Proud to be a Sikkimese: Sikkim Travel, Culture & Local Heritage

PRESS RELEASE The Senior Men’s & Women’s camp for the North East States 2019 will be conducted at Imphal, Manipur and Shillong, Meghalaya respectively from 10 th April to 4 th May 2019 by the National Cricket Academy (NCA), BCCI. Four Ranji players Nilesh Lamichaney, Ashish Thapa, Lee Yong Lepcha and Bibek Diyali from Sikkim have been selected for men’s camp and five senior women players Dichen Ongmu Lepcha, Sunita Rai, Purni Maya Gurung, Pranita Chettri and Tshering Ongmu Lepcha have been selected for women’s camp by the All India Selection Committee. After inclusion of Sikkim as a full member of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2018, this is for the first time the senior players from Sikkim has been called for the NCA camp. National Cricket Academy established in 2000 is a cricket facility of the BCCI for training cricketers who are identified as having the potential to represent the Indian cricket team. Every year NCA sel...

By Arpan Pradhan Meena Rani Mukhia award ceremony was organized at Tadong Government Senior Secondary school on 3rd of December 2011, Saturday. This was the initiative taken by former principal of Tadong government senior secondary school to felicitate the top students of each class. And also the entire programme was sponsored by Mrs. Meena Rani Mukhia former principal of Tadong Sr. Sec. School. In the event class topper of every classes starting from class – i   to class – xii were awarded with a certificate and cash prize. As Mrs. Meena Rani Mukhia takes a bit more interest in the girl education she also had also initiated an award “best girl of Tadong School”. The criterion for “best girl of school” is, she must be studying in the school since the pre-primary level and the same was awarded to Miss Dil Kumari who studied in Tadong School for almost 13 years. In the programme area councilor Mr. Prabhat Gurung was also present. present in the event was Mrs. Doma L. Zimba, Pr...

Lepcha Lok Katha Sangraha (1980s) by Nima Taknilmu Lepcha, Sonam Tshring Lepcha, Norbu Tshring Lepcha, Sunta Lepcha and Premkit Lepcha

 from digitalgallery.nypl.org

I am thankful towards Sushma Sharma for sharing up these valuable photographs of old Sikkim. Each photographs are a gem of its own.

   by Benu Pradhan About 3kms from Pelling and a few minutes walk further down from Pemayangtse Monastery are the Rabdentse ruins, the 2nd capital of Sikkim, founded by the 2nd Chogyal of Sikkim Tensung Namgyal in the year 1670. In this palace, Tensung Namgyal married three wives, first from Tibet, second from Bhutan and the daughter of the Limboo king, Yo Yo Hang of Limbuwana eastern Nepal. The 3rd Chogyal Chador Namgyal and his half-sister, Paden Wangmoo (the daughter of a Bhutanese mother), claimed the throne against her brother, which led to the Bhutanese attack on Rabdentse and the fleeing away of Chador Namgyal for political shelter to Lhasa, and losing Kalimpong to Bhutan in the process finally to the brother of Chador Namgyal.   The assassinations by his sister Paden at Borong hot spring when the king was deep in treatment (1716). With the final wishes of the dying king, Sister Paden Wangmoo was caught and strangled to death and burnt at Samduptse (Na...

"A Grammar of the Rong (Lepcha) Language, as it exists in the Dorjeeling and Sikkim Hills' by Colonel G.B. Mainwaring of Bengal Staff Corps is the first book in the linguistic study of Rong language. By the favour of the British government in India, he was enable to present to the public a short grammar of the Rong in 1876, fifty six years after the publication of the first Nepali Grammar by J.A.Ayton, both printed at Calcutta."

This photograph is in sell in ebay auction site. The cost of the photograph is 22 US  Dollars. The information provided under it says: "Offered is an original 1928 photogravure view. It is a print on paper and was published in a 1928 first edition. The Lepcha are the aboriginal inhabitants of present day Sikkim. Under British rule, the Darjeeling area was initially a "Non-Regulation District" (a scheme of administration applicable to economically less advanced districts in the British Raj) — acts and regulations of the British Raj did not automatically apply to the district in line with rest of the country. As a consequence of the 1905 Partition of Bengal, the area came under the jurisdiction of the Rajshahi division and was placed in the newly created province of East Bengal and Assam. Later in 1919, the area was declared a "backward tract"."

I am still looking for the earliest settlers at Singtam bazaar but with little success. As a student of Sikkim history when I try to wrap myself within the frame of that era where transportations and communications were only on the animal’s ride or possibly the “dollies” used by the wealthy social order, I would beyond doubt find myself the sole person to think what or how things could have happened then. When I look at the age old mango trees grown along the road side leading to Singtam Bazaar from the old Iron Bridge it makes me feel nostalgic. I could feel the thoughts of the people who had planted it. These trees are as old as Singtam and those people who first sowed the mango seed were the first to have thought to beautify this then small time river-side inhabitant. What was more fascinating was the fact that it was not the present business capital of Singtam that was sought-after marketplace more than half a decades ago but a little heard of Sirubari now angelized Sirwani that wa...

At Kavi BY SHITAL PRADHAN Last month I was on a visit to the ruins of Tumlong, the third capital of Sikkim and the view to that site and the half done repairing work made me feel are we, I hear say are we Sikkimese really concern about our prime past. When I was going through the different pages of Sikkim's history, I believe there are many things we still do not know about Sikkim, or I can say we know very little about it. The time has come for the account of Sikkim's history to be re-written from its initial stages, though we know that we have limited resources along with us. I am sorry to say that I find many things missing and vacant spaces that need to be filled up. Just to say that we know little of Sikkim's prime is more of a layman's excuse. If the effort is made, we can make the most of it. Until recently, we have looked back at Sikkim's earliest record dating back to the 9th century when Guru Padmasambhava had mystically flown to Tibet via Sikkim. Well...

I enjoy what Gerda Lerner, a renowned historian, once quoted: “What we do about history matters? The often repeated saying that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them has a lot of truth in it. But what are 'the lessons of history? The very attempt at definition furnishes ground for new conflicts. History is not a recipe book; past events are never replicated in the present in quite the same way. Historical events are infinitely variable and their interpretations are a constantly shifting process. There are no certainties to be found in the past. As a toddler, we are here to comprehend the beauty of those immemorial days that have lived up to its days.”  Fig 1. Delisle’s 1723 Carte d’Asie shows the first map of Sikkim, then written as Bramson Often repeated words that history should never be repeated but re-created, I personally believe we have come to that hour of need where we can have local writers brushing up with some history exemplar, pu...

Shital Pradhan, Singtam Legends are part of the developmental evolution of the human race and cannot be singled out as simply being imaginary. These legends had been the basis of many future findings that were once tales woven into the narration of reality and folklore. We belong to the land of Lepchas, which are termed primitive tribes. Yet, we cannot confront ourselves because we lack evidence to speak our minds. We believe in age-old ethnicity and the words of scholars. Still, the absolute truth remains the fact that our future generations need to be explained the mystic forces of time immemorial that built up our Sikkim, from the days of the so-called earliest life in a Lepcha tribe to the three-century-old Namgyal Dynasty and further towards the making of the Sikkim that we live in today. From the tiny Himalayan Kingdom to the 22nd state in the mighty Indian Union, the stamp-sized state of Sikkim has witnessed many major transformations. Much like folklore, the history of early Si...