Niranjan Koirala. Just heard that Devi Prasad Tripathi passed away today. Popularly known as DPT, he was a great friend of Nepal and has many friends and admirers there. He was a socialist of the Lohia school who later joined Sharad Pawar’s NCP and represented that party in the Rajya Sabha. His acculturation in politics began as a student of the JNU and to the end he retained the trademark of his alma mater of being a left leaning liberal secularist. While he had friends from all walks of life in nepal. he was politically very close to Pradip Giri. Once when Dr. Baburam Bhattarai the former Orime Minister of Nepal was on a official visit to Delhi, DPT, a fellow JNUite threw a big party in his honour. I got a call from Pradip that afternoon who said DPT wanted to talk to me. “ आप तो हम लोगों से बहुत दूर हो गए, लेकिन आज ज़रूर आइएगा “ he told me. It was so gracious of him to remember me as a former colleague in the socialist movement. The other time I met him was at my niece Manisha’s wedding in Kathmandu. I saw him sitting with some political activists on a table but not wanting to discuss politics there, chose to sit with a few of Manisha’s friends and my partner at another table. After a little while, he sent Rahul Barua to me with the message that “माना कि आप खूबसूरत औरतों के साथ बैठे है, लेकिन अपने पुराने दोस्तों को भी मत भूलिए !” I promptly got up and joined him! In his last speech before completing his term in the Rajya Sabha, he talked about women, beauty and sex and wondered why sex was never discussed in the parliament when it was the cause of so many deaths and disease! Why indeed?….. I used to meet him at the IIC bar where he usually came just before closing time and sat in one corner. “ निरंजनजी या तो आप अपने घर बुलाइए. या आप मेरे घर आइए” he used to say. I always promised to have him over, but it never happened. That’s my regret. And now I remember the last wordsof his speech in parliament: मोहब्बत करने वाले कम ना होंगे तेरी महफ़िल में, लेकिन हम ना होंगे! May God bless you, Tripathiji.
From the wall of Mr. Niranjan Koirala
