May 2008
Monthly Archive
31 May 2008 01:28 am IST
-Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal
Today we will consider some of the several number of words we use to give an absolutely specific meaning to one particular item. I have already written that we have over a dozen specific terms for our ten digits and that is true of many other things. Here three items will be under the scanner: bamboo, hair and the family brood.
For us a bamboo is not just a hollow plant that grows slim and tall but a whole variety of plants, each with its own unique function. Before getting bamboozled by the variety let me just remind you of our flute or ‘bāsuri‘ which translates as, and it could not be more apt, a bamboo with a melody (bās = bamboo, sur = melody). Now to the varieties of that slender plant: ‘kansay bās‘ is the reed-like bamboo that grows near the banks of rivers and ‘gulyo bās/bāns‘ is the sweet one and therefore fit for the table. But probably the more preferred edible variety is the ‘tāmay bās‘ from which the best ‘tāmako achār’ can be made. For the animals we have the ‘gopay bās’ (’go‘ = cow) whose leaves are used as fodder for the cows and buffalos. ‘Choya‘ mats or ‘doko‘ are not too common nowadays but the ‘nānglo‘ is still a common household item and the better ones are made from the ‘choyo bās’ whose split pieces and shavings are known as ‘choya‘. Then there is the handsome one called ‘philingay bās‘ or the sparkling bamboo and finally the ubiquitous ‘mālingo bās‘ which once gave our forefather ‘bāsko kalam‘ (pen) and has been giving us, then and now, the famous ‘lingay ping‘. I had mentioned that the Nepali bamboo has the potential to bamboozle and that is so because we have additionally ‘nibha nigālo bās‘, ‘poreng bās‘, ‘pahelo nigalo bās‘, ‘malbās‘, ‘deubās‘, ‘pahelo bās‘, ‘kansay nigalo bās‘, ‘balu bās‘, ‘kalo bās‘, ‘titay bās‘, ‘ban nigalo bās‘, ‘thudi nigalo bās‘, ‘paryang bās‘, ‘philing (lāhuray) bās‘, ‘kat bās‘, ‘kālo nigālo bās‘, ‘chiniya bās‘, ‘ghoray nigālo bās‘ etc. (more…)
29 May 2008 06:19 pm IST
www.telegraphindia.com
Kalimpong, May 29: Fourteen councillors of the Kalimpong Municipality owing allegiance to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today went ahead and held a meeting of the civic board which the chairman, C. K. Kumai, had cancelled yesterday.
Kumai, a GNLF leader, had initially called the meeting following a request from the Morcha councillors. Yesterday, Kumai claimed that he had to cancel the meeting following death threats from one of them. (more…)
28 May 2008 12:50 pm IST
www.telegraphindia.com
AMIT UKIL
Siliguri, May 28: At the age of three, Sanjay Sharma lost his vision completely following a bout of illness. Today, the 16-year-old boy passed the Madhyamik examination with first division marks.
Sanjay did not forget to thank Mary Scott Home and School for the Blind in Kalimpong, where he studied up to Class VIII and still stays, and the Scottish University Mission Institution (SUMI), from where he appeared for the exams.
“My teachers, friends and the superintendent of the home helped me a lot,” he told The Telegraph from Kalimpong. “Besides that, I tried my level best and prayed to God.” (more…)
27 May 2008 06:22 pm IST
www.telegraphindia.com
RAJEEV RAVIDAS
Kalimpong, May 27: Contractors and suppliers have become unwitting victims of the impasse in the Kalimpong Municipality over GNLF leader C.K. Kumai’s decision to continue as the chairman.
Yesterday, the civic body was supposed to clear the long-standing dues of the contractors and suppliers, some of whom had taken loans or mortgaged jewellery to complete their projects. However, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, which wants Kumai to step down as chairman, laid siege to the municipality building and did not allow the contractors to collect their payments.
Given the politically sensitive nature of the impasse, no contractor is ready to go on record, except for Raju Chhetri, whose bill has been pending since 2000. “I had taken up lane and drainage construction projects costing Rs 76,000. In the past eight years, I have only been paid about 60 per cent of the amount, that too in instalments,” Chhetri said. (more…)
27 May 2008 06:19 pm IST
www.telegraphindia.com
Darjeeling, May 27: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has decided to stop all ongoing projects of National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) in the Darjeeling hills from June 7 as part of its movement for a separate state.
