The high and mighty from across the globe made this place their favoured destination- Kings, Queens, scholars, religious personalities and royalty made a bee-line to obeisance before the Queen.

Then like all good things and times, the romance of the Queen with her countless lovers ended too- The romantic liaison that the British had with the Queen ended with them being forced out of India in 1947. The Queen was left behind like a ditched lover- sorrowful, dejected, unkempt and neglected. The new Indian Nation neither had the resources nor the interest to continue this romance.

The Queen was bored and lacked any form of entertainment and hence turned to a few clowns in an effort to stay amused and entertained. She had hoped that one of the clowns would one day mature and become King and help, both her and her palace, regain its past glory. Her kingdom and her subjects waited with abated breath waiting for this king to arrive but so innocent and gullible were her subjects that they hadn’t even heard of this old Turkish proverb which said-   WHEN A CLOWN ENTERS A PALACE, HE DOES NOT BECOME THE KING BUT RATHER THE PALACE BECOMES A CIRCUS.

This is exactly the state that the Darjeeling hills are at the moment. The Kings that we thought would lead us to the path of progress and across the beautiful and bright horizon, actually turned out to be Clowns in the guise of Political leaders, making this heaven on Earth a joke in the eyes of the world.

The issue we have is very simple- we in the Hills need a separate State of our own- keeping aside sentiments- we want it so that we are responsible for our own future, so that we ourselves can guild our coming generations into the path of progress and success, so that we ourselves are in control of what we want without making a detour vide the deep, dark, insensitive and often hostile corridors  of Nabanna. The issue is clear- we want a separate State of our own and ideally there should be no confusion in this.

This fact has been understood by the State and Central Governments very clearly. There is no confusion in their minds on what we actually want. The general public in the Hills too have no confusion on what it wants- it know that the thousands of lives that this place sacrificed was only for the cause of a separate state- nothing more nothing less- not for a DGHC or a GTA or a North Bengal State or a Simanchal Pradesh or for merger with Sikkim or for Tribal status for the remaining Hill communities. The sacrifice was solely for a separate State for ourselves.

Yet the Hills are in a confused state of mind not because the State or Central Governments are confused or the public is confused but because our clownish leaders are confused. So confused are they that each different political grouping seems to be demanding different things- some want North Bengal State, some advocate merger with Sikkim, some are demanding 6^th Schedule status and another set demanding PPS- whatever that may mean. It is hilarious to know that even those demanding PPS do not know what PPS is.  Isn’t this clownish? No wonder our place as turned into a circus- just like the Turkish Proverb quoted above.

What needs to be analyzed is whether many our leaders are born clowns or whether their clownish activities are a part of a larger game. I am not inclined to believe that they are clowns by nature but rather agencies working for the State and Central Governments have used the power of green dough to make them act in this fashion.

Harry S. Truman, the 33^rd President of the United States of America, once said famously -“If you can’t convince them, confuse them”. Truman, by the way, was the US President who authorized the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  This strategy of his – confusing the masses when one cannot convince them, has been widely used by Politicians over the ages and I suspect that this is the precise strategy that the Central and State Government agencies are using to dilute our aspiration and demand.

So successful has this strategy been that the so called leaders of the Hills are running around in all directions like confused ants. Speaking of ants- like the countless working ants that constitute an ant colony, our leaders too, are now in countless numbers. Any person, who can go before a camera and speak a few words, starts thinking of himself or herself, as a political leader. There is a glut of Politicians in the Hills at the moment- each braying for the others blood- all while the world laughs at us. It is always better to be ruled by one Lion King than be ruled by a hundred clowns.

All this while people like me and all other hardworking, innocent and sincere citizens of this Queen of the Hills, desire nothing more than a separate state of our own. We can only hope that all of these so called leaders get together and at least demand just one issue rather than falling trap to the cunning strategy being employed against us.

If this is not a circus- then what is?

Let the clowns not turn the palace of the Queen into a circus.

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Despite the passage of years, there is this interminable, constant yearning, this hunger, this hankering to just see Kanchendzonga and to feel this entire gamut of emotions overrun and permeate my entire being. And to make me feel whole. There is, at once, the awe, the reassurance, the love, the veneration, the fierce pride, the anticipation, and the delicious thrill that just being able to gaze at my mountains has always evoked in me.

