One for the ROAD

One for the ROAD

or what’s left of it.........

by anmole prasad

When Subhash Ghising and his motley motorcade of diesel jongas drove into Mela Ground in 1986 to address a general meeting, very few people knew that Ghising was suffering from a severe cold: his weary eyes were watering and both his nostrils were firmly clogged from the long dusty drive across the district. After delivering a lengthy speech that painted a rosy vision of the future of these hills, he issued a call to the people to launch a mass movement called ‘mato-ko-andolan’. Or so it sounded, at that time. Nobody suspected for a moment that actually Ghising was calling for a “bato-ko-andolan” – a struggle for the roads. And thus, thanks to the adenoidal vagaries of one man, the history of Kalimpong was changed forever.

It sounds incredible but it’s true. Just pinch both your nostrils together firmly and try to say “bato” and if it doesn’t sound like ‘mato’ then tell me. And if that’s not enough, go for a walk, or better still, a drive around the rotten roads anywhere within the limits of our autonomous hill council and see for yourself.

But to resume my story: the well-meaning people of Kalimpong, quick to rise to the occasion, launched into an enthusiastic agitation for a separate homeland that began towards the middle of 1986 and lasted for three years; an agitation that was to provoke a sharp and brutal response from the Government of West Bengal: innocent civilians, many of them poor women, were mowed down in the streets by police gunfire in the infamous incident of the 27th of July 1986. Others found themselves dragged from their beds and locked up for months in various jails all over North Bengal. In one fearsome reprisal, the security forces massacred dozens of ‘militants’ (some of them ailing, elderly citizens) in the Gumba Hatta/Upper Dungra area. The Town Hall was commandeered by the Government and its basement rooms were turned into an interrogation cell with attached torture chambers where manacled and bleeding suspects were held.

With the signing of the ‘Accord’ in 1988, his purpose served, Ghising forgot all about Kalimpong. He was hardly seen this side of the Tista and if at all, it was peering out from the smoked glass window of a white Ambassador that rushed out of town before lunchtime, hot on the heels of a howling pilot jeep.

Ghising’s face faded from public memory, people got on with their lives. The maimed dragged themselves around in improvised prosthetics, the arrested persons, who are to this day plagued with criminal cases from the andolan, hired their own lawyers to rescue them, the PWD rebuilt its razed bungalows, business drifted back in from Kathmandu and Siliguri and slowly Kalimpong limped back to a semblance of normalcy.

But it was back then in 1988, after the ‘Accord’, that the bato-ko-andolan took off in real earnest. It was a slow and insidious movement that took several monsoons to manifest itself. In the beginning, one could barely feel the bumps in the comfortable upholstery of the newly launched Maruti Omni vans but slowly and surely, Kalimpong’s roads began to disintegrate.

Never mind, we said, our Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council is equal to the task. Ghising is going to fetch us pots of money from Calcutta and our streets will soon be paved with gold, just as he promised. But as the years rolled by, nothing of the sort happened. The roads just got worse and worse. The ruts became holes, the holes became potholes and the potholes themselves became trenches that filled with water during the rains.

Never mind, we consoled ourselves, our Municipality is equal to the task. Somehow they’re going to scrounge the funds from somewhere to repair the roads. But by then it was too late: the GNLF had turned its eyes on the Municipalities of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong and before you could say ‘Alkatra!’ each of these towns found itself saddled with Municipal councillors of the diesel jonga variety. Side by side, delimitation redefined the boundaries of the Municipal areas, enlarging the maps to include large areas of agricultural land so that urban and rural concerns were hopelessly muddled up in the same civic body. The number of wards increased and so did the number of councillors. Everywhere not just the roads but civic infrastructure itself began to deteriorate rapidly. Main thoroughfares were no exception. Kalimpong’s Main Road, Darjeeling’s Judge Bazar and Ladenla Road, all turned into mule tracks that reminded one of the good old days of the Tibet trade.

In the meantime, party hoodlums received an open general license to occupy reserved roadside land. Not, as they would like to put it, because they were ‘landless’, but because these lands represented the very best of prime real estate that could be flogged off to unsuspecting buyers for lakhs of rupees. Witness the massive encroachment and transaction of PWD lands along Reshe Road towards the outskirts as an example. As usual, the local SDOs and the Assistant Engineers of the PWD did nothing about it, preferring to look the other way rather than rake up a row before one’s transfer orders arrived. At any rate, the Collectorate itself was too busy apportioning the last of Kalimpong’s public lands amongst its civil servants and petty bureaucrats to worry about such minor things. And so, as the traffic got heavier and heavier, the roads became narrower and narrower. It was a state of affairs that could, to this day, only be described as leng-feng.

But no, I remind myself. There were some desultory repairs actually made to the roads from time to time. But when? When the Dalai Lama came to town? When the elections were just around the corner? When the original paving from 1920 began to show up on Main Road and it just got too damn embarrassing? In one particularly pitiful instance, a contractor was saddled with the job of patching one of the smaller roads. The work was so shoddy that by the time the man reached one end of the road, the patchwork had already been stripped away from the other. The outraged residents were contemplating the filing of a complaint with the Kalimpong Municipality against him. The outcome of which is still unknown. One wonders if their righteous anger would have been mitigated if the contractor had told them what he’d spent to get the contract.

