Nepali Language Binds the Indian Gurkhas Together: Manprasad Subba

Manprasad Subba

[Manprasad Subba (b. 1950) is a Nepali-speaking Indian poet of high repute. Known for his poems collected in ten collections, a few fictions, translations and critical writings, he has won several awards, including India’s prestigious Sahitya Academy Award for his highly acclaimed poetic delivery Aadim Basti. The list of his publications is long, but the most revered ones are Biblyanto Yugbhitra Cartoon Manchheharu (1979), Bukhyachaharuko Deshma (1983), Ushma (1987), Aadim Basti (1995), Ritu Canvasma Rekhaharu (2001), Akshar–Orchestra (2004), Kinaraka Aawajharu (co-authored, 2008), Bhuinphutta Shabdaharu (2013), and Nettiphungko Basna (2016). A collection of his representative poems, Manprasad Subbaka Pratinidhi Kabitaharu (2017) was published from Nepal. The discourse of marginality he initiated in Darjeeling Hills has inspired a lot of creative writings and research. By profession, he is a lecturer of English literature in Darjeeling. Uday Adhikari of The Gorkha Times had a conversation with Mr. Subba. Presented herewith is the edited except of the same.] 

Your statement, “There was a bull that was sold on the eve of Dashain; probably it got unimagined price,” seems to be fiercely political and at the same time revealing the frustration and anger that accumulated in your heart over the years. Would you like to share your involvement in Gorkhaland Movement and Nepali Language Movement with our readers? 

Yes, that satirical piece was a casual expression of a sort of disappointment and frustration. When people’s trust is bartered for a personal gain, what can common people do but to spit a few words of frustration? Right from the day when the issue of separate state for Nepali speaking Indians emerged in 1980 and a few years later Subhash Ghishing’s loud call for Gorkhaland movement rose up in 1986 and after 21 years another surge of movement was seen in 2007 followed by yet another resurrection of the movement in as recent as 2017, I have found myself giving vent to my intense feelings and thoughts in support of the issue, though I never took part actively in the movement. I wrote, sometimes under pseudonym, poems and a few essays too with the theme of self-assertion and self-articulation in the context of our national identity in India. 

     In the language movement that intensified in the late seventies until early eighties I was closely associated with the All India Nepali Bhasha Samiti. When Morarji Desai, the then Prime Minister of India, severely wounded our sentiment, I wrote a poem entitled ‘Backlash’ that was first published in Bhasha Samiti’s mouth piece Hamro Bhasha and a little later in Diyalo, a literary bi-monthly. The poem unexpectedly and unprecedentedly drew the attention of large number of readers. Indrabahadur Rai, then president of Bhasha Samiti, once read out the poem from the stage in a three-day conference of the Bhasha Samiti in Darjeeling, and in 1979, the poem was honored with Diyalo Puraskar. 

     The 2017 Movement was a sudden eruption of people’s sentiment against the Bengal Chief Minister’s announcement to make Bangla language compulsory in all schools including those in the Darjeeling Hills. It was during this time I wrote a protest poem titled Mero Jibro (My Tongue) which soon became a viral. I read this poem on several occasions at several places including Kathmandu where I had been for a few days to attend a program at Bhrikuti Mandap when the movement was still relentlessly going on. Rochak Ghimire, then present in the program, asked me for the poem to publish it in his literary magazine, Rachana. The following year I was invited to Delhi to present a few poems among which Mero Jibro was one. Next day it was translated into Hindi by Devendra Devesh, a well-known Hindi poet-writer and deputy secretary of Sahitya Akademi. How close the Nepali language is to our heartbeat can be seen in the poem. 

     The protesting voice against the State Government’s attempt to thrust Bengali language in the Hills was at first heard in the social media and the voice grew louder and louder, and as it could no longer contain itself in the confinement of individual minds and gadgets alone it took to the streets as a massive protest rally led by no one but the people themselves. Such rallies could be seen in all parts of the districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong. It soon drew the attention of all social, cultural and literary institutions and all political parties in the Hills, and before long the most influential party Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, then in power in the regional set-up, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, came forward to lead from the front the emotionally charged protest rally that in no time took the dimension of Gorkhaland movement. It was a direct confrontation with the state government. 

