I first met 19 year-old Raj Bajracharya (nicknamed "Buzz") in an Internet cafe, beaming at me from under his spiky haircut and latest space-age, aluminum-rimmed shades, signing out of a chat line. We exchanged email addresses and he said, "You must come to my birthday party on 14 February!"-also Valentine's Day and Lhosar.

Upon entering the gates of Thamel's Station Pub, the doorman greeted me like Stanley meeting Livingstone, "Daniel, I presume". They had been expecting me for some time and so, without having to pay the Rs 200 entrance fee, I was ushered upstairs to the pulsing rythms of a disco beat and strobing lights. And this was only 4:30PM. Even before the emergency Kathmandu's discos offered weekend "day discos" and many teenyboppers were bitten with Saturday Afternoon Fever. There were about 25-30 party-goers, all Nepalis in their late teens or early 20s, mostly guys, and most of the couples on the dance floor were boy-boy or girl-girl-no indication of their sexual preference.

Laid-back Buzz was the epitome of 1950s cool, but some of the other dancers were hot and sexy. One hunky guy, who was the cynosure of the floor, really kicked up a storm although his equally hunky partner proved to be less than twinkle-toes on his two left feet. The teenage disco dervish wore a black tank-top that showed off his well-built chest and arms which he was waving above his gyrating head, and he vogued like the hieroglyphic gestures of some ancient Nile priest. "Who is this guy," I asked Buzz, but neither he nor his friends from good middle-class families seemed to know the mysterious, male Cinderfella. I sat on the couch taking in the talent, like Andy Warhol at Studio 54, now the name of another hot, Thamel disco.

The DJ played a good eclectic mix from Harlem hip-hop to Hindi filmi music. The most popular was "Dum Maro Dum" from the 1970s film about pot-smoking foreign hippies in Kathmandu. Then came the chorus that everyone joined in, screeching "Hare Krishna, Hare Ram!" Here was I, the only foreigner at the party, an ex-hippie and ex-Hare Krishna for whom Kathmandu was once an exotic destination, second only to Marrakesh. But in 2002, post-11 September, here we were in Thamel and except for moi, not a hippie or tourist in sight. Here was another lost generation going to afternoon discos and as hip as their MTV counterparts anywhere in the world.

When Dorje danced, he seemed to be exorcising demons from his soul. Although he was born in Nepal and educated in South India, his soul was akin to those tantrik shamans and galloping horsemen of the Tibetan plateau. I boldly walked up and complimented disco dervish after he finished twirling like a Kansas tornado. To my surprise, the young man seemed quite touched, politely thanked me and, like some celebrity, autographed his name, Dorje Lama, in my notebook with the note, "Thank you for your kindness."

When I asked him if he was a student, he confessed that he was a monk. I had been just about to dub him "Disco Dorje" but when he went on about his double life-having to keep his disco gear in a secret trunk in the monastery, hidden from the stern head monk-I thought "Double Dorje" would be the more apt moniker. He reminded me of the mischievous hero of the Bhutanese movie The Cup, about the young Tibetan monks, secret football fans who had to sneak around the abbot to watch the World Cup on a rented television. Dorje confessed to going to a friend's house to watch MTV and learn the dance steps.

I left before the party was over, and as I said good-bye to Buzz and his friends, Dorje was sitting outside on the stairs perspiring after another dance number, contemplating the pedestrian traffic, some grungy backpackers, a newspaper hawker. He said good-bye and invited me to his monastery in Bodhnath where he is a teacher of some of the 500 young monks housed there, but added, "Don't tell my teacher!"

A couple of weeks later I got a telephone message at my office. "He didn't leave his number," the secretary informed me, "but he said his name was Double Dorje".