Two striking features of the forthcoming election are, the plethora of political parties and contestants, and the replacement of the “G(orkhaland)” word with a Bengal government-friendly “D(evelopment)”. Of course, the political aspirants sporadically evoke the “G” word, albeit not often enough to ruffle feathers in Nabanna. The term “Development”, though,  is like the daily horoscope. It is strikingly concrete but sufficiently vague; has scope for multiple interpretations as well as immediate escape from one’s memory. To cite a recent example, for a territory which has been misgoverned for decades, a clean-up of the Capital Cinema Hall also becomes a milestone. Should one not commend the repair of the façade? Of course, one should! Anyone who has visited other hill stations in India is struck by the dilapidated state of our hills. The victory lap by Hamro Party, post-clean-up of a building,  should, therefore, be a moment of deep reflection among the Gorkhas on the social, political, economic, and historic mess that we are in.

The author still believes that, for the Gorkhas, identity should trump development. The politics which advocates, “Development until Gorkhaland” is a facade for compromise. Interestingly, not only the political parties but some established Gorkha journalists/ political commentators are echoing this and tacitly building a favourable ecosystem for Hamro Party’s “apolitical” stance. I believe that we don’t need a GTA in any shape or form, even if the 2011 agreement is honoured by the Bengal government in toto (which was the GJMM’s latest stance pre-BG hunger strike). There are well-qualified and trained administrators from the  IAS and WBCS who can carry out the said task without indulging in JCB politics.

What happens to Gorkhaland now? Nothing, until a new leader or a new party arrives. Because as far as political parties are concerned, “candles” in Darjeeling are suitable only for personal use, not for public purposes. What with the rain and the wind, it does not even serve a symbolic function. “Bread”, tosh roti, is popular, but its popularity rests on convenience rather than nutritional value. And in a situation where the tosh roti is accompanied not by a Himal Chuli , Sunchari, or even Himalaya Darpan, but the rabidly anti-Gorkhaland TheTelegraph, it becomes suspect of tacit blessings from Nabanna. The remaining several dajus are Didi ko sakkhaybhais who have folded with alarming agility, and in their current poses of absurd contortion, are of no use to the Gorkhas.

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The powerful, symbolic deconstruction of how things are today is what makes Our Primer such a compulsive read.

 A for Andolan.  Proper Noun.

Always begins with a capital letter. A. Our Kaali and Chandi. Our Athena and Adrestia.  Our Rudra and Virabhadra. 1986, 2007, 2017  Impossible to put a full stop after 2017, because, we know better.  She possesses us. She demands sacrifice. Kills  hundreds. Wounds  thousands. Leads to untold suffering. But is she blind? Is she drunk on blood? Bringing  enormous prosperity to the blessed and their brood.  What about those who lie cremated, buried, and forgotten? The ones who made the offerings. No, make no mistake. She is no Govinda Vasudeva. She is no Uma. She is Primal. She is Vengeance. She is Fury. Snatches her pound of flesh when the time is right, for Her, not you. The swanky car you drive on potholed streets, the Instagramy photos of your paid vacation. Lovely children you had. What happened to them? And what happened to You? Don’t you know? Karma is also your patrimony. Its Kali’s Yuga, the demon ensures swift justice. For no betrayal can go unpunished. Blood will have blood.

Wounded by the rakshas, stabbed in the back by the back-stabbers, she lies growling, licking her wounds, in those dark damp caves. Oh Chandraghanta! Oh Kaalratri! Are you vanquished?  

Oh, but she is relentless. She is omnipotent.  She is our past and our present. Goddess, when will you be appeased?  When will you ascend to the heavens and let us poor mortals be?

When will this naavratri end?

B for Bango Bhango Hobayna.  Invented Phrase.

Repeated ad-infinitum. A lie in loop. Shantanu Ghosh in Park Street, Kakoli Majumdar in 24 Parganas, Keshto Babu in Jalpaiguri. Good people with incomplete knowledge of history.  Stuff happened:

• 1835:  Sikkim gifts Darjeeling to the British,
• 1864-65:  1^st Anglo- Bhutanese war and Bhutan loses Doars and Kalimpong to the British.
• 1947-1954: Status? It’s Complicated. Pakistani flag unfurled at Capital Cinema, Darjeeling.
• 1954- Gorkha history silenced with the Absorbed Area Act.

Bango Bhango Hobayna, a phrase that has its roots in the collective psyche of the Bengali community rather than in history. Partitioned by the British in 1905, the initial stirrings of a large-scale Hindu-Muslim communal tension rears its ugly head in Bengal. A bloody partition in 1947 results in the influx of millions of refugees, over the next three decades; who settle in the  foothills of Darjeeling, North-Eastern states  and the rest of India. Today, driven by poverty, immigrants continue this journey along the road well-travelled.

The once flourishing Bengal Presidency metamorphoses into West Bengal: resource-poor, land of barbaric communal riots, unceasing violence, the Badlands of Naya Bharat. This trauma lies buried in the Bengali psyche.

The British have messed up the world.

C for  Centre. (Abstract Noun)

In Centre we trust.

Convivial when you are needed. Cocky when you are caged, cornered, and crushed. Carrot dangling in the distant horizon, while the State breaks your bones with Sticks. A one-sided love affair, like being trapped in the friend-zone. Makes you do the chores. Calls you when help is needed. Never acknowledges you in public. Consistently capable of selective amnesia, when it’s you who seek assistance.

Can’t you see through it all? Will you always be like the foolish lover who thinks eventually the beloved will be yours? Hoping, maybe not now, but someday… Stupid gets as Stupid does! Go on, get willingly fooled. Denial gives solace, but it’s not the warm embrace of a lover. Sever the ties.

