For a second, I just want to mangle his stupid hands and his stupid face, but then again, I am a Gorkha, and we the Gorkhas are now supposed to tolerate each other, despite all stupidities, idiocies and criminalities. For apparently these days questioning criminals and criminal behaviour among us makes us weak and turns our entire “jaati” into a laughing stock in front of the whole world.

So instead of slapping his face, I go on the defensive and politely nod in agreement, “tyai ta Mams, hundai hundaina… mo pani maandai mandina…”

There we were D Mams and I, meeting after a long time, last we were together was when Lota Kanchi wanted to strangle people. The same thado dokan in that terso galli has been our hang-out for decades now, and while he enjoys his nigar, I am relaxing with my tin-pani without any chinta or fikar.

But, just for this little bit of “hunai na sakne halla” that is being spread around by malicious elements to malign the highest of the higher “intellectual” to have ever walked in flesh and blood in the Gorkha world. For us Gorkhas, whose icons have been brave-hearts who bled for our nation, someone with self-publicized “intellectual brains” is the next best thing God created after tos-roti, Himal Chuli newspaper and some Delhi based Gorkha Al Qaeda organization, which is in fact the only such organization fighting for protecting GORKHANESS among the Gorkhas, over Facebook.

“So how could he?” I asked

I showed him a Facebook post by our own Gorkha PT Usha ko awtari,  “He is being maligned, his name is dragged down the muck, he is being vilified, being targeted, being publicly humiliated, being exposed unnecessarily, our Gorkha men don’t do such things, if they need to, they marry two, three, four, even five or twenty wives, but they don’t do this…” of such sorts, it claimed.

D Mams grunts, “thikai ta ho… hamaro haru le kaa garcha esto? buru afnai chori lai rape garla, 12 barsa ko nani haru lai pregnant banaula… aafnai ama-bau, bhauju lai chokta-chokta parera maarla… tara esto chai gardaina hai…” he says confidently.

I add to it and go, “tyai ta Mams, feri garyo bhane pani ta hamrai Gorkha le gareko ho… gari khaos na haina… dui tin jana student lai eta-uta garda kosko bau ko k jancha? tyo student haru feri Gorkha pani ta haina raicha…”

“Precisely… Like our own Delhi based Gorkha Al Qaeda ko female Gorkha Osama wannabe says, ‘when it comes to Gorkha vs. the rest of humanity (or lack of it), we have to stick by our own‘… we have to… especially if they represent the elite educated lot, for the entire Gorkha identity and Gorkhaness is patented by them “intellectuals”, so if one of them turn criminal, the entire Jaati will be naturally criminalized… so even if others call our “brain brigade” rightful names, we shouldn’t… we should wait for the court verdict… or better yet, play victim on his behalf, and try and see conspiracy in his being exposed as a serial offender… we can always say this is a Central government ploy to sully the name of the highest of the higher “intellectual” to prevent him from contesting elections…” he agrees

I add to it, “it is true, our mostest of the more than the most intellectual Gorkha intellectual personality ever would have contested 2019 elections and won hands down, like how he did in 2014 and got 55000 votes out of 18 Lakhs… so to prevent him from contesting the elections and getting eggs on their face, the central government is ‘doing  dirty politics’ to prevent our Gorkha candidate from winning again.”

D Mams has this look of shock and awe on his face… I am happy, today I have outperformed him with my flawless logic. Though impressed, but a little worried he wonders out loud, “see national TV channels are reporting on it, there seem to be more than one victim… after all we are humans and we do fall at times… Daju could be innocent, but we cannot rule out the allegations by three individuals haina ra bhanich??” he wonders…

Since we are both on a roll, I wreck my brains, and come up with another ‘must be true’ angle, “may be the government is jealous of hamro Gorkha ko teaching abilities… maybe he is the better than the bestest Professors at JNU and since they cannot teach like hamro Gorkha, may be they are vilifying him, so that the Gorkhas continue to remain unappreciated.”

