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In honour of the original inhabitants of our hills.
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———
Lepcha Mad
Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal

Of the many people the Lepchas honour few can match the reverence that Lieutenant General George Byres Mainwaring (proper pronunciation Mannering) commands. This veneration becomes all the more significant since Mainwaring was not a Lepcha and belonged to an aristocratic family of Cavenagh-Mainwaring from Whitmore and Budduph in Staffordshire. He was born in India on 18 July 1825 while his father was serving in the Bengal Civil Service. From his father George Mainwaring he received his first name, George, and from his mother, Isabella Byres, his middle name Byres. As it was the convention with people possessing money and status the boy Mainwaring was packed off to ‘home’, in his case home being Aberdeen, Scotland, to complete his studies and from Aberdeen it was to Wimbledon for higher learning in classics and mathematics. In the confines of the British institutions little did the young lad know that one day he would be a champion amongst the Lepchas and that he would be reverentially recalled by this community even well beyond a hundred years of his death. (more…)

www.telegraphindia.com

Darjeeling/Kalimpong, May 7: The Siliguri jao (let’s go to Siliguri) campaign of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha could have led to chaos on the roads leading to the plains from the hills, but most people managed to beat the rush and reach the venue on time.

By the time the meeting began at Indira Gandhi Maidan, the ground was nearly full.

The Morcha had only four days to sort out the logistics after the administration gave it permission to hold a meeting in Siliguri on Saturday evening. The people in the hills, however, took it upon themselves to take care of all the arrangements. (more…)

www.telegraphindia.com

Siliguri, May 7: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has set a deadline of seven days for the Darjeeling district administration to arrest three CPM leaders for spearheading alleged assaults on some of its supporters in different parts of the town last week.

Bimal Gurung, the Morcha president, threatened to bring down 10,000 cadres from the hills for a protest meeting and call an indefinite strike across the district if the deadline is not met.

Addressing a rally at Indira Gandhi Maidan here this afternoon, Gurung said: “Based on reports, we have lodged complaints against Jibitesh Sarkar, Mukul Sengupta and Shankar Ghosh, all CPM leaders, for assaulting our supporters, including girls, while they were on their way to the subdivisional office for a hunger strike.” (more…)

www.thestatesman.net

Romit Bagchi

SILIGURI, May 7: With politically instigated rancour threatening to dry up the deeper springs of fellow feeling and understanding, it is highly exalting to recollect Rabindranath Tagore’s profound attachment with the Darjeeling Hills and particularly with the tranquil splendour of Mongpu near Kalimpong. He seemed to be enamoured by the transcendental charm of the Darjeeling Himalayas and the simplicity of the Hill populace, mostly people of the Nepali origin. The Darjeeling Himalayas beckoned him with a mesmerising appeal when his sensitive mind got restless and fatigued with the ‘mud and squalor’ of the mundane everyday existence. He sought refuge amidst the austere silence and the wide, compelling ecstasy and peace surrounding the eternally mystifying Himalayas. By his own admission, he turned to the Himalayas when the Ineffable’s timeless call overwhelmed him, compelling him to leave behind the stone load of the striving world for some time.

As per records, Tagore ascended to the Darjeeling hills 11 times. Four times, he came to Mongpu. However, fate intervened when the physically indisposed poet attempted to come to the picturesque spot for the fifth time in 1940, ignoring his physicians’ counsel. He could not reach his destination. He fell ill on his way to Kalimpong. The abnormal swelling of his prostrate gland benumbed his senses with pain. He was brought to Kalimpong in a semi-conscious state. Pratima Devi, Tagore’s daughter-in-law, took him to her Kalimpong residence ‘Gouripur Bhavana’. He, however, could not, stay long as his condition kept on deteriorating fast. He left for Calcutta by train from Siliguri station (now, Siliguri Town station) after staying in Kalimpong for a week.

The date of his departure was 27 September 1940. The time was around 9 p.m. The platforms were over-crowded. People scrambled to have a glimpse of the ailing legend. That, however, proved to be the last glimpse, for the poet never returned to his favourite haunt. He died in Calcutta a few months later.