Don’t you know, love is symbiotic not parasitic?

D for Decentered. Verb denoting a state of (non) Being.

Fascists, Right-Wing, Urban-Naxals, Commies, why do you use these terms? Because the rest of India does? Who are you among these “Fascists” and “Urban-Naxals”? A sharer of their Facebook  posts, a re-tweeter of their tweets, a  parroter of their fancy lines? Feels good to be a part of them? Speaking in their register, does it give you a sense of belonging? Makes you feel like a majority, no?

Hah! You don’t belong there, you belong nowhere.

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.

“You are not the Right, you are neither the Left, you don’t even have a Center. You are Decentered.”                                                                                                                        -divya pradhan

This is part of the Special Series on Gorkhaland Andolan, wherein we seek to document the lived history of our people from the 1986-88 andolan days and beyond. This article by our contributor Divya Pradhan is Part III of her series of recollections. You can read the Part I here, Part II here and Part III here We request all our readers who have lived through this period to kindly contribute your experiences. This is our lived history, and if we do not document it, no one else will.

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FEAR

My grandparents no longer live in the house next to the main road. They have moved to the small ration shop which they own, for safety.   I have been asked to guard the half-open ration shop today, while my grandmother cooks in the kitchen. I do this willingly because of the rush of self-importance I feel on being made a shop keeper. Its almost 10 in the morning so there are very few people around. Most people would have gone to work at the sound of the morning siren. The shop smells of freshly ground wheat, raw rice and twines.

I am really into decimals and fractions these days. So when some women come and ask for “ek tukra supari” and say they will pay me later, i make a note of the amount they owe and reach absurd figures like 11.35 paisa. I ask their names and address, which they tell me (now I realise indulgently) , Sagar ko ama- kothi dhura, Sainli badi- nau number, Sunita-pallo gaun. I can recognize these adults when I go to their houses to call a friend, but if I ever meet one outside they all look the same to me.

I am not party to some of the larger purchases that have been made because the customers insisted that I call my grandmother. I also watch with mild shock that my grandmother casually hands over “ek tukra supari” without asking for payment or noting it down.  

As the day progresses, I realise that playing real shopkeeper is a dull affair. It’s nowhere close to the one I play with my cousins where we fashion scales from old tins of Cherry Blossom shoe polish.

I hear my grandmother calling me loudly. She is panic-stricken. She closes the shop and tells me about a CRP raid in progress. Then she goes to put the chickens in the coop. While she is away, I notice that there is a bagful of iskus inside a Casa Paco bag.

Even kids my age know that Panchanan, Handa and Casa Paco bags are bad news. 

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.

Special Series on Gorkhaland: to be continued…

The post Special Series on Gorkhaland Andolan – Shards of Memories from a Shattered Mirror – Part III appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

1. Circle of Life

It was almost a tradition to stay at my grandparents’ place in Phuguri, before we were shunted off to the plains to spend time with our father, whom we hardly ever met. Thulo Ghar, my cousin Nipen’s place which was also the mul ghar for the large network of relatives, was also literally thulo. As kids we loved the house because it had  the best orange trees over which we were given a free run and a TV where a  gaggle of cousins and local kids  gathered, especially on Fridays, to watch cartoons telecast from Bangladesh. Next to the TV was a life-size poster of a man in white holding a bat with the words “Azhar Hazaar” emblazoned on it. Beyond this room was my granduncle’s room and an anteroom, filled with volumes of “Condensed Reader’s Digest”, encyclopedias and English fiction. My mother thought that ‘Wisdom’ and an array of soviet publications like ‘Misha’ and ‘Sputnik’ were what a young mind needed, had no clue about what I read unsupervised in that lovely corner- crime thrillers, stories of intrigue, romance, betrayal, simply delicious prose.

While I read, thulo hajurbuwa lay in bed, with pills, packets of Top biscuits and a flask of water, on the bedside table next to him. He had diabetes so he only ate Britannia Top biscuits. I ate the biscuits, devoured the books, while my cousins watched cartoons on TV under the watchful eyes of “Azhar Hazaar”.

Thulo hajurbuwa died when the andolan was at its peak. After his body was taken for cremation to Manju khola, I was sent with some of my aunts with packets of rasna and water for those who had gone ahead with the corpse. We waited for the malami near the cremation ground, hidden by tall bushes, so that even though I couldn’t see the funeral pyre I could smell a peculiar odour in the air. That was the first I smelt human flesh burn. It was quite similar to the smell of polayko bhainsi ko masu, a staple in newari households during dasain.

Why would someone send me, a kid to the cremation grounds? Maybe nobody sent me, I must gone on my own.  

That’s how I said goodbye to the diabetic, who shared his Top biscuits with me and introduced me to the world of English prose.

2. “Ghising Eir Baccha“

We reached quite late in the evening. It took us almost four hours in a bus from Siliguri, to reach one of the subdivisions where my father was posted. My two maternal cousins, the ones with the “wanted” father and another paternal cousin, whose parents were in Brunei, were also with us. The next morning, Nipen and my other cousin went to the nearby pukur (pond as they call it in Bengali), to catch fish and swim, so they said. They took my father’s old Hercules cycle, riding half-pytaal (a corruption of the word pedal, for those who were not tall enough to sit on the seat and ride full pedal), all set for a day of madesh ko fun. I remember the distraught look on their faces when they returned shortly afterwards. They told my mother that some locals has thrown stones at them and called them “ghising eir bacchha” (Ghising’s children)

They were scared of course, they were just a couple of pre-teens.I remember that night, a mob gathered in front of our quarters and threw stones and shouted GHISING EIR BACCHA! GHISING EIR BACCHA!

My mother tells me that there were no mobs and no one threw stones at our house. No one throws stone at police quarters. 

