The triple massage that departing passengers get during security check at Tribhuban International Airport has by now become legendary. There is the full-body massage at the luggage xray, then one is subjected to the butt pat at the departure hall and finally the full-frontal fondling on the tarmac before you board. Having been at the receiving end of all this ayurvedic kneading during a recent foray, the Ass couldn't help giggling, or whatever it is that donkeys do when they're tickled.
But if any of you thought Maoist extortion was getting too much, then you haven't yet seen extortion by policemen on duty at the security check at the airport. That mandatory massage is not free.
Police extortion at the airport security check has got so bad that the Japanese embassy has put up a notice at the xray queue in Japanese to warn its nationals to beware of the wallet search. This prominently displayed notice says, in part: "Except the airport tax, no one has the authority to demand any other payment from you at this airport. If anyone asks you for money answer with a firm 'No'. Report all incidents by calling the embassy at 4426680."
That should've done the trick. But recently a relative of a European envoy returning after a visit to Nepal had to fork out cash to the frisker. Now, how about notices also in French, German, Spanish, and (as long as we are at it) Czech?
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Our formerly-subterranean comrades are still finding it difficult to get used to life above ground and slip back into some of their ultra-radical jargon. That's what recently happened to Comrade Gaurav aka CP Gajurel in New Delhi for a conclave of regional revolutionaries at that cradle of subcontinental Maoism, JNU.For the record, let it be known that this time he was not travelling on a forged British passport but a Nepali citizenship certificate. Anyway, to cut a long story short, knowing that the People's War Group delegates at the conference would be accusing the Nepalis of abandoning the revolution and compromising with the devil Gajurel pre-empted it all by declaring that the Mau-Mau was increasing its men under arms from 10,000 to 37,000 to launch an "urban uprising". And in dramatic doublespeak he added: "We are going to elections to ensure that the results are in our favour, if the opposition captures one booth we will capture five." And that's an exact quote.
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It's a grand tradition in Nepali politics to pass the buck. Our politicos never miss the opportunity to exhibit opportunism especially when the faeces hits the fan as it did recently in what has come to be known as the Jaundice Kanda. The donkey now has evidence it wasn\'t jaundice, or hepa-B, or typhoid but the dreaded cholera. A pale looking Foreign Minister Oli was medevaced to Bangkok for treatment, and now there is the mother of all the buck-passing about sewerage contaminating Baluwatar.The present government has blamed past governments for neglect, the politicians blame the doctors for inaccurate diagnosis, the bureaucrats blame the engineers, Comrade Makunay has blamed the government of which he is a partner and communist stalwart Lila Mani Pokhrel just threw up his hands and was observed praying fervently at a saptaha in Chitwan.
As far as the Ass can tell, no one has yet blamed faecal contamination. After all, if one mixes excreta with H2O and calls the relevant authority the "Department of Sewarage and Water Supply" what do you expect? 