Binay Tamang, the media and publicity secretary of the Morcha, made the announcement today. “The party has decided to stop all work at the NHPC sites from June 7. We will also close down the corporation’s offices.”
The Morcha has already stopped movement of timber from the hills to the plains as part of its economic blockade programme designed to put pressure on the Bengal government. However, the decision to stop construction work at NHPC’s Teesta Low Dam Project (TLDP)-III and IV is likely to hit the country’s premier hydroelectric utility hard. NHPC is a central government enterprise. (more…)
26 May 2008 07:16 pm IST
www.telegraphindia.com
Algarah, May 26: The secretary of the CPM’s Kalimpong zonal committee, Prakash Subba, was arrested today after he allegedly picked up a fight with traders. A departmental inquiry has been initiated against his bodyguard, Mohan Rai, who had threatened a fish seller with his gun last night.
Algarah, which is 16km from Kalimpong, observed a bandh till 3.30pm today to protest against the incident. The shutdown had been called by local traders and supported by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha. It was lifted after Subba was arrested.
Eyewitnesses said the incident happened when Subba, who was passing through Algarah late in the evening yesterday, stopped by and sent his bodyguard to purchase fish. Rai soon got into an altercation with the shopkeeper Md Habib over the price. In the heat of the moment, he took out his gun and pointed it at Habib.
A policeman, who was standing nearby intervened and tried to restrain Rai. On seeing the commotion, Subba got out of his vehicle and hauled up the policeman for challenging his bodyguard. He, too allegedly took out a gun and threatened the man in khaki. (more…)
26 May 2008 07:13 pm IST
www.telegraphindia.com
Siliguri, May 26: Rabindra Bharati University (RBU) is keen to set up extension centres at Kalimpong and Mungpoo, the places where Rabindranath Tagore had stayed during his sojourns to the hills.
The vice-chancellor of the varsity, Karunasindhu Das, said he had submitted proposals to the government regarding the takeover of the museum at Mungpoo and the introduction of skill-development courses at Chitrabhanu in Kalimpong.
“Apart from a campus of the university in north Bengal, we want to set up extension centres in the two places in the hills, with which Gurudev had very strong connections,” Das said. “Through these centres, we want to reach out to the people of the hills, with whom the poet had shared an emotional bond.” (more…)
24 May 2008 12:43 am IST
www.telegraphindia.com
RAJEEV RAVIDAS
Kalimpong, May 23: GNLF leader and Kalimpong municipality chairman C.K. Kumai has fought off the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s calls for his resignation from the civic post and criticised the party for threatening him with “social boycott”.
Kumai, a lawyer, said the threat was “illegal, unconstitutional, unethical, immoral and directly against the principles of good conscience, equity and natural justice”.
The threat had come from Kalyan Dewan, the Kalimpong unit president of the Morcha. In a recent interview to a local TV channel, Dewan had said Kumai should either resign or face social boycott, by which he meant no one would be allowed to visit the civic chief at his residence, nor would he be permitted to visit other homes or even go to hotels.
“The flow of my clients has come down drastically since the telecast of Dewan’s statement for which he personally and the Morcha collectively will be held responsible,” said Kumai, who has lodged a police complaint against Dewan for his “provocative remarks”.
The GNLF leader said he would not resign from his post under duress. “The Morcha made a mistake by tabling a no-confidence vote against my board in January, which was duly defeated. Now, according to the rule, another no-trust motion can only be held after six months,” Kumai said.
Dewan said Kumai had taken his statement “out of context”. “What I meant was people could be compelled to ignore him completely because their lives are being affected by his obstinacy. The civic board meeting has not been held in four months and all development work has been stopped. The honourable thing for him to do is to resign,” Dewan said.