It’s strange, must have been imaginary mobs in my head.

3. All News Is Bad News.

We are in the news for the first time. Literally, there is a short news report about our paternal house in Tindhare being raided by the police. My grandfather has retired from his job at the Railway workshop and is now living with us. The house has been locked since. We rushed to Tindhare and are told by our relatives that they spoke with a reporter from Telegraph. Nothing is destroyed, our relatives tell us that the CRPF had broken the lock and entered, but when they saw a framed b/w photo of my father in police uniform they didn’t do any further damage.

My cousin Nipen is not so lucky. His house “thulo ghar” has been burnt and razed to the ground. My diabetic granduncle was moved along with his Top biscuits to the kitchen, which stands separately from the main house. Thank God thulo ghar has a fairly thulo kitchen.

 Everyone talks about how my grand uncle had been selected for the navy but his mother threatened to kill herself if he went away. So he spent his entire life, living in the house where he was born, working as Garden bau, just to become old and watch his purkhauli house burn in front of his eyes, with his only child missing for weeks.

The post Special Series on Gorkhaland Andolan – Shards of Memories from a Shattered Mirror – Part II appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

Nabin Fell Down and Broke His Crown

The collective un/conscious of the Indian Gorkhas, is a storehouse of memories, some are lost to history, some lie buried literally and metaphorically, but most of it remains, simply hidden behind a veneer of the quotidian, coming to haunt us every time we are under attack. What else would explain our doggedness in the face of state sponsored tyranny, failed leaderships, and pliable accomplices from among our own? Why do we come together every time we hear the word “Gorkhaland”? Why do we carry this historical burden in our psyche? And importantly, in spite of our tenacity and sacrifice, why do we fail? It’s easy to blame leadership, the ecosystem around the particular leadership or a tyrannical state but at some point in time we have to introspect, and ask fundamental questions like- What is my individual contribution to the movement? If our demand is being compromised, what have I done to stop it or at least mitigate the effects? Barack Obama once talked about the woke generation and how they should know that, social media activism is not the same as participating in a real movement. Is that where our fault lies?

“Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As an old enemy”

  -Kurt Cobain   

It was going to be just another day of eating, reading and road-badminton. With schools closed again, we have been bundled-off to our grandparents’ house in Phuguri. We love it here and everyone adores us. It is our mawali after all. All the elders of the village call us by our pet names and asks, “Aayis? Kailay aako?” This is always accompanied by appreciative and loving comments on how much we have grown, since the last time they saw us (not more than three months ago).

Like us, our cousins have also come back and it’s just like dasain, but not quite.

The anxiety in the air is palpable, especially since terror has come closer home. We are too young to comprehend the gravity of the situation, but my cousins who are only a couple of years younger to me have a dejected look on their face. Their father, my uncle, is in hiding. A close aide and nephew of Ghising, he is a wanted man. “Wanted” is such a loaded word, conjuring images of tough criminals, but Gyanen mama is a softie, someone who can always be depended upon to buy us dalmut and lal patthar from Modi ko dokan. It’s been weeks since he left home along with other men and no one has heard from them. The very absence of news from the missing men must have been a source of consolation for the families.

There are hardly any men around, there are some “CPM” men of course. CPM for us kids meant those whose fathers were at home and there were others who were not-CPM like Nipen, whose father was missing. However we aren’t particularly interested or disturbed by all this. Shops are closed, schools are closed and we are in Phuguri in the middle of the academic session, and we couldn’t care for anything else. Today too, we plan to play badminton on the main road in front our house. It’s a clear day, blinding blue skies with tufts of cirrus clouds, against the backdrop of emerald tea garden bushes. We can see as far as Sonada and Kurseong and the awe-inspiring ambattay ko pairo.

My cousin-uncle, Niraj mama is also my dauntari, he always lets me stand on the leeward side so that I have an advantage over him while playing badminton. We play on the mainroad , so it’s always windy. A convoy of CRPF truck  trundles by so we have to stop our game, which I am winning, because of my opponent’s generosity. Immediately after a few minutes, we hear a shot ringing and women rush out from their homes.

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.

I didn’t see him fall; I didn’t know who he was, I only remember these words – “Nabin” “culvert” “Purlukkai” “herda-herdaii”.

I have no memory of what happened after, but the word ‘nabin’ always takes me back to that day- n-a-b-i-n, not navin but nabin.

…While writing this, I spoke to my uncle about the incident and he told me that the man who was shot was Robin a handy boy of a local bus, and not Nabin. Somehow Nabin conjures images of Jack who fell down and Jill who broke her crown and came tumbling down…

[Writes: Divya Pradhan, she is an Asst Professor in the Department of English, Mata Sundri College, Univeristy of Delhi]

The post Special Series on Gorkhaland Andolan – Shards of Memories from a Shattered Mirror – Part I appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

This dissection of the simple innocuous word “Natrabhanay” by our contributor Divya Pradhan is a must read for all

You may have heard this joke about a hen-pecked husband and his wife. His wife was a big bully and used to keep saying “Natrabhanay…. “.

He was so scared of her that he would do whatever she ordered. One day, he made up his mind to stand up to his bullying wife. Later in the day, she hollered , “AUU BHANNRA MOLI HALA TA, NATRABHANAY… “.

The husband gathered his courage and squeaked, “Natrabhanay…kay? “
She said, “Natrabhanay moii molchu“.

Teaches you something about bullies and bullying!

