Nepe wrote: "1. I am sure your contribution to the andolan for democracy will be duly acknowledged when time comes." What you NEVER understand is that I will be completely satisfied even if NO acknowledgment is ever made to my whatever "contribution to the andolan for democracy." I am neither so foolish nor so arrogant to believe that my whatever contribution made a difference. In fact, it did not. Nothing at all. But, looking back, I am glad to have tried a few things here and there, even if the results ended up becoming way less than satisfactory. Maybe I'll have better luck next time. But who knows? Still, you will never see me wearing funny hats and shouting slogans against this or that on the streets of wherever to make a visible display of my so-called political beliefs. If other people do that, I have no problem accepting that, knowing fully well that such hat-&-slogans bit does NOT necessarily make them more of a democrat than others who have different approaches. The point is: Different democrats have different styles of pursuing reforms and changes. How hard was that for you to understand? Didn't you once scold me here on Sajha for not joining the neta-led demonstrations on the street, as though you could legislate private behaviours in Nepal from overseas ? Think back: Why else would you have scolded me here publicly if you had not pinned (let's say: some of) your (republican) hopes on those netas, and wanted mere jagirays like me to follow those netas around? Why didn't you write off these sets of netas then, in 2002, 2003 and in 2004 like I had steadfastly done ? But you trusted them to the extent that you wanted even people like to me to make sacrifies to follow them around. When I refused to do so (see my postings above) and refused to give in to the easy "wah, wah", you and others made fun of me. Still, if you had said, "Look, Ashu, I really thought those netas would reform themselves, and push the movement forward. That they haven't has come as a big disappointment to me" . . . if you had said something like that, I would have respected you, because, hey, we all make errors of judgement all the time, and it's fine to admit that one's expectations have been dashed and that different appoaches are needed. But when you NOW come back sounding certain, and say that: "I am unaware of any person, let myself alone, who was/is "hitching the republican hopes onto the wagon of these [Girija et al] netas" . . . well, Nepe, I am sorry, this sounds a bit too self-serving, opportunistic and trying to to be too clever for my taste. Tetti ho mero kura Please feel free to disagree. **** That said, fundamentally, the trouble with you guys, so far as I can see it, 1. you have already decided who's for you and who's against you . . . 2. you've already decided what constitutes pro-democracy behaviour and what doesn't . . 3. If you have already decided if people are not enthusiastically for republicanism (for whatever reason), then, that must mean that they silently support the king, and then you form a gang to try to discredit them by calling them "rajabadi" and what not. It is this kind of narrow certainty about the validity of your beliefs and the corresponding refusal to subject them to counter-arguments and evidence from the field . . this is precisely what I find unpalatable about your political positions for they remind me of the similar foolish certainties displayed by the Maoists and the present royal government. oohi "democracy = multiple discussions . . . open, free and disagreeable" ashu