And so the bato-ko-andolan drags on as roads are stripped bare of their surfaces, of the layers beneath and of the very boulders on which they had originally been laid. Every car becomes a rattletrap in a matter of days no matter how carefully one drives. Every conversation inside a vehicle turns to the appalling condition of the roads and ends with abuse for the ruling party. Every visitor to Kalimpong tells you what a nice place it is – except for the roads.

The usual excuse put forward is the lack of funds. For a moment, let’s assume that’ s true. Even so, the Municipalities could easily maintain a standby crew ready with a few barrels of alcatra and the (presently idle) road roller ready to patch the smallest rut on the street thus preventing it from becoming a pothole during the wet season. The biggest enemy of the road is water, for water enters the crevices of the road surface and destroys it, as any layman would tell you. The Municipalities could also easily clear the drains of all obstruction and keep them well maintained at a negligible cost. Strict bye-laws preventing the laying of water pipes over drains would go a long way in preserving our roads. The use of drains as a place for dumping garbage and waste water has also contributed to the destruction of our roads: a fine example of this is to be seen below the Government Housing colony where a perennial stream of black filthy waste is emptied not only onto the drain but often over the street itself. This notwithstanding that some of the most powerful (and supposedly responsible) officers of the Government are residing in the colony. The Sub-Divisional Officer, ensconced in his villa on the other side of the hill is of course hardly bothered by this. The water distribution networks needs to be regulated, redesigned and revamped in so that the digging of roads to lay pipelines is reduced. The major drains and jhoras leading out of town are required to be kept well maintained and free of obstruction. The use and disposal of plastic has to be reduced by proper legislation and by the introduction of a garbage bin system in every shop and home. All this hardly requires funds; all that it really needs is for the Municipalities, the Government and the people to play a more proactive role, for the enforcement of existing regulations and a more efficient use of the present infrastructure.

But where is the will? After all, there is more money to be made out of destroying a road than from maintaining it. All of us have paid the price of the bato-ko-andolan either by a twisted ankle, a damaged car or even a fatal accident. But what are its profits? One will never know for sure, for the accounts of the Municipalities are shrouded in secrecy, even though the law obliges them to transparency and to an annual disclosure to its citizens. Under the indulgent eyes of a State Government that rules through a satrap, the accounts of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council are also kept under wraps and never questioned. What has been received for maintaining the roads, what has been spent, what has not, are questions to which there will be no answers so long as the State and Council are in cahoots with each other. The only purpose our roads serve today therefore, is as a monument to our inability to self-governance, to our weak and collaborating leaders, to our corrupt and self-serving bretheren who prevent us from ever becoming a civic society.

A good road is the first index of civilisation. A road is the first point of physical contact between the citizens and the administration. Every time a man steps out of his house in Kalimpong, he curses his luck. The only things that are new about our roads are the names that politicians give them. A man with patched trousers, no matter how ragged, always stands with dignity. And so it is with roads; we don’t ask for new ones, even patched ones will do. And I’m afraid as things stand today in Kalimpong, the bum is showing.

Absurdity unparalleled

Absurdity unparalleled

By Anmole Prasad

A few months back the civil authorities in their wisdom called a general public meeting at the Town Hall to consider the construction of a bus terminus at a site near Novelty Cinema. The agenda and scope of discussion was to also include alternative sites such as Mela Ground and/or Dr. Graham’s Homes play ground for the construction of the bus terminus.

As far as the Civil authorities were concerned, the ‘general public’ of Kalimpong (as invited to the meeting) consisted of our respective Members of Parliament and Legislature, the local Police chief, seven bureaucratic heads of local Government departments, the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of Kalimpong Municipality, local politicos, one Headmaster from a school, the heads of three local clubs, one railway out-agent and one newsagent. Apart from the above, it does not appear that the notice was circulated elsewhere.

I was driving to Gangtok on the day of the meeting when a shocked friend called to give me the news that the Mela Ground was actually under consideration as a possible site for the new bus terminus. I was appalled but could not return in time to make an appearance at the meeting to register my protest.

That the meeting did not settle upon Mela Ground as a site for the terminus is no source of comfort. What is ominously significant is the fact that the possibility was considered at all by the decision-makers of our beleaguered town. After years of neglect, of the squandering of public funds on hare-brained projects and the near-total breakdown of infrastructure, the proposal to build such a major project on our one and only public space shows a frightening lack of imagination and a bankruptcy of vision on the part of not only local leaders but the bureaucracy as well. What callous motives prompted them to even suggest the Mela Ground as a possible site, one will never know, but coming as it does after two-and-a-half decades of regional ‘autonomy,’ one cannot help but feel a sense of doom, a regression to a feudal age where the overlord’s whim runs large.

What does the Mela Ground of Kalimpong mean to us? It is an unprepossessing field as stadiums go. Its architecture is patchy and straggling, having been pieced together over a number of years largely through the efforts of citizens and the doughty old Kalimpong Sports Association. It grows some turf of its own accord during the rainy season and remains gritty for the rest of the year. But it opens to the south of the town in the direction from which the monsoon winds blow in summer, cooling and airing the buildings in central areas of the town, clearing the diesel smog off the Motor Stand. Far off beyond the field, on a clear day, one can see the hills of Suruk and Samthar and the blue sky over the Siliguri plains. In winter, the southerly sun bathes the ground and the surrounding houses with warmth and light. Other towns in the district that cannot boast of such a centrally located public space have had to spend huge sums in creating one even if on the outskirts.