     Nepali language has ever been a strong unifying force for pan-Indian Nepalis who nowadays prefer to call themselves Gorkha to avoid their being confused as Nepalese immigrant or expatriates in India. It was when Indian government time and again turned out to be coldly indifferent toward the demand for constitutional recognition of Nepali language the frustrated Nepali speaking Indians came up with the movement of ‘Chhuttai Pranta’ (separate state within the union of India) championed by Indrabahadur Rai et al. A little later Subhash Ghising in one of his public address thundered, “Why beg for milk? Why not lay claim to the cow itself instead?”  And he emphatically called that cow Gorkhaland. However, it is a different story that he, after twenty-eight month long violent agitation, settled with a can of milk which he carried to-and-fro between Calcutta and Darjeeling for over two decades.             

     One more piece of story to add here in the context of the power of Nepali language in the Darjeeling-Kalimpong Hills: Mamata Banerjee’s Bengal Government had seemingly succeeded to divide us in the caste lines by forming the Boards for each caste group like Tamang Board, Sherpa Board, Limbu Board, Newar Board, Bhujel Board, Khas Board, Kaami Board, Damai Board and so on, the likes of which is non-existent anywhere in other parts of Bengal. Each Board was given development grant of five crore rupees. Having been apparently successful in her nefarious design, the CM then believed that the solidarity of Nepali-speaking people in the Hills was broken into fragments never to come together again. But the day she came up with her language card all those temporarily fragmented units came together to become one single solid community, the Nepali-speaking Indian community, the Gorkha community. Is it not a power of Nepali language evolved in India?      

After the demise of Bachchu Didi you sighed, “She is gone; she had every right over me.” Probably you are thinking of your childhood now-a-days more often than before. What was your childhood like? Was there any place for books? 

I, among my five siblings, am the eldest, born to very humble but self-respecting and industrious parents. As a child, I got best of their attention although they had to spend much of their time in various hard works. I remember the day when both of them held me by my limbs and lifted up to carry me to a government primary school, a place I hated to go to. I still see myself crying frantically and kicking in the air while being carried toward the school. Every morning my mother prepared me for the school equipping me with a dark slate and a short stick of white khari and a hanky to wipe my runny nose. Besides running a sort of a humble restaurant at home, they used to cultivate a small field on the bank of Chhota Rangit. My father used to take me to that field and made me seated on a flat rock in the middle of the field. I would get easily scared and even a tiny grasshopper made me cry in fear. The best time I enjoyed in the field was the day of Daain when paddy-sheaves would be thrashed to separate rice and the thrashed sheaves would be trampled by the oxen going round and round a bamboo pole. 

     With a playground quite close to our house we would often be found playing football or some other games in the ground and a few minutes’ walk from the ground the Chhota Rangit flowed where we would go to swim in the summer season.

     While in Class I, I had learnt to play truant with a friend and that year I failed the exams. My worried parents put me to a private tuition. Next year I stood first in the class. And throughout the school I stood first every year in each succeeding class.

    One thing I would love to make a special mention is about a rhymed verse I wrote while in Class I. It was, in fact, a rhymed versification I made of the story about the fierce rivalry between the Wind and the Sun, a moral story in our Nepali textbook. 

     On the other side of the river there lay lush green tea garden and clumps of bamboos and thick woods. We would run across the suspension bridge and walked into the woods to play Tarzan swinging from the wild ropes on the trees.           

To explain the history of Indian Nepali literature, you said that in India, Nepali language unites different people. In India Bhanubhakta’s Ramayan brings Nepali people together. But in Nepal talking highly about Nepali language and Bhanubhakta is bound to trigger some sort of controversy. Would you like to tell how Nepali language and Bhanubhkta bring different people who speak Nepali language together? 

Indian Nepalis, (Subhash Ghising propagated the term Gorkha since Gorkhaland movement in 1986 and this nomenclature of Nepali speaking community in India has largely been accepted and is in growing usage), are tenaciously tied as one community by their common language Nepali and Nepali culture about which much has been said above while answering to the question number 1. Nepali language is the first language (mother tongue) for the entire community of Nepali speaking Indians barring a few ethnic groups in Sikkim. It is on the basis of this linguistic communion we, in India, claim to be a community of more than ten million populations with a distinct cultural ethos. However, even this number is less than one percent of total population of India. For more than one hundred years, we have been desperately struggling for the national identity as Nepali speaking Indians. We had hoped that the constitutional recognition of our language would secure us our sorely desired Indian national identity. But years before Nepali language was finally included in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution, movement for the separate state of Gorkhaland broke out and the euphoria we had at the time of achieving recognition of language in 1992 soon faded away and today every Nepali-speaking Indian feels, and practically so, that the national identity can be attained only by separating ourselves from the dominion of Bengal and creating our own state on the basis of Nepali language and culture as most of the Indian states have been created on the basis of their respective languages. Even when we are fighting for the state, the driving force that has bound us together is the Nepali language.  

