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

--> Tashiding, in West Sikkim, was one place I wanted to visit for the last few years, but it never happened until last month, and I am in high spirits. I finally did it. Regarded as the holiest of monasteries in Sikkim, the Tashiding Monastery, over the centuries, does hold strong its own legends and folks. The first look at the faintly yellow roof of the monastery on top of a hill from the opposite roadway gave me a pleasant feel that was beyond my expectations. The Monastery is built atop a ridge between the Rangit and Ratong rivers. I am told of a legend that  Guru Padmasambhava  had shot an arrow to select his place of meditation, which is the present site of the Tashiding Monastery.  It is even said that the rock is still found at the Tashiding Monastery premises, where the great Guru meditated. One of the reasons I wanted to visit this place was to see the stupa of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, regarded as the most outstanding Tibetan master of the...

In one of a grandeur gesture students of the Government Secondary School at Yuksom in West Sikkim have written a five page letter to Mahendra Singh Dhoni with a Lays wrapper stapled along with it. Dhoni endorses potato chips which uses non bio-degradable wrappers. Dhoni's advertisement of LAYS "Please come and see for yourself. Should not we aspire to keep our pristine environment unpolluted?" the students wrote seeking his cooperation in their endeavour to keep the environment clean. It was found that in a cleanliness drive from Yuksom to Dzongri last month, the students had come across wrappers of the potato chips comprising 47 per cent of the non bio-degradable waste in the state. Dzongri The students also appealed to Dhoni to consider making some arrangement to collect the wrappers for disposal. They, however, expressed their adulation of the cricketer and urged him to visit their school with the national team to play a cricket match with them. "We will take you...