Not a man born and brought up in Kalimpong has but kicked a ball around Mela Ground as a child. The grassy field, as it was then, served as the venue of the town’s football tournaments since the days of Raja S.T. Dorjee who, as legend has it, himself dug the football field out of the meadows along with his labourers. Soccer greats such as Rané, his brother Bhim, Mini (Md. Sporting), Baby, Jerry Basi (Mafatlal; India), Kumar Pradhan, Hém Adhikari, Reginald Namchu, Phuptshering, Kharé Basnet, Pém Dorjee (Md. Sporting), Bhânu Pradhan, Nim Tshering, Shékhéy, Hiru Périwal, Shivratan Périwal, Alamgir Choudhury, Ganjéy, Terence Gomes, Samdup, Chamba, all grew up on its scrubby turf. The likes of Jawaharlal Nehru and Jyoti Basu addressed public gatherings from its manch. During the nineties, the annual Sanskriti mela drew crowds of people during dasai. Every year, agricultural fairs, circuses, melas, Chaat pujas, the Holi sambat and sporting events are held on the ground. Of late, young rockers have found it a lucrative venue for playing high-wattage heavy metal to large audiences. Last year saw Udit Narayan Jha and his troupe stage an impressive music and fashion show for the town and the audience stayed on late into the night, not the least because home was not far away.

If there’s one thing that Kalimpong brings to the district, unparalleled in terms of both energy and scale, the one thing that no other town in the area can match, it is the Independence Day celebrations each year. Since the first day of freedom in August 1947 when my father and his friends rode cheering around town, firing their shotguns into the air, Kalimpong has celebrated each anniversary with incomparable festivity. Independence Day is fiesta time, a day for parades, drills, dances, soccer, beer and food. New suits are tailored for the occasion and people from neighbouring towns throng in droves to Kalimpong for the event. 15th of August in Kalimpong without Mela Ground is something hard to imagine.

But above all, the ground has provided much needed space for children, especially those from poor homes, as a recreation area in an otherwise cramped and heavily built neighbourhood. As a child, I and many other children from the nearby buildings played football and cricket there, flew kites in autumn, marched to the school band as students and learnt our first cuss words from our playmates.

Thus when a brutal proposal to tear down the stadium and replace it with a smelly grease-stained bus terminus is bruited by those very persons who have arrogated to themselves the authority to determine the future of the city (for indeed it has grown to be one), it is a time not only for cuss words, but also for sober reflection on the state of the region. It is also a time for squarely facing the malaise that has stricken us as a civic society and reduced us to timorous, sycophantic and selfish creatures since that sad day in 1986 when Subhash Ghising delivered us his glorious promises from that very Mela Ground.

After the present day ruling party of the Hill turned its gaze upon and took over the reins of the civic body several years ago, one of its strangest obsessions has been with that of endlessly creating more and more space for motor transport. In the late nineties, all the major roads in central Kalimpong were widened, in many cases by demolishing private homes and shops, with the ostensible purpose of easing traffic congestion. Instead of using the newly widened roads for the smooth passage of vehicles, the Municipality along with the bureaucracy and police, converted more than half the road width into parking space. The consequence was that with the parking of vehicles along one side, the ‘widened’ roads became narrower than before and had to become one-way streets. The pavements were reduced to thin strips of concrete so that if two fat ladies with shopping bags stopped for a chat, there was no way of getting past them. The pedestrian became a second-class citizen in his own town. In the meantime, the gatichârâ attitude spread to the fruit vendors, hawkers and shop keepers who with impunity commandeered large sections of the pavements for themselves under the indulgent eyes of the Councillors. Simultaneously Katharine Graham Park became the target of an ill-conceived and ugly Tourist Information Centre built mercilessly against old stonework of the Katharine Graham Gate with scant regard for the piquant and historical houses in the area.

While all this was going on, the numbers of vehicles went up by leaps and bounds for a variety of reasons. With the revision of pay and allowances, many persons in service suddenly found themselves with surplus incomes. Side by side, interest rates fell and a virtual perestroika overtook the finance market. Banks fell over each other to lend liberally to the salaried classes. All of a sudden loans were easily available for all sorts of goodies, including the purchase of cars which themselves became cheaper and cheaper as new models jostled for a share of the market. Every home could afford a Maruti Omni or an ‘800 at the least. A commensurate explosion in construction took place with liberal finance now available at the drop of a pay-check. And so the number of trucks and heavy transport also went up.

