Making A Difference

Princess Of 'Doom'

For want of a better reason explaining the regicide, Nepal looks for answers in the extra-mundane

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Princess Of 'Doom'
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‘That girl’ is Devyani Rana, possibly one of the saddest and most devastatedyoung ladies in the world now. But how was she to know when she met the suave young CrownPrince Dipendra in London a few years ago that she’d be blamed for, or at least beassociated with, the worst catastrophe ever to hit her country’s royal family.

Those who know Devyani say she isn’t the archetype femme fatale. Notoverwhelmingly beautiful or alluring, she is nonetheless quite popular and well thought ofamong her friends in Kathmandu’s fast set. The mobile phone that she always took withher to parties used to frequently ring with calls from the prince, say friends. They alsosay she was discreet about her relationship.
Devyani didn’t need to work, but she answered phones and helped a proud father in theoffice of his political party, the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party. Her father, PashupatiShamsher Rana, is a suave Anglophile who leads one of the country’s many politicalparties. A cabinet minister, he’s admired for his sophisticated political skills andhis ability to make money. But Rana is a broken man at the moment, a scion of anestablishment that may never get its place back in Nepalese society. (The Ranas, till1951, controlled the state apparatus.)

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Queen Aishwarya, it is said, was opposed to Devyani because of her mother, UsharajeScindia, whose Gwalior royal lineage wasn’t considered impressive. For one, it madeDevyani half-Indian—and the royal family was perhaps reluctant to foster an Indianconnection. Also, since the Scindias had attained Kshatriya status through the so-calledprocess of sanskritisation, the Gwalior family wasn’t considered in the same leagueas the status-conscious Shahs.

Queen Aishwarya was supposed to have mastered the ancient art of forging politicalalliances through marriages. And Devyani didn’t quite fit into her scheme. SupriyaShah did. The 22-year-old woman was a very distant relative of the prince, and they haddated and seen each other on a number of occasions. Supriya had Queen Aishwarya’sapproval largely because a marriage between her and Prince Dipendra would have ensuredthat the Shah dynasty didn’t have to share its power with the Ranas.

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There were other problems, too. It’s said the prince was more than a little fondof Supriya. But she had reportedly told mutual friends that the man she may have ended upmarrying was occasionally prone to murderous rage while drunk or highly stressed,something the royal family learnt so tragically last week.

The story that Prince Dipendra had married Devyani secretly in the week before thekillings fits perfectly with the astrological prophecy—but is little else otherwise.A few months ago, Nepali newspapers carried the chilling prediction by a soothsayer thatboth the king and queen would die if the Crown Prince married before he reached the age of35. Though royal family insiders pooh-poohed this at the time, newspaper readers took thenews seriously and in their grief last week found enough latitude to gossip about theprince’s love life.

The logic is impeccable, even if false. One highly improbable story says the princemarried Devyani in secret, perhaps at a Hindu temple in India. It was why the predictioncame chillingly true, courtesy the prince. In the palpable inability to explain themassacre of the royal family rationally, it isn’t surprising to find people turningto superstitions and the extra-mundane for their answers.

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