मैले मेरो ब्लग नेपाली मै बनाउने बिचार गरेको थिए र छु। तर नेपाली मा लेख्न, टाइप गर्न असाध्यै गाह्रो भै रहेको छ। भाषीक असुद्दी ता कति हो कति। त्यसैले अहिले केही समय फेरी अंग्रेजी मै लेख्नेछु। मुख्य गरेर केही हालसालै पढेका किताब हरुका "बुक रिभ्यु" लेख्ने बिचार गरेको छु। म नेपालीमा लेख्न सिक्न मेरो त्वित्टर मा चाही सकेसम्म नेपाली मै लेख्नेछु। मलाई त्वीतर मा नेपालीपोईट मा फलो गर्न सक्नुहुनेछ।
Book Review - "Maile Dekheko Darbar (The Palace that I saw) by Bibek Shah
I have read this book - "Maile Dekheko Darbar" (The Palace that I saw) by Bibek Shah. It is a book by retired senior army official of Nepal who worked for many years in royal nepal palace. The Author was unceremoniously sacked by the then ambitious Nepal King Gyanendra one fine morning after asking his resignation.
The book is not any milestone in nepali literature. The author also does not belong to any literary background. Therefore, the book should be understood as his memoir of the events which he saw while being at the duty and which he could make note of in his diary. The events are mostly based on his memory while being at royal duty and during his four years' tenure of military secretary of royal palace.
The book starts with the events leading to his resignation. However, it is not clear to him why his resignation was asked by Nepal's Last King Gyanendra Shah. The reason might be that King Gyanendra Shah did not appreciate very straight nature of Mr. Bibek Shah that he could call 'Spade' a Spade. Most probably, King Gyanendra Shah thought Mr Bibek Shah was uncooperative on the way of king's ambition of becoming a King "who can see and hear things".
The memoir also talks about the Royal Massacre of 2001. Initially, when the book was published, it was advertised as a book of sensational revelation about royal massacre. However, the book does not reveal anything new which is not in public domain. The author states that the royal massacre was one' man act - the act of late King, and the then crown prince Dipendra. However, the book makes certain issues open regarding the motives of crown prince. The obvious reason was mainly the Queen Aishwarya's refusal to accept Devyani Rana as wife of crown prince. The author says that some external and foreign forces might have taken advantage of crown prince's frustrated mind and may have provoked him to carry out the royal massacre in 2001. May be! May be not.
Another aspect that book reveals is the army and king/palace relationship in Nepal.It seems that all security forces at that time were directly responsible to the King and Nepal's Kings - at the time of Birendra and Gyanendra actively took part in promotion, appointment, and even transfer of Police and Army Officers. The book reveals the inter - security force's mistrust among each other and politics in between.
As the author comes from a Nepal's Army/Military background and as he served in Palace for many years, he shows unflinching support to Nepal Army and Palace's actions. He sees only the Army and Royal Palace as a center of unity and truly nationalist forces. Though he shows his faith in multi-party system, he is suspicious of Nepal's Leader's characters and activities.
The book also delves into the Nepal's political Parties' double standards, carelessness towards the plight of common men, their focus only to cling to power and their unholy alliance with foreign powers - especially with India. The book here and again, portrays a very critical and poor picture of Indian establishment and their two faced characters when they pretended to help Nepal Army but also gave shelter to Maoist Terrorists. The book makes it clear that India had a very long hand to decide significant issues concerning Nepal and Nepalese and it always wanted to weaken the nationalist forces in Nepal. India's this policy has become very clear from its efforts to bring Maoists and Political parties closer by creating situations where King was pushed to another corner.
Since the book runs 600 pages, we must say that it contains many unnecessary details in the books which do not in anyway, substantiate the content. There are few instances which have been repetitive in the book only to increase the unnecessary pages. The Author at the start says that he had to shorten his diary and details to keep the book short. However, it feels that there were more need of such slicing of details which were not any enriching to learn. The books also contains so many unheard names of Army Officer's without any reference to who they were and how they were related to King or to Palace or to any other influential power centers. Since they were his friends and colleagues, he had to mention many names in the books while explaining the events of that time.However, for readers, it will not give any insights.
There are also other instances where the author could have elaborated more by tracing history and historical events. For example, he refers to King Birendra's comment while referring to Chief of Nepal Army, King Birendra is said to have commented, "The Army Chief still has hang over of Shri Tin/Rana Prime Minister". This shows that the Army Chief had some connection with former Rana Prime Ministers of Nepal but we do not know. In another instance, King Gyanendra is said to have commented," ..........has blood of Chandra Shamsher and can not be trusted" while referring some Army Personnel. The Author must have taken the readers back to history to unravel what these kings were referring to.
I believe the Author tries to be as honest and as objective as possible while evaluating other peoples, foreign powers and situation of the country. However, I feel there was a need of self - critical assessment of his role during the royal massacre in Nepal and his role, if any, in making King Gyanendra an autocrat. In this aspect, the book is silent.
Finally, the book chronicles his rise and performance in Nepal Army. Coming from remote Western Nepal, his rise in Nepal's army is a sort of meteoric. Without having any connection in Nepal Army, he rose to a position and this shows that Nepal Army was to an extent free and fair organisation if you had talent and ability. We hope that this will continue in the future in the Army and similar fair process will be adopted in all kinds of government recruitment. Mr. Bibek Shah was therefore, little worried about the conduct of Army Chief Rookmangad Katuwal who took second man in Army before politicians for introduction.
