Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

FEATHERS IN THE CROWN

As a kid I used to gape in wonderment at the magnificent crown my father possessed not knowing that the jewels were only for show. The dark green emerald drops were made of glass, the sparkling diamonds were probably zirconium and the pearls were not of the best sort. Every Rana general had his personal crown in those days and my father was no exception. I did not recognize the difference between this personal crown of father's and the other more valuable crown of the Nepalese Commander-in-Chief of the Army that my father was seen wearing in many a portrait displayed about the house. Little did I know that my father was the last person to put on his head the army chief's crown from the Rana era, real glittering diamonds, snow white pearls and thumb-sized emerald drops and all. The feather in the crown was the magnificent plumes of the Bird of Paradise that gave it such a majestic look. Nepal had only three crowns that were genuinely the real stuff bedecked with expensive pea

INTO THE MAELSTROM - JUNG BAHADUR LEADS AN ARMY

G overnor General Lord Canning's request to Jung Bahadur to assist the British militarily in Avadh sent a maelstrom through the court of Nepal. Prime Minister Bhimsen Thapa's war was still fresh in peoples' mind and the wound of Sugauly had not yet healed. The pacifists wanted to stay neutral saying it was not our fight. The powerful conservative faction still smarting from the earlier defeat wanted to fight the British instead by reinforcing Begum Hazrat Mahal. Maharajah Jung Bahadur was a brave-heart but he had first-hand witnessed the might of Britain; he knew that it was not the time to fight them. Too, he disliked the duplicity of the Indian rajas and the decadence of the Avadhi court where, until recently, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was ruling the roost. He had also heard of savage killing of British civilians, women and children too, anathema to the chivalrous Jung. But decision to go to war is always a soul-searching affair. Jung held counsel with his brothers who one an

WHITE TIGER

N o, this blog is not on Maharajah Jung Bahadur Rana of Nepal although there is a famous story of the white tiger bringing the demise of Jung Bahadur during his last shoot in 1877 A.D. This story is about white tigers. White tigers have about them mysticism linked to their rarity. There is some other-worldliness about them that captivates peoples' imagination.  They appear frequently in myths and legends. There are also numerous books titled The White Tiger , the recent one being Arvind Adiga's Booker Prize winning novel. An old classic on Nepalese history written by Diamond Shumsher Rana, Seto Bag , was later translated by Greta Rana into English titled Wake of the White Tiger . But in this story I am writing about the white tigers carrying the recessive genes subduing the rich golden pelt and making it alabaster white. They are not albinos. White tigers grow bigger than normal ones. I begin with a hunt, a Shikar, my father organized for Ralph S. Scott, big game h