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Haven’t we heard it all before? New infrastructure is proposed and the given timeline seems very rosy and optimistic. Everything, it seems, will be up-and-running within two to five years, regardless of the com­plexity of the project. Part of the rea­son is that Nepalis just don’t like to disappoint. So saying no or giving a realistic timeline seems impossible. I don’t think there is anyone read­ing this who has not been on a long distance bus or on a trekking route and asked “when will we reach our destination?” to be told it will be an hour; but four hours later, you seem no nearer the end.

Then of course there are those unforeseen natural and unnatu­ral stumbling blocks. Like the facts that rock is hard to drill through, or blockades do happen. Why is the unexpected not figured into the plan, especially when in a country like Nepal the ‘unexpected’ pretty much happens every week?

Many moons ago (about 16 years’ worth) I worked with WaterAid on a little handbook intended for peo­ple in the valley so that they could best utilize their water. There were drawings, technical and lay-persons advice on a rainwater harvesting sys­tem (did anyone?) on the house roof, how to reuse grey water, how to install a well (there was still ground­water underneath us in those days), how to maintain hand pump, etc. The name of this booklet? “While Waiting for Melamchi”.

Maybe an addendum needs to be added now which includes things like how to turn your dry well into a garden ornament, or how to use the weather app on your phone to gather rain in a bucket. Of course we didn’t think we would need a whole rain-water harvesting system as Melamchi was coming soon.

And before we get too excited about the amount of water that will be coursing through our taps, let’s think about the population of Kath­mandu now and then. When the fea­sibility study was done on Melamchi I’m quite sure it was during the mid-1990s. What was the popula­tion of Kathmandu then? And what is the population of the city now? I don’t have the figures but I think it’s something like a hundred percent increase. More than the population of the whole of Scotland!

And speaking of Scotland, we also have a vast river network. Which we utilize. All the water coming from Scottish taps is water from our rivers. And all our elec­tricity comes from the same source. In more recent years this has been supplemented by wind-gen­erated power. Because hey, like rain-water, wind-power is free after the initial installation and a little maintenance.

I feel some people think that making use of the rain and wind is ‘old-fashioned’. While it is true that these nature given gifts were utilized by past generations around the world, they are certainly not ‘old fashioned’ as can be seen by the upsurge of use and interest in devel­oped countries. Solar-run houses are springing up, and although those are pretty expensive at start-up, a solar panel or two is a great idea. Just ask any villager living in the hills and mountains here—they have had solar panels for decades. Just ask me (snug look on my face as I switch on my solar lights).

So yes, as the papers are all announcing—‘finally’ there is a breakthrough on Melamchi. Let’s see when, ‘finally’, we will see the results in our taps.

Black Comedy

BLACKMAIL

CAST: Irrfan Khan, Kirti Kulhari, Arunoday Singh, Omi Vaidya, Pradhuman Singh, Divya Dutta

DIRECTION: AbhinayDeo.

Black comedies with their cross-cutting plot lines and humor derived from character desperation can be tricky to crack. Done well, this is the genre that leaves lasting impression. Think about Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fic­tion’ or The Coen Brothers’ ‘Fargo’ and ‘The Big Lebowski’.These movies find their way into­every film buff’s canon of modern classics. Given the seductiveness of this style of filmmaking, it has attracted its share of copycats who have dirtied the pool with their for­mulaic and revisionist approach. So whenever a multiple protago­nist comedy with a crime at its cen­ter hits the screen, people invari­ably say, “It’s like Tarantino!”But even Tarantino and Coen Brothers haven’t been spared by detractors, as they have been accused of ripping off their earlier works in their lesser known offerings.

Abhinay Deo, the director of 2011’s much-loved black comedy ‘Delhi Belly’, has just released his new film, ‘Blackmail’. So does Deo play his old riffs or perform a new tune? I’m pleased to say that he finds a delicate balance. ‘Blackmail’in places reeks of ‘Delhi Belly’ but still manages to score a mean punch thanks to Irrfan Khan’s wide-eyed and effective deadpan central performance.

Dev (Irrfan Khan) is a toilet paper sales executive stuck in a thankless job and a loveless arranged marriage with wife Reena (Kirti Kulhari). He would rather spend time playing PacMan till late hours in office than go home to his wife. One day, egged by his office colleague (Pradhuman Singh), Dev decides to surprise her by going home early. But when he gets home, he’s the one getting the surprise. As he peeps into their bed­room, he spots Reena in bed with another lover (Arunoday Singh).

