Word: rana
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Ranas won the championship of Nepal in a gory elimination tournament in 1846. The reigning monarch at that time was Rajendra Bikram Sahi, a blue-blooded Rajput (Hindu warrior caste) and a descendant of Vishnu the Lifesaver. For all that, the King was nuttier than a pecan tree in October. He and the Queen persuaded one of their generals, Jung Bahadur Rana, to murder their Prime Minister, who happened to be Jung Bahadur's uncle. Then Jung Bahadur helped the King murder the Queen's lover. She was put out about this, but not at the King...
Since then, as anyone would expect, the Kings of Nepal have been Kings in name only, and the Ranas have been hereditary Prime Ministers. They made a good thing out of it. Half of Nepal's $10,000,000 state revenue finds its way to members of the Rana family. One Rana is said to own 300,000 acres of land, which would be a big farm even in Texas, but is enormous in the Himalaya-topped little land of Nepal...
Nowadays there are 80 subfamilies of the Rana clan. All of their legitimate sons are automatically appointed major generals on the day they are born. At birth the illegitimate sons of the Ranas become lieutenant colonels. (Some U.S. Army captains see a similarity between American and Nepalese practices in this respect...
Meanwhile, the Kings languished in obscurity. They retained the right to throw barley grains to the people on festival days, and they continued to bear the honorary title Sri Sri Sri Sri Sri,* which is sometimes written Sr15. (The Rana Prime Ministers bear the lesser title...
...public life, even less was known until December 1948, when Loy W. Henderson went to Nepal as the first U.S. diplomatic representative to that kingdom. Prime Minister Rana was somewhat embarrassed to learn that Minister Henderson bore a letter from President Truman addressed to the King, in person. After due deliberation, Rana decided that the privilege of getting letters from Harry Truman be added to barley-throwing and being called Sr15. Accordingly, a great durbar was held, and Minister Henderson handed the King his letter. A TIME correspondent who went in with the U.S. mission noticed that the King seemed...