CK Lal in his State of the State column ('A Peruvian parallel', #268) talks about the parallels between the policies of Nepal's government towards Maoist revolutionaries and those of the Peruvian government towards the Shining Path has overlooked a confluence between these two movements. There is a persistent Lalitpurian legend that the Shining Pathists and the Prachanda Pathists have contacted each other through the network of Nepalis in Peru, who are trying to get to Japan for economic reasons. Apparently, a way of accomplishing this is to go to Peru, where there has for a long been a sizeable Japanese community, which can even produce presidents. There, they acquire a Peruvian passport showing the bearer to be a second or third generation Japanese Peruvian. Japan welcomes such people, gives them visas, even citizenship sometimes. Many Nepalis can pass for being of mixed Japanese extraction in Peru. There is also more than poetic justice to this trade-off. If Japanese dressed like Nepalis can have darshan of Pashupati (as long as they don't open their mouths), then why can't Nepalis posing as Japanese have darshan of Mount Fuji and the all-pervading Yen?

F Williams,
Kimdole