Nepal was never colonised, yet for decades it sold the West precisely the fantasy the British Empire had planted in their imaginations. Mark Liechty’s Far Out: Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal sets out to explain this paradox. It traces how a resource poor Himalayan kingdom kept reinventing itself: to satisfy desires it had no hand in creating. Crucially, Liechty refuses to cast tourism as something that happened to Nepal. Instead, he seeks to dissect the “cultural and economic encounter between people who shared a larger world stage” (p. xii). This formulation helps us to understand Nepali agency as the centre of the story of tourism, even as Western longing drives the plot. In Far Out, the author traces the shifting Western imaginaries of Nepal and demonstrates how these changing perceptions have shaped the countercultural strategies that Nepalis themselves developed in order to meet and respond to Western desires, longings, and aspirations.

The genesis of Nepal’s tourist boom is especially linked to the Western crisis of meaning.  Devastated by the two World Wars, Western travellers looked eastward, projecting onto the Himalayas a longing for ancient wisdom that their own civilisation seemed unable to provide. Books and articles had already helped Kathmandu acquire a romantic appeal long before any Westerner set foot there. China’s invasion of Tibet in 1959 closed that frontier. Consequently, Nepal inherited the full weight of that projection. 

The book divides into three neat sections, tracing the evolution of tourism in Nepal across  distinct stages. The first section, “The Golden Age,” maps the Western fascination and the early years of Nepal’s tourism sector. Nepalis, long isolated from the outside world, struggled to comprehend why foreigners would desire to visit their rustic villages. Liechty shows how American governmental agencies partnered with the Nepali government to construct the country’s nascent tourism infrastructure, laying the foundation for an industry that would transform the nation.

While governments built infrastructure, the media seduced Western audiences. Journalists  descended on Kathmandu to cover King Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah’s lavish royal coronation in 1956, a multi-day spectacle of elephant processions, traditional dances, and foreign dignitaries. The coronation announced Nepal’s opening to the world. Western obsession with the “Abominable Snowman” (Yeti) simultaneously cast Nepal as an exotic and mysterious destination, arriving precisely as the country began welcoming foreigners after the collapse of Rana rule. The first successful Everest expeditions in 1953 amplified Nepal’s global profile further. Climber Eric Shipton’s  photographs of Yeti tracks seized press attention worldwide. James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon, in which a hijacked plane crashes in the Himalayas and survivors discover a hidden utopian valley called “Shangri-La” had already embedded the Himalayas deep in the Western imagination as a place of longevity, and mystery.

The irony was that Nepal, a nation that had never been colonised, found itself catering to  the elites who romanticised the lifestyles of the British Raj. Liechty traces the rise and fall of Nepal’s first international hotel, the Royal Hotel, founded by Boris Lissanevitch whom he dubs the “Father of Nepal tourism”. Another foreigner, John Coapman, launched Tiger Tops, the adventure resort that pioneered jungle safaris. Liechty credits him as the “pioneer of hunt adventure tourism” (pp. 94). The Golden Age weaponised Himalayan mythology, channelled Western longings, and inserted Nepal firmly into global tourism circuits.

The book’s middle section, “Hippie Nepal,” is where Liechty’s ethnographic instincts catch fire. Drawing on interviews, diaries, and period doodles, he reconstructs the frenetic energy of Freak Street — the maze of budget lodges, pie shops, bakeries, restaurants, and hashish vendors that entrepreneurial Nepalis built almost overnight. This was to feed the appetites of young Westerners arriving overland from Europe. Through the 1960s, direct buses ran from England to Kathmandu via Iran, ferrying budget travellers in their thousands. The postwar economic boom, rising disposable incomes, and cheap flights made the “Road to Kathmandu” irresistible. Travellers flooded India and pushed on into Nepal. Nepalis converted their homes into lodges to absorb the wave. Liechty charts the rise of iconic establishments— Tibetan Blue, Pie/Pig Alley, Camp Hotel with genuine flair. His account of the emerging tourist district does double duty as urban history, revealing how the influx physically reconfigured the “domestic and commercial space of Kathmandu” (pp.162).