Kanchendzonga is not just a mountain. She is the embodiment of Sikkim. I subconsciously use a feminine reference as she is the nurturer. And yet Kanchendzonga is the bulwark; he protects us physically from the harshness of the cold winds from the higher climes and has served as a natural barrier against foreign aggression. Kanchendzonga is our mother and our father, our mountain god, the adobe of the deity, our past, our present, our future, and an intrinsic part of the Sikkimese psyche.

The Rong folk or the Lepchas believe that Itbu Debu Rum, the Mother Creator, created them from the purer than pure snow of Kongchen Chu. The Lhopos or the Bhutias venerate the mountain as the abode of their guardian deity, Kanchendzonga or Dzonga Taktse. Dzonga is an emanation of Namsey Dungmar or Kuvera of the Red Spear. Whether we venerate the mountain as the abode of the gods or the deities themselves, when one lives in the lap of this part of the Himalayas, our gods become our mountains and our mountains our gods. You don’t have to be Sikkimese to be entranced and enraptured with the mountain; it simply embraces you in its entirety, and you will never be the same again once you have walked in her shadows or been blinded by her brilliance. It is a love story like no other: with no beginning and with no end, with only the timelessness of just being.

With the recent opening up to mountaineering of our sacred peak, and other peaks, emotions are running high. The internet is awash with #SaveKanchendzonga. All the facts and figures are there for anyone interested to read: which peaks, what heights, the environmental challenges, the earlier expeditions, the summitting from the Nepal side, the comparisons with the graveyard of Everest. These are facts, and facts are cold. I wanted to attempt to articulate what our mountains mean to us in a more personal and intimate narrative.

Throughout our history, Sikkim has stood out like a sore thumb on the map of the world. Long considered an upstart aberration, our relatively smaller land endured raids and skirmishes with and by larger, more militant neighbouring Gurkhas and Bhutanese and Tibetans; China proposed the Five- Finger theory; India swallowed us. Bloodshed, intrigue, betrayal, shrinking geographical boundaries, politicial machinations, coronations, the advent of the British, Tibetan matrimonial alliances, a new national anthem, the rape and plunder of our rivers nurtured from her crown, Kanchendzonga has stoically witnessed it all. And continued to be the one unchanging entity that we could cling to and have faith in. She says nothing; she knows everything. The Custodian of our faith, our culture, our identity, our history just watches over us quietly, reassuringly.

Over a century ago, a young girl was walking in an aristocratic mansion in Lhasa, Tibet when she had a visitation. She described this being as being dressed in resplendent brocades with what looked like battle gear and armour and an aura so powerful she knew it was a higher being. It was the face that arrested her attention. She remembered vividly the fiery red countenance with the mystical third eye and the crown with five human skulls, she remembered the wrathful grimace, but she was unafraid. This entity addressed her and said: You are coming to my land, venerate me, I will protect you. The young girl was intrigued but thought no more of it.

In 1918, Kunzang Dechhen of the aristocratic Ragasha family of Lhasa was despatched to Sikkim, the chosen bride of Chogyal Tashi Namgyal of Sikkim. He selected her from her photograph which was sent to him, along with those of other potential brides. After many days of travel on harsh terrain, the new bride-to- be alighted from her horse at the Gangtok Palace, and among the first things that greeted her in her new country was a mask of the same entity that had visited her in her Lhasa home: Kanchendzonga. Recognising him immediately, she quickly prostrated before him, and needless to mention, all her life, the Maharani and later Gyalyum (Queen Mother) of Sikkim had an unflinching belief in and intrinsic connection with Kanchendzonga.

The Maharani was continually involved with Pang Lhabsol celebrations at the Tsuklakhang Royal Chapel. Pang Lhabsol is our Sikkimese festival that venerates Dzonga and other mountain deities and propitiates their blessings and protection for the land and its people. Contrary to popular belief, it lasts an entire month, usually in and around September, and culminates with the ‘cham’ or religious dances on the final day. Earlier the National Day of Sikkim, and with the chams suspended briefly in the capital, Pang Lhabsol has recently seen an impassioned renaissance in Gangtok with a new brace of Sikkimese youth stepping up to don, with pride, the ceremonial costumes of the Pangtoedpas or the Warriors of Dzonga and upholding an age- old tradition and, more importantly, giving a new generation a visual reintroduction to a vital aspect of their identity as Sikkimese : an immutable bond with and reverence for their mountains.

Meanwhile, in one quiet corner of the Tsuklakhang, veiled behind curtains, there lies a piece of Sikkimese history often dismissed as folklore by the naysayers and ignorant. In another time, during another tumultuous period of Sikkim’s history, another Sikkimese king and queen had to run away to a safer place. Which king, which queen? I do not particularly like spoonfeeding; the curious can read up on our history and find out. The 1908 History of Sikkim documents how a mask of Kanchendzonga fell into the lap of the fleeing queen, and she carried it with her.

