Gokul-ji, This is the beauty of OPEN discussions. A says something; B disagrees; A counters with arguments; B writes his rebuttals; C, D and E et al chime in with their views -- and the whole world is watching. And on and on it goes -- providing education, information, entertainment and even irritation. The result? Ultimately though, if you stick to it, better ideas do emerge through this continous process of give and take. Sort of like "wisdom of crowd", really -- with diversity, expertise, independence of thoughts and so on. That's the sort of openness I would advocate when discussing things about PRESENT-DAY Nepal. The fact that Nepe had to bring in portions of those closed discussions to Sajha (which is a lot more open system), presumably to solicit different viewpoints, underscores the sheer superiority of an open system. And Sajha, too, with San watching over everything, is a loosely rule-bound space. So, yes, as per Ken Arrow, democracy cannot satisfy everyone's preferences. But how we set up the democratic platform in the first place DOES go a long way to MINIMIZING the chances of people not gettinng what they want in a democratric set-up. Enjoyed the bhasmasur parable. Very clever and entertaining. oohi ashu