AN UNIQUE HUNT IN NEPAL

General Kiran with tiger shot by Colt .45

Mr. James Stone was the project manager of Riblet Tramway Company that set up the Kathmandu - Hetauda Ropeway under U.S. Aid in 1959 A.D. Riblet took our estate Kiran Bhawan on rent for their personnel and Bill Stone, son of the manager, spent a few years of his childhood with his parents in Nepal. Bill discovered my blog and sent me this story my father General Kiran had written on his unique hunt, a copy of which he autographed and presented to Jim. It is a fascinating account and I was enraptured by it even though I was familiar with the story. By God's grace I still have the skin attached to the mounted head of the same tiger my father bagged with his Colt .45.

Crayon Painting of General Kiran commemorating the unique tiger shoot.

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THE BIOGRAPHER: LIFE OF GENERAL PADMA JUNG RANA

An important biography of Maharajah Jung Bahadur Rana was written by his son General Padma Jung Rana during his exile in India and it was published after his death in Allahabad in 1909 A.D. by Pioneer Press titled "Life of Sir Jung Bahadur of Nepal". It is the only book to my knowledge that is written by an "insider" eye witness, a member of the family of Jung Bahadur, and is full of interesting accounts and anecdotes that would not have come to light had it not been for this book. I have always wanted to learn more about the Rana family members who fled Nepal after the coup d'etat of 1885 A.D. and their life in India. Here is the first in the series: my findings on General Padma Jung Rana. A tragedy in life came early, at the very instance of birth in fact. Writes General Padma Jung Rana in his biography of his famous father, he was born on the very day Maharajah Jung Bahadur Rana left Kathmandu for the war effort to relieve the hard-pressed British forces i...

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 b...

THE FIRST SON

T he child was just 2 years old when his father Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana received an invitation from the East India Company to visit England in 1850 A.D. Her Majesty Queen Victoria would be receiving him at court! The household was in a frenzy preparing for this arduous journey. Palpable excitement was in the air. The delegation had to be finalized, supplies and rations to be ordered, modes of transportation to be chartered, decorations and gifts to be sorted out to offer to the gracious hosts, et all. No ruler from the sub-continent had been invited by the Company until this instance. Too, dire premonition was weighing heavily on the newly blessed "Rana" family despite the auspicious date of travel charted by court astrologers and birth-chart diviners. Would the young thirty-four year prime minister and de facto ruler return safely after crossing the black waters? "What would happen to the young child if he didn't?" lamented his pregnant mother Nanda Ku...

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