Eavesdropping

Yesterday, inside Sajha Prakashan's compound, as I tried to find the latrine, I heard two comments.

1] A YCL cadre asked another: "How big is their crowd?"

Response: "It looks big. Almost as big as ours was on May Day."

2] A young man was busy splitting a bamboo cane into two: perhaps that was one of the reasons why the Maoists were using dry bamboo. It can be found easily at construction sites, and, being dry and light, they don't break bones but slap the flesh hard enough to leave welts. And they are easy to split vertically: one stick can become two in a few seconds.

In any case, the young man splitting one cane into two said to his companion: "Look at those [Nepali] flags! If they are carrying flags on bamboo sticks, how can they call it a peace rally?"

Today, at a rally to address the YCL cadre brought to Kathmandu, Prachanda told them that this was a temporary interruption in the party's "andolan" or movement. To the opposition [NC, UML, people at the peace rally yesterday], he said: "If you think that the past six days were anything else but a simple trailer, you are mistaken. The actual movie is yet to start!"

Prachanda said yesterday's rally was composed of "hired goons mobilized by the government."

I have a feeling that those YCL cadres and other Maoists who saw the rally don't quite believe that.

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Grim Addendum: More people died in the past week from being struck by lightning than from reasons directly related to the protests/andolan.