You know, we Gorkhas, are truly a threatened community. The first time I became aware of this was when I moved to Delhi for my higher studies, more than two decades ago. My classmate, a Delhite invited me for lunch at her place. As I sat in the living room, her seven year old brother kept jumping on the sofa. What happened next was simply shocking! His mother looked at him and said, “Aap nay homework nahi kiya hai na Rohan?” Loosely translated as “tapainlay homework garnu bhako chaina hai Rohan?“

See now, this is markedly different from what I have grown up thinking is a perfectly normal conversation between a parent and a child- jhyanpat lay kan tininini bhayapachi, a whack on the head with the homework copy, and only then the question, “HOMBAK GARAYKO CHAINAS? Kaman ma patti tipnu pathaunchu” – this was a real threat because even as kids we had an inkling about the lives of tea garden labourers and though we loved collecting jhikra in winter or playing luki-chori among the tea bushes, we didn’t ever fancy becoming a tea garden labourer. Other eternal favourites were, “eta ko gala uta, uta ko gala …, haath khutta bhaanchi dinchu, buddhi ko birko ma dhakana, etc etc…”, you get the drift! That’s what parenting is at our place- threats and if that doesn’t work, violence in form dhulaii.

Bichara hami, samjhindan maya lagcha.

When we grew older we had to manage double threats from parents and teachers, and a triple one from our love interests- Suicide threat from girls to boys and “Pura mattidinchu (I will get drunk) threats from boys to girls.
There was an urban legend about a boy who instead of saying “purra mati dinchu” said “timro saathi lai bhagaidinchu“, a Freudian slip, and needless to say the threat fell flat because the girl ditched the boy and no one wants to be seen with the ditchee, that makes you a double loser,being a ditcher keeps one’s self-esteem high.

Apropos of love-shove, I understood that things have changed, when my students told me that they just “swipe right” and move on, akhir, tinder today refers to an app and not what you threaten to do. It’s no more, “timro yaad ma jaali rahey chu“, today kids just swipe right and move on.

Anyway, enough of these daily reminders about my age, I was actually talking about threats. Perhaps it’s out of a deep respect for our cultural norms that state governments and our own netas also immediately resort to threats, whenever they think we have crossed the line. Verbal threat of cha inchi, actual cha inchi, samaaj bahiskar, gherau have been the norm, perhaps because we know no better. I say it all boils down to parenting!

Now, if our parents threaten us, our own netas threaten us, why do we appear so shocked when a non-Gorkha inspector, allegedly, gives rape threats. Shouldn’t we be appreciative of his knowledge and respect for our norms and values?

But I digress.

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… ” ?

Things have changed a lot in the past 4-5 years. Nowadays, people in Darjeeling mostly fear intellectuals. One never knows what tricks they have up their sleeves. People also feel confusedly threatened, because all intellectuals want to be MP or MLA, while people are looking for one Doctor or Compounder who can cure a simple joro, without having to go all the way to a clinic in Siliguri.

Threats have also become digital. During the covert ops to undermine the 2017 movement, by the very folks who had been over-mining it, there was a public outrage. And as West Bengal government, keeping our culture and tradition in mind, had used snipers and false cases to make some “maoists” and “terrorists” behave, the public could only voice their outrage on social media. Naba ta thuni halchal ki ta khedi halcha – if you are lucky enough to escape. But as I was saying, about the digital threat, one of the underminers, an ex-overminer himself, threatened one and all with a PPT (Power Point Presentation, not permanent political tamasha) of all What’sApp and social media screenshots, thereby giving an entirely new dimension to the term “Big Data”.

I could also talk about another highly entertaining episode of threat, which gave health drinks like Complan and Bournvita, an entirely different meaning… but I hear some folks have already been threatened for doing this, so, maybe next time…

Natrabhanay ….

[Writes: Divya Pradhan, she is an Asst Professor in the Department of English, Mata Sundri College, Univeristy of Delhi]

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We read about Ram in ‘Amar Chitra Katha’ or ‘Wisdom’, as kids, where his name was always written as ‘Lord Rama’.

Amar Chitra Katha portrayed him as the perfect son, which may have given rise to one of the first sentences we learnt in our English language books – Ram is a good boy. The accompanying illustration to this sentence was of a ‘North Indian’ looking boy, hair neatly combed, wearing shorts and smartly tucked in half sleeves shirt, performing ‘good boy’ deeds.

So both Bhagwan Ram and good boy Ram were too remote from our lived experiences.

There were, of course, old calendars with images of Ram, Sita, Laxman, and a kneeling Hanuman in our puja rooms/corners. Important or not, our grandparents would never dream of throwing away calendars with images of Gods, even though the material world impinged in the form of ‘Shri Laxmi Traders, Hill Cart Road, Siliguri’ written right below the kneeling Hanuman.

As we grew older and reached middle school we could have come closer to Bhagwan Ram, but that wasn’t meant to be. The occasion of Bhanu Jayanti, the birthday of poet Bhanu Bhakta Acharya could have given us a perfect platform. Bhanu Jayanti was always celebrated by chanting excerpts from the Ramayana, with a framed photo of Bhanu Bhakta garlanded with a floral mala, (the convenient and recyclable khada was yet to be popularized).

Bored students would chant indifferently, passages of Bhanu Bhakta’s Ramayan. The Nepali teacher who throughout the year was a marginal figure in the school suddenly rose to the occasion and took charge.

For a fortnight preceding the event, s/he would try hard to instil awe and reverence among the students, so that they understood the significance of text in our cultural history. But of course, students’ lives have more critical issues than Nepali bhasha ko utpatti (origin and development of the Nepali language), so they couldn’t be coaxed into putting an iota of emotion in their recitation.

At the end of the programme, the teacher would take the red cloth-bound Ramayan and the framed picture of Bhanu Bhakta home, to be revived again after a year. So I think if you were also like me, you too only remember the first one and a half lines of the Ramayan:

“Ek din Narad satya log pugi gayaa/
Lok ko garaun hita bhani…“

That’s all. So even Bhanu Bhakta failed to bring Ram from the margins and it was the story of the Ghansi, the grass cutter, that we remembered.