In the surrounding countryside, the “Rulers of the Hills” reneged on its promises year after year: there was virtually no investment in agriculture and rural development. Life on the farms became harder and harder and migration to the town became the only answer for many an unemployed youth. With the lack of opportunities in the village and the suburb, scores of young men have taken to driving as a form of employment. The civil administration and the law enforcers which have always encouraged petty criminality amongst Kalimpongers for the explicit purpose of exerting greater control upon them also cast a benevolent eye on the use of private cars as taxis. This state of affairs eminently suited the purposes of the ruling party which has long since relied upon the lumpenisation of the youth as a source of power. And so it did nothing to alleviate the plight of hundreds of unemployed youth. Instead of anticipating and addressing these real and pressing problems, the politicians simply perceived the growing drivers’ unions as potential vote-banks and also as a source of muscle-power and logistical support during elections. Hence this pretended solicitousness in making space for more and more cars, conveniently forgetting that the city does not have infinite amounts of parking space. Hence, ignoring the more pressing concerns of public health, environment, sport, culture, children and youth welfare, the decision makers now have the temerity to suggest that the Mela Ground be converted into a bus terminus.

Aggravating things further was a total failure on the part of both the West Bengal Government and the DGAHC to address long-term town-planning and to expand infrastructure in advance to meet the needs of a burgeoning population. Kalimpong, which had been planned as a small township in the early part of the last century with no investment in infrastructure to sustain such a heavy growth began to come apart at the seams. Some examples of the degeneration can be seen in the appalling state of the roads or the inefficient water distribution system.

Despite the nationalistic posturing and their protestations of mâto ko mâyâ, the politicians have let it generally be known that public property was up for grabs. Unable to fund their private armies completely from Government contracts and vikas yojnas, they have declared an open season upon all public resources; the rampant tree-felling in the forests and farms, the sale of illegal water connections, the occupation and sale of PWD roadside lands, the ‘hooking’ of electricity, all of these have become a source of free income for one and all.

It is understood that the above mentioned meeting settled upon the land next to Novelty Cinema as the site for the new bus terminus, a decision afflicted by the same myopia. The Siliguri experience shows us that a single centralised bus terminus in or near the city inevitably produces the same congestion it seeks to avoid. Terminuses by their very nature attract commercial activity. The Novelty Cinema area is the main exit and approach to the city and is already congested with jeeps, shanties and pushcarts. Further down the area is disfigured with trucks parked dangerously along the bend. What used to be a beautiful walk with the entire Kanchanjunga massif in full view is now obscured by vehicles and shacks. The construction of a bus terminus there would most certainly compound matters further by creating an even more congested bottleneck comprised of incoming and exiting traffic, momo-thukpa-Gold Star dives, hovering taxis, and baggage-toting porters. The final result achieved would merely be the transplantation of the present Motor Stand from one location to another without solving the real problem of congestion. The planners have to realise that the real answer to the problem would be decentralisation of infrastructure with many more and smaller motor stands spread across the city. The north-bound traffic could thus originate from a stand located, say, at Gumba Hatta or even Topkhana and the south-bound from as far a 7th mile leaving central Kalimpong relative free of traffic. This would also enable taxis to cruise from one place to another and get more business. Every bit of vacant land left at the disposal of the city ought to be converted speedily to parking lots before they are overrun by more squatters. But can we look forward to such measures in the near future?

A deep and sinister cynicism has overtaken us all, a sense of not belonging, a habit of not caring. It reveals itself in the sad, shabby architecture of our misshapen and closely-packed buildings (rods protruding on the terrace for that extra illegal floor), in the potholes that have endured for more than a decade, in the bundles of water-pipes that clog every drain and alley, in the mounds garbage that accumulate in front of the State Bank of India, in the roofless stalls of our once-glorious hat bazâr, in the rows of shanties that spring up overnight along the roads, in the jeep that ferries your water or the trickle that comes from the tap.

This is not to suggest in any manner that planning should shut out the poor and the needy, or that the very people who deserve opportunities be shut out from Kalimpong. Rather it is for them and for these very reasons that much is needed to be done in the realm of town-planning, low-cost housing, waste-management, human resource development, education, public transport and traffic management, public health and sanitation, buildings regulation, environment, water distribution, the list is endless. But a solemn duty is cast upon the persons who have chosen to represent us to address these problems with intelligence, with vision, with humility and above all, with honesty.

And an equally solemn duty upon we, the people, to demand it of them.

Kalimpong Girl Launches

DUTCH WEBSITE

By Sandip C. Jain

This definitely is a first for Kalimpong- of course a daughter-in-law of Kalimpong Karen Pempa Hishey(daughter in law of the late T.P.Hishey) has launched many a products in the print media and has to her credit the tag of being the first Liril Girl of India- Of course a son of Kalimpong, Imran Ahmed (son of Mumtaz Ahmed) has launched several Ad campaigns, the most famous being the one for Smart prepaid cellular connection of Reliance Telecom Ltd; but never before has a daughter of Kalimpong done what Suzane Tamang has done- she is the model on the Home Page of the newly constructed www.2006.u-t-c.nl/ , a Dutch Internet site.

Suzane Tamang, 18, is a student of Kalimpong College and this was her first shoot as a model. The site which has been created by Frank Mueller, a French national, was looking for a model with oriental features and Suzane fit the bill perfectly. Says Suzane, “I was approached by Wg. Cdr. Prafulla Rao to do the shoot and realizing the opportunity, I grabbed the offer with both hands.” Wg. Cdr. Prafulla Rao is an acquaintance of Frank and is a highly talented and proficient amateur photographer.

“Frank wanted to launch the Web Site with a model with oriental features and approached me with the request. Suzane was a perfect choice,” says Rao.

