The allure of monumentalism

Elected versions of tinpot tyrants are erecting structures of self-aggrandisement across the country called view towers!

Chandra Shamsher (1863-1929) remains the most powerful and longest-serving prime minister of Nepal. One of the first of the family of Gorkhali elite to get a matriculation , he had fully internalised the lesson from the intrigues for succession in the royal courts: The power invariably goes to the cruellest, the cunningest and the craftiest rather than to the simplest, sincerest or the most skilful claimant.