My meeting with His Majesty King Birendra

I never met late King Birendra. However, I have met some personalities, including some journalists, who have talked to King Birendra. On the average, most of those who have had the honor to see him in person at the Royal Palace came overly satisfied. The reason of their satisfaction was, according to them, definitely the King's sobriety and the depth of knowledge that the king possessed. Be it national affairs or international one, the king was well informed.

Similarly, I have met some high ranking diplomats who have had the honor to pay courtesy call on the Nepalese monarch too have said, in their own words: "Your King is better informed about the national situation and that we have found in him a desire to see his countrymen in a better living conditions".

Some four years back, one SAARC residential Ambassador had told me that our King was well abreast of the kinds of events happening in the envoy's country.

Only recently, to be more precise, in March this year, some diplomats point blank told me that "your king will never intervene in the national affairs and would instead encourage the government to handle the state affairs in a more dynamic manner so that the people of this country feel relieved from the ongoing deteriorating state of the nation".

Listening to such comments from my own nationals and from the Kathmandu based diplomats, my temptation to meet the King grew more. As a result of this, only recently I expressed my fervent desire to a gentleman from the press section of the Royal Palace. He in turn had assured me that he would do the needful but prior to that I had to write a petition at the Palace seeking an audience from the constitutional monarch. In effect, I wished to talk with the benevolent monarch about his new role, his wishes as the monarch and above all his thinking on the prevalent system that is the democratic order. Albeit, I too have asked about the King's feeling regarding the corrupt leaders of the present day Nepal.

However, things took such a turn that my wishes will ever remain unfulfilled.

Anyway, thanks as a journalist, I had a very short meeting with the King at the Hotel Yak and Yeti some twenty six years back or so. It was a congregation of the journalists from all over the nation. I too had participated in the assemblage as a correspondent of a district newspaper. When it was my turn to enter the room where the King was seated in a sofa escorted by Prime Minister K.N.Bista and Minister Hari Basnet, I became pretty nervous. However, I could control my deteriorating condition and collected the needed courage to tell the king: "Your Majesty I'm N .P. Upadhyaya and working as the correspondent of…. Weekly in Janakpur. Your Majesty! The conditions of the journalists in the districts is very bad and until Your Majesty will take it up personally, the things will not improve"'.

The King responded and assured me of his taking due care in that respect. Prior to leaving the room I could notice the King talking to the Premier and the Premier talking to the minister.

That was all.

One thing I still remember of that meeting which is that "no person in front of the King could manage for long to talk to the King seeing his eyes. A sort of very peculiar dazzling light rays from the King's face makes the person in King's front to go nervous.

This is my personal experience. I do not know about others.

May lord Pashupatinath offer peace to the departed soul.

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