Cashing in on a Royal Tragedy

Friday, 1 June 2001- I was watching the Friday movie on NTV with my sister when the electricity went off. Frustrated, and silently protesting, I surrendered myself to a night of undisturbed sleep.

Saturday, 2 June 2001- Dreamless sleep interrupted, I was woken up irritated. When I heard my sister shouting at the top of her voice, “the entire royal family killed!!” I just sat shell shocked.

Seven years after the royal massacre, I, like many others, have always wanted to know what really happened that day. In search of any answers, I have always kept my eyes open for any material that would give even the slightest hint towards solving the mystery of the massacre. 

Surprisingly, after the April Uprising, I had my hands full with articles and books that were about the massacre, all claiming their information and sources to be accurate and reliable; that’s how I began reading Krishna Abiral’s Rakta Kunda. For days, I read with great interest the inner secrets of the royalty, incidents that I never knew had happened and characters the royals had never revealed. After completing the book, I was in a dilemma: whether or not to believe what the writer claimed to be true. “Rumors, guesses brilliantly fabricated are what the book is” opined the bookkeeper; I brought my books from. Furthermore, the book keeper added with a note of sarcasm, “You know the author really hit the right notes; he cashed in the right moment,” as he handed over the third edition of the book.

I agree, he really jumped at the opportunity! After the famous April Uprising, when the majority of people fought against the totalitarian rule of the king, the book was surely predicted to be a bestseller even while the debate continued about whether the facts listed in the books were true or just a handful of lies. Like Rakta Kunda, I read with interest Samrat Upadhya’s The Royal Ghosts, prompted to buy the book only because of the word “royal.” I was deeply disappointed with just the slight mention of the massacre. It left me thinking whether this was another clever marketing strategy to cash in on a national tragedy.

Scanning through bookstores and street shops flaunting the latest book about the royal massacre makes me sad seeing the indifference of many people who exploit such situation, regardless of the sentiments and emotions of others while misleading people with unwanted sensationalism. How can this be justified? All the books that I’ve gone through deliberately try to tarnish and slander the memories of those who had a sad and unpredicted end, indifferent to their suffering.

I look at the family portrait of the then royal family. Did any one of them ever predict the nightmare that would claim their lives? The truth, the reason behind the killings died with Birendra’s family, but the massacre will always live in the hearts of all Nepalese who are left with just guesses and rumors to fill in the empty blanks.

Nepal has been declared as a federal republic, detaching itself from the 240-year old institution of monarchy. A republic may be what the people need but there are many things that people want the present power holders to fulfill and one of them is the truth behind the royal massacre. 

We have lived on rumors for too long. It is high time this ends; we want to know what really happened on the day Birendra’s entire family was brutally murdered. It is time to unveil the darkest secret of our history.