Dream with a difference

Normally I don’t dream. But, rest assured, when I begin dreaming I do so for days and weeks and that too uninterrupted. Here is the last dream, which I dreamt only the other day. However, one thing I must tell you frankly that as and when I dream, I dream "national events" and its would be impact on the country’s politics. Needless to say, I provide solutions to those events that have gripped my own motherland due to the follies of my own national heroes. So sad!

As is well known to you all, His Majesty the King has allowed 72 hours to the political parties to go in on for a hunt a consensus Prime Minister. In effect this command from the constitutional monarch guides my dream which is as follows. I begin dreaming :

My wife tells me that I have been summoned by the Palace and that too within two hours. The telephone call which my wife received had it that the monarch wished to get my views on the emerging political scenario and that the King will appreciate if I forwarded some concrete solutions to correct the hotchpotch seen in the nation’s politics after the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Chand.

Naturally this news was encouraging one for I felt that my ever down going prestige and popularity amongst my colleagues will suddenly attain a new height after this meeting. I shivered internally thinking that what my enemies, if any, would take the news in all the national broadcast of my meeting with the constitutional monarch.

I managed to wear the "national dress" which had remained unused for decades and decades. Naturally it had to suffer much but yet we both compromised. The result: I was feeling bit uncomfortable with the dress because it was pretty tight for my bulky body.

Finally I reached the palace and the authorities showed me my way to the room where His Majesty normally receives the media men.

Lo! To my surprise, it was the monarch standing before me with all smiling face who told me to take the chair.

The conversation begins:

HM: Thank you Mr. Upadhyaya for your "valuable" time. In effect I was told that you provide good advice even to your enemies and hence I decided to summon you. I need your suggestions. Will you please?

Upadhyaya: I don’t find words Your Majesty that you have taken the pains to invite a person like me who has nothing in possession other than suggestions and suggestions only. I will try to satisfy Your Majesty. But will you pose me questions Your Majesty?

HM: Oh! Yes! Certainly. Tell me what if Madhav is made the prime minister?

Upadhyaya: Nice idea Your Majesty. I also think that Madhav should be allowed to act as prime minister. My analysis says that he could be the one who could later cut down the size of Koirala. He could time permitting initiate actions against the congressmen who are declared corrupts. However, he would wish to shield his men indeed. The day he becomes the prime minister, his alliance with the rest of the four parties will vanish in the thin air.

HM: But will he do so?

Upadhyaya: Certainly Your Majesty. The communists are like that. Forget that they were the communists of the Soviet era. Now they have become more capitalists than the real capitalists. You can say that they have become more catholic than the Pope. One more advantage will be that Madhav is close to India. He is close to United States. I know he enjoys excellent relations with Ambassador Malinowski. Now that he is close to both India and United States, what else he or the country would need for its development? For Nepal, this India-U.S equation is universe. His personal relations with former Indian Ambassador Rajan remains still excellent. His daughter currently is studying MBBS in India. That way both India and Mr. Nepal are closer. When he is so many things in one, what else we need? Proceed Your Majesty.

HM: But what about S.B.Thapa?

Upadhyaya: Oh! That shrewd politician! I know him personally. We hail from the same home town. In one sentence what could be said of him is that he is a very successful man in conflict management. If he were allowed the prime ministerial post, he would come heavily down against the present agitators and bring the country back to normalcy within weeks. His politics is of a sort of conspiratorial one. When he stands, the rest of the political leaders feel inferiority complex. No body knows why the others feel dwarfed when Thapa begins making lectures.

His relations with neighboring countries are "excellent"! When it is so, the rest you yourself can imagine Your Majesty. Informed analysts say that he continues to be in the good book of neighboring country…which more often than not pokes its nose in our internal politics and we the Nepalese take it pleasingly…He has met Senior Bush already and that means he should be closer to Junior Bush-the president of the lone super power.

If he is the Prime Minister, he will solve the country’s problems indeed but might be a problem for Your Majesty itself ultimately.

HM: What you mean? Is he really a problem maker for the palace?

Upadhyaya: Recall the past Your Majesty. How he had become vocal against late King Birendra and created furore out of nothing. He is an expert on how to make hill out of a mole. But then yet, he is a crisis manager and hence if Your Majesty so wish he could be trusted with this post.

HM: What about Koirala?

Upadhyaya: Yes! Your Majesty he is a strong personality indeed but is really an arrogant person. I like him personally but what I don’t like in him is his stubbornness. He is a political man but with a difference. Your Majesty could trust on him but the end result will be that Ms. Sujata will be the defacto prime minister and things will soon take a different turn specially in the aviation sector and treaties with neighboring countries. He will sign treaties but will declare that he had just a sort of agreement with some friendly countries. But then if he is the PM, he will chase the communists as if they were thieves caught red-handed. He is a declared communist hater. But the RNA might not take his coming-in in a good taste for understandable reasons. That’s all Your Majesty.

HM: If I propose your name for the same post? How you react to it? I think, you could better steer the nation. Will you?

Upadhyaya: (Listening to the proposal from the nation’s guardian and protector of the constitution, I suddenly become nervous, which is only but natural, and ask if I could drink a liter of frozen cold water in order to bring myself back to senses as quick as possible). However, the peon out side the room in the palace takes time in bringing water to me. Minutes after minutes pass but I don’t get water. When it became enough and I concluded that if I am not allowed a glass of water, I would die then I began crying, Give me water! Give me water! I will die…..

In the process of crying, I created a scene in my own house. I was throwing my bed sheet, quilt and the pillow here and there. Understandably, it was my wife who consoled me that dreaming such absurd is not bad for political health.

Mrs. Upadhyaya: Stop creating havoc in the family. Politics is not for you. Got the point? A person, who can’t run his private house properly, can’t run the nation. Forget dreaming the impossible. It’s time for your morning walk. And kindly, stop dreaming on a regular basis. It’s already too much.

Upadhyaya: I would act as you say henceforth. If I have a temptation to dream, I’ll seek permission from you in advance.

Since then we are living happily together.

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