     In the country of Nepal the word ‘Nepali’ might have no more than linguistic and political connotations whereas for us in India ‘Nepali’ denotes Nepali jaati, a distinct community with the culture of its own. This Nepali jaati was evolved in Darjeeling during the last two centuries. So, the Nepali language in Darjeeling, Dooars and other parts of India inhabited by its speakers is deeply rooted to this jaatiya sentiment.     

Annual birth anniversary of Bhanubhakta Acharya is ritualistically celebrated with much fervor as a day of our cultural unity. To the Nepali jaati in India Poet Bhanubhakta, known not only as Aadikavi but equally as jaatiya kavi, is more a symbolic figure of Nepali culture than merely a pioneering Nepali poet who transcribed Ramayana into lucid Nepali language.                

Probably you belong to the second generation of Nepali writers that succeeded the first generation like Agam Singh Giri, Lil Bahadur Chhetri, Indrabahadur Rai, Shiva Kumar Rai etc. As a writer, you have been living successfully. You have seen ups and down of language and political movements. How do you evaluate contemporary Nepali literature in India? 

The base of Nepali literature in India was made solid by the writers and poets of romantic and realist traditions like Rupnarayan Sinha, Shivakumar Rai, Laina Singh Bangdel, Agamsingh Giri, Lil Bahadur Chhetri, Indrabahadur Rai, Birendra, Okiuyama Gwain and others. Following them came the modernists led by Indrabahadur Rai. Modernistic writing went on till the turn of the century. However, realist writing continued to make its presence felt even when the postmodern and post-colonialist writings have largely drawn the attention of the readers since the beginning of twenty-first century. Contemporary Indian Nepali literature is much vibrant with its sharp ironies and glocal (global+local) traits. Young writers in all genres are quite promising.   

It seems your first love is poetry. Later you expanded your horizon into other genres too. How did you start writing poetry? Was there any inspiration? 

I was attracted to poetry right from my tender age. My initial fascination with poetry may be likened to a child’s attraction to a sweet-tuned song, the child who sings understanding nothing what the song says and knowing nothing of the rudiments of music. Even as I was in the Fifth Standard, I used to read poems in the literary journals. I had even read Bairagi Kainla’s and Ishwar Ballabh’s poems in Tesro Ayam without making head or tail of them, of course. By the time I was in Class 8 I had an exercise book half-filled with a dozen or so poems of my own. And while in Class IX I was featured with a poem and a short story in the annual school magazine, Sarita. In a few months after I passed out high school, I had written two semi-epic poems besides some other short poems. What inspired me to get so indulgent in the poetry in my teens? I don’t have any clear cut answer. Perhaps the natural surroundings of my locality, eternally flowing Chhota Rangit River, language of the poetry which I found fascinatingly different from that of prose writing tickled or aroused the subtle sensibility in me which may be called a sort of inspiration. 

In one of your poems ‘The Story of My Birth’ you explain the trauma your mother went through to let you enter the earth. You are a poet and you have seen birth of poems. What is the process of your poetry writing? Do they (poems) sometimes refuse to come? 

The process of my poetry writing often begins with an unrelenting urge I constantly feel, an urge that makes me go brewing for hours, sometimes for days, even weeks and when I visualize some images I sit to put them in words. Sometimes a flash of an idea, an image of an imagination urges me to give it a form of poem. Most of my poems grow taking shape in me before I actually start writing down. Only a few poems I make public in a first draft. Most of my poems, before brought out to light, go through three or more than three drafts, sometimes, even five-six drafts.        

In one of your interviews with Manoj Bogati, a young writer from Darjeeling, you said, “Liveliness (jibantata) is never self-centered; if it is, it gets shrunken. Siddhartha on the way to become the Buddha was not self-centered.” Your statement offers us your philosophy of life. What made you declare such statement? Does it indicate political self-centrism or lethargic literary movement?

To be living means to be intricately and intrinsically connected with several things and beings. So, only an insane or utterly insensible person goes shrinking into self-centeredness. What is a liveliness of a person for if it is not relevant to others? A creative person, even in his / her intensely personal expression, is relevant to the world at large. This idea applies to all other fields. Politics with openness or open-heartedness is much desired but least practiced idea everywhere. If only there were something like creative politics!           

