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FROM
THE EDITOR IN CHIEF
Uneasy
lies the head that wears a crown," wrote Shakespeare in Henry
IV. Last week's bizarre bloodbath in Kathmandu brought that home to
the world in a most tragic fashion.
 A
young love-crazed prince mowed down his whole family and several close
relatives and then shot himself one drunken night behind the secluded
walls of the palace. There was an immediate clampdown on information about
the tragic incident. No autopsy was carried out on the dead. A puerile
palace explanation was first trotted out that Prince Dipendra's self-loading
rifle went off accidentally killing nine. And then in a bizarre twist,
as the murdering prince lay in coma he was declared king and his uncle
regent. He died three days later and the regent, Gyanendra, became king.
The country descended into chaos. Miraculously, the new king's family
present on the evening survived the incident and this gave rise to the
speculation that it was all too convenient. Five days later, an eyewitness
held a press conference leaving many questions unanswered. In this incestuous,
cloistered atmosphere facts were at a premium while rumours abounded.
In this situation, our task was straightforward:
to reconstruct the incident and its background with as much accuracy as
possible and assess its impact on Nepal. Within hours of the news filtering
out early on June 2, Senior Editor Sumit Mitra and Photographer Bhaskar
Paul were on a plane to Kathmandu from Kolkata. As they captured the first
days of shock, confusion and mayhem, we sent Associate Editor Farzand
Ahmed from Patna, Deputy Editor Swapan Dasgupta and Deputy Chief Photographer
Pramod Pushkarna from Delhi. This team used its considerable expertise
and connections to deliver exclusive information and photographs. And
present the tale of a royal gone wrong in simmering family tension. "A
young man's blind rage destroyed a family and jolted a nation," says
Dasgupta, who coordinated the effort and wrote the lead stories. "It's
a lesson in how quickly a fairy tale can go disastrously wrong."
As Nepal tries to come to terms with the tragedy,
a quote from Shakespeare's Richard II perhaps sums up the irony
of royalty. "And my large kingdom for a little grave, an obscure
grave."
(Aroon
Purie)
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