Protesters in Nepal have sometimes demonstrated their ingenuity or their copycat talent. One

was the semi-nude demonstration a women’s group staged not long ago. But there was some method to the madness, which attracted sufficient TV footage and newspaper columns. The definition of various stages of bareness, it seems, has lent itself to varied interpretations. In the West, semi-nudity would most probably include sashaying out topless. But our women’s libbers appear to have moulded the concept to Nepali soil and genius. The tops were shrouded, and the lower regions the more so. The only variation was that, of the several layers of cover, only the outermost had been stripped. Nonetheless, the effect was titillating.

The Manokranti-wallahs just tried to go the whole hog with male adults. Now, at Jaleswor, certain interest groups rounded up 25 kids below 14 and dangled lollipop before them. They were to go around the town in the emperor’s new clothes chanting certain political mantras before they would have their prize. To add interest, or torture the town was under a pall of cold wave. It remains to be seen whether or how the various human rights-wallahs and UN agencies like UNICEF will react. This will be intriguing given the way they have tended to react to unsavoury treatment of children, as if influenced by the motto: ‘Some actors are more equal than the others’.