Ramayan later captivated us when Ramananda Sagar’s magnum opus became a Sunday morning ritual across the country. In Darjeeling, instead of raising the hierarchy of Ram in the pantheon of Gods , the serial’s main contribution was to help increase the vocabulary of the elders. Pre Ramayan we had one word, “Bhagyamaani”, post-Ramayan there were many choices- Ayushmaan Bhava, Chiranjeevi Bhava, Saubhagyavati Bhava, among others.

Even the growing popularity of Sai Baba of Puttaparthi in Darjeeling, whose followers greet each other with ” Sai Ram“, failed to mainstream Bhagwan Ram. Hence it was not surprising that the unfortunate Babri Masjid incident, one of Rajiv Gandhi’s missteps, did not evoke strong reactions in the hills.

Therefore it’s fascinating that Ram has suddenly catapulted into prominence. When a Tenzing Bhutia or a Samuel Lepcha writes ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in social media, you know Ram is no longer only a deity.

On seeing that chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ infuriates Mamata Banerjee, Darjeeling with its inherently syncretic and subversive culture has taken ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and made it it’s own. Jai Shri Ram has now metamorphosed into a show of dissent against the Bengal government, rather than simple praise of a deity.

And this can happen only in Darjeeling.

[Writes: Divya Pradhan, she is an Asst Professor of Literature at Delhi University]

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“Khuchhing taala maitala
Dus paisa ko suntala”

This was a fun oriented chant which we choired jerking our shoulders upwards and downwards in order to ridicule someone. But there is a hidden truth in these lines because we literally used to purchase suntala (oranges) for dus paisa.

Our childhood days were the most joyous one with rough edged half-pants jingling with marbles while we ran with ‘ring gaadi’ stroking dust with Pashupati made ‘hatti chhap chappal’. Girls were usually dressed in ‘putali jaama’, they stiffened their hair with colourful ‘hairben’ and ‘kilip’.

The official way of establishing friendship was by twisting our small fingers with one another uttering “milung la”. The official trademark of cutting away someone from friend circle was by uttering- “ doodh bhaat maasu saasu aara aara kattil.”

Utterance of ‘kattil’ was simultaneously made by swiping your thumb beneath the chin. The ecstatic melody of ‘amliso ko paat ko pyar pyaraay’ still ignites the flame of nostalgia in me. We played ‘lukki chori’ reinterring ‘kuku…ha” , ‘chor police’, ‘ambal dambal’, ‘bhada kutti’, ‘lakku’, ‘amrite’. There are some muttering words that still echoes in my flashback while we played these games which go like:

• “Ek tupa ek, ek tupa dui, ek tupa tin”
• “Yetti yetti paani ghey ghey raani, chiso chiso paani ghey ghey raani…”
• “Ambal dambal khairo paat…”
• “Chingg chhyaang chuush”
• “Khoi mero baasi bhaat ? Biralu ley khayo… Khoi biralu? Musa marnu goyo…..”
• “Inchu minchu London ma, ghoda ko babu paltan ma….”
• “ Badam ko laagi ko auchha…ko auchha ko auchha?…”
• “ Dhuku muku dhuku muku k ko haath?….”

We had self innovated toys such as, ‘baas ko pot pottay’, made of a slim hollow bamboo, punched in by a bamboo stick which would fit into the hollow bamboo and the stick had widened flat base. We used to chew paper and launch it into the hollow bamboo and push it with the stick… two installations and there was a sound- “paaat!” Hence, it had the onomatopoeic epistemology- “pat pattay!” ‘Mali bas’ was regarded as the best bamboo for making ‘pat pataay’ and ‘asaaray’ was considered to be the best bullet.

There was ambience of fun even at the moment when someone farted silently. The smell of fart while being in a group would make you point each individual in a group and call out
aadey paadey nunu chadey tamang paadey thuus
aadeyra gudiya ganda aayo fuuss…”

The last word “fuuss’” would decide who the victim was.

Every chasm of simplicity, truth and happiness surrounded us.

The world was not knotted and entangled with websites, it was not buzzing busy with ringtones nor was it flying speed with Mbps and Kbps. Though we did not have the facility of high-speed and high data storage memory card, the smell of titaaypati is still in our memories; the taste of ‘bhuteko makkai ra fikka chiya’ is still in our memories, the joy of ‘sutli dori ley badheko plastic ko goli’ is still in our memories.

And we have those memories…tons of those memories… “khabaar kagaaz ko khol bhako kitab”, “khoppi ko khicney”, “dip goli ko toppa”, “machaa kaada ko ek khuttey”, “chapleti dhunga ko sulsuley”, “labar, banmara ra tittaypati ko chungi”, “teen chhakay byaaring gaadi”, “ghuraah, pangra ra matengra ghumai” ,“iskoos ma sinka ghochera banako sungoor”, “baas ko khopayta ko fir firaay”. We still can recall back those innocent pauses in “ambiss” and “dumara.”

Flying a kite was another fun which required a devoted skill and vigour. Kites were made either from thin coloured plastic or a thin colour paper… we called it ‘taau’. There were many shops which sold ready-made kites but making it with your own hand ensiled a different taste in you. Slicing a bamboo for the ‘kanni’, fixing it with glue and thread added more to the excitement. If a kite remained still in the air without any swing, we used to call it “laata guddi”.

There were competitions amongst the kite flyers…the competition of cutting away the rival kite…locally termed as “manja khelnu”. Preparing manja for this type of competition was another skill one had to acquire in the art of kite flying. There were ready made manja available in the market, such as ‘Kalkattay manja’, ‘Bombay manja’ etc.

