www.kalimpong.info

The Telegraph

Mungpoo, May 9: On his 80th birthday on May 9, 1940, Rabindranath Tagore had enjoyed being wheeled around the bungalow at Mungpoo by K.B. Yonzon, a youth of 18 years then.

Seventy-years later, Yonzon, now 88, is among a handful of people who had witnessed probably the last of Tagore’s birthday celebrations before his death in August 1941.

“I was a worker of a Cinchona factory here and was assigned to take care of Gurudev during his stay. Around 300 villagers had gathered here on his 80th birthday with flowers and garlands. Gurudev had wished to be wheeled around the bungalow so that he could meet the people. I had taken him around and he was very happy,” Yonzon said at Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations here today.

Overwhelmed by the love and affection of the people, Tagore had penned three poems including Janmadin during his stay here which are still preserved in the Rabindranath Museum, now housed in the bungalow.

To Pratap Singh Ghatraj, the bard in flowing white hair had appeared like a “sadhu”. “I had attended his birthday celebration in 1940 as a 10-year-old with my mother. I was awed by his appearance because he looked like a sadhu,” Ghatraj, now 80, said.

The bungalow at Mungpoo, around 40km from Siliguri, wore a festive look today with people from all quarters flocking there to celebrate the poet’s birthday. School children in colourful dresses and local people performed folk dances, recited Tagore’s poems and sang Rabindra Sangeet.

The programme was jointly organised by the district administration, information and cultural department, directorate of cinchona and other medicinal plants, the Rabindra Memorial Model Labour Welfare Centre and the local people of Mungpoo.

Tagore had visited Mungpoo four times from 1938 to 1940 because of his love for the place and special bond with Maitreyi Devi, the daughter of his friend Surendranath Dasgupta. Memoirs of his stay here were published by Maitreyi Devi in her book Mungpoote Rabindranath translated into English as Tagore by Fireside .
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www.kalimpong.info

The Telegraph – Archives
RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Neighbour Krishna Sharma in front of Gauripur House.
Picture by Chinlop Fudong Lepcha

Kalimpong, April 16: Had Rabindranath Tagore been alive, he might have been moved to pen an elegy on the approaching death of the bungalow from where he had recited his poem, Janmodin (Birthday), live on the national radio more than 70 years ago.

Almost four weeks short of another anniversary of the recitation (that took place in 1938), it is difficult to imagine that Gauripur House on Hill Top used to be one of the favourite summer destinations of the Nobel Laureate.

The two-storied bungalow, owned by B.K. Roychowdhury of Calcutta, is on a scenic hill, near here, and is surrounded by lots of greenery.

Tagore had visited the bungalow three-four times and stayed as a guest of the Roychowdhurys.

However, the building is in need of serious repair.

Thick foliage has grown all over the house, the windows are broken, and the interiors are in a bad shape too.

Even the unmetalled approach road, which is part of the property, had seen better years. Wild growths have all but hidden most of the stretch.

“We had requested the government to take over the house and convert it into a museum on many occasions, but to no avail,” said M.K. Bhattacharya, a professor of political science at Kalimpong College.

Biswanath Paul, principal of a cooperative training centre that ran from the ground floor of the bungalow from the fifties to the late nineties, said he had approached the former chairman of the DGHC, Subash Ghisingh, with a request to acquire and preserve the building as a heritage property, but without much success.

“The bungalow can be revived as a heritage home (read hotel). It should get a good number of visitors,” Paul said over the phone from Siliguri.

There is no dearth of tourists to the place even now. It is a must-see, especially for the Bengalis.

“Tourists keep coming here frequently. Most of them go back with bitter-sweet memories of the place,” said Sangita Sharma, who lives with her husband on the first floor of the bungalow.

Her family has been the caretakers of the building for three generations now.

Sangita’s 80-year-old mother Krishna, who lives in a house just below the compound of the bungalow, recalled meeting Tagore as a child.

“I remember him as an old man with a khadal (wooden slippers). I was very young then. We were scared of going near the bungalow,” Krishna said.

Whatever could have been the reasons for little Krishna’s fear all those years ago, for people like Bhattacharya, Paul and his wife Bani, a retired professor of Sanskrit of Kalimpong College, the fear is that their efforts to preserve the place might never bear fruit.

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www.kalimpong.info

The Telegraph

Siliguri, April 13: Children attending the 40-odd Lepcha night schools in the three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling will find a treasure trove of knowledge about their community in the second edition of the Lepcha-English Encyclopaedic Dictionary that will be introduced in the institutions soon.