Liechty locates the hippie exodus not merely in wanderlust but in political rupture. The American civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the eruption of youth counterculture generated a profound disenchantment that drove young Westerners to abandon not just their countries but their cultures. Liechty dissects the political rage of 1960s youth who rejected both the crass materialism of the postwar consumer boom and what they saw as the moral bankruptcy of their parents’ generation (pp.166). The Far East, and Kathmandu in particular, became the pressure valve for that accumulated frustration. Yet Liechty resists a one-sided account. Nepali youth, themselves unsettled by the disruption of modernisation, encountered these Western arrivals with a complex mixture of curiosity and unease. Both groups, rejecting the conventions of respectable adulthood— education, employment, mortgage, family, briefly converged on Freak Street and forged an unlikely countercultural commons. This arrangement was temporary and fragile. The “conservative backlash” in the early 1970s, accelerated by Nixon-era politics and echoed by crackdowns across Western governments, dismantled the hippie economy. The Nepali state, increasingly embarrassed by the spectacle of foreign vagrants on its streets, moved to clear them. An era closed. 

The book’s third section, “Adventure Tourism,” charts what replaced it. The new tourists arrived not to drop out but to push limits. Nepal’s government read the shift, rebranding the country for a global audience now oriented towards health, physical challenges and environmental experience. Nepal rebranded itself as a trekking destination. Thamel replaced Freak Street as the country’s dominant tourist district, built for a clientele looking for tougher physical challenges. Nepal cultivated Dharma tourism with Kopan Monastery, founded on the outskirts, playing a crucial role in attracting spiritual seekers to Tibetan Buddhism. Liechty’s central argument finds its fullest expression here: across every decade, Western desire projected a fantasy onto Nepal—exotic kingdom, counterculture sanctuary, Himalayan wilderness, spiritual refuge, trekking utopia, and Nepal, with remarkable agility, manufactured precisely the product the fantasy demanded. Liechty calls this a co-production, but the term risks making the encounter sound more equal than it was. Westerners had the money, the mobility, and the power to leave. 

Far Out’s most significant blind spot is the one Liechty himself identifies but never fully addresses: the Nepali voice in its own right. When conservative Nepalis recoiled at tourists’ drug use, sexuality, and disregard for local dress codes, they were articulating a politics of encounter that deserved far more than a passing acknowledgment that it receives here. The material transformation hinted at in the Freak Street passages, the conversion of domestic space into commercial space, the reshaping of consumption patterns, the transformation of urban spaces are mentioned briefly but never receive suitable analysis. The conclusion arrives abruptly, leaving the reader without a clear sense where Liechty believes this encounter leaves Nepal today.

Overall, the book provides a compelling analysis of how tourism restructured lives, livelihoods and landscapes in Nepal across half a century. More importantly, it establishes a template that scholars of adjacent Himalayan regions— Darjeeling, Ladakh, and Sikkim could adopt. These questions: how tourism reshapes land, labour, urbanisation, transforms land use, and reshapes community space in mountain society remain largely unaddressed. Far Out frames this with rigour and historical depth to make that work in the future possible and necessary.

My own recent encounter in Pokhara offers a small but telling coda. Over dinner, I watched local artists dance to Nepali folk songs in traditional attire, the image of authentic cultural heritage that global tourism demands. Towards the end, the Germans at the next table called out a request for a song. The performers obliged. Within minutes, tourists dressed in hiking boots replaced graceful Nepali footwork, arms were flung wide, legs kicked high, and the room gave over to a German folk song. The moment was warm, spontaneous and joyful, ending with a large tip. It was also, unmistakably, the same co-production that Liechty maps: Western desire naming what it wants, Nepali citizens delivering it and something midwifing in the space between. All of the past iterations of an exotic kingdom, the hippie sanctuary, the trekker’s wilderness have given way to the smoother, more packaged fantasy, but the structure remains identical. Liechty’s great achievement in Far Out is to show that this dynamic is not incidental to Nepal’s tourism story. It is the story. The costumes change. The encounter continues. But whose terms does it endure on?

