I knew that there was a lot of merriment at His Holiness the Chiniyia Lama's residence at Bouddha when my father and his friends, known to us then as the 3 Musketeers, visited him. In those days I wondered how going to an incarnate Lama could result in riotous merry-making with large amounts of chaang the Tibetan-style millet wine being imbibed until the wee ours of the morning. One of the musketeers Maharajkumar Mussorie Shumsher, son of Maharaj Dev Shumsher known to history as the liberal one, was the person who introduced my father to the Chiniya Lama and a steady bevy of western beauties circling the Lama for both the proximity to divinity and free booze. The other musketeer Honourable Lalit Chand the serving Chairman of the Rashtrya Panchayat, the unitary political system King Mahendra created to replace a chaotic democracy, was probably a reluctant member of the troika given the sensitivity his high post warranted. 3rd Chiniya Lama Punya Bajra with western initiates ...