The book was published in October last year.

“The first Lepcha-English dictionary was compiled by General G.B. Mainwaring, an Englishman, in 1898. However, the first dictionary compiled by an indigenous Lepcha, K.P. Tamsang, was published in 1980. The book went out of stock and we undertook the task of coming out with the second edition by adding more words about the community’s religion, flora and fauna and natural resources,” Lyangsong Tamsang Lepcha, the editor of the second edition, told The Telegraph today. (more…)

… the Kalimpong Calling blog has one of its quarterly updates.

The Kalimpong Calling weblog has a fun first person writeup of the Shaheed cup football tournament finals in Kalimpong (with an interesting historical anecdote about Mela Ground).

Those familiar with Prabin Moktan and his writings will be happy to learn that he has recently started a weblog.

For those not yet familiar, please check it out and you will not be disappointed.

Looking forward to reading Mr. Moktan’s take on Kalimpong… and current events back home.

- Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal

It was towards the winter of 1995 in one of my customary visits to Professor Richard Keith Sprigg’s one-room books and journals lined apartment that I received one of the most fascinating surprises of my life. Dr. Sprigg, a retired professor of Cambridge University, is in many ways a man of many surprises but I was never prepared for the particular surprise that was in store for me.

Reaching Kalimpong early one day, and having plenty of time to ‘kill’ before picking up my daughter from the Convent, one of the many options open to me was a visit to the old linguist. A visit to him had always been profitable and this one was not expected to be any less. In most of my visits I would be the one to begin the conversation as I always had a stock of questions to which he invariably had ready set of amazingly scholarly answers. This time around it was he who commenced the proceedings and that too in a very extraordinary manner. He opened a cupboard, took out a fresh bottle of premium Scotch Whisky and asked that we celebrate. It appeared that he had been waiting for several weeks to find someone suitable to mark one of the most memorable days in his life. The problem was that it was just ten o’clock in the morning and at twelve I had to collect my daughter and the hum of alcohol in my breath would immediately erase the relatively good impression that I had cultivated, over almost a decade, with the nuns at the convent. Despite the great honour from the internationally respected linguist I was not prepared to annihilate my reputation, and in the process my daughter’s too, without having some extraordinarily compelling reasons. Eventually we hit upon a compromise: he would narrate the unforgettable event and if I found that to be worthy of a celebration I would wet my throat. In the meanwhile I had mentally planned to ask my friend to fetch my daughter should the unexpected had the better of me.

The old gentleman proudly informed me that he had received his third Doctorate a few weeks ago. The news just stunned me. I knew that he was working on a Balti dictionary but in my over half a dozen annual visits to his place I had never seen him working on a dissertation and all of a sudden this surprise. Knowing that he had a Ph. D. from London University and a Litt. D. from Cambridge I enquired if this one was from Oxford. The Professor was firm that this Doctorate was more valuable than what Oxford could confer and recounted the following story.

A few weeks ago he had been invited to address a Rai conference in Capitol Hall at Darjeeling. He planned out two speeches, a short and a long one, with the same introduction. While delivering the introductory part of the speech if the audience became fidgety and noisy he would follow it up with the short speech and if the public responded well then he would go for the longer one. The response was favourable and he continued with the lengthy lecture dwelling on the historical, cultural and other aspects of the Rais of Nepal and Darjeeling. The Rais, it must be remembered, have a most unique and colourful feature in their cultural milieu represented by the Bijuwa (shaman) whom they call Mangpa. It was natural that a good portion of the lecture had to do with the mangpas and at the end of the speech the mangpas present were so pleased with what the old man had to say that they went up the stage, put the mangpa attire on him, beat their drums, chanted mantras and officially ordained Professor Sprigg as an honorary mangpa. Thus Professor Richard Keith Sprigg, an Englishman to the boot, became the first and only European mangpa. The story ended there and he uncorked the bottle confident that I would now honor the event with a sip or two.

I was still not prepared to humour him and asked him to tell me about his third Doctorate instead of wasting time over a true but off the track story. He stared at me through his light blue eyes, almost apologetically, and remarked in a tone of disappointment that I had overlooked the story. He exclaimed with an unmistakable emphasis that he was now a mangpa, and that was a Doctorate because he had now become Rai witchdoctor. It was an unusual Doctorate but it was valuable and significant to him because it had come from the hearts of the simple people he had gone to address. He was overwhelmed and if he had won some Rai hearts with his speech the Rais had certainly gained him with their gesture. The Doctorate actually was an extraordinary one and certainly not something that Oxford University could bestow.