What does a heart broken Dev do?

He’s a meek sales executive, so Jack Lemmon-like in ‘The Apart­ment’ that his character, if he walks into a room where his wife’s canoo­dling her lover, he would rather apologize and excuse himself than violently confront them. So Dev runs away quietly.

But as he is under a pile of debt, he makes up his mind to use this new found information about his wife’s affair and in a stroke of weird genius decides to extort money from the lover by blackmailing him. But his action backfires. Without spoil­ing the movie, I can just hint that what starts off as a harmless black­mail scheme instigates a chain of events that circles back to Dev and he finds himself getting blackmailed in the end.

What works well in ‘Blackmail’ are the moments where Dev needs to come out of his repressed existence and improvise to escape from sticky scenarios. There’s a point where he flees a crime scene and to make himself unrecognizable strips down to his boxers and covers his face with a lingerie brand’s shopping bag. Irrfan Khan shines in the film’s fish-out-of-water scenes and he does so by keeping a straight face, thus escalating the humor.

His nuanced acting is matched by Arunoday Singh, who plays the dim­witted body-builder lover of Dev’s wife. This lover in turn is married to an alcoholic and ball-busting rich lady (Divya Dutta). Similarly, Omi Vaidya makes a comeback after a short hiatus from Hindi films as Dev’s boss who wants to teach Indi­ans to save water by wiping their bottoms with his toilet paper. In a standout scene, Vaidya’s charac­ter announces a war against jet-sprays which he deems his product’s toughest competitor.

But director Deo’s eagerness to make Khan’s character emotionless definitely weighs on the movie’s length. The film’s runtime is 2 hours 19 minutes(nearly 30 minutes longer than the runtime of ‘Delhi Belly’) and much of the middle part is spent treading water. So it is a little slow, you could say.

But ‘Blackmail’ deserves a view­ing for its quirky sensibilities and colorful characters. I don’t think it will have the same recall value as ‘Delhi Belly’.Nonetheless this black comedy scores high on originality and twisted humor.

3 stars ***

There is no point crying over spilled milk, right? Perhaps. But what does it say about the mindset of the seemingly all-pow­erful Prime Minister KP Oli, and his equally strong counterpart, Nar­endra Modi, that the head of govern­ment in Nepal was once again forced to make New Delhi his first foreign stop, sorry, pilgrimage?It suggests that much of PM Oli’s talk of pursuing an independent foreign policy course is bluster. His hasty visit to New Delhi is an indica­tion that he too subscribes firmly to the view that Nepal’s leader should always toe India’s line, nay, try to obey the old master even before he has made his wish public. The hush-hush one-on-one between the two leaders in New Delhi, for an hour and a half, fans this speculation.

On the other hand, India’s eagerness to welcome Oli before he ‘escaped’ to any other country betrayed a colonial mindset and an inferiority complex vis-à-vis China on Modi’s part. But in retrospect Modi was perhaps confi­dent that he could use his charms to get Oli to turn his back on China.

If a Nepali prime minister could first go to, say, Beijing instead of New Delhi, it would kill two birds with one stone. One, it would dispel the widespread perception that Nepali leaders are always beholden to India and cannot act independently. Had Oli dared to venture to China first, he would have poked a big hole in this self-defeating narrative. And it would also be a credible proof of his nation­alist credentials.

Two, it would also benefit India, whether the current Indian establishment realizes it or not. India could then perhaps deal with Nepal as a rising global power, which it is, rather than as an insecure regional bully that likes to scare its small neigh­bors into submission.

Were Indian leaders and bureau­crats more relaxed in their role as rep­resentatives of a rising global power, they would see that India enjoys nat­ural advantages in South Asia that is hard to emulate for any other power, including China. The allure of the largest democracy in the world, with such potent soft power tools as cricket and Bollywood, would be virtually impossible to match.

PM Oli seems to be in a mood for a bluff. By going to India first, he, some way, wanted to show his allegiance to Modi. He would then be free to pursue his pet agenda of closer ties with Beijing. (Or perhaps it is China he is bluffing.) But why does a strong prime minister like him, perhaps the strongest in the history of dem­ocratic Nepal, need to resort to such chicanery, and one which would likely backfire when he eventually plays his hand? If he was so sure of himself, and so keen to protect the national interest, as he professes, why could he not take India into con­fidence into breaking a useless and self-defeating tradition?

