Ram Bahadur and Oli

The soul of Ravan chuckled and didn’t quite LoL-ed or ROFL-ed because he wasn’t updated about the new internet lingo going around in the human world. He turned to Ram and guffawed, ‘Never seen you with a khukri, sir… ever!’

‘What?’ replied Ram, ‘I didn’t quite get you. I mean, I know you are quite impressed by stand-up comedy but that is such an earthling thing. I have heard that humans love to see you prancing around on a stage and clap when you pretend to die.’

‘Our world didn’t have so much entertainment going on,’ said Ravan, ‘except for a prince here and there eloping with some princess. The world down there is far more entertaining. And to top it all, they have now invented Whatsapp!’ Ravan paused for a few moments and then continued, ‘And, of course, they have entertainers thronging every stage all over. I’m sure you’ve heard of Trump and his tweets or Boris and his press comments. Born entertainers… like Pappu. Now they also have Oli.’

‘Oli? Whats this?’

‘He’s the prime minister of Nepal and he has believes that Ayodhya isn’t 135 km from Lucknow but at Thori in the west of Birgunj,’ said Ravan and guffawed again, ‘but that’s not as funny as this man calling you a Nepali.’

‘But I am everyone,’ said Ram solemnly.

Ravan was in no mood to behave like a responsible citizen of Swarglok and went on to read out from a secret Whatsapp conversation between Oli and Xi JinPing. This top-secret conversation wasn’t yet discovered by the CIA and there were obviously no Wikileaks to regale the earthlings. Ravan read out the script on his Swarglok Yantra:

K P Sharma Oli: My lord, I have found a way you can build roads way beyond Lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand and the Limpiyadhura and Kalapani areas. You go right up to Kanyakumari now.

Xi JinPing: Lal Salaam! Don’t you forget that you are a communist and that only I can save you from Prachand. Now what are you blabbering about?

Oli: Well, up to Kolkata port, if your budgets have already been diverted towards Chabahar… or to control the forces of democracy in HongKong. Or the flooding rivers in…

Xi: Stop being smart with me, Oli. Come to the point or I’ll have PLA commanders hang you upside down from a cliff.

Oli: I have told the press that India’s Lord Ram is a Nepali. Born near Birgunj. So now if this fact is ratified by the WHO, India is Nepal… and we know that the Nepal prime minister is a slave of communist China. You get the picture?

Xi: You’re a dodo, Oli… but if you convince your opposition, you’ll be given the Medal of the Republic. But what if this conversation is leaked?

Oli: No chance as I am using Weixin and Chinese apps are banned in India. Doval will never know all this. So as I was telling you, my team is soon going to prove that Dashrath was the ruler of Nepal and even Valmiki Ashram is right here… a few hours from Kathmandu. We will also prove that Bhanubhakta Acharya did not translate the Ramayana but that he was a progeny of Valmiki and had the original text with him.

Xi: Seems interesting. You’re good at this sort of stuff… just add one more twist to this tale. Prove that Bhanubhakta Acharya’s real name is Bao Qing Xi and that he is from Xinjiang, and has relatives in Gansu and Ningxia. I’ll pass a legislation that Uighurs are Ram Bhakts. See, this is called real problem solving.

Oli: Yes.

Lord Ram in Swarglok was listening to this intently and said, ‘Lets call Bhanu da and ask him if all this is correct. Bhanubhakt came and started laughing even as Ravan was retelling the story. He humbly said, ‘I’m sure the planets were in some really comical configuration on July the thirteenth. This is…’

‘Stand-up comedy,’ completed Ravan.

Ravan informed Ram that Oli wasn’t just trying to play dirty with mythology but was also intending to prove that Sushruta and Aryabhat too were born in a village near the Nepal-China border.

‘This is serious,’ said Ram, ‘if Oli has his way he is poised to rob my original bhakts in India from talking about zero and surgery too? And then probably everything in the human world will have a Chinese origin. We too import quite a few things from the human world… and I can foresee a calamity in Swarglok. I don’t think I’d want to use too many ‘Made in China’ things…’

The entire think-tank at Swarglok was seriously debating on this new development when Narad appeared.

‘Narayan! Narayan! I see everyone so thoughtful in Swarglok,’ he chanted, ‘An encouraging development, no doubt. Maneka Devi will get some deserving respite.’

‘Please stop making fun of us, Narad Muni,’ said Ram, ‘and suggest a solution.’

‘Narayan! Narayan! There is no problem that comes without a solution,’ he said, and then whispered conspiratorially, ‘ I had incepted this idea in Oli’s mind and now I must tell you what I had in mind.’

‘What? You caused this ruckus?’

‘Yes, you see, because if there is no problem, there can be no solution.’

‘So now, what solution do you propose?’

‘Use divine intervention to plan and execute an election in both China and Nepal and people will turn the countries in a democracy. Simple enough, Ram Bahadur!’ And with this, Narad smiled, gifted him a khukri, and was again off to the human world to play his favourite game of incepting human minds.

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Arvind Passey
15 July 2020