Yeti was born in Nepal

Two items of news this week proved beyond reasonable doubt what we knew all along: early Homos prowled the Plateau, and the Yeti is still up there somewhere.

On Wednesday, Lanzhou University scientists announced that the 160,000-year-old jaw bone found in a cave in Tibet belongs to a Homo erectus that passed on its genes to Nepal’s present-day Neanderthals.

On Monday, lo and behold, the glorious Injun Army found footprints of a dinosaur-sized, one-legged Yeti in the Upper Barun. Together, these findings are irrefutable proof that the Yeti does indeed exist. It could not have been better timed ahead of Visit Nepal 2020.

This also finally puts to rest so-called ‘evidence’ of Yeti deniers who tested tissue samples of Abominable Snowpersons from Nepal and said they belonged to bears and a Tibetan mastiff.

How could the Yeti not exist, when we have honoured it by naming an airline, a yoghurt, a casino, a luxury hotel that is code-sharing with a Yak, a Škoda SUV, and a vacuum-insulated tumbler after it?

Nepal Tourism Boar should immediately hold a press conference confirming the existence of the Yeti at (where else?) the Hack & Yeti Hotel, to counter a conspiracy hatched by countries trying to brand their own hypothetical animals like the Loch Ness Monster of Scotland, Sasquatch in Canada, and Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun of Hardhome. These countries have a vested interest in denying the existence of Yetis to promote their own mythical mascots.

Nepal cannot take this lying down. We should be standing upright on our hind legs. GONE should take the matter to the London Court of International Arbitration, and if that does not work it must call a national strike and shut down the country.

Here are other measures we can take:

Get all of Nepal’s Ambassadors and Plenipotentiaries to don Yeti outfits and send out press releases to claim that the Yeti was born in Nepal.

Hold an International Conference on the Yeti and get Reinhold Messner to deliver the keynote (“Ich bin ein Yeti”).

Set the record straight about George Mallory. He was not asked, “Why do you climb Mt Everest?” The question actually was, “Why do you look for the Yeti?” To which his now-famous answer: “Because it is there.”

Nepal should permit more Yeti Expeditions and charge them an arm and a leg. But they should sign contracts to only find footprints, never a Yeti in person. We want to keep looking for the Yeti, but not find it yet.

Unilaterally declare April First a National Holiday to mark the International Day of the Existential Yeti, and issue a postal stamp.

Re-deploy the Indian Army to fulltime Yeti Exploration in Siachen.