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

 

 Interview of the week He is a 98 years old grandfather. His life is a historic timeline where he had seen the Britishers rule India, had participated at World War II as a soldier of 3/4 th Gorkha Rifles, witnessed the Indian Independence, saw Sikkim turn democracy from the monarchy. Pau had an opportunity to come across the legend to share his life in his own words. Meet Singraj Newar, a world war veteran from Sang. 1.         Namaste Aja, Please tell us about your parents and your birthplace. Ans: Jojolapa to all. I was born in 1920 in Sang Rabdang Bhansari village to Late Shidhi Raj Pradhan and Late Laxmi Pradhan. I was in my early teen when my father passed away at the age of 55 years. My mother passed away after my retirement.  2.         How was your childhood? Ans: I was not fortunate to see a school. My life as childhood was very difficult. My father passed away leaving five br...

Thank You, Burung JHS, for the honour.(09.12.15) I feel blessed to have received my first honour as a school teacher from the school where I was first posted. MY SPEECH ON THE OCCASION Good afternoon to all, with due permission from today's Chief Guest, Special Guest, and distinguished guests from my department, HRDD, and others. I am standing on the premises of a school where I started my journey as a school teacher. I stayed here for six long years, and I am thankful to the school administration for considering me worthy of recognition. I find myself blessed to receive my first honour as a school teacher from the school where I was first posted. During my early years, I was told that teaching was a beautiful profession. Despite this, I was made aware that it is not the easiest of professions. Honour, whether large or small, encourages you to improvise your efforts to bring out the best in you. To give back to society, I became a teacher. Today, it might seem...

  Cine Star Uttam Pradhan along with six others felicitated SINGTAM, AUGUST 17: PD Rai, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Government of Sikkim took salute of the march past as Sakyong Chisopani JHS joined with the rest of India to celebrate the nation’s 69 th Independence Day. The day-long programs had felicitation ceremonies, inter- school cultural and rural and athletics competitions, kho-kho match, and Open Football final. PD Rai, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha was the Chief Guest on the occasion while other distinguished guests present on the occasion were Bhim Thatal, ‎ Director Primary Education, HRDD, Gangtok, Thupden Bhutia, Assistant Director, HRDD, Khamdong GVK, Dipendra Gurung, HRDD, Khamdong GVK, Sunita Dahal, Headmistress, Burung JHS, Nirmal Cintury, Zilla Panchayat member, Panchayat members of Sirwani- Chisopani GPU and others. Seven personalities were honored for their service towards society and being an inspiration to others. Those personalities includ...

The most anticipated football match of the tournament was won by Lower Sumin SS. Winner runner trophies along with other certificates and medals were distributed from the hand of the Chief Guest. Playing in the finals of the U-15 Inter-School Football Tournament held at Chisopani JHS, the school boy’s team of Lower Sumin SS defeated their rivals Burung JHS with six goals to one. Purna Bahadhur Sherpa scored a hat-trick while Passang Sherpa and Karma Bhutia added three and a goal respectively. Aashish Darjee scored the lone goal for Burung JHS. Passang Sherpa from Lower Sumin SS won the Man of the Match trophy, Bhim Bahadhur Chetri from Nimtar JHS was adjudged the Best Goalkeeper of the tournament, Dawa Karma Sherpa from Upper Sumin was awarded the Highest Goal Scorer of the tournament, Ganesh Chettri from Lower Sumin SS was presented the Player of the tournament and East Point SSS has unanimously announced the Fair Play Team of the tournament. The winner and the runner trophy was...

SINGTAM, AUGUST 9: Burung JHS and Lower Sumin SS have won their first-round matches respectively and marched to the next round in U-15 Inter-School Football Tournament held at Sakyong Chisopani JHS. Lower Sumin SS defeated Sirwani SS six goals to one. Ganesh Chettri and Passang Tshering Sherpa netted twice while Samrat Rai and Govind Chettri added a goal each to move their tally to six. The lone goal from Sirwani SS was scored by Rajen Subba. In the next match, Burung JHS defeated the host team of Chisopani JHS in a close match by four goals to two. The school team from Burung JHS took the lead in the first 15 minutes and was drawn with two goals each at the end of the first half. In the second half, Burung JHS added two more goals and sealed the match in their favour. Sandeep Pradhan, the goalkeeper went on to score two goals, while Jeeten Pradhan and Ashish Darjee added one goal each for Burung JHS. Parsu Gurung from Chisopani JHS scored two goals for his team.

My mother Ganga Pradhan passed away in 2003; she was a primary school teacher. Being a primary school teacher I wanted to honour my mother. For the last five years at Burung Primary School (now JHS), I was providing trophies for the best attendance of the year from the entire Burung School. Though I got transferred to Dalapchand SS this year, I did not want to miss the opportunity to celebrate the best attendance of the year, a class of award for a student who had the least days of absence from the school.  So this time too, I gifted the award for Burung JHS and Dalapchand SS students in my mother’s name, Ganga Pradhan Memorial for the best attendance of the year 2011. Sumiran Rai from Class V won the award at Dalapchand SS where he was present in 218 days from the overall 219 schooling days.

I never thought that someday, my passion for understanding Sikkim would have followers and well-wishers across the globe. Just before writing this article, I received an email from Volker from France wondering about my fascination with bringing out things about Sikkim that no one had ever thought about.  I was looking for information with him regarding a person named Robert Godet. He was a Frenchman, writer, photographer, adventure lover, and family friend to the Royal family of Sikkim. In the 1950s, he made several flights to Sikkim in his small two-seater airplane, probably making him the first to fly across the Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim.    Sometimes, my friends call me a wanderer since I visit places looking for lost pieces of Sikkim's past. Sometimes, it's the oral documentation, while on a few other occasions, the materials I get around keep me silent. For the last decade, I had been at Singtam, my hometown, and doing my own research on Sikkim History, but thi...

  Some Unknown Flying Objects being photographed at Sombaria It is too early to assume the recent sky events that had been reported from different places of Sikkim are mere faux news of some extraterrestrial show up.  No such explanation of those flying objects being sighted had been found. Yet it remains mystery for those who had come across it and even for those who gossips around it. So are we being watched from sky? The mystery further increased when a student from Sombaria came with the photographs of some unknown spherical object moving around the hills of Sombaria on November 26, 2009. He told “The said object flew bit slowly while they came out from backside of mountain, thanks to god that I was capturing a scene of mountains and the object appeared in my camera aperture. I clicked it; they were five of them moving towards border side of Nepal where they little later disappeared. I never heard any sound nor did I see any white spots behind them”.  All than...