This probably is the first instance when such a work has been outsourced to Kalimpong. Now with the high speed Internet connectivity, the talent here and low cost of professional expertise available here, Kalimpong has shown that it can become a place wherefrom such works can be outsourced,” says Rao.

Speaking about her experience of working with Wg. Cdr. Rao, Suzane says, “Mr. Rao is the ideal person a new comer like me could ever hope to work with. I was so nervous about the entire affair but he made me feel at complete ease.” She further says, “I definitely hope that I can do more such assignments in the future.”

MONGOLIAN COMMUNITY

Mongolian Mystery of Kalimpong unraveled

By Sandip c. Jain

Kalimpong down the ages have been a magnet attracting royalties, aristocrats and noblemen from all round the world – Prince Peter of Greece & Denmark, the Roerichs from Russia, the Burmese Royalty, the Afghan Prince, the Bhutanese royalty and several others have made Kalimpong their own in different periods of the towns not so long history. The period starting the early 1940’s till the mid 1960’s especially was one where Kalimpong came to be known for attracting several many of very high quality people from across the globe. Besides the royalty and noblemen, the town also became a favoured destination for scholars and learned men from all quarters of the world and hence it was natural that the common folks from across the globe too followed them here. The Chinese had a large presence here so did the Tibetans and to a smaller extent the Burmese, but this comes as no surprise considering the geographical location the town occupied being bang in the center of the India –Tibet(China) trading route. What definitely is surprising is that Kalimpong also had a large presence of people from a land far far away with which it had no geographical boundaries and no known direct contacts- the far off land being Mongolia which besides being thousands of Kilometers away also has several countries between itself and Kalimpong.

The story of their presence actually lies intermingled in a complex web of international and national politics as well as religious beliefs and the changing world order of those times.

The Mongolian community in Kalimpong during the middle of the 20th Century was actually a miniature version of those existing in Tibet before the Chinese invaded the ‘Roof of the World’. The movement of the Mongol community towards the Darjeeling Hills, more specifically towards Kalimpong, was forced by the forcible occupation of Buddhist Tibet by Communist China.

Mongolia & Buddhism are said to have a very long association, infact even during the times of the great Chinggis Khan and his grandson Khubaili Khan, Buddhism is known to have had its presence in parts of Mongolia if not the whole of the country-a lull followed. It was during the times of HH Sonam Gyatso the 3rd Dalai Lama, the highest ranking Lama in the Gelupa school of Tibetan Buddhism, that Buddhism actually took firmer roots in Mongolia. In 1578, a meeting between the 3rd Dalai Lama and Altan Khan actually led to Buddhism laying a stronger foundation in the whole of Mongolia. It is said that it was in this meeting that the title of ‘Dalai Lama’ was first conferred upon the head of the Gelupa Sect of Tibetan Buddhism and he is known as such till date. Thus started the active interaction between the Mongols and the Tibetans.

Many in Mongolia having embraced the teachings of Buddha became Monks and traveled to Tibet to study the religion and master its holy scriptures. The interaction was not limited only to religious affairs only- trade too opened up between the two countries and hence a regular two way movement between the two countries commenced.

Over a period of time the Mongol monks came to establish their presence wherever a larger body of Tibetan Buddhist community existed. Gradually over a period of time several leading Buddhist institutions of Tibet like those in Kambum, Labrang, Dre-pung and others created a special section specially for Buddhist monks and scholars from Mongolia.

Mongolians, whether scholars or monks or just ordinary pilgrims, called both Tibet and India as “Burhanil-Oran” meaning ‘the land of the Buddha’. Those who traveled to Tibet usually extended their travel into India and visa-versa. This very vibrant interaction between Mongolia and Tibet and to a smaller extent India lasted till the very early part of the 20th Century. Then came the storm… in 1911 the Chinese nationalist movement overthrew the Manchurian Empire which had ruled China, Mongolia, Tibet and other Central Asian countries. Outer Mongolia too soon managed freedom from the Manchurian rule though Inner Mongolia still was in a politically unstable state. Communism soon established its hold over China & Russia and believers of Buddhism as also other religions soon found themselves in a position where their very own country was inhospitable to them and not conducive for them to follow, propagate or practice their own religion. Many of these monks and scholars made a beeline for Inner Mongolia where the communists still had not stuck roots. In 1940 when Inner Mongolia too was overrun by believers of the communist ideology, these monks and scholars had to plan another escape- this time the exodus was towards Tibet. Lhasa soon was teeming with monks from Mongolia, both with the newly arrived ones and also with those who were there from earlier times.

Experience had made the monks from Mongolia wiser and hence even before the Chinese(read Communists) actually entered Tibet, the Mongolian monks saw it coming and fled to safer havens into newly formed secular India where religious freedom and tolerance was probably more than in any other country of the region. Those of the Mongolian monks who stayed behind in Tibet eventually made their way into India in the footsteps of the present Dalai Lama who entered into India in 1959 and took up home in Dharamsala.