At a time when acrimony darkens good sense under overt or covert political patronage, Tagore’s luminous relationship with the people of the Darjeeling Hills serves as a balm to the brazen souls. They returned his affection thousand fold having discovered in him a superhuman incarnation of what is divine in man. Tagore may enlighten us at this critical hour when we all seem to be walking by our own choice into Hell’s trap.

www.telegraphindia.com

RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, May 6: A residents’ committee here has invoked the Right to Information Act to ask the municipality and the subdivisional administration to explain the delay in shifting the town’s dumping yard from Lower Bhalukhop to the new site at Lower Newargaon.

The authorities had promised on October 5 last year to get the work done in six months. The residents believe that the current dump-yard had contributed to the landslides in Lower Bhalukhop in September 2007. Afterwards, they had prevented municipality vehicles from dumping wastes at the site.

The agitation was withdrawn after the new site, located outside the municipal area, was identified and the authorities set a six-month deadline on themselves for shifting the dumping yard. (more…)

www.telegraphindia.com

RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, May 2: The repair of NH31A during monsoon is expected to be completed expeditiously this year with the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) relocating 87 Road Construction Company (RCC) from Kalimpong to Melli, located on Bengal’s border with Sikkim. The BRO is raising another RCC also to lessen the burden on the 87 RCC.

The 87 RCC, which was earlier attached to the Thimpu-headquartered Project Dantak, is now part of 764 Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) based here. The force, which is under Gangtok-headquartered Project Swastik, was earlier engaged in Afghanistan.

From now on, maintenance of the NH31A’s Sevoke-Ranipool section in Sikkim will be the main task of the 87 RCC. Earlier, the company had been assigned the repair of many other roads in the Darjeeling hills and Sikkim.

A major responsibility the 87 RCC had in the past, Damdim-Algarah-Rishi road, the alternative to the road between Siliguri and Kalimpong, will be looked after by 130 RCC being set up at Rangli in Sikkim under the 764 BRTF.

Kalimpong is 16km from NH31A, while Melli is along the national highway. (more…)

www.telegraphindia.com

Kalimpong, May 2: Traffic on NH31A that connects Siliguri to Kalimpong and Gangtok was brought to a halt for over one-and-a-half hours today as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha staged a road blockade to protest against the assault on its supporters in Siliguri earlier in the day.

Morcha supporters put up blockades at Rambi and on the Teesta Bridge around 1.30pm. Even two-wheelers were not spared.

However, army vehicles and those carrying sick people were allowed to pass.

About 70 vehicles, including those bound for Sikkim and tourist taxis, were seen lined up on either side of the bridge.

“We are stuck here for more than an hour. Will this blockade continue for long?” asked Mahesh Chovatia, a tourist from Ahmedabad heading towards Gangtok.

About 3.10pm, acting on instruction from the party higher-ups, the supporters lifted the blockade of all vehicles. The Morcha publicity secretary, Binay Tamang, had earlier said the vehicles carrying tourists would not be held up for long.

“I will return to Kalimpong since there is no point in proceeding towards Darjeeling,” said a local trader who had to abandon his short business trip because of the blockade.

Sukhbir Lama, the treasurer of the Morch’s Teesta unit, said the blockade on the national highway was called to protest against the assault by the CPM cadres on the party’s supporters, including women.

“This is not the first time these people (members of the CPM) have resorted to violence against us. If it was our ex-servicemen earlier, today they targeted our women. How low can these people stoop to,” said Lama.
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-Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal

Grammarians say that a verb’s job is to complete a sentence. In other words it is impossible to make a correct sentence without using a verb. However, we, the Nepali speakers, don’t just use verbs but also give them such leverage that they bestow an effervescence that is unique to our language. I had previously mentioned that one has to be ‘with it’ to fully understand the nuances and the complexities of the Nepali language and I recall an incident when an Australian friend of mine, who had married a Nepali girl and had been with Nepali speakers for two months, telling me, “Dāi, Nepali ekdamai sajilo rahechā for I have found the ‘operative’ word and the term is ‘nose’. All I have to do is say ‘bus-nose, uth-nose, khā-nose, jā-nose, khel-nose, lekh-nose etc and my job is done.” A year later he had a totally different opinion. It is difficult for them to understand how we make complete sense out of sheer nonsense. Take for example the two simple verbs with completely opposite meanings, ‘uthnu‘ (to stand) and ‘basnu‘ (to sit) and now join them to obtain ‘uthi basnu‘ and we get ‘keep on standing’. Similarly we have ‘pakri‘ (to catch) and ‘chhōrnu‘ (release) and the combination ‘pakri chhōrnu‘ would imply an intention to definitely catch or arrest. For most westerners these are miles above their cerebral cortex.

