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By Devendra Gautam

Amid the thunder of long horns from a nearby monastery in Nagarjun, a deafening thunder of a fire-breathing dragon over the government treatment in Kathmandu of a controversial guest, the roar of a massive eagle on a worldwide swoop from the land of sabre-toothed tigers, the ongoing conferences of what they call think tankers, the looming image of a giant Vishnu all set to conquer all three worlds—Swarga (the heavens), Martya (the Earth) and Patal (the Netherworld)—in just three leaps and land his foot on the forehead of the ancient king Bali, literary festivals and the rhetoric of political leaders new and old in the lead-up to March 5 elections, this observer has managed to remain sane somehow in this perennially quaking republic that has just experienced a jolt in her eastern flank.

This is no mean feat, right?

Bhupi Sherchan the great goes after telling his friends angry over his drinking habit to try and find how difficult this thing called drinking is: O the martyrs, who have fallen! Try living and see how hard it is!

Indeed, it takes the proverbial Gorkhali courage to not lose your sanity in this land up for grabs along the lines of the ancient ‘Khadgena akramya bhunjita. veerbhogya Vasundhara’ (The brave should conquer Vasundhara—the Earth—with his sword and enjoy its goodness!).  

The fact that we remain pretty sane as a country despite several consequential events such as the Anglo-Nepal War (1814-16) and a subsequent national dismemberment through a shady Treaty of Sugauli (1816), the despotic Rana rule (1846-1951), the Kot massacre (1846), the Maoist insurgency (1996-2006), the Royal massacre (June 1, 2001), declaration of Nepal as a federal secular democratic republic (2008), the Gorkha Earthquake (2015), the sellout of almost all of Nepal’s lifelines through shady deals and a constant demographic and territorial aggression against the country talks volume about our ‘bravery’.

The latest instance where our ‘bravery’ was on full display was during the youths-led protest of September 8-9 that went on to topple a popularly-elected government in barely 48 hours and caused a near-total collapse of a regime, making it an unprecedented event in world history, for better or for worse. 

Indeed, most of us—the Praja (the laity) of a Prajatantra/Loktantra—were acutely aware of chronic corruption, nepotism, bad governance, inequality and an economy that has not been in the pink of health for years, and angry over it. But for a people, who largely think their duty is over after casting votes in periodic elections in a rigged polity and busy themselves with their respective chores, that is something new, isn’t it?

Are times a-changing, yet again? 

Matters came to a head when the government under a prime minister best known for reacting to almost every tweet critical of him imposed a blanket ban on social media, shutting the most popular public platform for criticising the establishment, including the political parties represented in the sovereign parliament.

What happens when food particles or debris clog the vent pipe of a pressure cooker during cooking? With the blockage of accumulating steam causing over-pressurisation, the cooker becomes a ticking time bomb. In such a situation, what you do is turn off the heat and try to remove the blockage to curb chances of loss of life and properties in an explosion.

By shutting one of the very few forums available for hauling the establishment over the coals (this observer, though, is not saying that social media outlets should not fulfill their legal obligations enshrined in laws), the government brought about its own downfall.

In a democracy, governments come and go but the loss of lives in a brutal government crackdown on a protest and ensuing attacks not only on the three organs of the state at the Centre but also on subnational governments across the length and breadth of Nepal, attacks on the fourth estate as well as private businesses and a near-total collapse of a regime does not seem so ‘natural’ to a rational mind.

This episode takes this observer back to the pages of the Mahabharat. After the victory of the Pandavs over the Kauravs in the war of Kurukshetra, a small ‘battle’ for credit ensues among the Pandavs. Arjun claims that his dhanurvidhya (archery) tilted the great war in their favour, Bhim, endowed with the might of a thousand elephants, claims that his power-packed mace was behind the victory, while Yudhisthir says his righteousness was consequential, so on and so forth. The feuding Pandavs go to Vasudev Krishna and the latter takes them back to a pole installed at Kurukshetra with a head, kept alive through Tantric rituals, at its top.

Krishna asks the same question to the head and the latter replies: I saw neither the Kauravs nor the Pandavs in the battle. All I saw was a Kalpurush, he was the one dying and he was the one doing all those killings!

It is said that the head was of Eklavya, whose archery was said to be even better than that of Arjun, the dearest disciple of Guru Dronacharya. Lest he go down as the best archer in the annals of history, leaving Arjun far behind, Dronacharya gets Eklavya, practicing in the woods by having an image of the former as his instructor long before the war of Kurukshetra, to sacrifice his thumb as Gurudakshina (a parting gift to the teacher) through trickery, hoping that this will eventually cripple the rival.

In the run-up to the war, kings, princes and warriors from far and wide pour in at Kurukshetra. Eklavya comes too and he wants to join the Kaurav camp. Aware of his skills with the bow and arrow, Krishna the Yogeshwar (the lord of Yog) challenges the former to prove his skills. As Krishna circulates his life-breath from one point to another within his body, Eklavya aims his arrow exactly at every corresponding point. Aware that Eklavya will cause the defeat of the Pandavs without a doubt, Krishna convinces the former to be the Sakshi (the witness) rather than a party to the great war and he agrees.

This observer remembers reading somewhere that the war of Kurukshetra was the design of Krishna aimed at exterminating the Kshetriyas over their moral decay.

Even after the war with the Brits, Nepal has witnessed mini-Mahabharat scale wars, battles, conflicts and palatial plots resulting in massive losses of life and properties and pushing the country decades back in terms of development and growth.

Granted that foot soldiers on either side are the Nepalis and Nepal is the Kurukshetra of our times, but who is the Kalpurush orchestrating a series of episodes of bloodbath here? To what end?

Eklavya, the ace archer who witnessed the Kalpurush in action in Kurukshetra, lives to this day in a temple located at Indrachowk, Kathmandu. This observer feels he knows the real reasons behind the episodes in question.

But how to make Akash Bhairav aka Eklavya aka Yalambar aka Barbarik speak? That is perhaps the most important question of our times.