Jenny Bentley’s Guardians of Land and Water is a deeply reflexive ethnography that plunges into the lived realities, spiritual ontologies, and political negotiations of the Mútunci Róng community, widely known by their  exonym, the Lepcha. Spanning over almost a decade of painstaking research across the Eastern  Himalayas, specifically Sikkim and West Bengal in India, and Ilam in Nepal, Bentley’s work meticulously deconstructs the colonial and postcolonial categorisation of the community as a ‘vanishing tribe’. Rejecting the simplistic view of this narrative as mere victimhood, Bentley  explores how the Mútunci Róng actively navigate a ‘damage narrative’ to assert their identity,  negotiate state recognition, and claim socio-economic rights. Through a multi-sited methodology enriched by a collaborative partnership with Indigenous scholar Kachyo Lepcha, the author  positions ‘vulnerability’ not as a paralysing condition, but as a potent driving force that compels the community to perform rituals, overcome precarity, and aggressively aspire toward a ‘good life’.  At the theoretical heart of the book lies a sharp, analytical distinction between traditional ‘ritual practice’ and modern ‘ritual programmes’. Ritual practices such as the annual Sotáp Rumfát and  Cirim in the Dzongu reserve of North Sikkim are deeply embodied, village-centric ceremonies led by initiated religious specialists known as búngthíng or mun. These practices are rooted in ‘Indigenous ontologies’ and are performed with immediate soteriological goals: to avert natural disasters like hail, prevent diseases, and ensure agricultural prosperity. The efficacy of these rituals hinges on a mythological contract of reciprocity (khe tóp) wherein villagers contribute material offerings such as millet beer (ci), rice, and animal sacrifices, which the specialist mediates to appease embedded more-than-human entities. Bentley vividly details the material culture of these practices, such as the lópfyet (plantain leaf altar), where eggs are meticulously placed to represent and appease specific directional deities. In this framework, ritual success is measured by non-events; the absence of catastrophe in the following year signifies that the deities have favourably received the community's spiritual tax.  

Conversely, Bentley introduces ‘ritual programmes’ as consciously transformed, large-scale cultural festivals, perfectly exemplified by the revival of Tendong Hlo Rumfát. Spearheaded by urban ethnic associations like the Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association (ILTA) and the Renjyong  Mutanchi Rong Tarjum (RMRT), these programmes operate within ‘culturalist ontologies’. Here, fluid, ancestral oral traditions (lúngten sung) are entextualised, written down, and objectified into a  packaged ‘culture’ meant for public consumption on a stage. This process makes the Mútunci Róng legible to the multicultural frameworks of the modern state, which demands a standardised cultural  canon in exchange for Scheduled Tribe or Primitive Tribal Group (PTG) status and the accompanying welfare benefits. However, Bentley astutely observes that this top-down push for a unified, purified culture often creates intra-ethnic tension. It threatens to overwrite highly localised oral traditions and the natural ‘polysemy’ of Indigenous narratives, causing friction between traditional specialists and modern activists. The transfer of objectified rituals into traditional spaces like Dzongu is met with resistance by local búngthíng, who warn that divorcing rituals from their  specific geographic and soteriological aims risks angering the more-than-human guardians and  bringing ruin to the village.  