We often made manja by rubbing tube lights’ dust on the thread glued with the paste of flour and ‘saabu-dana’. Our hearts flew with the multi-coloured square shaped papers swinging in the blue sky. And of course, who would forget the excitement that shrilled while you chased a ‘bhageta’.

FLASHBACK TWO

Most of our childhood was spent without multi news channel which dominates the brain decorum and informative calescence today. The only TV channel with which we could entice and entertain ourselves in leisurely time was ‘Doordarshan’. Doordarshan reined our childhood prescience, amusing us with visual delicacies.

We watched seriels like- Kakaji Kahin, Hum Log, Fauji, Circus, Jassos Karamchand, Mungrilal Ke Hasin Sapne, B.R. Chopra’s Ramayan and Mahabharat, Byomkesh Bakshi , Dada Dadi Ki Kahaniyaan, Honi Anhoni, Kahan Gaye Woh Log, Katha Sagar, Malgudi Days, Mirza Ghalib, Nukkad , Tamas, Tenali Rama, The Sword of Tipu Sultan, Vikram Aur Betaal, Wagle Ki Duniya, Bharat Ek Khoj…etc.

There were some informative programmes like Surabhi, Turning Point (I remember Mahesh Bhatt hosting this show). Wednesday night was jostled up with ‘Chitrahaar’. The most interesting part while watching Chitrahaar was engrossing into ‘chittha’ or a lucky draw. People would write down names of actors and actresses on a slip of paper folding it to ask the members and neighbourhood mates to pick any one of it. These folded slips of paper had an equal estimated price and if the actor whose name had been mentioned in your slip appeared to be in the song featured then you would win the prize money.

The songs that featured in Chitrahaar had a charisma of its own. They intensified the stretching treads of our fantasy. One can vividly recall a very lean and thin Sanjay Dutt with over-grown back hair, almost touching his shoulders, and brushed frisk at front dancing in ‘Tamma tamma logey, tamma tamma logey tamma…

”Some may recall Govinda wearing a multi-buckled leather jacket and a leather pant with pointed boots and gloves dancing and singing – “I am a Street dancer, I am a Street dancer…” A grave reminiscecnce of my grandma’s words still hits te unknown zone of my head, she often said, “ yo Mithunaay ra yo Gobindaay chai k saaro nacheko..”Actually she was referring to Mithun Chakraborty and Govinda’s dance but she addressed them as if they were some local and well known lewd inhabitants of her own village.

Sunday was a carnivalesque day. Sunday meant that taking a bath was compulsory but there were amazing prizes which came along with the parallel subsequence. Generally, very few people owned a television during those days. One who did not own a television visited the house of neighbourhood who owned it. To watch television at other’s house was both an act of excitement and disappointment…

The main entrance door of the house which owned television was always occupied with huge stack and piles of slippers, sandals and shoes. One who entered early got a chance to seat on sofa or a stool but as the crowd increased one could hardly get a place even on the floor. So, some were seen peeping from the slight gap of door and some from the ventilation. This was a craze of time, a craze just to get a glimpse of images featured on a black and white screen. This was how we watched ‘Mahabharat’ at our neighbourhood place with watering nose, dried cheeks and peeled knees and elbows.

Much later we were introduced to cartoons. Walt Disney’s Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Mini Mouse, Pluto, Goofey became our favourite visual inhalers. And we had Jungle Book which dozed and delivered the greatest childhood ecstasy.

“Jungle jungle pata chala hai, pata chala hai
Arey chaddi pehan ke phool khila hai phool khila hai”

This became our childhood anthem.

Next was ‘Potli Baba’ which stirred an aroma of tales in the flowers of our imagination. We would sing,

“potli me hari-bhari parioyn ke per,
mandiron ki ghantiyan, kalisaaon ka bagh,
hey.. aya aya chhenu wali jhunnu ka baba…
aya aya chhenu wali jhunnu ka baba…
aaya… re baba aaya

And there was also a two dimension cartoon on ‘Alice in Wonderland’ which began thus:

“Tap tap topi topi tope me jo doobe,
Pal pal farmaishen lete hai ajoobe
Ulat palat ralat salat saii
Jubilee jillette ja”

Much later we became glued to Shaktimaan, featuring Mukesh Khanna. We would imitate the great spinning take-off of Shaktimaan and reverberate the “Power” of Doctor Jaikal and “andhera kayam rahey” of Tamraj Kilwish. When the show ended, we would run back home singing:

“Adbhut, Asambhav, Anahat Ki Paribhasha Hai
Ye Mit Ti Manavta Ki Ik Aasha Hai
Ye Divya Shaktiyan Wardaan Hain
Ye Avtaar Nahin Hai Ye Insaan Hai
Shaktimaan! Shaktimaan! Shaktimaan”

One of the best mythical tale telecasted during the same period was Chanrakanta. It had a jingling opening sound track and eventually the song went “Chandrakanta Ki Kahani,Ye Maana Ke Puraani ,Ye Puraani Hokar Bhi ,Badi Lagti Thi Suhaani …Naugadh, VijeyGadh Me Thi Takraar ,Naugadh Ka Tha Jo Raj Kumar ,Chandrakanta Se Karta Tha Pyaar”.

The most remarkable character of this particular serial was Kroor Singh with his signature line “Yakoo Pitaji”.

He made such an impact on our immature mind that one who came to school with uncombed hair was often given a name “Yakoo Pitaji”

And how can one forget those Sundays’ Rangoli and the movie featured on every Saturday and Sunday night.

The most celebrated rite while there was a heavy wind was fixing the television antenna. One would turn the antenna towards different direction to clear the visual and shout- “bhayoo?” from outside. The one inside the house checking the visual on the screen would yell back- “aghi ko patti farka na!” People used to hang “moktu” beside the antenna… because there was a popular belief that it would formidably give a good picture quality. Some would even pierce multiple holes on a steel plate and hang it beside the antenna.