Did Dzonga feel a particular connection with the Queens? In our history, it is not uncommon to find queens of sterner will than the Chogyals. Harking back to my current narrative, this selfsame mask found its way back home and rests quietly at the Royal Chapel. Our Sikkimese narrative has been dismissed as folklore by many, but even the purportedly mythical pillars that Jowo Khye Bumsa erected at the Sakya monastery do stand testimony to our collective history -predating the 1642 consecration of the first Denjong Chogyal- even today.

Has Kanchendzonga not been summitted? A tall mountaineer- find out his name yourself- once stopped short of the peak from the Sikkim side, but he still technically towered over the peak. From the Nepal side, Kanchendzonga has been conquered. Can we ‘save’ Kanchendzonga? The Central Government has displayed an undeniable finesse for lightning quick strikes and an ability to ride roughshod over all sentiments.

As usual, we were blindsided by the notification opening up our sacred mountain and sister peaks to the crampons of foreign dollar tourists. We have lost our country, our rivers have been raped and dammed and damned, our multiculturalism has been shredded into tiny schisms, our dignity and honour smote into the ground, our children’s and their children’s collective futures compromised before it even began, our politicians are tainted excrement… What else was there to lose? Only Kanchendzonga stood tall. From past experience, the mountain itself has resisted efforts to be conquered, wreathing itself within a cocoon of the most inhospitable weather for days of end to thwart man’s need to ‘conquer’. How long will our mountain protect itself?

Do our gods reside only on the summit? Does our faith and our connection to the mountain cease if it is summitted? Our faith has always been as expansive as the skies into which Kanchendzonga sometimes appears to smoke out puffs of clouds, but then again, Kanchendzonga is Sikkim. She is the only thing pristine left in Sikkim today. Will she be laid low? Are we going to be true to form and be the feckless, reactive people we are conditioned to be?

Writes: Tenzin C Tashi, a BTech and MBA degree holder, is also an established writer in her native state Sikkim. She worked as a Sikkim-centric researcher and editor at the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology for over a decade. She currently owns The Rilon Farm and grows organic strawberries. Views expressed are the author’s own

This article was originally published here.

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The landscape is as beautiful as the girls in town, their hair smells amazing, their red cheeks remind me  of  my mother’s cheek  which turns red every time she screams at me, their innocence always  attracted me towards them. It’s like a dream for all of us to have a clenched fist with ones beloved and go around the Mall road, disappearing sometimes in the fog and then being visible only to find another couple in front you. The fog is so dense, you would utter a quick hi and pass by.

Sipping tea and watching the mighty Kanchenjunga  stand with all its pride is another zest of the town. I always felt like sitting forever on the frozen benches gazing at the magnificent heavenly bliss which satisfies  souls unconditionally.

Darjeeling no doubt taught me the values of simplicity, people are so simple  warm and giving. They forget their necessities behind and want to do something for you, whether it be helping you in trouble or uplifting you with their Darjeelingay spirit. No one can really make out behind the rough and tough look, they are always ready to forgive and forget .

Darjeeling has a fragrance in the air, the morning comes with  sweet smell of breads  from the bakery. Children tucking  10 rupees in their woolen trouser hurry for the warm toast and seeing the slice melting into aluminum cups like a butter is a treat in itself.

The  aroma of the afternoon comes  from noodles and buffs, the delights of food fare in taxi stand alone is something one could swear by. I used to stand on the first floor railing and witnessed the men, they seemed like trees, they grew at the same pace, the child whom I took to school every day for one and half month, started complaining his shoes had become tight during my last few days stay in Darjeeling, blame it on the delicious food.

The evening usually spreads scent of incense stick. The moment you come across a  building or a shop, one could hear them singing bhajjans or litting oil lamps all in praise of the God, where all its people  are patrons of life .

Darjeelingays Darjeeling winter absorbs more puff, the Sun even smells here. One could see people stretching out their brittle limbs in the Sun during morning and soaking their back at full tilt. While the night spreads the redolence of charcoal stoves.

While I stand today in the balcony dipping biscuits into tea, I could see the opposite hill, the hill where I belong – Kalimpong. I smiled to myself, content having spent the happiest half hour of the town I am so infatuated with.

[Writes: Chandan Pariyar]

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