Darjeeling

Sanjok Gurung – Baking happiness, one cake at a time

The decision to take up baking wasn’t premeditated or planned I was always drawn to the F&B industry and wanted to build something of my own. I moved into banking due to family priorities but felt unfulfilled. I wanted ownership of my work and time. Since my baking turned out well, I began experimenting, learning from scratch, and investing in professional training at IBPA, Delhi.

With family support and growing orders, I took a leap of faith and started Cake Crush in Salbari in 2018 with no Plan B.


Nepathya Live: For the First Time, Nepathya Bring Their Voice to Siliguri

Nepathya Live in Siliguri marks the band’s debut performance in the city, a moment long anticipated by audiences across North Bengal, Sikkim, and the Eastern Himalayan region—where Nepathya’s songs have circulated for years through recordings, memory, and cultural inheritance, but never before through a Siliguri stage.

The concert will be held at Utsodhaara Teesta Township, behind Kawakhali Ground, placing Siliguri—often described as a gateway city—at the center of a rare cross-border cultural convergence.


Samir Sharma – Silently adding music in our lives

Samir Sharma, not many are familiar with his work. But silently, he is adding music in our lives through many interesting projects. Recently one of the short animated films, “That Ugly Green Planet” by Anant V. Keni , for which he had composed music won the Best International Animated Short Film Award at CAMPINAS Film Festival 2025 (Brazil)


When Justice Exposes Failure: The GTA Teachers’ Recruitment Case Beyond the Noise

It is important for us to realise how the vested interest of a certain group of people has put many other innocent and genuine people’s lives into jeopardy. There are people in the group who have genuinely dedicated their service as volunteers to their respective schools for years without getting any return, some of them for over a decade. These genuine teachers losing their jobs isn’t the sacrifice we deserve to ask from them.

The important question is, what are they a victim of? Many would want you to believe that they are the victims of the court order or the petitioners. Nothing could be further away from the truth. They are all the victims of administrative and political failure. They are the victims of the greed and the self-interest of a certain group of people.


Interlocutor Blues

What’s more worrisome is that while Gorkhas should be uniting and united for a cause, we are not working towards that. The call by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha for all political parties to attend a discussion regarding creating a common platform and agenda to take to the Interlocutor was met with cold shoulders by some political groups. Instead of uniting, it has exposed our existing fault lines further.

This is where, the half-front will come into play. They will try and create divisions, diversions, and doubts among us.



“FOREIGNER” – The tag that hounds Gorkhas (and Sikkimese Nepalis)

Those who have followed my writings over the years, will know, I will be the last person to defend Anit Thapa. However, have seen politics much closer than most people do, I have come to realize that, alleging a Gorkha politician of being a “foreigner – citizen of Nepal” is the easiest way to dent their reputation.

Not that Anit Thapa has a stellar reputation, however, I personally feel that, those making such allegations, should have a more solid ground to stand on.

They should reflect on the fact that every such allegations against Gorkha politicians harms the “Gorkha identity” further, and by extension, all Gorkhas (including the Sikkimese Nepalis) are viewed with suspicion.


Meet Pasang (Saurav) Tamang, the Local Talent Set to Shine in India’s U-23 Football Team

Pasang Dorjee Tamang, popularly known as Saurav Tamang, has made us proud by being selected in the Under 23 Indian National Football Team as a winger. The 21 years old lad had already been a name familiar to any football follower in the region, scoring goals through big and small tournaments across our region and beyond during his starting years in football itself. Later, his promising performance and consistency got him to be drafted to one of the oldest and the most legendary football clubs in the country – Mohun Bagan. Saurav continued to prove his mettle as a solid player match after match, scoring goal after goal.


Gorkha Hill Transport Composite Complex – A betrayal

During the tenure of Subhash Ghisingh and under the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), a vision was laid out to create a Gorkha Hill Transport Composite Complex in Darjeeling More, Siliguri – a project inspired by the Sikkim Nationalised Transport Composite Complex.

The plan was to build a unified transport hub that would serve as a lifeline for the hill population, designed to benefit both local passengers and hill taxi drivers across Darjeeling.

That vision has been betrayed today


Mahakal, The Mandir I Knew

For me, being Hindu was never about rigid codes or centralized doctrines. Dara Mandir became a shared identity, a Darjeelingey or “Gorkha” way of being that embraced diversity and coexistence. I’ve met practicing Christians in Chowrasta who hold Dara Mandir in reverence, not out of religious obligation but out of respect for its place in our collective memory.