Your statement “Poetry writing is not a leisure activity, though it is written in the moment when you find yourself free from mundane activities.” This needs some explanation. Does poetry carry certain responsibility?  

Indeed, no activity can be irresponsible. Even in the lightest of our mood or while being humorous or satirical, we are guided by our conscience. Responsibility in one form or the other is always there while writing poetry. Poetry is certainly not a pastime game or play a poet engages with in his leisure time although it needs time away from mundane activities. The first responsibility of poetry writing is towards poetry itself, which is an object of living art. An art can be living only when it creates vibration in the heart and mind of a reader. Is what you say a poetry or just an expression of an emotion, an idea, a thought, a piece of imagination? Poet, of course, has the responsibility to answer this question.         

You explained in one of your memoir piece, how you reached Banaras to see the process of your novel changing into printed copies. What inspired you to write a novel? 

Some emotional upheavals and new experiences I received while entering into a most significant phase of my life urged me to give them a shape of novel. They would better be expressed in fictional prose than poetry. That was, in fact, only a novella and not a novel of standard length.  

 “Colonial era is gone but the colonial shadow stayed back never to leave.” I quote you here and you ended your piece with the question: Can we ever liberate our intellectualism from this yolk of the western colonialism? People invite Western thought, and are dying to imitate their life but here you are waging a war against it. Will you explain how you feel suffocation? What do you mean when you say our intellectualism? 

The process of western colonization of Indian sub-continent began in the eighteenth century and remained till mid-twentieth century.  Colonization was not only of land and of its economy; it was not only the physical enslavement of the native people, but equally effective, nay far more effective was the colonization of the native culture. Cultural colonization has its heavy impact upon the aesthetic and intellectual life of the people of the land. People were not only physically yoked by the colonialism from which they are but long liberated, However, their intellectualism, their aesthetic sense is so yoked that they have never been able to get off it. They have rather accepted it as the standard way of life. This may be termed as colonization of minds. It has further been strengthened by the strong wave of globalization, which is just another name for Americanization, or homogenization of the world with the American value system. This is one form of neo-colonialism. The age of colonialism in the past was the age of Europeanization when native value system was pushed to the dark corner by the European canon and it is now rapidly being made endangered by the relentless onslaught from all sides. Those native and ethnic values, which are closely related with nature, must be rescued and saved and our own aesthetic sense must not be replaced by their way of seeing things.              

You mention somewhere about the problem of good criticism. In Nepal, we too suffer from the criticism that is being done from the point of view of groupism. Writers, Readers and critics are to be somehow blamed for such pathetic situation. How is Nepali literature in India fairing in that sense? 

Although I am not a critic, I have at times spoken of creative criticism. What I believe is that a good literary text offers multi-layered scopes for exploration of the text. A sensitive and insightful critic may creatively explore the text and discover the things, which may not be visible to common readers.  Even the poet or author might not be fully aware of what has surreptitiously slipped from his / her subconscious into the text. A critic’s keen observation may discover that very thing hitherto unseen to the poet himself / herself. 

     We as readers must know the difference between a critique and review, an explorative criticism and conventional paraphrasing. 

     Indian Nepali criticism showed its bright beginning in Ramkrishna Sharma way back in the fifties of the last century. He was quite bold to show direct influence of great English romanticists upon Devkota and others. His legacy was ably shouldered and further developed by stalwarts like Indrabahadur Rai, Dr. Kumar Pradhan, Rajnarayan Pradhan, Gumansingh Chamling and Jas Yonjan Pyasi. In the contemporary scenario Pempa Tamang, Ghanashyam Nepal, Kabita Lama, Remika Thapa, Jay Cactus, Arjun Pradhan and Rupesh Sharma are some of the names that deserve special mention.           

In your poem ‘Rice planting’, you have drawn the picture of natural serenity and harmony between human being and nature. When I read your childhood memory, I found strong presence of nature there too. Now you are living in the city but your longing for nature is not waning. Are you romantic like Wordsworth and Shelley? 

Not at all. In many of our readers, there is a general misconception that any literary text concerned with nature and love-feelings is of romantic trend. Mere subject matter or content does not determine the characteristics of the poem. The most important aspect of a poem lies in how the content is expressed, how or in what way or manner the subject matter is given form to. ‘Rice Planting’ is a verbal visual of vigorous creativity with the combined force of nature and human beings. 

You may find some more nature poems in a couple of my books, which are directly concerned with eco writing. Romantic writing has its typical traits, which are totally absent in Rice planting.    