Bentley provides a captivating cartography of the Róng cosmos, illustrating how spatial orientation  is intrinsically tied to spiritual and physical security. The cosmos is layered along a vertical axis: the upper, northern realm is associated with snow-capped mountains and benevolent but dangerous deities like Kóngchen, the supreme mountain god. The lower, southern realm is linked to the plains,  the underworld, and entities like the malevolent Cádúng Rázó. Importantly, Bentley argues that fertility and destruction are not static concepts bound to specific realms; rather, they are activated by movement between them. The most potent example is the descent of the ‘Kóngchen soldiers’: warrior spirits from the high mountains who bring diseases and disruptions to the human world. To protect the community from these mobile threats, the búngthíng employs a horizontal spatial strategy during village rituals. By verbally circumscribing the village and invoking local guardian deities (Lungjí Lungnóng) in an inward-spiralling sequence, the specialist effectively barricades the  settlement, separating the safe ‘inside’ from the dangerous ‘outside’. This intricate, localised  knowledge underscores the concept of Lyángdók Úngdók, the guardians of land and water, a  polysemic identifier defining the Mútunci Róng as both the active protectors of their environment and the subjects safeguarded by its divine inhabitants.  

A major triumph of the book is its historical and political contextualisation of these ritual powers. Bentley dismantles the notion that Indigenous mountain cults were fully subjugated and ‘tamed’ by Tibetan Buddhist hegemony. Through an analysis of the discontinued royal Kóngchen ritual (Pano  Rumfát) and traditional Róng administrative offices like the gyápân and yúmí, she reveals that the  pre-Buddhist deity Kóngchen remained the ultimate, untamed owner of the Sikkimese territory. The  Sikkimese Namgyal dynasty, despite its Buddhist foundations, depended entirely on the Róng religious specialists, specifically the Gârkumtsum clan, to appease Kóngchen and secure the kingdom's prosperity and the monarch's right to rule. This ritual interdependence functioned as an official form of taxation and enacted a profound royal indebtedness to the Indigenous subaltern,  placing immense political agency in the hands of the traditional Róng leaders. The political efficacy of these traditional practices waned with the demise of the Sikkimese monarchy in 1975, leaving the  Róng to navigate a new political reality.  

In contemporary times, the political utility of ritual has transitioned into the realm of modern ‘patronage democracies’. Bentley masterfully details how ethnic associations utilise ritual programmes like Tendong Hlo Rumfát as critical networking events where political and social capital are traded. Acting as brokers, these activists leverage the public display of their ancient heritage to secure political compliance from ruling governments, negotiating for community benefits such as educational reservations in Sikkim and the Mayel Lyang Lepcha Development Board in West Bengal. By equating the creator deity Ítbú Rum with a secularised ‘Mother Nature’,  activists have even managed to bridge the gap between Christian and Buddhist Mútunci Róng,  creating a unified political front. Yet, Bentley does not shy away from exposing the ‘dark side’ of this state patronage. She demonstrates how operating within state-sponsored frameworks forces activists into a constant performativity of marginality and need, often reinforcing structural inequalities, lacking grassroots accountability, and centralising power in the hands of an urban elite.  The interplay of ontology, regionalism, and politics comes to a dramatic crescendo in Bentley's  analysis of the contemporary anti-dam movement in the Dzongu reserve. Confronted by capitalist extraction and the construction of hydroelectric projects, young Róng activists rejected the state's  narrative of economic development. Instead, they forged a powerful discourse framing Dzongu as  the ‘holy land’ for all Mútunci Róng, symbolically repossessing their ancestral territory. This pan regional activism led to severe trans-border tensions. When Róng activists from Kalimpong attempted a religious pilgrimage to Dzongu in solidarity, they were physically blocked and evicted  by the police and pro-dam locals, exposing deep-seated clashes over who possessed the legitimate right to claim belonging to the region. By asserting their identity as Lyángdók Úngdók, the protestors transformed their traditional environmental stewardship into a formidable political  resource. This ontological resistance is deeply rooted in reality; when a devastating 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck Sikkim in 2011, heavily damaging dam sites, it was widely interpreted by locals not as a mere geological event, but as a failure of ritual efficacy; a clear sign that Kóngchen had  withdrawn his protection and the neglected deities were exacting their wrath. This powerful local reaction proves that Róng Indigenous ontologies retain profound political and social agency in the  modern world. In conclusion, Jenny Bentley’s Guardians of Land and Water is a thoughtful and meticulously researched contribution to ethnographic literature, Himalayan studies, and the anthropology of  religion and politics. In many places, the book's conceptual scaffolding becomes dense,  momentarily slowing the reader's pace. Yet the insights that emerge from it are seldom superficial,  and the analysis remains consistently perceptive. By refusing to reduce the Mútunci Róng to static,  colonial stereotypes of ‘pure’ nature worshippers or passive victims of modernity, Bentley presents a deeply humanised portrait of a complex, internally diverse community navigating the harsh  realities of the ethno-contemporary world. She shows that ‘being Mútunci Róng’ involves a dynamic balancing act: performing objectified culture to navigate the bureaucratic demands of the Indian and Nepalese states, while simultaneously sustaining the profound, soteriological rituals that anchor their survival in a precarious Himalayan landscape. Rather than presenting the Mútunci Róng as relics of a disappearing past, Bentley portrays a community negotiating multiple pressures:  environmental change, bureaucratic classification, religious pluralism, and internal diversity.  Bentley does not resolve these tensions, nor does she attempt to present a single, unified picture of  the community. Instead, she allows the contradictions to remain visible. The result is a study that is  less a definitive portrait than a careful mapping of a complex terrain-one where land, ritual, and identity remain closely entwined.