But it is not just a case of two opposite meaning words making a stronger sense. A simple verb can have five, six or even more meanings. Here we shall consider only two of the many versatile ones.

‘Mārnu‘ is the verb meaning to kill, beat, or strike e.g., ‘mānchhe mārnu‘ (to kill a person) and ‘māyā mārnu‘ (to kill love/pity i.e. to forget). Now consider ‘angālo mārnu‘ and we get the meaning to embrace, ‘tālā mārnu‘ would imply to lock and ‘thappari mārnu‘ (thappar = slap, slapping) would be a peaceful gesture of clapping hands. The meaning ‘to kill’ could possibly be loosely inferred to in ‘thakai mārnu‘ (to rest) in that one would be metaphorically killing tiredness and stretching the same logic a little further ‘palaiti mārnu‘ would be to kill any intention to walk. ‘Pa‘ is the Nepali for leg and ‘latta‘ stands for matting and when the legs are matted together, in the sitting posture, it is a clear sign of being firmly seated or ‘palaiti mārayko‘.

The other verb is ‘lagāunu‘ or to wear as in ‘lugā lagāunu‘ (to wear clothes). But there is nothing to put on in ‘thes lagāunu‘ for the term translates as ‘to cause to trip’ and should you be told to ‘dhār lagāunu‘ you would be sharpening a knife or giving an edge to the creases of your trousers. My Aussie friend just could not get to the point of accepting that ‘bhāg lagāunu‘ meant ‘to divide’ and neither could he accept that to put the blame on someone we say ‘dos lagāunu‘. I guess he will have much more difficulty in understanding and accepting the phrase ‘māyā lagāi chhāryo‘ (love, wear, and abandon) but that is what he exactly did, and of all the people, to a Nepali girl.

Statesman News Service

GANGTOK, April 27: Miss Albina Lepcha, a teenaged girl left the audience spell bound when she tuned her violin piece “Mozart 23 II movement” as solo at the Defense Auditorium in Gangtok last night.

Albina, a fifteen-year-old orphan girl from Gandhi Ashram (an orphanage school) in Kalimpong, was very keen on learning violin and she started learning to play the instrument at the tender age of seven when she studied in class I. “Violin is my life and I am in madly in love with the instrument. I forget everything when I listen to the tune of violin,” she told The Statesman during a short interaction at the event. “I started learning to play the instrument at school as it was a part of our curriculum. But later on I fell in love with the instrument,” she added.

She along with her other friends has performed in Darjeeling and Kalimpong several times but played here in Gangtok for the first time. She narrated that this instrument may be her weak point. When asked that which other musical instrument appealed to her, she replied, “Piano would be the other instrument which I like listening to but do not have any idea about the technicalities of the instrument. It would be best if I continue to play violin so I pledge to continue playing it” she added.

Not only Albina but also the little ones from Army School drew an audience of 500-odd people including both army men and civilians.

The audience applauded the children for their efforts during the performance. The Army School also had a choir and an orchestra amid the programme, which was started by Gandhi Ashram from Kalimpong.

Gandhi Ashram began with Ay Mere Watan Key Logo, Johnny’s Apple Eat Sweet and a medley of Hindi film songs, which really enthralled the audience.

The army school did not lag behind and performed a full version of Ramayana called Ram Baan in their theatre show.
State Governor Mr Sudarshan Agarwal and chief justice Mr AN Ray along with state army chief GOC Mr KVS Lolotra also graced the occasion. “It really mesmerised me when Gandhi Ashram performed the solo piece on violin and orchestra” said Mr Sudarshan Agarwal state Governor.

“Students should be given more time by their parents and teachers should guide them well for future” he added.
Mr Agarwal also felicitated some teachers and performers and appreciated them at the end of the function.

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