Sudeshna Sarkar

Kathmandu: Ousted Nepal king Gyanendra has reportedly exchanged his snake throne for a humble computer chair on which he sits everyday to hammer out his autobiography.

Even as Maoist chief Prachanda, the revolutionary responsible for his fall from power, has laid down his gun, the last king of Nepal has metaphorically at least picked up the mightiest sword in the world for a last battle -- though he may not be using a pen.

His autobiography will present his experiments with truth, or what is perceived by him to be the truth. Leading a low-key life in virtual exile, the former god-king s autobiography in English is to have five segments, Nepali weekly Tarun reported Monday.

It starts with his turbulent childhood, when he was crowned king as a toddler and his life was in jeopardy after his grandfather Tribhuvan and father Mahendra fled to India seeking asylum, taking his elder brother Birendra with them but abandoning him. The momentous incident is believed to have affected the boy profoundly, triggering a latent desire for power and two years ago, moving him to stage a coup.

The Nepali weekly said Gyanendra, who has been reduced to a tax paying commoner and remains mostly confined to the palace, now spends a lot of his time reading up Nepal's history and watching television. Once used to projecting himself as an incarnation of a Hindu god whose shoelaces were tied by his aides, the former king has now thawed sufficiently to talk to his security personnel.

Taking long walks in the mornings and evenings, Gyanendra now takes interest in his security guards, regarding them for the first time as human beings with lives of their own. "Do you have any problems?" the last king of Nepal reportedly asks his guards. "Where is your family? Do your children go to school?"

Source : IANS