These lines introduce us to Kaanchko Pokhari’s lyric speaker-brooding, lament-filled, indicting the world for its harshness and, for the memorable cadence that distinguishes this collection from Tika Bhai’s previous work. Tika Bhai is a respected poet from Kalimpong, known for his Nepali verse in the tradition of political commitment. His previous collection Paitalatalatira (Manvi Prakashan, February, 2012) spoke for the oppressed and exploited Gorkha people. That work continues here yet with a twist. The poems suggest the poet is no longer satisfied with poetic intervention alone and that he is reaching now toward something more affective and intimate: the song.   

 The Song’s Arrival

Jonathan Culler’s Theory of the Lyric (2015) is useful here. Unlike narrative, which moves through time, or drama, which unfolds through character and conflict, lyric resists paraphrase and forward momentum, instead, it asks to be dwelt in, returned to, and heard rather than merely read. Its defining gestures-apostrophe, refrain, repetition, rhyme, direct address are not ornamental but constitutive, the means by which poems produce feeling and stay in memory. Kaanchko Pokhari is deeply aware of this. Memorable cadence is not incidental but consistent throughout Kaanchko Pokhari. Take the lines opening the second poem ‘Duri’ (Distance) for instance:

Though it hasn’t come across in the translation, the measured repetition of timra, le, and ma, produces a sonority which solicits the lyric speaker’s mysterious and hyperbolic claims. The structure of these lines also repeats near the end of the poem. The template which stays intact from the previous lines have been italicized below: 

We could say the repetition of these templates to emphasize the speaker’s central theme of distance between him and his addressee illustrates their resemblance to refrains.

Similarly, the subsequent poem Parewaharu (Pigeons), begins much of its stanzas with the line, ‘Parewaharu Chan’ (There are pigeons). The refrain is followed by curt remarks about the pigeons’ ironical existence, such that they fly but remain directionless. Or that they are waiting to be sacrificed in some ritual. Or that they become mere symbols of peace in front of all the wars. Or that they get treated like refugees in spite of their historical presence in the land. Or that they live like birds that have forgotten their wings. In short, the poem takes several jibes at the pigeons. Eight curt stanzas with three or four measured lines, render its speaker quite caustic in tone. Nevertheless, they have impressive iterations that sit well on the ears:

