Whether one is a devout Hindu or a skeptical Hindu or even an atheist, one has to say that: Pundit Pokharel was a likable, hard-working, jolly priest who transformed otherwise sleepy and austere religious events such as "saptaha" and "yagya" into massively whirling, community-binding, solace-offering fund-raising activities . . . to build schools, hospitals and community rest-houses across Nepal. [ASIDE: His personality was so charming that I can't help thinking that had he been born in America as a Christian, he would, by now, have been presiding over a multi-million dollar ko mega-church somewhere in California, hosting a cable TV show on why God loves you no matter what, published two best-selling books on how to save your soul, and visited White House many times to bless GWB . . .] Pundit Pokharel made the best of what was available to him in Nepal. Through the dint of his hard work, luck, personality and religious devotion to what he did best, he became too popular, too successful with a following of his own . . . and such a person is always a threat to Maoism (not to mention, conservative Hindu stalwarts too). And the Maoists (assuming it's them as per the news report) had to finish him off. May his soul rest in peace! ******************************** A cynical observation (about which I hope I will be proven wrong): I wish Pundit Pokharel had at least gone to the Ministry of Communications and gotten his "journalist badge", even if he never wrote anything in any newspaper. This way, he would have died a "journalist's death", and Nepali journalists (led by Bishnu Nisthuri et al) could therefore claim him as one of their own, and start creating a massive halla to have the Maoists say: "we are sorry"! Likewise, I would NOT expect human rights people to create halla-khalla over Pundit Pokharel's death too. That is why, his death -- the death of a man who raised millions of rupees for community activities across Nepal-- remains just another fresh statistic in our Land of the Dead! oohi ashu