History has its perspective to retell its own story. That long-lost tale of yesteryears recapitulates the golden days of bygone years. Today Lingtam, a half-hour vehicle road from Rongli Bazaar is a silent wayside small village mostly forgotten by history.
Nowadays with flourishing tourism and beautiful homestays; the place is customarily remembered by the tourists for its small Lingtam Police Check Post where the visitors and the vehicles need to submit their “Permit Pass” to visit the other side of the road till Changu.
Towards the end of the 1880s, this place had continuous visitors in the army personnel related to British Expedition Forces that marched towards Gnathang, the Sikkim-Tibet Border. Despite the presence of exotic locales around this effortless landscape; one deserted house that lies just along the wayside caught my fancied eye when I visited this place for the very first time a decade back. Between the modern days, concrete buildings lay a small wooden house empty from inside with broken planks.
The small house was a post office once upon a time during British Expedition to Tibet. A place that transported the communication between the British Army people posted to the frontier of the remote world with the western world. Interestingly, the post office is no more today and even the British issues are no more but the only thing that remains even to this date is the name “ Dak Line” that means “ the area falling along with the Dak Bungalow (Dak – Mail Service, Bunglow – small house )”. More precisely I have heard from the people living at this small silent village prefer to call this house a Dak Ghar rather than Dak Bungalow as it used to be called in heydays.
An elderly man upon my query had spoken to me, he then said his father had told him the mail service had postman walked all the way to Yatung, border trade market of Sikkim and Tibet. Even the postman from Yatung would visit once a month to deliver mails at Lingtam Dak Ghar. This small wooden house was also used as an overnight stay for travelers passing by while if there were travelers not accommodated inside the house would have to sleep at the tents provided by them.
Remarkable moments of history
ReplyDeleteFortunate to be able to read this factual interpretation of "DAK LINE" the word resonates nostalgia to all of us aquatinted with it. Shital sir,I would like you to document about the "age old big house" under forest nursery,just above Lingtam(other side of the river).It's a huge traditional aged house which govt under forest deptt.owned from the private belongings half a century ago.
ReplyDelete@Lomas Sir..thanks
ReplyDelete@Suman Sir..i wish to learn more about the house.