This was the joy of living in the land of innocence.

We had no Mp3 of latest audio gadgets. We listened to the audio square shaped cassettes with rolls in it which was technically played in the audio cassette player (locally called ‘tape’). In order to save the battery or electricity we rewinded or forwarded the cassette by inserting a pen into one of the holes of the cassette and spinning it until our guess met the desired number.

There were no home theatre or surround sound equipments. So the only medium to throw a loud audio was a square shaped “sound box” or a funnel shaped loud speaker called “mike”. Watching movies in VCR Player was a common pass time. But very few people owned them. So, one had to rely on local video hall to watch the latest movie.

Watching television was even more tormenting at rural areas which had no electricity connection. The only source of power for television at such places was- ‘battery’. Battery was charged at a nearby market or adjacent area which had electricity.

Life was harsh but harshness bloomed into indelible experiences.

FLASHBACK THREE

Though most of our days were spent playing outdoor at ‘amlisho baari’, ‘baas ghaari’, ‘ghuriyan’, ‘siru baari’, ‘khet bari’, ‘galchedi’, sikuwa’, ‘aagaan’, we still spared some amount of time for reading and studying.

I still remember the cover of ‘Nepali Sajilo Pat’ which had a two dimensional figure of a boy and a girl holding a book with a mountain and a rising sun at the background.

That book had ample of such contents which we used to sing aloud while we were at home or when we were in mid of our outdoor game. It contained the poem of ‘Singarey patha’; story which described ‘Padam ko Pencil Harayo’ and, few childlores and songs like:

“Tara tuli batuli, katti ramri putali
Saani pani chaina hai, thuli pani hoin ahai…”

“Dugur dugur kuiro, tero ghaar ma chor pasyo…”

“Aduwa khai pieo mani. Aama bhandai aucha naani…”

“Mero saano pusi, aaja katti khusi…”

“Mero saanu kharayo, aaja kata harayo…”

“Ek- lauro tek, dui-naani buui, teen- cheparo chin, char- machha maar…”

“Ghaam lagyo jhilimili hera sun ko dara
Paani paryo rimijhimi indreni ko maala…”

There were certain English texts which could afford to be mind-friendly and infused our fantasy with multiple visionaries. We had the tales of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Alladin and the Magic Lamp’, ‘Story of Robert Bruce’, ‘Fox and the Crow’, ‘The Hare and Tortoise’, ‘Akbar- Birbal’, ‘Ali Baba and Forty Thieves’…etc.

Comics served in a great way to deliver graphic tales with certain fable story frame and certain parable story frame. We grew up reading comics like Tinkle, Super Commando Dhruv, Nagraj, Doga, Parmanu, Inspector Steel. The famous characyers featured in Tinkle comics were- Sikari Sambhu, Kalia The Crow, Tantri Mantri,Suppandi, Kapish The Monkey, Ramu and Shamu and Suppandi. Other comics included Amar Chita Katha, Cha Cha Chaowdhary and Sabu, Phantom, etc.

We also read certain magazines like Wisdom, Reader’s Digest etc.

There were many dares and challenges that we would pose on our friends such as:

• Challenging your friend to scrub 120 times on the forehead and see what the result would be
• Challenging your friend to touch the tip of nose with tongue
• Challenging your friend to push the thumb backward to touch the forearm
• Challenging your friend to make a house, ship or a wallet with a piece of sheet paper
• Challenging if your friend could do the moving thumb trick
• Challenging if your friend could do the trick which made the piece of paper shift from one finger to the other
• Challenging your friend to make pieces of paper hover and stick to a plastic ruler when the ruler was frequently rubbed on the hair.

FLASHBACK FOUR

The tastiest part of our childhood was sweets and things we ate. Those delicacies still stimulates the saliva gland and fetch a sand of recollected time on the palm of age. We ate sweets like ‘ghurrah mithai’, one which could be twirled on a thread; ‘andaa mithai’; ‘mala mithai’; ‘suntala mithai’; ‘machha mithai’; orange flavoured Boy’s called ‘orange mithai’; mint flavoured Boy’s called “halls mithai”; Banana flavoured Boy’s called “Pahelo mithai”; coconut flavoured mithai called”nariwal mithai”. There were other items made out of jaggary like “laal pathhar” (also called rasta ka pathhar); “til mithai”; badam mithai”’; “kaat mithai” and “dhunga mithai”.

Other items were “murai ko dalla”and “makkai ko dalla”.

We also have the experience of eating raw fruits, seeds and stalks from the nearby forests like: “aishelu”, “kimboo”, “thotnaay”, “bhadrasaay”, “lapsi”, “naspatti”, “ambaak”, “suntala”, “chiuri”, “bhakimlo”, “chari ameelo”, “mell”, “bhotay paan”…etc

We even smoked “sukeko iskoosh ko munta”, “tamarkay ko phool” and “ makkai ko dhord” , chewed iskoosh ko sukeko patta” as khaini.

We would rush and fight to eat “doodh ko kurauni” or “gheew ko khar” or “mauri ko chakhha”. I can recall how we contributed money to buy a packet of “Thin Arrowroot Biscuit” which we distributed in terms of each row to the contributor. Well, that was the best snack we had after our tiresome game. And of course, “bhuteko makkai, bhatamash”, “gillo rooti”, “kodo ko roti” or “makkai ko dhedo” had a finger-licking quality.

Amongst these all… we literally enjoyed to stand in queue before the village I.C.D.S. center to collect “bulgar”. Eating “bulgar” spreading it all over the cheeks was a pictorial memento that will be patched on the canvas of yesteryears.

