Not since the slaughter of 256 rare African parakeets has our cow pasture-turned-international airport seen a week as eventful as this.
First, some bloke ploughed his dozer through the cable running to the VOR DME beacon knocking the airport out of action during the evening rush hour. The very next day a Doha flight had a bomb scare that closed down the airport, this time during the morning rush hour. Despite the Ass's fine investigative skills she's not been able to figure out how or why that alert went from Qatar to Mangalore to Kolkata to Kathmandu.
Anyway, no sooner had the airport opened again thousands of passengers were stranded in the terminal because the YCL decided to block the Ring Road. The next day it was the turn of irate passengers on the formerly-Royal Nepal Airlines flight to Dubai that had been delayed by five days who decided enough was enough and gheraoed the security check thereby sealing off the departure area.As this donkey goes to press, the airport is open but we don't know for how long.
As noted last week, Kingji has intensified efforts to enlist supernatural intervention to preserve his Tantrick Kingdom. After giving new meaning to the phrase \'let's all make our sacrifices for the sake of the country\' Big G has deployed an army of Brahmins to stage a mahayagya to stave off the Ill Winds Wafting from the South. As the intimate details of these and other palace goings-on (like the top secret meeting between the former Supreme Commander and the Chief of Army Staff) get plastered across Kathmandu's more salacious (than us) weeklies, efforts are reportedly underway to figure out who the Deep Throat within Naryanhiti is.
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It doesn't surprise your asinine columnist one bit that the comrades are impatient to turn Nepal into a republic and declare victory. You would too if you had hailstones the size of socket bombs raining down on your tents. But you'd be in even more of a hurry if your cantonments are being invaded by snakes. No, not counter-revolutionary anti-proletarian feudal snakes, but real reptiles.And the comrades may have forsaken the battlefield but they are invading the air waves. Listeners of Radio Paschimanchal in Palpa have suddenly noticed a new slant in the evening news bulletins in which critics of the Maoists are referred to as \'mandalays\' Gyanendra the king is called by his friendly nickname, Gyanay.
And they are making forays into film as well. The movie Lal Salam has just finished shooting (camera, not gun) and it has revolutionary dance sequences performed by the All Nepal People's Cultural Federation. The Ass has been told never mind by whom that Comrade Awesome giving his fiery \'May Day, May Day!\' speech this week at Tundikhel will make a cameo appearance in the 1 hr 26 min feature film.How that bit is going to be woven into the plot, we're not sure, but we're convinced it will be scintillating.
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By the way, cabinet meetings have been moved from Baluwatar to Singha Darbar. This week the Maoists tried hard to push through replacement secretaries in the ministries that they control. And they still can't agree on ambassadors one year after regime change. There are eight cooks and they're making a mess of the broth......
Maharababu has certainly done some spring cleaning at Radio Nepal. The Ghatana Bichar morning radio package now sounds just like Radio Ganatantra. Which is no surprise because the minister has brought in comrades from his formerly clandestine radio. Moles in Gorkhapatra and NTV say they have been told to play down news about YCL bullying and give full prominence to President Prachanda's various orations, of which there are many. How is this different from what the Sri Punch did when he took over?