Upon entering India, the Mongolian monks who traveled with their Tibetan counterparts found the Hills of Darjeeling ideally suited for their stay. Being in the middle of the trade route to Tibet, Kalimpong with its ideal climate and conducive intellectual environment attracted a large number of monks and scholars into in. Infact even before 1959, Kalimpong already was home to several many highly regarded scholars, monks and religious leaders from across the world. It had already acquired a name for itself as an academic centre for Himalayan & Tibetan studies.

The influx of so many foreigners also infamously and unfairly earned Kalimpong the name of “a nest of spies”. In 1959, the then Prime Minister of India Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru for the first time in a interview with the US bases Time magazine called Kalimpong as a nest of spies. Though research now shows that the Peking(Beijing) based daily “Peoples Daily” probably was the first to call Kalimpong ‘a nest of spies’ and that probably Nehru just picked it up from there.

The Mongols who settled down in Kalimpong were mostly monks though later many married, some within the community while others to Tibetans and they eventually formed a community within Kalimpong. The community thus formed was a small though the talent it possessed was quite admirable and enviably. It consisted of some very highly regarded scholars and academics, very high ranking Lamas, religious leaders and noble families. Kalimpong gained immensely from scholars like Lama Chimpa, Da-Lama, Rigzin Wangpo, Geshe Wangyal, Geshe Kaldan, Geshe Agwang Nima and several others. Lama Chimpa (see box) who still is a resident of the town living in the Madhuban area of the town, has worked with the great Russian scholar George Roerich and helped him in compiling the Tibetan- Sanskrit dictionary. He also had a long association with Viswa Bharati University in Shantineketan (Bolpur) which was set up by Rabindranath Tagore. Another Mongolian scholar, Rigzin Wangpo, who was the son of a Buryat Mongol who was an Electrical engineer and who help set up the first electrical network in Tibet, was a Kalimpong bases scholar, writer, poet and journalist. Infact some of his works were published in Himalayan Times in the 1950’s.

The Chinese always viewed Kalimpong as a hotbed of Political activities against it. Sadly India and Nehru to took a similar view and so following the India-Sino conflict of 1962, all those who were viewed as controversial persons and whom the government thought would be hindrances to the Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai concept, were forcibly removed from Kalimpong and relocated to special settlements in Mussorie which is now in the state of Uttaranchal. Gradually the community in Mussorie migrated to different places many to the West, in search of greened pastures.

But the pull of Kalimpong was too strong for people like Lama Chimpa who after working in different institutions in India for more than three decades came back to settle down in Kalimpong with his wife and still resides here till date.

His contributions along with those of several other Mongol scholars and monks will always be something Kalimpong will be proud to be associated with.

References:

www.intermongol.net

www.rmaf.org.ph

www.american-buddha.com

IS KALIMPONG FLESH TRADE FREE??? THINK AGAIN !!!!

IS KALIMPONG FLESH TRADE FREE??? THINK AGAIN !!!!

WORLDS OLDEST PROFFESSION MAKES NEW ENTRY IN KALIMPONG

By Sandip C. Jain

In a region where good job opportunities are as scare as the water available for drinking, any earning opportunity from any profession that a youth can get, should be a welcome one. But not so for this profession, which though considered as the oldest profession in the world, is not one which anyone would or should recommend to any one.

Despite the stigma attached to the profession it has become an attractive one for a section of the girls of the hills. Prostitution, whether one would agree or not has become a major problem in the hills. A few physically smart and fashion conscious girls of the region with limited resources and almost no technical knowledge have started to resort to selling their body in an effort to mint easy money. While much of it is still under wraps several incidents in the last few months have blown the lid off this racket. Himalayan Times in an effort to make the public and authorities of Kalimpong more aware of this grave problem tracked down several of the girls involved in this social menace to analyze the problem.

22 years old, Sneha G. (name changed to protect identity) is a school dropout from a local reputed school. Having lost her father at the age of 13, Sneha’s mother could not handle the financial pressure of letting Sneha repeat her studies in Class 8 when her daughter failed to pass in her annual examination. Having no education to back her up she eventually entered the flesh trade at the age of 19. “Without any regret or any scruples she say “I entered this trade as because I was not qualified to do anything else and of course because the money is really good. I have three people who look up to me for their survival and I had to do something.” She really has no hang ups about what society thinks about her. She is extremely clear in saying “where was the society when I needed education, where was the society when I needed a job. So why should it poke its nose into what I am doing today??”

There are at least a dozen of such Snehas in Kalimpong today. After all entering the flesh trade does not require any qualification as such. Payal K. (named changed to protect identity) all of 20 years says “I am into this trade for the simple reason that I needed the money. All I needed to enter this profession was a mobile phone and the mental strength required to shut out the voice of my conscience .”

25 year old Nima D. (name changed to protect identity) a six year old veteran of this trade, walks about in Main Road as if she out on her weekly shopping trip. With a natty cell phone in hand and casual jeans and Tee-shirts, she looks like any other ordinary girl waiting outsides a restaurant for a friend. Little does one know that after having worked out the business details from her trendy Nokia mobile, she is waiting to be picked up by her client at a pre planned spot. The red hankerchief on her right hand signifying she is the person who the deal has been struck with.

This writer having made an appointment with her met her at her residence at 10th mile. She has this strange logic to justify her profession which seems to have enabled her to buy all the latest gizmos of the present times that stud her two storied house.