We often hear that childhood is dying in. I feel lucky that I lived a childhood which was full of life.

Sometimes I silently hum the tunes these long gone days in following lines of Gulzar Sahab:

“Ye Daulat Bhii Le Lo, Ye Shoharat Bhii Le Lo
Bhale Chhiin Lo, Mujhse Merii Javaanii
Magar Mujhako Lautaa Do Bachapan Kaa Saavan
Vo Kaagaz Kii Kashtii, Vo Baarish Kaa Paanii”

Writes: Binod Pradhan

The post The Childhood Days and Ways appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

Ever since the Mamata government came to power she has slowly but successfully managed to pull the Gorkha community apart by breaking it into jats and jatis under the guise of Development Boards. In the meantime the state government also reneged on its duties of honouring the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). Even a cursory reading of the GTA show how little the Bengal Government was actually interested in making it a functional body.

With unfulfilled promises, the Bengal government must have already foreseen another uprising in the hills. To prevent this she forged alliances with local parties and several Development Boards and tried to create numerous centres of power. The conflict between the Bimal Gurung led GTA and the Mamata led Government reached its peak when the latter issued a diktat making Bengali language compulsory, and in a brazen move, holding a cabinet meeting in Darjeeling.

While to an innocent outsider the latter may seem like an insignificant event, it was a show of strength on the part of Mamata to undermine the leadership of Bimal Gurung. Why else would she hold a cabinet meeting in Darjeeling, after 45 years, not to forget the additional expenses that would have to be borne by the cash-strapped State exchequer to organise a meeting of that level.

Then followed the 2017 movement, the historical 105 day strike called by Benoy Tamang, now appointed the Chairman of the GTA of Board of Administrators, and the rest as they say is history. What followed was unprecedented violence and terror unleashed upon anyone who was seen as a Gorkhaland supporter.

It is in this backdrop, that the alliance between GJMM & GNLF gains significance. Two of the most important political parties in the hills, and political rivals, today they have come together to join the common fight for Gorkha pride, which in the present context is to be understood as an end to the proxy rule of the Bengal government and its attendant Reign of Terror.

2019 MP Elections: Decoding “Bhumiputra”

“Bhumiputra” a term which has been bandied around like it is the panacea for all ills afflicting our community, and that somehow electing this Bhumiputra will magically restore our Gorkhaness and all we have lost. This term Bhumiputra (son-of-the-soil) has obviously been crafted to channel an anti-BJP sentiment what with S.S.Ahluwalia being a non-Bhumiputra and therefore not in tune with what’s happening in the bhumi. While BJP has a lot to answer for, I wonder how canoodling with Mamata who is branzenly anti-Gorkha/ anti-bhumi bordering on anti-humanity is justified?

How can someone like Amar Singh Rai even be considered a bhumiputra when he fails the very first test of loyalty to the community? Not only did he betray the leader under whom he was elected to the Legislative Assembly, he was one of the main architects of the failure of the 2017 movement.  

Bhumiputra is a title that has to be earned, not something one gets simply by being born in Darjeeling. The 2019 elections under the present political duress in Darjeeling is not a debate where simply making a point is sufficient.

The very act of coming together of rivals like GJMM and GNLF is point enough that Gorkhas will call the shots in Gorkhaland.

What we need is a candidate who will win. It can be a local or it can be someone from the  BJP. Therefore the GJMM-GNLF should support a candidate who will win the elections rather than one who may not have a chance of winning the elections. This is not the time to make symbolic gestures. This is not the time to talk about female empowerment, hence women MPs or Gorkha MPs or intellectual MPs.

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.

This is a right which has been snatched from us, we have been harassed and humiliated by a majority community which has used the entire state apparatus to decimate us. But We shall fight! and We shall Emerge Triumphant!

Where are we headed?

One of the most important question that comes to our mind apropos this alliance is its trajectory post 2019 elections. Going by popular reaction one can easily infer that people expect this alliance to not only win the 2019 MP elections but to salvage Gorkha pride and independence. Though it is naïve to believe that either Subash Ghishing or  Bimal Gurung were completely free of central and state control, it is true that never before  has the Bengal government treated the Gorkha leadership as carpets to wipe their dirty feet off of.

In a brazen move Mamata has handpicked Amar Rai a sitting MLA (who won elections under Bimal led GJM) as an MP candidate, who will now contest elections under the TMC symbol. It is clear that this move must have been unpalatable for the hill TMC cadres who have clearly been the face of Mamata in the hills and have also had to face the ire of the people. Mamata has used and discarded other Gorkhas and Gorkha leaders in the past as and when it suited her. This new alliance between GJMM-GNLF is also a testament to the fact that our leaders have realized how insignificant they can become when they are pitted against one another.

A late realization, but a necessary one.  

Better Late Than Never

Though if our leaders had only turned the pages of recent history and seen the inception of CPRM they would have realized that hill people only exist as a vote bank. One only has to imagine the level of oppression that must have been unleashed upon the Gorkhas that made ideologically regimented and indoctrinated Gorkha communist cadres to leave their parent organization which was ruling the then Bengal government.

As the saying goes, better late than never.  And as and when a political solution is arrived at, let us hope that it is comprehensive and one that brings Lepchas, Bhutias,Gorkhas, Biharis, Bengalis, Adivashis, Santhalis, Kamtapuris and all the tribes who have been living together here in peace and harmony.

With this dawn of freedom one hopes that the leadership of any party who is at the helm puts an end to politics of retribution and pettiness.

We are so few in number when compared with the rest of India that unless we look out for each other it may not be an exaggeration to say that one day we may cease to exist.

The post Decoding The GJMM-GNLF Alliance appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.