Nepal king gets the blues

KATHMANDU: Stripped of his powers and facing the possibility of losing his crown, Nepal’s King Gyanendra has fallen prey to acute depression, a media report said.

The king, virtually confined to the palace since April, when mass protests forced him to surrender the absolute power he had seized, is being treated for melancholia and depression, the Nepali weekly Ghatana R Bichar reported.

In sharp contrast to 15 months of his direct rule, when he held regular meetings with ministers in the Narayanhity palace in Kathmandu or visited the outer districts to give public audiences, the king now prefers to remain solitary, sitting in the same place for long periods and staring into space blankly.

Sometimes, he is heard muttering to himself: “What did I do wrong? I was only trying to do people good.”
Three doctors — Khagendra Shrestha, Mrigendra Raj Pandey and K Singh Rana — are conducting regular checkups, the weekly said.

Despite a severe loss of face and making himself immensely unpopular after his authoritarian reign, the king is yet to accept responsibility for the debacle. He still tends to blame others. His blood pressure is not normal and he is said to have cut down on his drinking. The malady comes on the eve of his 59th birthday on July 7.

Earlier, a royal birthday used to be celebrated lavishly, with millions spent on parties at the palace as well as Nepali embassies and consulates abroad. This time, according to another weekly, Jana Aastha, the embassies abroad have been told to drop the celebrations.

The royal family is accustomed to going to Britain for medical treatment.  However, with Nepal teetering on the verge of an economic collapse, it remains to be seen if parliament or the Maoists would approve spending large sums for the royal family’s treatment abroad.