“Had this profession not existed, the streets of our town and else where would become too dangerous for any girl to venture out on them.” “Rape and molestation would become as common as common cold,” she says. Baring her life story she says “I used to work in a beauty parlor in Siliguri which actually was only a front for the flesh trade. I had to move out of Siliguri as new initiatives by the local administration there had made it too risky for professionals like us. Operating in and out of Kalimpong is much easier and safer as there is less Police pressure here.”

While it may not be too evident on the surface but those in the know-how of the rapidly with which this trade is inciting the girls of the hills, are extremely alarmed with the developments. It is hence not suprising that a substantial percentages of the call girls in Siliguri are from the hills. A raid by the Siliguri Police at several places in Siliguri some months back netted a dozen girls working in this trade, most of whom were from the Hills but the matter that concerns us is that the kingpin of the entire operation was from Kalimpong. Of course its another matter that by this time all or most of the girls are out in the open and in most probability back to walking the streets. These are the type of girls who have become role models for many of the other girls from their locality. Their affluent life style and prosperity is an attraction for others in their towns and villages to tread on their foot steps. The other aspect to consider, is that these girls are taking up this profession these day out of their own free will. Today’s girls in this trade are no prisoners kept confined in dingy one room apartments, they are masters of their own destiny and decide on their own which person they want to transact business with. Gone are the days where the pimp was the lord of the lady. No pimps or middlemen are now in between the girls and the client and the girls. The new middleman or the pimp, if there is any, is the modern day wonder box called the mobile.

Nima D. says in this regard “we are like any other professional working women. No one should have any reason to take away our work or stop us from earning with the absurd theory that the girls are being exploited. Where is the question of being exploited when we operate independent of anyone and when are have not been forced into this trade by anyone??” “Had we been in Netherlands or any other country where are trade is legal we would be doing something perfectly legal.” She adds.

How much ever weird her logic may be but the fact remain that this problem is acquiring serious proportion in the hills and things are angling to get out of hand, if something is not done about it.

the dabbawalas of Kalimpong

By Sandip C. Jain

They may not have been invited to the royal wedding in London nor is their work treated as a case study like that of the now world famous Dabbawalas of Mumbai but one thing is certain – the anticipation and excitement with which school kids in Kalimpong these days await lunch served by our local dabbawalas, is probably fit for another case study. Midday meals in school are fun again with school children now getting a variety of food all though the week courtesy“the dabbawalas of Kalimpong “. Actually they are not exactly like the dabbawalas of Mumbai but rather caterers who cook and serve mid day meals to school students in the various schools of Kalimpong.

Two such caterers are “Aahar” and “Tiffin King”, both of which provide lunch service to school children of Kalimpong. Aahar was started in 2004 and Tiffin King started service this year.

The school students are treated each day to a variety of delicious like Veg & Non Veg Biryanies, Pizzas, Hamburgers, Chicken & Veg Rolls, Stuffed Parathas, Noodles, Fruits and Juice. Both Tiffin King and Aahar provide service in almost all school of Kalimpong on a monthly payment basis. Says Dhendup Bhutia a partner in “Tiffin King”, “We started off with seven students carrying the food in a motor bike. Now we have more than 300 member students and we ferry the food in several cars each going to a different school.”

“The best part is that both Aahar & Tiffin King offer their service at a very nominal rate”, says a school teacher who avails of the service provided by Aahar. Both the caterers change about Rs.300/- to Rs.350/- which means just about Rs.15/- to Rs.17/- per day, which for a full meal is nominal by any standards. Says Mrs. Meera Rai, the mother of a student availing this service, “I am a teacher myself and have to leave home at almost the same time as my two school going children. I had to previously really hurry early in the mornings, getting my children ready, cleaning up the house, getting ready myself and then cooking lunch for all of us. Now my schedule in the morning is much more relaxed than previously as lunch now is taken care of by Aahar.”

“Every my children are happy and no longer crib about lunch” she adds.

Kalimpong Town of Maruti Vans

VANLIMPONG

TOWN OF THE MARUTI VANS

By Sandip Jain

During a recent brain storming session between like-minded friends in Kalimpong, which was directed towards arriving at a consensus over providing a catchy slogan to be attached to the name of the town, several interesting suggestion came out. Needless to say but at the end of the two hour session, we were still where we had begun i.e. Kalimpong still did not have any slogans to be attached to its name which was commonly accepted by all. But a session like this in Kalimpong ending without any conclusions is in no way surprising, after all the saying “Paray ko Salla Kharani ko dalla” holds a lot of in our lovable little town, doesn’t it??? But like I said, the session left us enriched with several very very interesting and some downright hilarious suggestions. One such suggestion, which came from a very respectable doctor of the town, was “Land of the Lollipops”. Coming from a doctor was interesting enough but even more interesting was the response that it evoked. The response from the majority of the people present was that if Lollipops were associated with Kalimpong, all tourists with a diabetic problem, the world now being full of it, would shun Kalimpong like plagun.

