T he courtiers were huddled close together in anticipation of an audience with the king of Nepal. The body language collectively betrayed a sense of hopelessness, a state of paralysis. They knew that even the king would not be able to assuage their fear but at least they would try a trick or two to salvage the situation. Bal Narsingh Kunwar and Ganesh Kumari Devi, parents of Maharajah Jung Bahadur Rana The defeated courtiers came from the old aristocracy, a motley crew of descendants of the warriors who had been in the vanguard of King Prithivi Narayan Shah's many assaults into Kathmandu Valley. Some had died in the enterprise and their progeny ensconced in the hierarchy of the Gorkha king's administration and military as reward. Others had shone in the field of battle and had been made generals and governors of a far flung nation in the making. Suddenly all that had ended on that day of infamy - 30 September 1846 A.D. - better known in Nepali history as  "Kot ...

I have often wondered how Kathmandu became a veritable paradise for eating in many languages. Even as far back as my primary school days Hungarian Goulash and Chicken a la Kiev were staples in the menus of most self-respecting hotels led by Hotel Royal. Then the explosion of the hippie movement of the mid-sixties onward brought a remarkable change in menu planning in Kathmandu's eateries. The East met West in an unabashed fusion of hashish toast and ganja coffee in Kathmandu's Freak Street. Thamel, the tourist hubbub of Kathmandu, was created when Freak Street lost the seekers of Nirvana who had, by the early seventies, morphed into the first adventure travelers exploring the high Himalayas. Thamel offered them high protein diet of sizzlers and steaks euphemistically called "fillet" so as not to offend Hindu sensibilities. Today we "Patanites" need not even cross the bridge to eat out: a potpourri of eateries abound in our own neighbourhood of "Jhamel...

M arital alliance was just a means to an end in those days of the feudal nation states spreading across the vast Indian subcontinent; underage daughters were given in marriage by their parents to foster alliances, ingratiate themselves to the powerful or to thwart sinister designs on them by their more capricious neighbors. The Raja of Coorg had lost his princely state to the British. Coorg is a district in Karnataka state of southern India sometimes called the Scotland of India due to its enchanting rolling hills covered in verdant green nourished by the Cauveri River. The British were supposed to have been so enamoured by its likeness to Scotland that they established numerous resting stations there. Wodiyars of Coorg were the Hindu kings of Kshetriya stock who had periodically battled the Muslim rulers of South India. They were allied to the British during the push by Tippu Sultan of Mysore. The uncle of the last Raja, Dodda Veer Rajendra (r.1780-1809), was even captured by Tippu...

T here is an interesting story on how Maharaja Jung Bahadur might have changed the future course of Nepalese history. Every sound, except his own snoring, intruded into his deep slumber and warned him of potential danger; a gift of the Gods that had helped make Jung the supremo of Nepal during a very turbulent period in Nepalese history. Jung Bahadur sensed danger where none was imminent and because of this trait he had survived that fateful night at the Kot. Jung heard the sound even in his deep slumber, somebody was there in his bedroom, tiptoeing around his bed. The possibility of an assassin entering his heavily guarded palace and lurking in his bedroom was remote but then Jung was always prepared for the unexpected because he knew that he had a rich collection of enemies who wanted him dead. Jung always had a loaded gun by his bed, at arm's reach. It was a silver paneled musket with four barrels that was a personal gift of Queen Victoria with her name inscribed on it. Jung...

W hat do all ancient monuments such as the Pyramids of Egypt have in common? Did the builders want to leave a legacy behind for their posterity to remember them by? Did the ancients find a way for the soul to return to the heavens through secret passage ways? Or were the pyramids along with similarly strange structures such as Stonehenge and the Moai of Easter Island built by aliens as surmised by some influential intellectuals including the Swiss author Eric von Daniken in his seminal book "Chariots of the Gods"? The Pyramids at Giza and the enigmatic Sphinx have remained there from the dawn of history whatever route their creation took to come into being. Besides being a world tourist attraction they shine as beacon of human endeavour. Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana must have been one of the first Nepalese to see these awesome monuments while on his trip to England in 1850 A.D.  Egypt was known to us as Misr in those days, its name in Arabic. Abbas Pasha was the ruler ...