading the loos at Tribhuvan Internecine Airport, where the red and yellow tiles in question would have actually served a purpose.

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We Nepalis have a great gate fetish, let's admit it. Bill Gates would feel totally at home here. During the war, the Baddies bombed roads and bridges but built gates all over the hinterland. They are erecting gates every few kilometres from Abu Khaireni to Palungtar for the Communist Utopia Shareholder's Conference, with party sources confirming that Rs 10 million has been set aside for welcome arches and buntings alone. During the absolute monarchy days, they began with the Shahid Gate and never stopped. The Nepali Kangres built gates all over the capital during its Annual General Meeting, and two months later they are still causing traffic jams. One Kangresi told the Ass: "We had a budget to build them, but no budget to dismantle them." No wonder the country is in the state it is in. The only thing that comes close to rivalling our craze for gates is our obsession with clock towers. But more about that some other time.

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Just about the only guys who benefited from the Tihar Summit seem to have been the owners of Hattiban Resort, who not only raked in more than two laks in room charges, food and booze but karods worth of publicity for NTY 2011 that money couldn't buy. All the three parties in our three-party dictatorship had their own reasons for going, but there was one reason common to all: to show a jaded public that now that the fun and games of the festivals are over they are getting down to brass tacks.

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The reason Awesome was so keen on going up to Hattiban was, as he put it, "for mind fresh". But the hidden agenda was to stonewall on everything from demobilisation to state restructuring so that he can tell his comrades in Gorkha that he stood firm and didn't give in to India. The fact that the meeting was shifted from Chitwan to Gorkha because of dengue means that PKD now faces a much bigger threat than the female Aedes aegypti mosquito: BRB supporters in his home district.

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If the Homely Ministry could exhibit the same meticulous forward planning it showed in arranging the Hattiban Expedition to improve the country's law and order situation, ordinary Nepalis would all breathe a lot easier. Lord Bhim planned the details himself: complete with decoy convoys, fake bookings for Lukla hotels, red herrings about chartering choppers, while they all sneaked off through the backdoor of Singha Darbar to Elephant Forest in Jumbo Hi Aces. A phalanx of cops in Pharping told journos to bugger off, but no media sleuth took the trouble to get a scoop by hiking up through the forest. In the end, it turned out to be such a slow news day that tv channels decided to be their own talking heads and headlined media being 'manhandled' by rude cops.

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As it turned out, the three parties and their five senior leaders (Total: 15) held marathon meetings, arguing all over again about the same points and then agreeing to disagree. It was all supposed to be TOP SECRET, which is why they all started spilling the beans on the record as soon as they came back down to terra firma. Some said president rule, others presidium rule, some wanted a revolving prime ministership, others wanted a council of ministers with two chairmen. Wait a minute, isn't that what kingji had?

ass(at)nepalitimes.com