How to dine without getting shot

NOW that the official truth is officially out about the lamented events that eliminated Nepal’s royal family, here is a possible scenario of how future royals will do dinner without getting shot in the head...

Preparations for the meal: rotis, jeera alu, chicken masala, bhindi fry, raita, papad, pickle, kheer and ice cream. It’s mandatory that everybody comes dressed in bullet-proof vests to the dinner table and leave their big and small firearms in their rooms before congregating at the venue. For additional precautions, ambulances with surgeons who have specialised in extracting bullets from soft tissue should stand by in readiness for any untoward incidents at the dinner table.

MOTHER (clad in bullet-proof sari): Okay, dinner’s on the table, come get it. Remember to chew every mouthful 30 times before swallowing. And, yes, if any one wants to marry please do so with our full and total permission.

FATHER (clad in bullet-proof dinner jacket): Your mother, the Queen Royal, is right. If any one wants to marry, go right ahead. Don’t let the objections of the royal astrologer stand in the way.

MOTHER (in an aside to father): Your Majesty, my husband, what may be in that cigarette our eldest born is puffing at? I do hope it is only hashish and not tobacco. Tobacco is dreadful for our little one’s lungs.

FATHER (in a whisper to mother): My love, Your Majesty, I’m worried about the young fellow. He has had three pegs of Famous Grouse and is just pouring himself another. I do hope the 5.56 caliber Colt M-16 you gave him on his last birthday is safely locked up in his room! Wouldn’t like to be at the end of it at this moment, I can tell you....

MOTHER (firmly, to her first-born): Crown Prince, my son, why don’t you stop playing billiards and come and eat. The food is getting cold...

CROWN PRINCE (in quiet, menacing tones): I feel poetry flow through my veins, My Royal Highness of a mother. Listen to what I have just composed: ‘‘My heart is beating/It keeps repeating/ Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat...’’

MOTHER (hastily): All right, all right. Take your time over the billiards. You can eat whenever you want. But the alu is simply delicious today. Must compliment Chief Cook Bahadur. Yes, and remember you can marry whomever your heart is set upon and just forget that I told you yesterday, about losing the crown if you disobey us.

FATHER (anxiously adding his bit): Yes, yes, Crown Prince, my boy. You can marry whomever you wish to...

A grunt is heard from the direction of the billiards table.

FATHER (in tremulous aside to mother): Your Majesty, my darling, I still don’t like that bulge in our little one’s pocket. Are you sure he left his Colt behind in his room? (He pulls the collars of his bullet-proof jacket closer to himself).

MOTHER (wringing her hands, whispers back): I’m not worried about the Colt, my dearest, Your Majesty, but that submachine gun on the sofa is really giving me the heebie-geebies. He is such a stubborn little fellow, our Crown Prince. (She turns to the Crown Prince and adopts her most sugary voice). Darling, son Crown Prince, remember this is not play time, this is din-din time. So if you do have any guns lying around, I want you to go and put them back in the Royal Nursery.

FATHER (in a sweat): He doesn’t seem to have heard you, darling, Your Majesty. What should we do?

MOTHER (grimly whispers back): It’s time to operationalise Plan B. Guards..(she claps her manicured little hands and out pops a whole platoon of heavily armed palace guards wheeling in a giant TV set).

QUEEN (at her most imperious): Our Highnesses will watch ‘Jag’ today.
The screen explodes with the menacing Charlie Lynch, ex-navyman and suspected child murder, wielding his weapons with machine-like efficiency. Within seconds, the Crown Prince gravitates to the TV screen and settles down on a sofa, totally engrossed in the action...

CROWN PRINCE: This is cool. Wonder if he’s ever tried a sub-machine gun...

MOTHER (in an aside to the King): Your Majesty, that seems to have worked. (She turns to her eldest-born) Now eat up your alu, Crown Prince, before they get stone cold. You are a big boy now and you need nourishment. You’ll soon be 10 years old, remember, my little-little tootsie-wootsie? (She turns to the family retainers) Now take those toys of the Crown Prince and lock them up in his cupboard. I don’t want to see his guns strewn all over the palace again.

All this may seem like fiction, but it is no more a figment of the imagination than the official version of the June 1 events at the Narayanhity Royal Palace in Kathmandu.

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