The word ‘Gorkha’ is one you often spell to indicate the identity of Nepali living in India. You seem to have been involved in the movements for identity. How did it happen? 

I think this question is already answered in my answers to questions 1 and 3. Yet, a few words to add: since the word ‘Nepali’ usually was, and is, associated with Nepal by those main stream Indians, Subhash Ghising revived and popularized the term Gorkha. Morarji Desai, PM of India in the late seventies, once bluntly said while replying to the delegates of All India Nepali Bhasha Samiti that there was no point in demanding the constitutional recognition of Nepali language in India since Nepali was the foreign language. That’s the reason that Ghising doggedly insisted on Gorkha nomenclature. Even when Nepali language bill was being discussed in the parliament in August 1992, he had instructed the MP from Darjeeling Constituency, Indrajit Khullar, to put forth his deliberation for Gorkha language. Was it not a great irony for Nepali speaking Indians? But we poets and writers have strong disliking for the word Gorkha as far as our language and literature are concerned which we love to call Nepali. Gorkha name for the community is okay. To me ‘Gorkha’ sounds more a martial than any other softer and subtler sounds associated with language and literature. It also sounds a bit too masculine and coarse – a little incompatible with subtle aesthetic sensibility.     

     If we go further back, we can see the term Gorkha used from early twentieth century. Padre Ganga Prasad Pradhan started his journal with the name of Gorkhe Khabar Kagat in 1901. Motiram Bhatta in Benaras wrote in Gorakhha Bhasha. In 1913, Gorkha Library, now well known for its dedicated literary, cultural and social activities, was established in Kurseong. The famous social organization, Gorkha Dukha Niwarak Sammelan (GDNS) of Darjeeling was established in 1932. All India Gorkha League, the first political organization of Nepali speaking Indians, emerged in 1943. A few writers loved to append ‘Gorkha’ to their names. Hari Prasad Gorkha Rai is one such instance. However, Nepali Sahitya Sammelan, a well-known literary organization of Darjeeling, set up in 1924, eight years before GDNS, is an exception. During the time when the word Gorkha was popular and widely in use, even in Kathmandu, prior to Pragya Pratishthan, there was Gorkha Bhasha Pracharini Samiti funded by the government, how and why a literary organization in Darjeeling was named Nepali Sahitya Sammelan? It was the time when there were two influential literary figures in Darjeeling. They were none other than Suryabikram Gyavali and Dharanidhar Sharma Koirala. It might be under their intellectual influence the organization was christened as Nepali Sahitya Sammelan. 

      One more thing to note is that poet Agamsingh Giri who sang all his life for Nepali jaati, rarely used the word Gorkha in his poems. However, Ghising named him as Gorkha Jaatiya Kavi and encouraged his followers to observe his birth anniversary instead of Bhanu’s. And when, in the first few years of his being in an unchallenged regional power, three Bhanu statues in three prominent hill towns were decapitated, all the lovers of Nepali language-literature-culture in India mourned. And soon, on the pedestals of all the three decapitated busts stood life size Bhubhaktas.                     

You are one of the representative writers of your generation. Will you tell us about the writers and books that left unavoidable impact on you?

Shakespeare, Whitman, Eliot, Camus, Herman Hesse, Pablo Neruda, J. Krishnamurthi, Kahlil Zibran, Hemingway, Marquez, Balkrishna Sama, Gopal Prasad Rimal, BP Koirala, Basu Shashi, Indrabahadur Rai, Bairagi Kainla, Matsyendra Pradhan, Dr. Kumar Pradhan – these are the names that readily come to my mind.    

Your corona poems attracted a lot of readers. We have had this pandemic for long. It has changed our mindsets about many things including nature. How did you spend such long void time? We always complain of lack of time but now we have time. Is there any new book in pipelines?  

Yes, I wrote four poems in English on the theme of current pandemic. Long stretched lockdown, restrictions on free movement, fear of going out have changed the way of our life and is expected to remain so until the desperately needed vaccine is administered to all humanity. For a person with creative indulgence such free time is always beneficial. In the first few months of lockdown I read seven-eight books that were kept aside in want of time, wrote a few prose articles and a few poems, wrote a couple of preface for others, worked on some of the old and new critical essays for my forthcoming book. I am still chiefly engaged in preparing this book expected to be published sometime in early 2021. Watching movies, listening to music are also part of my activities.        

You write in both Nepali and English. How did you make such command over English language? Is it also a colonial legacy? 

