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The royal palace is a tourist site now, where families pose for photos at the gates. You can go in and stroll around, through halls where kings once walked — past stuffed tigers sh@ot by monarchs, and shimmering chandeliers over long, polished banquet tables.
"Oh my God, what a life they were living, inside,"?? Librarian Ananta Koirala exclaimed. "And being a Nepali citizen, I'm facing the lives of the poor people in the country. But after seeing this palace, I'm really sho@cked. What a sophisticated life inside the palace."??
Actually, the palace and its furnishings look like they were lifted out of a kitchy early '60s timewarp. That's when the palace was built and decorated. The walls display portraits of 250 years worth of Nepalese kings — and photos of more contemporary visitors — Queen Elizabeth, Romania's Nicolae Ceaucescu, China's Jiang Zemin.
Prabal Baniya, who's 30, is a guide here. He used to work for the last king — and Baniya's father worked in the palace before him. He thinks it was a big mistake for Nepal to end its monarchy
"Now, the situation is not so good, compared to before,"?? he said. "Different parties are only fighting among themselves … in my view; there must be a king, to look after his children."??
That's what the King's role here used to be — the patriarch, the absolute monarch. Then, in 1990, Nepalese demonstrated for democracy, and then-King Birendra agreed to transform Nepal into a constitutional monarchy. His son, Crown Prince Dipendra, was studying in England then. He is said to have had a temper tantrum and broken a door when he heard that his future role as king would now be a diminished one.
"He was kind of a dual character. Outside, he was very much gentle, very much liked by everyone,"?? said Lt. Gen. Vivek Kumar Shah, an aide-de-camp at the royal palace for 26 years. He knew Crown Prince Dipendra from when he was small.
"But inside, from the beginning — probably, he didn't get the love he should have as a child. That's what my belief is,"?? Shah said. "He had a kind of sadistic nature. He would burn a cat or a mouse. He would enjoy that."??
Dipendra also liked guns. Shah says the Crown Prince had a whole range of them in his bedroom.
"He had an MP5, a submachine gun. He had an M16 commando, a submachine gun again. And then, he had a hunting rifle, pistols, you name it,"?? Shah said. He admits that made him and others tasked with the royal family's security nervous. "We always thought it wasn't proper, but there was nothing we could say. Nothing we could do."??
In fact, Shah says, it was kind of the tradition of the royal family to carry guns around. The King did it too. And whenever the Nepalese army got a new weapon, he says, both the King and his son wanted to try it out, and perhaps keep one at the palace.
The Crown Prince did have a lighter side. He liked to frequent pubs and parties, and sing and dance with his buddies. He was educated at Eton, before coming back to Nepal for university, then joining the Military Academy.
And the Crown Prince was in love. He'd met Devyani Rana in England, and wanted to marry her. His parents didn't approve. Rana's mother was from an Indian royal family that was considered of a slightly lower caste than Nepali royalty. And her father was a politician, from a rival clan to the King's. The Crown Prince was reportedly told that he had to make a choice. He could marry Rana, but he'd have to give up his right to the throne.
That's one story told about why the 29-year-old Crown Prince might have chosen to ki!ll his family. Kunda Dixit, publisher of the Nepali Times newspaper, says there may have also been another factor.
"If you remember, King Birendra was educated in the West, in Japan,"?? Dixit said. "He believed in a constitutional role for the monarchy, not a dictatorship. But his brother, who later became king, and his own son, the Crown Prince, totally disagreed. They felt the country was going to the dogs, he gave too much away in the 1990 People Power uprising. And that we should do something before it's too late."??
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