1986 to 2026: A Common Citizen’s Plea for Darjeeling

The current balanced political alignment offers a rare, historic window of opportunity. But as a community, we must refuse to be bought off with the crumbs of the past. We have lived through the experiments of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council and the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration frail, administrative bodies that served as nothing more than temporary bandages on a deep, historical wound. We do not want another compromise designed to buy temporary peace; we want a constitutional guarantee designed to deliver permanent justice.

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Dazzling Darjeeling

In Memorium: Kumar Subba

There was something about the voice that felt so heavenly the first time I heard it in the National Panasonic tape recorder that my family had recently bought back in the mid 1980s. I was barely 12 then, and I had just started listening to greats like Mohd Rafi and Kishore Kumar, along with new singers like Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan Jha. However, the Nepali songs like the ones sung by the legendary Kumar Subba were something else, and they swam through my cerebral cortex like a wakeful dream, the lyrics, the voice quality, the music notes, all easy on the ears and relaxing me to the hilt.



Sawane Sakranti: The Special Day We Pray to Mother Nature for Prosperity

Tonight hill folks take out a procession, wherein people carry a fire torch with local medicinal herb पट पटे to ward off the animals and pests, while crying out loud “ढंग ढंग राति…. सक्रंती…. उपिय्याँ जा रुपियाँ आइज” thus wishing for hardship to end and for prosperity to begin.