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TWO DEATHS FORETOLD

The King and Queen of Nepal had died once before, a full six months before their actual death in the infamous Palace Massacre of 1 June 2001. Was this earlier death a portent for the actual one to follow? Most dreams we forget upon waking, some we remember for a few hours, days at most, only the very few we remember for times immemorial because we cannot understand why we dreamt so. And when you dream one of those dreams, relate, or else people think it is a fantasy, something that comes after the event, a figment of the imagination, an untruth. It is always good to have a witness, someone to say yes I know about the dream!

The dream woke me up disturbed: a nightmare that has soaked up all your sleeping energy and wakes you up all clammy and weak, troubled down to the core of your being. Indeed such was the dream I had of both the king and queen being shot dead, at the same time, in an instant! Mornings are busy with all about the house going about their chores nearly in break-neck speed. Daughter to get ready for school, wife to get ready for another school to teach, me to the office early for meetings, planning, servants about the house making breakfast, ironing clothes, washing cars. Nobody has time to put together a coherent half-phrase. I knew that I should tell someone about the dream, nearly did during teeth-brushing, nearly did during dressing up, nearly did during breakfast, but not quite, the words did not come out, everyone was too busy doing his or her own stuff. Funny I do remember that I told someone but it was in the car, on the way to my office, and now for the life of me I can't remember who it was.

Then it happened, all of a sudden the Crown Prince was alleged to have shot all his family including his father the king and his mother the queen of Nepal. It was on the 1st of June 2001. All hell broke loose in Kathmandu the next day, curfew was imposed, rumour took new heights of imagination, conspiracy theorists reached new lows of depredations. It was the Maoists, it was India, there were 10 crown princes, all in his lookalike masks, no it was G, of course, he wasn't there was he?! All I could do was to remember the dream I had long back, a dream that had now suddenly come true. But who would really believe me if I retold it? It could be just an imagination gone wild, fueled by this unprecedented event, never had a whole royal family been slaughtered since the Bolshevik revolution took away the Russian Tsar and his family, a deja vu induced by the mixed neurons and synapses of the brain!

Much later did I find out that yes indeed I had told someone. I had told my daughter about this dream in the car, while driving her to school. Much later did she corroborate my story. So the king and queen had indeed died once before their actual death, it was not a figment of my imagination.

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