The Knife

As I was talking to some coworkers today, I was reminded about the back story of sorts around the knife I bought in Nepal. Wandering around Kathmandu in the famous Thamel market with my friend and coworker, Edward I’Anson, I found a rather choice specimen of khukuri knife. I was looking for something that I thought Tyson would really like and I was sure that a khukuri knife would do the trick.

This isn’t the actual one I found, but it’s close enough. It’s one gnarly looking thing and was carried by all Nepalese soldiers as a standard sidearm. It’s heavy and deadly.

I found and purchased one for Tyson and asked Ed if he wouldn’t mind putting it in his luggage for the flight back to Hyderabad since I hadn’t checked my bags. He agreed and when we got back, forgot to give it back to me. So, it was in his bags in his hotel. He took it out, apparently to admire the thing in his hotel room and left it on the desk.

After a couple of days he returned to his hotel room to find that it had been removed and replaced by a note stating: “Our policy is that dangerous weapons cannot be stored in hotel rooms. Please come to the front desk to receive it from the hotel safe.”

He left it there until the last night when we went together to receive it from the front desk manager. Great care was taken to ensure that we did not intend to keep it at the hotel and we were asked repeatedly if we were sure that I would be removing it immediately. They were very intent that we remove the knife immediately and everyone seemed tense and nervous. We assured them that I would be removing it immediately and they let us have it back.

I hadn’t seen it for a while, so once I got into my car, I pulled it out and was looking at it. My driver looked back and saw it and smiled. “Oooo, nice Khukuri knife” he said. I smiled and chuckled a little bit.

I got to my hotel, and wondering how I would be percieved carrying a huge knife. Would they want to take it from me too? Would they accost me at the security zone in front of the hotel? I figured the best course of action would be to carry it openly. And, so I did. I got out of the car, holding it in my hand. In India, because of all the terrorist activity, they have metal detectors outside the doors. So, I walked up to the metal detector. Handed the knife to the security guard, walked through the metal detector and the security guard handed me the knife back with a big smile, almost laughing and said something I could only interpret as “Oooohoohoohoo, wow, that’s a big knife!”. So… Did you catch that? I handed him, a weapon, made of metal, designed to cut muscle and bone, walked through the metal detector, and he handed it back to me… [shrug]

As I walked into the lobby of the hotel, I couldn’t tell if all the attention I was getting was the normally super astute service workers doing their usual job of over paying attention to my presence or if it was the knife commanding their attentions…

The next morning, as I walked out to leave to the airport, the hotel manager approached me, smiling somewhat jovially and said. “How was your stay Mr. Haselden?” I said, it was fine. He said “I’m glad to hear that Mr. Haselden. And that knife you brought in last night, it was a beautiful Khukuri knife”