Bhaktapur, February 17:

A celebrity commoner caught in a traffic jam this morning might have captured the public imagination about the daily irritant in the Valley.

Ex-king Gyanendra Shah’s Land Cruiser got caught in the snarl between Jadibuti and Pepsi Cola for about half an hour.

Aware of the traffic travails, the former king did take a detour — he availed of the Bhaktapur

purano bato (old road) via Sano Thimi — to avoid the rush hour traffic on the Sallaghari- Jadibuti stretch.

Shah was on his way back to his jungle resort at Nagarjuna from Bhaktapur, where he had gone to offer puja at the Changu Narayan Temple.

He also visited the Chinnamasta and Kileshwor Mahadev shrines on the occasion during his hour-long sojourn.

“We were not informed about the ex-king’s visit in advance,” Chakradharananda Rajopadhaya, head priest, Changu Narayan Temple, told The Himalayan Times.

“Earlier, rituals demanded that we would take kalash (copper vessels) from the shrine to the Hanuman Dhoka durbar and also to the monarch twice a year on the auspicious occasion of Shrawan Shukla Dwadashi and Paush Shukla Purnima. He must have come to offer puja since we didn’t follow this ritual last year,” added the head priest.

Sita Ram Hachhethu, in-charge, Metropolitan Traffic Police Range-Koteshwor, explained that traffic snarls at Jadibuti and neighbouring areas were common due to the

ongoing extension of road.

Asked about the ex-king’s inconvenience, he said, “He is a commoner now. That’s why we didn’t receive any order to give him the right of way while holding up rest of the traffic.”