www.kalimpong.info

Dear Readers,

It was almost five years ago that kalimpong.info was established. The site was born out of sheer homesickness and a need to stay in touch, a need to collate and archive Kalimpong information, and a need to share Kalimpong with the rest of the world.

Since then this site has tried to concentrate its efforts on providing the best Kalimpong-related content, and I’m glad to report that I think we’ve been pretty good with that. We have a well established and diverse readership and on more than one occasion I have been glad to see this site help reconnect old acquaintances, or help provide important information to Kalimpong residents, potential visitors and the diaspora.

Given the “.info” the site has tried to concentrate on the information aspect and not necessarily on beautification or gimmicks. However, it’s been five long years and I think it’s about time we gave this site a facelift. Not just for the aesthetics, but also to take advantage of the plethora of new technology out there for the web, and to ensure the security and stability of this site.

So in the next few weeks you may find little, or major, changes… you may find that the site’s just not loading, or looks like an ’80′s geocities page. So if you do encounter any issues, please feel free to email me at admin @ kalimpong.info to give me a heads up. I will appreciate it.

Finally, I would now like to solicit suggestions and advice, and hope to hear your kvetches and pet peeves, so that I can take them into consideration during the upgrade process. I will welcome and look forward to any comments about content, about design and style, about the site’s layout and its philosophy.. Everything is fair game.

Thank you all for your readership, for visiting, and please keep coming back.

-Admin

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www.kalimpong.info

Dear Readers,

Here’s wishing everyone a very happy Tiwar and happy Bhai Tika.

-admin

Weather warning from Meteorological Department, Gangtok.

Forecast valid for next 48 hours (08th October Noon):
 
1. Rain or thundershower likely to occur at many places over entire West Bengal including SHWB.
2. Heavy rain likely to occur at isolated places in the district of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri during next 48 hours.

(via Save The Hills)

Here are some photographs from the Phulpati procession in Kalimpong this year.
(Click on the photos for larger versions)

Enjoy.

And here’s wishing all readers of Kalimpong.info a very very happy Dasai.

(more…)

Dear Readers,

Here’s wishing everyone a very very Happy Independence Day.

Jay Gorkha!!

For today, here’s a song I hope you will enjoy.

Hamro Kalebung

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(Album – Heroes. Presented by S.U.M.I. Alumni)

Cheers

-Admin

(This song was featured previously in this post.)

Hi Again folks..

I apologize yet again for the additional week of non-posting here. Due to limited or non existent internet connections during my travels it was impossible to update the site on a frequent basis.

However, you may now expect regular posts again.

Thanks for your patience and continued visits,

Cheers,

-Admin

p.s. Here’s a picture I’d like to share with you all. Hopefully one of many from this trip of mine.

Photo credit: C. Naidu

Dear Readers,

I apologize for the almost 2 weeks of zero updates.

I was out trekking in West Sikkim and have been out of range of all communications and news for the past two weeks. (And it is a pretty good feeling).

I will now try to update all Kpg related news for the past two weeks and get back on track.

Hope all have been well in the meanwhile..

I’ll also try and posts some photographs from my trek.

Regards

-Admin

(Image snipped from the online article on Planet Earth)

Local personality Wg Cdr (Retd) Praful Rao, president of the Save The Hills NGO, has been featured in the March 2009 issue of the environmental magazine, Planet Earth.

Here is a short excerpt of the profile:

He has dared the mountains, crossed raging rivulets and followed serpentine paths in the woods, at times to feed his passion for photography, but very often to study and capture the treacherous ravines, crevices, cracks and rock structure of the Himalayas in Sikkim. Wing Commander Praful Rao (Retd), who describes himself as a true pahari, is the founder of Save The Hills, an NGO involved in spreading awareness about landslides.

Raised in the hilly terrain of the picturesque Kalimpong, Rao has always been fascinated by the hills and feels one with the air that surrounds them. Much as he loves the mountains, Rao realises that there is constant danger lurking, especially that of disastrous landslides, around the hilly slopes that are so much a part of the area he lives in. Which is why he has taken it upon him to ensure that the government departments turn their focus on this long-neglected geological problem. “The landslides problem is a very serious issue in these areas and I was first exposed to a major landslide when I was still in college. This was in 1968. It had been raining incessantly for almost a week and I still remember that the only noise we could hear was that of water forcing its way downhill through crevices and overflowing rivulets. Then the landslides happened. It was a record of sorts in the entire North East because we had almost 20,000 landslides and entire hills had cracked open. Almost 10-15 per cent of the tea production was destroyed during this period. The road between Darjeeling and Siliguri, which is a 80-km stretch, was shredded at more than 90 places and was totally cut off for two whole months. There was a terrible loss of human life and property,” he recalls.

Adventure is not new to this ex-Air Force officer, who as an air traffic and radar controller and air crash fire expert, was party to several rescue operations to save pilots from fallen aircraft. However, he admits that the images of the 1968 landslides don’t fade from his memory. He nearly relived the memories when in 2007 Kalimpong was again ravaged by landslides following a four-day downpour. The damage would have increased twice as much if it had rained for a day more, he informs. “We were inches away from disaster and very close to becoming victims of the rivers of mud and rocks that slid away. Though I had been working on landslide awareness in the area prior to that, and blogging about it, this incident instilled in me the urgency to take up the issue in a larger way,” he says.

Read the rest of the profile on the website of the publication (which unfortunately has a difficult unlinkable Flash based interface),

or, download a full text and image pdf version of the entire article.

Kudos to Praful Rao for his tireless zeal in raising awareness and fighting for landslide mitigation and control in our hills. We at kalimpong.info are proud of our association with Praful Rao and Save The Hills.

Dear Readers,

I’ve set up a twitter account for kalimpong.info at: http://twitter.com/kalimponginfo

If you are a twitter user you can goto the page and start following us.

I’ll try and tweet all new blog posts here for a start… and let’s see where things go from there.

Enjoy..

-Admin

The First Car in Dukka
-NIrnay John, MARG

29th November 2008 will be fondly remembered by the villagers of Dukka and Tanderbong, as, on this day, for the first time in the history of that area, a vehicle number bearing WB – 79 – 2119 was driven down the road the villagers had been constructing since 29th November 2007 near Dukka.

What a beautiful moment it was for the villagers there. Their joy knew no bounds. Their hard work and unity had not gone to waste. This event has indeed enlightened their spirit and has motivated them more to continue the construction even further. (more…)

Wishing all readers a Merry Christmas.

Here are some photographs from the Carol Fest and Christmas processions in Kalimpong during the Christmas week.

Dear Readers

Yesterday I had the express privilege and pleasure of meeting not just one but two important Kalimpong personalities. Please allow me to introduce Ms. Monila De and Mr. Wangchuk Basi.

Ms. De is an eminent literary figure and a veritable storehouse of Kalimpong stories and anecdotes. She has lived through Kalimpong’s chequered past and has first hand accounts of the colorful personalities and events from the times gone by. We are very lucky that she has graciously agreed to supply kalimpong.info with some of her essays and musings. I’m sure all our readers will eagerly await her writings.

Mr. Wangchuk Basi is one of Kalimpong’s stalwarts, ever conscientiously toiling for the common causes and for the greater good of Kalimpong and her denizens. His observations and musings on paper, or sms, are well appreciated by his social circle for their wit and incisiveness. And we are lucky that Mr. Basi has very kindly agreed to share his work with us.

- Admin