The bell has now rung for Round Three. Negotiators are being readied for talks again. The two sides used the previous rounds to size each other up, and to send the war-weary Nepali public a message that they were serious about talks. The public wants to believe them. All indications are that the Maoists are trapped between the internal consequences of what they have unleashed, and the need to press the eject button.

It is a lesson in how to unravel a revolution. From the Maoists' point of view, things were going very well till recently. The insurgency had grown phenomenally and spread to all parts of the country. Six years and 2,000 lives later, they had advanced facing no resistance from feckless and fractious parliamentary parties.

The maobadi became a household word spoken either in fear or awe. Then came the truce and talks in July. In a matter of weeks they had squandered most of the gains of the past six years. When the people discovered that the talks were an excuse for more aggressive extortion, threats, kidnappings, and the forced closures of businesses, their support waned. Ordinary shopkeepers, subsistence farmers and civil servants in the districts were now paying ransom. School buses were burnt, and aboveground leaders gave fiery speeches threatening to turn Narayanhiti into the Pentagon. Then, the desecration of temples, the forced feeding of beef, and the attacks on tarai farmers. There was now very little difference between the Maobadi and the Buddha-demolishing Taliban.

The Maoist leadership is distancing itself from this behaviour, even apologising, but the statements have been too little too late. The danger in all this is that once the revolution loses its political edge, grassroots warlords bored with the truce will unleash communally-tinged attacks to light ethnic fires in the hills and the tarai.

It is vital for the third round to go into substantive discussions to give the Maoists a face-saving way to come out into the mainstream. The longer this drags on, the greater the chances that truce will be broken. Let's wrap it up by Dasain, and give the long-suffering people of Nepal something to finally rejoice about this festival season.