I don’t have food to offer you. I don’t have the LPG to cook. I don’t have lights to light your room. We can have uninterrupted conversation in the living room

but my car is out of gasoline to take you out for a drive. Neither do I have access

to many places you would like to visit. You cannot take a shower in my bath and you will have to share my master bedroom without room heaters.

Still, as long as we remain friends and future is there and hopes are alive, you can be my guest. What if I cannot provide you with the comforts of my house? If you give me any indications of ennui, we can always walk a mile away from my home into the city, to the hotel. With the hotels outnumbering the guests, you will almost always get rooms of your choice at the cheapest rates. Unlike in my home, there you will also get all the paraphernalia you will be looking for — heater, lights, water, hot and cold showers, food etc.

The importance of safety stocks, the hoteliers seem to have learnt the hard way — for instance, from their dry run extending to several months in pre-Jana Andolan days.

You should realise that we are now in a ‘transitional’ phase. In our broader mission of a Loktantrik Nepal, some casualties can happen. But that should not bother us much. As

for our power needs, we are aiming for “Electricity for All” by 2012. Just a few days ago, a top official at the NEA assured us of this. By then, Melamchi, a mega project, will have been completed and we will have enough drinking water and to spare, even to wash the streets of Kathmandu, as my leaders have it.

If you are wondering about the pollution and the traffic jams, let me say, the solution is already at hand. Because by 2012, most of our younger generation will have popped off abroad, shrinking Kathmandu’s population dramatically. With fewer people, the capital will go about its business swimmingly — pollution and traffic jams will be down though not out. Loktantra will also have come of age.

Buddy, as you see, good things always come late in life. For us it’s always about future. A good friend of mine, however, you will always be welcome in my house and a red carpet will be rolled out for you.