Landlocked Nepal has always been a pesky pebble between two enormous yams. But today we find ourselves trapped between the devil and a hard place. In other words, we are now firmly ensconced between a rock and the deep blue sea. Despite this predicament, it is heartening to learn from the main news on Radio Nepal this morning that our leaders still have the presence of mind to remember that today is the National Day of the friendly nation of Guinea Bissau, and therefore time to shoot off yet another one of those annual telegrams to wish the Numero Uno of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Guinea Bissau best wishes for his personal health and happiness, and offer warmest felicitations for the future peace and prosperity of friendly Guinean Bissaus.
This is what being a proud and committed member of the international community of nations is all about: exchanging telegraphic bonhomies and wishing each other all the best on our national holidays. With permission from the chair, I would like to suggest that we move with the times and stop using telex and telegraph for these greetings. Telepathy is a more secure channel, and it is also much cheaper.
The other cost-effective method of keeping our relations with friendly countries on an even keel is to employ the time-tested method of donating our wildlife to their zoos. As a matter of fact, zoological diplomacy has a glorious tradition in Nepal under which we gift endangered species to countries to which we wish to offer Most-Favoured Nation trading status.
Our latest foray into wildlife diplomacy was the arrival at Jawalakhel Zoo last month of His Excellency a Hippopotamus. In exchange we dispatched Ramesh the One-horned Rhino as our Roving Ambassador-at-Large and Plenipotentiary to the Chrysanthemum Throne. But despite his diplomatic impunity, Ramesh had a tough time convincing the visa officer at the Japanese embassy he was not one of the rhinos being translocated to Bardiya who bought his way out and escaped en route. Good thing Ramesh has a thick skin, otherwise he'd have impaled a couple of those chaps behind the glass window.
But Ramesh's travails were not over. Just before boarding his flight, security refused to clear him saying his horn could be classified as a "sharp object" and it had to be stowed with his nail file in this checked-in luggage. This made Ramesh very horny, but a diplomatic incident was averted when an alert member of the cabin crew agreed to allow him on board if the horn was blunted by sawing off the tip.
Despite these teething problems, zoological diplomacy has a lot of potential. The urban crow is an endangered species in many developed countries. Nepal has a surplus. The law of supply and demand dictates that we export the entire cohort that lives on a tree outside my window to a crow-deficit country like Sao Tome and Principe.
The pack of howling dingos that defend our friendly neighbourhood trash heap can all be sent off to South Korea in the run-up to the World Cup. Then there is the common housefly, on the verge of extinction in Europe, but of which we have swarms of in Shyam's Bus Stop Tea Shop. These animals can serve as Nepal's honorary envoys abroad and ensure that our age-old bonds of amity and co-existence with the president and people of Togo are further strengthened in the years to come.
