The hills were gripped by election fever in 2019 when the General Election was held, as a small window of hope was seen in the re-election of the Modi-led NDA. Modi, of course, had famously declared, “Gorkha ko sapana mero sapana”, The dream of the Gorkhas is my dream too!
Only a being can belong. Where is your being? You talk about Right, Left and Centre? You are a photocopy of a photocopy. Can’t you see, there is no You, there is no Home, there is no Us? Outfoxed, outmaneuvered, overpowered, outplayed, don’t you realize that you have been reduced to a speck of dust? The Right has no use for specks of dust and neither does the Left.
I try to lift the old and faded camouflage printed bag but it’s too heavy. Someone has brought iskus from Soureni busty and left the bag next to the door. There is no one else in the house apart from my grandmother, who is still out there trying to put the chickens in the coop. So I take an old shawl, cover the bag, and wait for the CRP raid.
My aunts waited for the cremation to end and sat and gossiped among themselves. They were talking about some place where women had cremated the dead, an unheard of practice, Keti haru lay garnu parcha abo. Someone also mentioned in hushed voices that in some tea garden, a woman had given birth to a dark-skinnned baby, “nikkhur kalo nani”. There was anxiety in their voices. I didn’t really understand the implication of these conversations.
Nobody knows what happened. A couple of women standing outside say that they heard the shot coming from Tingling fatak, they say they saw someone fall down. Minutes later, we hear that Nabin who was sitting on the culvert near Tinglink fatak ko hawaghar was shot, pointblank.
As I was saying, threats have also changed over the years. Cha inchi – probably because we are vertically wanting and are insecure about our Gorkha height – has always worked. So why say ” Marchu” or “tauko kati dinchu”, when you can say “Natrabhanay cha inchi… ” ?
The idea of Ram as it evolved when growing up in Darjeeling Hills, from comic books, to television series, and Nepali language’s most important scripture.
We have to make a well thought-out choice and cast our vote for a candidate and through our choices may weigh heavily upon us, we will at least have made one. At the struggle for the soul of our community intensifies, we simply do not have a choice but to make a choice.
FLASHBACK ONE “Khuchhing taala maitala Dus paisa ko suntala” This was a fun oriented chant which we choired jerking our shoulders upwards and downwards in…
When we vote, we will be voting to win back our agency, our rights as citizens of India, our right to political dissent, our right to make constitutional demands, our right to fair trail, our right to the internet, our right over our natural resources, our right to hold protest marches, right to assemble, and our right to determine our own fate under the Indian Constitution.