Nepe wrote: "यिनको रगतमा दरबारको नुन होईन कुनै अज्ञात दिमागी धुन बग्या छ । चार वर्ष भो यिनलाई भेटेको, यिनी एउटै मन्त्र जपेको जपेई छन् । "नेपालको राजतन्त्र नै यथार्थ हो, शास्वत सत्य हो, बाँकी सब अनित्य र मिथ्या । गणतन्त्रवाद त महामिथ्या, महापाप, महापातक हो।" What I love about Nepe is that: if you disagree with him and with his cherished ideology of republicanism, he calls you all sorts of durbaria chamcha and what not. I am so used to his going ballistic that it means nothing to me and to my democratic friends in and out of Kathmandu. He has accused me of everything under the sun: of abusing an economic theory (when I said something to the effect that parties need to change strategies to disorient the king), of being an अज्ञात दिमागी, and what not. And all this carpet-bombing because I do NOT buy the wholesale notion of republicanism just now . . . Meantime, I am MORE for: 1) strengthening the parties (for now), 2) putting pressure on them for long over-due internal and external reforms, 3) going for SMALLER, achievable victories that boost morale and add to the parties' capabilities, 4) adding those victories up, processing mistakes and learning lessons 5) and then, eventually, from a position of moral, legal and reputational and logistical strength, POSE a challenge to the palace to either reform itself or perish altogether. In other words, to use a gym metaphor, let's first do a 20 Kg, 30 KG, 50 KG ko bench-press and be really good at all that and progress from there before trying to lift 100 KG ko weight. Is this an unreasonale proposition? This way, with or without the king later on, we are more likely to have strong democratic parties down the road. Else, there's no point replacing the Shahs with the Koiralas -- that's because, given how feudal our parties are, we might just have a replay of what happened in Iraq, the monarchy there was replaced NOT by democratic forces but by Saddam's Baathist Party which went, in the name of the people, to exercise absolute power. As for Leahy, yes, he should be applauded BUT with a caveat that in the absence of his able to move the White House to do something, his will remain only a proposal. After all, just as Nepe did not need Tom Schelling to conclude that Nepal is heading toward a republic, he also does NOT need Patrick Leahy to parrot the same chant. oohi "nobody's chamcha; but some people's "kata"" ashu