Another suggestion was “Land of the Neora Forest”, this too was not accepted as it was felt that now Lava, having become a tourist destination by itself, had full monopoly over the Neora forest plus Neora Forest is now no longer an official part of Kalimpong after it was transferred to the Jalpaiguri forest range . A fellow journalist threw out the most interesting suggestion that I thought was in a way actually what Kalimpong symbolizes at the present times. This journalist who behind his bored looks and thick specks holds a ultra quick wit and wacky sense of humor, suggested the name “Town of the Maruti Vans” more appropriately Vanlimpong. Though of course this suggestion was made off the record and was made more as a mood-lifter, I felt this could have been the ideal name for the town, which in the present days seems to be chocking on Maruti vans. This I am sure many would agree fully exemplifies the situation that Kalimpong is at the moment.

At a conservative estimate about 800 Maruti vans are decorating the roads of the town. For a small hilly town like ours that has at place, roads narrower than Bitney Spears waists, this is far too many a number that can be accepted without any fuss. With about 5 new cars entering the town every month, the situation turning worse with every day that rolls by. The situation has attained such serious proportions that now even a stroll down can be a life threatening act. My guess is that Kalimpong has more Maruti Cars in relation to the total number of cars than probably any other town of its size in the entire nation. One visitor to the town, a senior IAS Office posted with the Indian Postal Services, after getting over the initial shock of seeing the flood of Maruti vans, joked that if the Managing Director of Maruti Udyog Limited was to ever set his eyes on all these Maruti vans, he would either resign his position as the head of this company due to the shame of seeing the havoc that his creation has caused in this beautiful town or he would be so delighted that he would order his Sales Department to give a 33.33% discount on all cars sold to Kalimpong residents. Maybe, he would even use footage of the Maruti Vans swarming at Kalimpong, in one of the many commercials that his company runs on air.

Some may say that the numbers of vehicles on the roads of any particular place is a good yardstick to gauze the development of the place. While this might hold some water, shouldn’t the quality of the roads to be taken into account if any such assessment is to be made?????Must not the road available for the proper running of these vehicles be better prepared and maintained for the town to be actually labeled as a developed one. With every Tom, Dick and Harry now buying a car to further develop(??) the town, is it not expected that all the revenue raised from the vehicles owners by way of taxes, should have gone towards maintenance of the presently pot hole littered road on which these very vehicles runs on? A news item appeared in several local publications including the Himalayans Times , which reported a demand by the Darjeeling Hill Transport Joint Action Committee, now a part of the Gorkha National Drivers Front. The demand was that the Motor vehicle Department currently under the State Government be transferred to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council for the better management of the funds that is generated by the department from the Hill District. Looking at the lack of funds at the disposal of the local bodies for the purpose of road maintenance, this demand I feel is fully justified.

But wouldn't better roads again mean more Maruti vans???

HULLABALOO IN THE ORCHID GARDEN

HULLABALOO

IN THE ORCHID GARDEN

By Sandip C. Jain

It certainly is in no way any inheritance of loss for her- infact if you consider the above thirty-five lakhs in Indian currency that she pocketed as prize money for winning the Man Booker Prize and the other several millions that her book is making for her being on top of the Indian Best Sellers list, its more of a case of that type of inheritance which a twenty something trophy wife, of a stinking rich eighty something husband, receives on his death. A more appropriate title of Kiran Desai’s book would have been “Inheritance of a Windfall”.

While no one should have any objection to this “windfall” that she “inherited”, on the basis of the literary merits of the book, we in Kalimpong should and do strongly condemn and object to the falsities on which the plot of the book is built on.

Ok, we agree, and are the first ones to do so, that not everything that happened during the Gorkhaland agitations for a separate state (within India) was right. There is no way one can justify the meaningless violence, the loss of so many innocent lives and the burning down of government property, but then one just cannot rubbish an entire society and a mass uprising, just because it makes a good plot for a book.

Desai, probably was just thirteen-fourteen at the time the agitation was at its peak (which makes her too young to actually make any rational judgment of what was going on around her) and probably was not even here in Kalimpong during those days ( which again impairs her judgment making capacity), to actually know the correct ground situation prevailing during those troubled days. Her ignorance of ground realities is reflected in a big way as one actually goes through the book that she has written. Her branding the agitation as communal, her implying that the Bengalese population in Kalimpong was virtually treated as out-castes, her labeling the most reputed tailoring house in Kalimpong as “deaf”, her pointed suggestion that the very revered Father Booty was a homosexual who ogled at Buddhist monks and her describing the colour of sunset on Kanchenjunga as “pornographic pink” , are some examples of her insensitivity to local issues. (By the way how did Desai know how or what pornographic pink looked like at a time when she was barely into her teens???? )

Miss Desai, do you realize or do you even know that Kanchenjunga is the most revered object of worship for the indigenous Lepchas of the region?? No responsible person, specially someone of your lineage, is expected to describe someone else’s object of worship by comparing it with anything that, even remotely, has something to do with pornography!!

Miss Desai is lucky that it is Kalimpong, its people and its history that she chose to rubbish. Had she chosen to do the same for any other place, there would have been a massive “hullabaloo” against her and her book. She is lucky that she chose Kalimpong which is a place which just does not react. After all Kalimpong has become something like a long dead, rotting tree stump, where every dog(or bitch) can come and relieve himself or herself and go away contended, without an iota of protest by the tree stump.

You owe us an apology Kiran and it won’t cost you a single penny out of the millions that you have already made at our expense.