A week in the military's house arrest

 It can be hard sometimes to understand what's happening in the world, one day they're telling you that you're a sure for the next minister of something or other, depending on how the negotiations go, and the next day the army comes and takes you to prison. Nobody tells you anything but you know it's not good, if it's the army doing the arresting. My lawyer, you tell them, let me call my lawyer, and a bespectacled young officer tells you gently that you will get to do it all in due time, but for right now you have to go with them, for your safety and everybody's.

And they don't mistreat you, thank the gods. They make you sit at the office of some brigade or another, there's a bed on the side where they've arranged for you to sleep, the soldiers will make conversation with you and roam about the quarters here and there, but they won't answer any questions. We don't know sir, they will tell you, we do what we are told, the command comes from high up, and we have been told to not look at the news, or tell you anything about it. Treat him well, they said, give him good food and act like he could be your boss, but don't let him get out of your eyes. Always stand by when he's in the toilet, the told us, the guards tell you.

In a matter of few short days, you become friends with the soldiers, the officers will arrive once or twice to check up and give orders, and do some urgent...whatever they're doing, and be off. The guards have become friends with you, and you theorize with them what could have been happening in the country. Do you think, they will ask you, that the army has taken over the country, you are a senior political leader, have had much experience regarding this issue... You don't know the answer, because from all your research over the years, and the officers' constant insistence, it was impossible for a military coup to be successful and hold territory in a country like Nepal. Besides, Nepali army wasn't a very well-oiled piece of machinery unlike those countries where these things happened. The senior officers were all very lazy, fat, and not well-motivated. All they cared about was the dead animals to be dried and sent to their quarters so they could gift everybody in vicinity to earn favors. Everyone wanted to be the Chief, everybody, even though that made the leeway they had with certain matters wouldn't be there anymore. When you are the chief, there's more eyes on you, they expect much higher level of accountability, so in terms of freedom of how many non-compliant things you could do, you were as good as a low ranking officer. The prestige, that was what you got in it for. The newspaper editors would all come at you for advice, all the ministers and prime ministers, presidents etcetera, foreign dignitaries would make it a point to see you whenever you were in the country, and you'd be participating in all the major exercises. You could, if you were so inclined, use your creativity and get your personal projects done. Get rescue helicopters and prepare an elite rescue team, or human rights, that sort of stuff. It was only when you were a chief that you could do as your heart desired, professionally speaking.

The desperate desire to become the chief didn't fit in well with an interest in taking over the country politically, for then you would have a lot of stress hanging over your head. And if you were the chief, you had absolutely no incentive to overthrow the civilian government...not that much more influence, for a whole lot of increased danger and headache. That's what they had told him at least. Perhaps the calculus had changed, perhaps somebody greedy in the chain of command had figured out a way they could make this work, or miscalculated the tradeoffs. And once every so often, you got some of those really stupid senior officers, who had somehow snuck up the chain of command, mostly due to their family background. In Nepal, nothing could be ruled as a possibility.

One day, you have counted five days running on six, a small military jeep comes to pick you up, your caretakers hand you over to the new team, all of them unarmed. You are escorted by a vehicle with dark windows, and they unceremoniously drop you in front of your home. "Sir you must have been inconvenienced, we were just doing what we were ordered, you might want to figure things out with the senior command," the officer in charge tells you, shakes hand and salutes, and leaves, just like that.