| Dumdum |
Posted
on 12-Jun-01 02:13 AM
The Rediff Special/ Gita Aravamudan
It all began at Chitwan National Park, Nepal, on June 2. That's when we first heard the news of the massacre at the King's palace in Kathmandu.
Actually, the day began with a perfect jungle morning, replete with bird song. The sky had cleared up beautifully and Eshwar, our serious young Nepali guide, was waiting outside to take us on a crocodile safari.
This was just Day Two of our eight-day package tour of Nepal. My husband, Dan, and I were taking our first holiday as a couple after nearly 30 years. We had chosen Nepal because neither of us had been to this part of the world before. But the snow-clad Himalayas, which we had come all this way to see, had been playing hide-and-seek with us, swathing themselves in clouds whenever we reached a vantage point.
We had spent the previous day walking through the dusty, litter-strewn streets of Kathmandu, through the ancient wooden structures on Durbar Square and into a musty old building where the tiny, living goddess, Kumari, sat in all her red-painted splendour.
Nepal struck me as a very Hindu kingdom caught in some kind of time warp. A weird amalgam of young trekkers and ancient hippies, crumbling shrines and massive pagodas. Where women with bright vermillion partings genuflected cursorily as they passed old, tiny shrines sprouting out of rubbish dumps. At Budhanilakant, we saw an ancient figure of Vishnu relaxing on his serpent in the open air. If that was not unusual enough, the statue -- located in the middle of a pond -- was tended by just a couple of child priests.
The presence of the royal family was palpable everywhere. Their pictures adorned the shops. Their gestures were engraved in stone.
TODAY, though, was another day. Almost another world, it seemed. The only things we were looking forward to were a little bit of bird-watching and rhino-spotting in the Chitwan forests. In fact, the crocodile safari had just been thrown in for that extra dash of excitement. Little did we realise it would pale in the light of future events.
For some reason, Rajesh, our waiter-cum-main-information-source, looked rather distressed as he arrived with our sumptuous breakfast of eggs, toast and pancakes. Suddenly, as if he could restrain himself no longer, he bent forward and whispered hesitantly, "Sahib, I don't know how true it is, but I heard this morning ki Nepal royal parivar mein sab log mar chukke (Sir, I don't know how true it us, but I heard this morning that all the members of the Nepal royal family are dead." Then, he retreated a few steps, as if to disassociate himself from the bad news.
Sab (Everyone)? How sab? How could everyone die all at once?
"All gunned down as they ate dinner," Rajesh looked nervous. "They say someone from the family was the killer."
Who? He wouldn't, or couldn't, say.
We went off on our crocodile safari without knowing if Rajesh's bizarre information was true. In the jungle, there were no newspapers, no cable television. Like Phantom, The Ghost Who Walks, all we could depend on was the jungle telegraph.
A couple of hours later, we tottered back to the lodge, still recovering from a scary canoe ride through the crocodile-infested Rapti... The ride actually ended rather rudely, with our fragile little craft sinking into the river like the Titanic. Fortunately, we were close to the shore, so there were no casualties.
By now, our jungle residence was agog. It was true! King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya had been killed. Many other members of the parivar lay dead or dying. Someone had heard it on BBC. Travellers coming in from Kathmandu confirmed the morning's rumour. There had been a massacre at the Royal Palace and, yes, Crown Prince Dhipendra was the prime suspect. He had killed his family and, then, himself.
It was unbelievable!
"Must be a world record," said Rajesh, his eyes brimming.
Our lodge boasted of a solitary, tiny television set, on which we could only access the local channel that, for some reason, seemed to be beaming the frozen image of a pagoda. There was no news. Nothing.
Nor was there any time to speculate. Tourists were arriving by the busload. The season was at its height and, ironically, Nepal Tourism had declared a Festival of Life from May to July. Our safari programme had to go on as per schedule and we were to leave the next day. But could we? Someone said local flights had been cancelled.
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