Nepal, July 30 -- In the supplement of Nepali Times, marking its 25 years of publication, Kunda Dixit has titled his Publisher's Note thus: "Imagine no Internet. No Facebook. No TikTok. No algorithm, no AI". He spent several years pursuing a futuristic degree in science and technology in the aftermath of the Prague Spring and before the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. When imagination is proscribed, the mind seeks solace in silently observing absurdities of everyday life and talking to oneself for emotional release.

Kunda experienced the seriousness of political humour in closed polities, first in the Warsaw Pact countries during the Cold War era and later under the authoritarian Panchayat regime back home. Nobody in Nepal can blend...