D Mams radiates, his hesitation gone completely “absolutely… so what if the students were approached inappropriately, and touched forcefully… what’s the big deal? what is good for them or not, how can a student know? it is because they don’t know anything, they go to study… so if their Professor feels they need some loving touches to keep them motivated towards their PhD degrees what’s the harm in it?” he adds.

“Medicines can be bitter at times, but it doesn’t mean it’s not good for you… so what would the students know, if their Professor touching them is actually good for them or not… ki kaso bhanich?” he asks.

Like a brand new convert, I add an empathic “AMEN!” to agree to his logic.

He further adds, “well, actually I’ve lost faith in the media… mostly all are paid media houses, one should wait and watch, and do ones homework and research, than depend on media news… that voice in the video in one of the news channels is definitely not a woman’s voice… it sounds like a man’s… so what if the voice is distorted using software to hide the identity of the alleged victim, couldn’t they have made the voice distort to sound feminine?”

I nod in agreement… “tyai ta Mams…” is all that I can add…

Ruefully, he says, “everyone is after us Gorkhas these days… the entire country is hell bent on belittling us Gorkhas… in fact, the entire universe is… and what better way for them to attack us all than by attacking the tallest of the tallerest personalities among us who represents each and every one of us individually and all of us as a community collectively… in him molesting someone we all are equal participants, in him touching someone inappropriately we all are being equally inappropriate, in him sexually harassing and misusing his position of power we all are equally being irresponsible… so we all have to save him and defend his individual acts of immorality… just so we all save this iconoclastic among all Gorkha icons of ours… and in doing so… we save ourselves…”

I stood up and applauded, and so did everyone who was present at that Raksi dokan at that Moment… even Maili dropped her thangra and clapped… someone put two fingers in his mouth and whistled…

What a momentous piece of speech it was coming from a dead drunk man… Mams beamed in pride and happiness… and ordered a round for us all…

As we sat down to finish the latest round, I asked him… “Mams that was some speech… did you feel those words…?”

He gives me a weary smile and says, “hundaina… hunai sakdaina… mo mandai mandina… esto soch bhako jaati ko utthan ra unnati kahile hundaina… hunai sakdaina…”

Coming from a dead drunk man, these last lines is what I retained… While most however retained the rest of the conversation, and seem to be proudly propagating those pearls of wisdom, which are befitting only raksi ko dokan.

But, sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh don’t say that out loud, lest your Gorkhadity be questioned.

[Cartoon courtsey: Orange County Register, originally available at: https://bit.ly/2IimMxD, all copyrights rests with the creators]

The post GORKHAFIED – Sexual Harassment Victims Suck Anyway appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.

Prof Lama has been accused of multiple instances of sexual harassment of a Female Research scholar in China, from where she escaped following the incident. In addition, Prof Lama was also accused of harassing a student for helping the girl who was sexually harassed escape from china. In frustration, the victim who belongs to an economically marginalized family, whose father runs a barber shop had no choice but to move the Court. As of now, the Delhi High Court has issued multiple notices over the petition filed by the student against Prof Lama and JNU administration for having provided shield to Prof Lama.

The allegations anyhow didn’t come as a matter of surprise for me, as it wasn’t the first time that Prof Lama was being accused of a legal blunder. Earlier as well, a CBI inquiry had been initiated against him regarding the misappropriation of funds at Sikkim University, in that case to at the insistence of the Sikkim High Court.

What actually came as a greater surprise to me, is that some ‘leading lights’ in our community think that the allegation of sexual harassment against Prof Lama puts the “Gorkha” reputation at risk, and that we need to learn to defend the people belonging to our “Community”, and thus we should not jump into conclusion and share the news before the verdict is passed.

There was not a word of concern for the victim.

If the concerned person was an ordinary self, the view could have easily been digested and understood. But then the person holding this mediocre opinion happens to be a top brass leader of an emerging political party, the GSSS.

