A couple of car passengers stuck their heads out of the windows and added their voice to the chorus, “What are these people doing?” While the dazed pedestrians, who had slowed their pace of walk, gawked at everyone – the motorcyclists, the car passengers and the crowd in front of the white iron bars of the museum.
Nepal´s Maoist government opened the Narayanhiti museum -- the palace of former Shah kings who ruled the country for 240 years amidst a special ceremony hosted by prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on February 26.
Dipesh Shrestha
The palace was converted into museum after Maoist-dominated constituent assembly abolished world´s last Hindu monarchy in May last year and ordered the former king Gyanendra Shah to vacate the palace. Gyanendra, who became the king of Nepal after the infamous royal massacre in 2001, took power for himself in 2005 and imposed an absolute rule before he was ousted last year.
On the opening evening, Maoist prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said that the turning of the Narayanhiti Palace into a museum signified "the victory of people against feudalism and monarchy."
"It is one step forward towards institutionalizing republic in the country," Dahal said as he inaugurated the museum. He said that he was very emotional to open the museum because thousands of Nepalese have shed their lives for it.
And Friday was the first opening day of the Narayanhiti Palace turned museum to the general public. But the people unaware of the reason behind the gathering of the people were pouring questions incessantly. When they used to get their answer they used to utter the “ah!” word and walk or drive away with their eyes still fixed on the queue.
The queue was a pretty long one – something you couldn’t easily ignore if you were passing by. Even at 11 am, the opening time of the museum, it had stretched from the main entrance to the southern gate, about 800 meters away from the entry point. And in it were hundreds of people – old and young men and women, students, Buddhist monks, foreigners – waiting eagerly to take a look at the residence of the last three kings of the Shah dynasty.
Dipesh Shrestha
Sixty-five year old Sukumaya Thapa was one of those people standing in the line disregarding the rising mercury level. She had come from Gorkha just to take a peek at the sprawling palace spread in 753 ropanis of land.
“I’ve been waiting since 11 am,” she told Republica crouching on the pavement. Yet by 11.30 am she was nowhere near the entrance gate. “But I don’t mind,” Thapa, who had come with her daughter and daughter-in law, quickly added. “It has always been my dream to step inside the palace (museum). I can tolerate few more hours of waiting.”
She said one place she’d like to view was the room where former king Birendra and his family were massacred. She had once seen then king Birendra and his wife Aishwarya when they had visited her village some “two or three decades ago.” “Probably because of that I felt very sad when I heard that their entire family was wiped out in one night,” she said referring to the royal massacre of June 1, 2001.
Dipesh Shrestha
In an extraordinary circumstances, Nepal´s last king Gyanendra´s drunken nephew killed the then king Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and other members of the royal family at the palace and later shot himself. Many Nepalis believe that the story holds no truth.
Gyanendra then demolished the building where the royal massacre took place after he came to power. Only the design layout remain on the actual murder site. The former rebel leader turned premier also vowed to reopen the case of royal massacre and "bring out the facts of the massacre to light." He blamed the former king of wiping all the evidences. "People deserve to know what happened that night. I am committed to investigate the incident and punish the guilty," Dahal said.
Even Anita Shrestha and Krisha Bhandari, grade 9 students of Bhibhuti Pragya Niketan, said one thing they definitely don’t want to miss seeing was Tribhuvan Sadan, the room where the royal massacre took place.
The responses given by Thapa and two class nine girls made one thing clear: curiosity was the factor that was motivating all the people there to stand in the serpentine queue for hours – curiosity to take a look at the place where former royal family members were killed, curiosity to see the rooms where former royal family members used to spend lots of their time and curiosity to take a glance at their lifestyle.
Tribhuvan Sadan
Dipesh Shrestha
“Whenever some diplomat’s car or other vehicles with red sirens used to enter or come out of the palace gates I used to wonder how the inside looked,” Alain Menoni, 52-year-old French citizen, who was also standing in the long queue, said. “Finally I’ll get an answer.”
He was also happy about another thing: he was about to be a part of the historic day – the day when the museum was first opened to the public.
Officials at the museum said that a part of the former palace has been opened to the public. "Of the ninty, 19 rooms including the royal massacre site have been opened for public from Friday in the first phase," chief of the museum Jayaram Maharjan told Republica. He said that more rooms will be opened to public in coming months as the preparation gets completed.
Among the major attractions are gold-and-silver crafted ceremonial throne that the kings used for important royal ceremonies and deliver national addresses, lavishly decorated and furnished meetings halls, banquet hall and bedrooms of the former kings and visiting Head of the State. The key attractions of the museum -- the diamond and emerald adorned crown and sceptre as well as a Mercedes-Benz given to Gyanendra´s grandfather by Adolf Hitler -- were still missing.
"Due to security reasons and budget constraints we were not able to put the crown, sceptre, few royal cloaks and vehicles on display. They will be installed later," said Maharjan.
rupak@myrepublica.com
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