My mentor had won. It was barely 10:30 am and there I was absolutely dumbfounded not because of the Scotch in me but because of the story that led me to imbibe it.

Here’s an earlier article by Dr. Wangyal on Professor Sprigg.
-admin

Dear Readers,

Apologies for the long delay in posting Ms. Monila De’s articles. She was very gracious in giving us access to a bunch of her articles. However since these articles are all hard copies (typed) I have to re-type them out in order to post them here. Which means I can only put them up when I get the time to transcribe them. Which means there may be substantial time gaps between these postings.

Enjoy…

-Admin

The Enchantment of Kalimpong

One gets a perfect, clear view of Kalimpong from Peshok on the opposite mountain. it looks like a giant tortoise sitting in the middle of the high himalayas. in the distance is the Homes mountain with the outline of a reclining elephant’s head and back. The low lying trunk joins the tortoise. Two rivers run at the base of these mountains. The mighty Teesta in the west and a smaller gurgling Relli in the east.

Only 4500 feet high, Kalimpong is blessed with the pleasantest and most equitable climate compared to all the hill stations on this part of the HImalayan range. Mild winters and summers make it possible for me to live here throughout the year very comfortably.

Being low, wide and rather flat steep climbs are nor encountered. Houses built, long ago, were on acres of land with tennis courts, terraced gardens and large flat lawns. The old schools all have more than one enormous play fields. Kalimpong is not hemmed in. It is full of wide open spaces with a clear view of the mountain ranges all around, the 180 span of snow peaks and the domed sky above. (more…)

it is not by any stretch of imagination among the grand roads that connect this vast sub-continent. however it is of strategic importance as it is the life line between sikkim and vast chunks of the kalimpong subdivision with the rest of the country. a bolero or any one of the swifter, swankier and smaller cars these days can do the entire 75kms stretch between siliguri to gangtok in 3 1/2 hrs. many of the younger drivers can do it in three hours flat i am told. but, that is asking for trouble. at best of times the road is quite motorable and the border roads organisation people do a fairly good job of keeping it that way. but the road is very narrow and and punctuated by endless series of sharp bends that will brook no carelessness or entertain the whims of speed freaks. the terrain is unforgiving and has zero tolerance for mistakes.. it could be very costly.

to drive home this point, the BRO has put up many sign boards along the route. dire warnings served with a touch of humour. here are some;

1. this is not a rally. enjoy the valley
2. be gentle on my curves
3. drinking and driving don’t mix
4. haste makes waste
5. if married..divorce drink
6. BRO can build roads to anywhere except the skies.
but we are working at it.

i have driven the teesta highway more times than i can remember, and i will do it as many more times as i can. it is by far one of the preetiest drives in the country. it does get very messy during the monsoons with any number of landslips that hold up traffic for hours and sometimes…days. otherwise as the legend says…”enjoy” the valley. carry a flask of coffee, sandwiches, and a cd player. pull up where the river flows gentle along a sandy bank. listen to ‘yesterday once more’. hang around for a while. if you’re lucky you just might catch the sun going down.

time passes, and a great many things just become a clutter of memories . some days i think of days past and remember things from my childhood. the many treks and hikes down to the valleys where our two rivers flowed..relli on the east and teesta on the west. the many paths and trails in the woods and forests that led to our secret swimming holes. aah, then the rivers were pristine, their waters clear and cool and we spent magical summer days diving off the rocks basking in the sun wishing the day never came to an end. and innocence would last forever.

along the way we often came across the most gorgeous butterflies .They seemed to be everywhere. So many that the national geographic magazine once did a long article on it under the banner “the valley of butterflies”. then sometime beginning in the late 60’s the butterflies vanished. they say the great floods of 68 was responsible.likely. what remained swiftly became a collectors treasure hunt. and they came from all over the world with butterfly nets and trophy boxes,and for a while it seemed like these winged creatures of such exquisite beauty too would be driven to extinction.

Almost four decades ,and it seems somewhere in the hidden shades of the remaining forests and under the warm moist rocks of the river bends, the butterflies have made a slow but definite comeback. i don’t know how long it will last this time. the nhpc with their grandiose plans to build hydroelectricity dams are clawing away in the valley; and human colonisation of forest lands, the butterflies are making their last stand here.

i took these pictures over the last two summers. butterflies are very difficult subjects. their flight patterns are absolutely freaky. and most times they land and stay still just long enough to tease you. i had some very interesting moments getting these shots and will tell you about it some other time. for now hope you enjoy these pictures as much as i enjoyed taking them.

chuck