The Sherpa Ponbo of Sherpagaon: The Last Keeper of the Invisible World

When I stepped back onto the village road, motorcycles continued to pass, children still laughed somewhere down the slope, and neighbours greeted one another before continuing home. Nothing suggested that, inside one ordinary house, sat the last practicing Ponbo of Sherpagaon, holding a lineage preserved not through books but through memory, apprenticeship, and family. Whether another Ponbo will emerge after Pemsangay Sherpa remains unknown. But one thing is certain: traditions disappear long before the last practitioner dies, when their stories are no longer remembered.

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Dazzling Darjeeling

Bhasa Sangrami Shri. Gopal Singh Bhandari

His association with literature brought him in close contact with the who’s who of the Nepali Bhasa Manyata Andolan, in which he was an active participant. His articles and write-ups in Hindi and Urdu languages made people outside Darjeeling region aware of the plight of Nepali speaking Gorkhas. A dedicated foot soldier of Gorkha cause, Gopal Singh Bhandari openly supported the demand for Gorkhaland even as a Government servant. The then Govt of West Bengal transferred him to Krishnanagar as a punishment, following which he had resigned, but later the government relented.