T he old Englishman was very fond of Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana. He reminisced about how the brash youngster attached to the retinue of Crown Prince Surendra had performed impossible feats the feckless prince commanded of him. He had heard that Jung jumped from the Trishuli bridge on a horse into the raging river below. At another time the prince had demanded that Jung jump into a deep well. The most fabled feat was the daredevil jump from the Dharahara tower built by Prime Minister Bhimsen Thapa to commemorate Nepal's Pyrrhic victory over East India Company a decade earlier. Jung performed his jump harnessed to two huge umbrellas. Jung had escaped unscathed. Hodgson pondered whether these stories were factually true. British Residency in Nepal Unfortunately he, Hodgson, had played a hand in the downfall of Prime Minister Bhimsen Thapa and the eclipse of his family including his grand-nephew Jung Bahadur, now Nepal's strongman. Politics was dirty. Since the opening...

Dhaka Topi I t was at St. Xavier's Godavari School that I first got acquainted with the Nepali state's aspirations to nationalism. Ironically it was our mainly American Jesuit priests who mandated that on Sundays we could speak only Nepali and wear Daura Suruwal (also called Labeda Suruwal in more refined circles) our national dress. I really do not know where this idea originated but we all accepted it, at first with awkwardness bordering on trepidation, but in time it became de riguer . Imagine suddenly speaking to friends in Nepali when we had spent already a few years together in school speaking to one another only in English! Instead of the white trousers with light blue shirt and tie emblazoned with the school logo now we had to wear the funny looking dress, perhaps for the very first time for some of us! The school knew that giving a good education in various disciplines wasn't nearly enough without a dose of nationalism to create responsible and enlightened fut...

F or the future of the country it is better now to accept the reality of the Constitution as fait accompli. From the extreme right to the extreme left a huge cross section of society is not happy and instead of fighting a civil war like in post Czarist Russia that will not only bring the country to ruin but also might pose an existential threat to the nation, I submit that this Constitution attempts to find middle ground - no matter how I don't like the concept of Federalism. It is time to make peace with the warring factions by getting the confidence of India. If India wants it, Yadav, Mahato, Thakur and the likes of them will be meek as lambs. I read that the "Madhesi andolan" is now even beyond their control, so external forces are certainly calling the shots. It is time now for Nepalese of all persuasions to unite behind the new Constitution and work for the betterment of the nation. If we lose this opportunity now, then we will never be able to pull ourselves out...

E lders in the family passed away one after another each time bringing the title of Maharajah of Kaski and Lamjung and the coveted post of prime minister of Nepal closer and closer to the youngest legitimate brother, a 'roll wallah', General Juddha Shumsher J. B. Rana. He had served his elder brothers in various military capacities: as Major General during the time of Bir Shumsher and Dev Shumsher, as Commanding General of the various regions of Nepal during the time of Chandra Shumsher and finally as the Commander-in-Chief of the Nepalese Army during the time of Bhim Shumsher. All the siblings elder to him besides those who got to be prime ministers - those in the roll of succession - Rana Shumsher, Fatteh Shumsher, Lalit Shumsher and Jit Shumsher were now dead. Providence smiled upon Juddha. Prime Minister Bhim Shumsher and Commander-in-Chief Juddha to his right Bhim Shumsher was an old man of 64 years of age when he succeeded his elder brother Chandra Shumsher to the ...

Statue of William Shakespeare The entire volumes of the works of William Shakespeare, richly bound in hard cover, were gracing my father's office at home with its presence from the time I can remember. The books just stayed in the bookshelf as a testament to my father's ability to read, write and speak in English lest visitors have any doubt. Indeed my father was very proficient in the English language and he dotted his "i"s and crossed his "t"s with aplomb, no mean feat for a Nepali born in 1916. I stayed away from those books as they looked formidable enough with nary a picture illustration but pages after pages of printed words. Nobody else as far as I can remember took those books out of the shelves. We know about expensive volumes of such classical books decorating many a Rana drawing room but the personal collection of Field Marshall Kaiser Shumsher J. B. Rana was legendary. He probably was one of the few Rana aristocrats of his time known to...