Therefore, to summarize the review, I would say that the book must be looked as an honest attempt of a nationalist ex-army to chronicle his memory based on facts and events. He has been able to give his own interpretations of events and many of them are not far from truth, or not far from our own (common man's) assessments.
Though the book is without any sensational revelation and can not be termed as historic document by any means, I would say that It is a GOOD BOOK TO READ if you can lay your hands on it. I would rate it as 4 out of 5.
Book Review - "Maile Dekheko Darbar (The Palace that I saw) by Bibek Shah
I have read this book - "Maile Dekheko Darbar" (The Palace that I saw) by Bibek Shah. It is a book by retired senior army official of Nepal who worked for many years in royal nepal palace. The Author was unceremoniously sacked by the then ambitious Nepal King Gyanendra one fine morning after asking his resignation.
The book is not any milestone in nepali literature. The author also does not belong to any literary background. Therefore, the book should be understood as his memoir of the events which he saw while being at the duty and which he could make note of in his diary. The events are mostly based on his memory while being at royal duty and during his four years' tenure of military secretary of royal palace.
The book starts with the events leading to his resignation. However, it is not clear to him why his resignation was asked by Nepal's Last King Gyanendra Shah. The reason might be that King Gyanendra Shah did not appreciate very straight nature of Mr. Bibek Shah that he could call 'Spade' a Spade. Most probably, King Gyanendra Shah thought Mr Bibek Shah was uncooperative on the way of king's ambition of becoming a King "who can see and hear things".
The memoir also talks about the Royal Massacre of 2001. Initially, when the book was published, it was advertised as a book of sensational revelation about royal massacre. However, the book does not reveal anything new which is not in public domain. The author states that the royal massacre was one' man act - the act of late King, and the then crown prince Dipendra. However, the book makes certain issues open regarding the motives of crown prince. The obvious reason was mainly the Queen Aishwarya's refusal to accept Devyani Rana as wife of crown prince. The author says that some external and foreign forces might have taken advantage of crown prince's frustrated mind and may have provoked him to carry out the royal massacre in 2001. May be! May be not.
Another aspect that book reveals is the army and king/palace relationship in Nepal.It seems that all security forces at that time were directly responsible to the King and Nepal's Kings - at the time of Birendra and Gyanendra actively took part in promotion, appointment, and even transfer of Police and Army Officers. The book reveals the inter - security force's mistrust among each other and politics in between.
As the author comes from a Nepal's Army/Military background and as he served in Palace for many years, he shows unflinching support to Nepal Army and Palace's actions. He sees only the Army and Royal Palace as a center of unity and truly nationalist forces. Though he shows his faith in multi-party system, he is suspicious of Nepal's Leader's characters and activities.
The book also delves into the Nepal's political Parties' double standards, carelessness towards the plight of common men, their focus only to cling to power and their unholy alliance with foreign powers - especially with India. The book here and again, portrays a very critical and poor picture of Indian establishment and their two faced characters when they pretended to help Nepal Army but also gave shelter to Maoist Terrorists. The book makes it clear that India had a very long hand to decide significant issues concerning Nepal and Nepalese and it always wanted to weaken the nationalist forces in Nepal. India's this policy has become very clear from its efforts to bring Maoists and Political parties closer by creating situations where King was pushed to another corner.
Since the book runs 600 pages, we must say that it contains many unnecessary details in the books which do not in anyway, substantiate the content. There are few instances which have been repetitive in the book only to increase the unnecessary pages. The Author at the start says that he had to shorten his diary and details to keep the book short. However, it feels that there were more need of such slicing of details which were not any enriching to learn. The books also contains so many unheard names of Army Officer's without any reference to who they were and how they were related to King or to Palace or to any other influential power centers. Since they were his friends and colleagues, he had to mention many names in the books while explaining the events of that time.However, for readers, it will not give any insights.
There are also other instances where the author could have elaborated more by tracing history and historical events. For example, he refers to King Birendra's comment while referring to Chief of Nepal Army, King Birendra is said to have commented, "The Army Chief still has hang over of Shri Tin/Rana Prime Minister". This shows that the Army Chief had some connection with former Rana Prime Ministers of Nepal but we do not know. In another instance, King Gyanendra is said to have commented," ..........has blood of Chandra Shamsher and can not be trusted" while referring some Army Personnel. The Author must have taken the readers back to history to unravel what these kings were referring to.
I believe the Author tries to be as honest and as objective as possible while evaluating other peoples, foreign powers and situation of the country. However, I feel there was a need of self - critical assessment of his role during the royal massacre in Nepal and his role, if any, in making King Gyanendra an autocrat. In this aspect, the book is silent.
Finally, the book chronicles his rise and performance in Nepal Army. Coming from remote Western Nepal, his rise in Nepal's army is a sort of meteoric. Without having any connection in Nepal Army, he rose to a position and this shows that Nepal Army was to an extent free and fair organisation if you had talent and ability. We hope that this will continue in the future in the Army and similar fair process will be adopted in all kinds of government recruitment. Mr. Bibek Shah was therefore, little worried about the conduct of Army Chief Rookmangad Katuwal who took second man in Army before politicians for introduction.
Therefore, to summarize the review, I would say that the book must be looked as an honest attempt of a nationalist ex-army to chronicle his memory based on facts and events. He has been able to give his own interpretations of events and many of them are not far from truth, or not far from our own (common man's) assessments.
Though the book is without any sensational revelation and can not be termed as historic document by any means, I would say that It is a GOOD BOOK TO READ if you can lay your hands on it. I would rate it as 4 out of 5.
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