23 May 2008 01:05 am IST
- Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal
The game of football officially came to Kalimpong in 1910 (Centenary Year is coming fast!). The players played bare-feet and the teams did not necessarily have eleven players. To wear watches and steel rings around the wrist was a minor matter since carrying small knives and even khukuris were not deemed illegal. Later on when boots were introduced the players added stud-like nails to the soles. A good game then meant a good amount of blood spilled. All said and done, the team supporters were chaotic, the players tough and itching for a brawl, and the Mela Ground nothing short of a war zone. It was just a matter of time before someone went straight from the playing field to the cremation grounds. The danger was real and to add order and respectability (sanity?) to the game the Kalimpong Football Association (popularly known then as KFA) was formed and anything harmful, besides the regular football wear, was banned. But there were some things the KFA could do little about and so the free use of fists and hard-toed boots always left some blood on the grounds: the combat gear was removed but the gore remained. Times were rough and tough and the players played it tough and rough. Despite all the rules KFA imposed at the end of the long whistle it was not uncommon to see the referee beating it, post haste, up the Mela ground to the Motor Stand and straight home lest the losing side scrape some of his thick hide. Yes, referees then must have really been thick for if the losing side did not vent its anger then the public was always at hand. There were numerous occasions when the angry spectators invaded the ground, even while the game was on, and thrash the daylights out of the referee(s). Thick hide? Yes, for the next day or sometime later the same referee(s) would be back on Mela Ground, blowing his whistle to the curses and hooting of the public.
As a school boy I recall the late Mr. Dipsingh Foning always riding a horse up the Gr. Graham’s Homes’ steep incline and in one encounter he asked me if I played the game. This huge gentleman had such an overpowering personality that my knees became wobbly and I meekly replied, “A little.” He was pleased that I was not a regular kicker of the ball and told me why. In his days much before the game commenced targets would be fixed and a few players were specifically ordered to injure the better players of the opposing side. It did not matter if the opponent had the ball or not and all it required was that he be in the vicinity of the ball and “Wham!” one kick on the shin and the opposition was one less in count. I stared at the towering personality, as tough and steady as a papal tree, and silently thanked God that the small amount of football that I played was not in his times. Thats the way it was then. Normally a day before the match the players would hit the dingy tongba and rakshi joints, ‘charge’ themselves and march around the town, in full uniform, soliciting support from the townsfolk. Just prior to the match they would ‘recharge’ themselves and ’spiritually’ strengthened they would do the match, the tactical strength generally being a good amount of brawn and plenty of booze.
Somewhere around 1925-27 the games became so violent that they resembled gladiatorial encounters rather than sporting events. Football then had to be banned for several years. (I often wonder what would have happened if Kalimpong had taken after hockey. Twenty-two men each armed with a lethal hooked stick! It would have been a mayhem! No wonder hockey never took off in Kpg.) In the first few decades of the twentieth century, the gladiatorial years, Kalimpong’s football heroes were those who could kick the ball highest or the furthermost. People would gather at the kitchen fireside and tell their children of these heroes, “Ramay kicked the ball all the way to the masu-dokan, ammamma!” This prowess was utilized not just for the gallery but the ball would be shot beyond the masu-dokan to the forests nearby in order to waste time. If a team was winning by a goal or two then the winning team would repeatedly kick the ball as far to the jungle as possible and thus gain time. People think that the wasting time is a pretty new phenomenon acquired from the west. I think not: it was there in Kalimpong long before it became popular in Europe. Anyway, in the first half of 1930s a system of keeping a timekeeper was introduced and he would record all the minutes and seconds willfully wasted. At the end of the game the lost time was added on and it is quite amazing to think that Kalimpong football had “Time-added” system in the 1930s because for the rest of the world this a very recent development. All I can say is “Ammamma, hogi!”
21 May 2008 06:48 pm IST
www.telegraphindia.com
Kalimpong, May 21: Sharing the same name with his one-time neighbour cost Bijay Bareily, a former jawan of Eastern Frontier Rifles, Rs 1.15 lakh after his namesake withdrew the money from his State Bank of India account.
Bijay Bareily, alias Robin, who is a peon in a local school and the main accused, was arrested yesterday after police were informed about the fraud by the SBI authorities on Monday. He was today remanded in judicial custody along with two of his accomplices, George Rai and Robert Young. (more…)
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