Again, it is a ridiculous tradition, sustained by fear (in Nepal) and insecurity (in India). With such anx­ieties and apprehensions guiding bilateral relations, Nepal-India ties are unlikely to come to an even keel. If there was one person who could have changed this hoary script, it was Oli—that dogged bulwark against the Indian blockade.

Prime Minister KP Sharma’s India visit, for all intents and purposes, was heavy on sym­bolism. Both sides were keen on resetting bilateral ties that fell to historic lows after the 2015 blockade.In Nepal the fear of a Nepali Prime Minister compromising on ‘national interest’ during an India visit is ever present. There is a perception that Indians try to extract their pound of flesh from the occupant of Baluwatar in exchange for their support. Since the 1990s, virtually all Nepali lead­ers have looked to the South to get into Baluwatar. As soon as a new prime minister is elected, visiting Delhi to shore up support becomes one of the first acts of duty. Since New Delhi extends the customary invitation along with its congratulatory call, one can argue that New Delhi demands this homage. With the exception of Puspha Kamal Dahal’s first ten­ure, no other Nepali prime minis­ter has deviated from Delhi’s strict political choreography.

What’s different this time?

Well Oli, despite his team’s rhet­oric to instead bring the Indian PM to Nepal first, did stick to tra­dition. But unlike in the past, the Nepali PM was able to deal with his Indian counterpart from a position of strength. The Joint Statement and the joint press con­ference have telltale signs of Oli successfully resetting India-Nepal ties on a more equal footing. Of course, at this stage, all we can see is the form, not the substance.

During the joint press confer­ence, Modi made subtle sugges­tions to accommodate all sections of society in Nepal’s develop­ment—perhaps an indirect refer­ence to the Madhesi demand for constitutional amendment. PM Oli, on the other hand, stressed the ‘principle of equality, justice and mutual respect’—indirectly telling New Delhi to stay out of Nepal’s internal politics. Oli also took a swipe at India’s cross-bor­der power purchase guidelines that he said wasn’t consistent with free market principles and the PTA signed between the two coun­tries. The fact that both prime ministers agreed to disagree openly, albeit politely, points to a more mature relationship. This clearly shows, at least for now, that New Delhi has become a bit more accepting of its declining influence and limits in Nepal.

But the biggest acceptance on New Delhi’s part appears to be the expanded role of the ‘big ele­phant in the room’—China, as SD Muni puts it. That was reflected in the agreement to expand Indian connectivity with Nepal through Inland Waterways and a rail line to Kathmandu.

What this agreement on con­nectivity allowed Modi was to control the narrative on China’s increasing engagement in Nepal.New Delhi appears to have accept­ed that Oli would inevitably sign a railway agreement in Beijing soon after his Delhi visit. By pre­empting Beijing, New Delhi hopes to counter any narrative about it losing its traditional sphere of influence. Domestically, this helps the BJP to frame its messages as it faces general elections next year.

As Oli ran on a nationalist plank and secured a substantial major­ity for his coalition, the political leadership in New Delhi appears to be willing to do the dance for now. But it may not stay that way if Kathmandu fails to maintain high-level political communica­tion and Nepal affair gets delegat­ed to the bureaucratic and intelli­gence levels in India.

Rajapaksa’s playbook

Perhaps not the best person to emulate, but there certainly were things in former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s diplomatic playbook that the Oli administration would do well to learn from. As Rajapaksa’s gov­ernment began the campaign of a final push against the LTTE in 2008, Colombo needed a lot of arms and ammunition. The Chi­nese and the Pakistanis came in with an open offer. But Rajapak­sa initially sent his two brothers to New Delhi with a shopping list, which India declined to offer. Still he kept sending his brother Basil and his foreign minister to New Delhi at regular intervals. Rajapaksa is said to have con­veyed to Mahmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee in 2008 that his government would readily accept a deal with India if New Delhi offered equally favorable terms as Beijing. India wouldn’t or couldn’t match the Chinese offer. As a result, India was forced to accept, if not tacitly support, the campaign against the LTTE.

As Nepal’s engagement with China grows, the onus of reaching out regularly to New Delhi at the political level falls on both the incoming National Security Advi­sor and Foreign Minister. Only such an approach can sustain the current symbolic resetting of ties and a degree of strategic autono­my Nepal seems to have gained—and ensure another disagreement does not lead to a recurrence of blockade-like hostility.

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