Darjeeling was built and developed by the British colonizers as their health resort. Educational institutions were established by the Christian missionaries from the West. But for us born in free India and from poor family our education began in government-run schools where we learnt Devnagiri script along with English alphabets. My fascination for English language was from the early period of my schooling. This fascination grew with time. There was a Marwari friend of mine who, after passing out the school, joined a college in Calcutta. We would frequently write letters to each other in English. And in my late teens I had made a habit of keeping daily diary in which I used to scribe my thought and feelings in English. This is how I learnt a little bit to express in English. But I am still learning and this learning process never ends.        

After we left Dhanagadi, we were destined to be within four walls for long. You wrote, “No one is so ruthlessly egalitarian as the corona monster, not even Marx-Engel-Stalin.” We all have found enough time to re visit our life. We want to hear your experience. 

As the virus grew to be a global pandemic, I visualized the mightiest being on this planet suddenly reduced to a diminutive creature anytime to be gobbled up by a little bigger creature. Human vulnerability and futility showed themselves in sharp relief. As human being found itself utterly helpless, I saw the situation as a retribution meted out to the smartest of all beings on earth for its recklessness toward nature and for its reckless blind run. When death in such an unimaginable scale is so close to us or when we are so close to a darkest and loneliest of death with no near and dear ones to get a decent farewell from, there is little meaning of glory and pride, vanity and animosity, praise and condemnation. But I was, and am, confident that this strangest of creature, this highly advanced Homo sapiens will, sooner or later, come out of this crisis. It is with this confidence I wrote a poem “Time will Come” that was made public on social media soon after it was written.     

If we forget the geography, we read you like other writers in Nepal. How do you manage such flawless relation between both parts? 

My poetry and other writings have been well received in Nepal as they have been here in India right from the days of my early publications. Some of my works have unexpectedly won critical acclaim from a few noted critics of Nepal. I do feel honored and rewarded.    

You quote Shelley, “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” You further say, “When will the winter in the Darjeeling hills give way to the spring? It is a million dollar question. When and how?” And even such genteel poet Manprasad Subba gets angry and politically charged. So we ask you when and how the long winter will give way to spring.

As for now, there is no any sign visible as far as change of season is concerned. Roads are even more frosted, chilly wind roaring, hills densely fogged. Yet, somewhere in a corner deep within a flame of hope is still flickering refusing to go out. 

 ‘Sorry guys, I couldn’t be a conformist.’ I just quote your line here and wonder why such well established figure like you declare yourself nonconformist. 

That expression was a kind of caveat to those floating minds acting smartly. It is worrisome that fickle mindedness or siding with the power of establishment and cowering away from the grim facts are increasingly being the culture in the society.  

Your poem ‘I Can’t Breathe’ appeals the large group of readers especially in Darjeeling and Nepal. Do the readers of Darjeeling see themselves in George Floyd?

George Floyd may be looked at as a symbol of the victim of hegemonic oppression. The heavy knee of that white cop symbolizes oppression and underneath it lay the black neck, symbolizing the oppressed. Such play of oppression, overtly or covertly, is rife with the life of Nepali speaking people in Darjeeling and Dooars and elsewhere in Bengal. It is not strange if people in this region find analogy in George Floyd.      

A famous Nepali writer is believed to have said, ‘What Darjeeling thinks today Nepal will think fifty years later.’ Long ago, Darjeeling was in leading position in cultural and literary field. You have observed the developments of literature and culture in both Nepal and Darjeeling minutely. Does Darjeeling still hold such position?

No longer. Much water has flowed in the Teesta and Trishuli since Balkrishna Sama famously uttered that line. Nepal has come a long way since those days of monarchical rule restored after a century long dark Rana regime and moved forward further ahead since it opted to be a crownless republic. And today we see Nepal going vibrant in every sphere of life while here in Darjeeling unimaginable degeneration has crept in and that can be seen within and without. Socio-political scenario of Darjeeling is not the same as it used to be fifty-sixty years ago or even thirty-five years ago. Exploitation — political, cultural, emotional, and economic – of it is rampant by its own people as well as the state power. However, literary field is much vibrant. Production of music also is quite enthusiastic, however, it must be said that remarkable and noteworthy music creation is yet to be seen. On the front of painting and sculpture, not much is seen here in Darjeeling although there are dozens of painters. One noteworthy sculptor and painter is Amir Sundas from Dooars. Staging of drama is not as lively as it used to be in the seventies and eighties.