My question is – Since when did an alleged sexual molester become the representative of the Gorkhas or Darjeeling? How does him being an alleged sexual molester tarnish our history and reputation as a whole? Just because we think he is the epitome of ‘intellect’ among the Gorkhas (not me, but most of the self-declared ‘intellectuals’ do), should he have the liberty to do away with rape allegations?

Reminds me of a report I had worked on a few days ago, where a pastor in Tukvar had subjected a 12 years old to repeated rape over years, rendering her pregnant eventually. Hundreds of people poured their sympathy towards the child, while they strongly showed their outrage against the pastor. It was still an allegation, as it is on Prof Lama’s case. Did we wait for the court proceedings to end? Did we put a dent on the “Gorkha” reputation by sharing the news?

The reputation of the community that we talk isn’t a suo moto subject linked to the bureaucrats and self-proclaimed ‘intellectuals’ among us. Each and every person starting from an ordinary tea garden labour builds up the reputation, and alleged convicts should be nowhere a part of it. If Prof Lama hasn’t yet been proven guilty, we should very much keep in mind that he has also not been acquitted of the crime yet.

Another fascinating point on her part, which I would rather call frivolous, was the comparison of the case with that of the alleged rape threat allegation against Darjeeling Sadar IC Soumyajit Roy. She cited how the entire Bengali Community stood in his favour. Contrarily, as far as I could notice, there were Bengali folks across West Bengal who condemned the incident with no question. Even if we base our theory on her understanding and suppose that the Bengali community actually supported him, does this mean that we start supporting alleged sexual harassers? The very basic premise or foundation of our demand for Gorkhaland is the fact that we aren’t one of them and that we are different than them in every aspect. In  addition to that, our protest wasn’t against a community or a specific person belonging to it anyway, but it was against an IC who was accused of rape threat. Even if the particular person was a Gorkha, we would have protested with the same intensity.

So according to her, if it is a case of a “Gorkha vs Gorkha” she gives an equal weight, but when it comes to “Gorkha against others”, she would remain mum and let the law take its course. I am certainly noting it down on my notebook as a finest example of hypocrisy, more because she is a woman herself.

What if it was our daughter being sexually harassed by someone? Would we expect people from other community to support the culprit. For me, a woman’s modesty and dignity stands before the reputation of our community, or in fact any community. She should note this thing down before decorating her facebook status with phrases like “I am an Indian first, then a Gorkha”.

Even if we somehow qualify her perverted ‘Gorkha first” logic, I wonder if the lady from our community who is so vocal on facebook, took even a single moment to reflect on, if the victim too could have been a GORKHA? or did she get a call from her idol to assure her, the victim isn’t Gorkha?

As a part of her discussion with me, she asked me why I didn’t help the victims of rape threat in Darjeeling to file an FIR when I lived nearby in Siliguri, which I didn’t feel necessary to reciprocate. I don’t live in Siliguri first of all, which may help her with her efforts of understanding my whereabouts. And more interestingly, I am not helping the JNU girl file an FIR in that case. In both the cases, I held an opinion and stood with it. That’s me being an ordinary person from Darjeeling.

Now, what she forgot to mention about before pointing fingers on me was her own efforts and contributions to the Darjeeling rape threat case being a leader of an active political party. She made a ground breaking contribution by making “live videos” on Facebook. Apart from that, I didn’t see a single leaf of any tree shake.

I may respect her about as a person, but definitely not the opinion or idea in this case. I extend my solidarity with the victim, l also hope that the proper justice is served.

As more victims of Prof. Lama’s alleged sexul advances are emerging on a daily basis, I am not sure where this ‘leading light’ of our community stands with her “I will beleieve my hero” attitude. I just pray to God, may she gain some wisdom on the basic fact that while all sinners may have a future, all saints do have a past too.

Her saint, it seems, is a serial offender.

The post But, You Madam! Are a Hypocrite appeared first on The Darjeeling Chronicle.