The speaker of the next poem, Chiyabot (The tea bush), addresses plantation workers as one of their own, and repeatedly asks them the riddle-like question, ‘Ke Cha Yo Chiyabotma?’ (What’s in the tea bush?). As in the previous poem, it is structured by a refrain which anchors it to the relationship of plantation workers with the tea bushes. Many answers are suggested to the question but the lyric speaker eventually comes to assert that the workers have blood ties with the tea bushes, whose kinship is yet to be named. Chiyabot:

Even a relatively ‘impersonal’ poem like Chiyabot deftly deploys aural conventions of lyric poetry. It speaks in a colloquial first-person language with harmonies created from rhythm, rhymes and repetitions. This makes Chiyabot’s lines quite unforgettable. Whether personal or impersonal, poems of Kaanchko Pokhari have this musical quality which makes them more song-like than the poems from his previous collection. In Paitalatalatira, lyric conventions operated for other purposes-the cadence there is more declaratory, a voice addressing a gathering from a podium rather than whispering or singing to someone. Where that earlier collection speaks about lives, Kaanchko Pokhari speaks from within.

Within the Lyric Speaker

The lyricist of Kaanchko Pokhari often gets personal. It draws on the poet’s intimate relationships and experiences, memories and feelings, for its addressees and messages. For instance, he is heard ruminating on his experience of being both a parent and a child, which remained relatively less explored in Tika Bhai’s previous collection. This inward turn palpably separates Kaanchko Pokhari from Paitalatalatira. In the earlier collection, the ‘I’ spoke for an oppressed collective- a voice of solidarity rather than interiority, voicing the experiences, dreams and outrage of the downtrodden multitude. In Kaanchko Pokhari, the ‘I’ also expresses the poet’s self, rooted in his emotional and everyday experiences. Take for instance the poem Meri ‘Sanu’ Sita (My Dear Sanu):   

Here the father addresses his daughter. It begins with the father acknowledging his repeated failure to bring her stories from the market. He then goes on to justify why he failed. He describes how the market lacks magic and concludes they also don’t have miraculous stories with happy endings. The kind of stories his daughter liked, where princes fought against and won over evil, where success, grace and happiness were possible for her and everyone else. For once, the poem sounds like a forgetful parent making excuses before his kid after not bringing her gifts.

By the time we reach the lines quoted above, he begins rationalising why it was better not to give false stories to his daughter. Indeed, he asserts that he doesn’t wish to ever give her false hopes regarding the market’s power to change her and others’ lives for good. Instead, he dearly hopes to give her the opportunity and ability to look at the market through her own eyes. To realise of her own accord, how the market’s power was inimical to her dreams. Through this memorable poem, Tika Bhai welcomes us into his inner world of anxieties, hopes and desires.

Mato Ra Papako Anuhaar (The Soil and My Father’s Face) is an equally personal and moving poem. Here the lyric speaker remembers his late father every time he looks at the soil he handles, the land he treads upon or the earth he inhabits. Indeed, it’s impossible for the son to not miss his father, with whom as a grown man he finds many similarities, owing to the ubiquitous presence of soil and silence between them. In the poem, the son tenderly attends to the strengths and weaknesses of his father, relates with him for having the same qualities, especially, his failure to live up to societal expectations. It is as if the son of Mato Ra Papako Anuhaar wants to forgive the unsuccessful father of Meri ‘Sanu’ Sita. Both poems also accept with grace the difference between parents and children brought by age, time and relationships. Here are some of its significant lines:

Here, music is integral to both the above poems. In fact, lyric conventions, like first person speaker, apostrophe, intimate tone, colloquial flow, rhymes, repetitions and themes of interiority are neither ornamental nor for mere sentimentality.

For instance, the musical metaphor he deploys in Mero ‘Sanu’ Sita ( The tale of man out of tune). The line indicates how significant music is to Tika Bhai’s poetry and human life in general. Here the tune emphasises the element of sound and the practice of listening. Afterall, both poetry and music require a sound ear to create and receive. Moreover, listening is also a fundamental experience of our being. Lyricism thus is not only a poetic mode but also the poet’s philosophy of engaging with both his private and public life. By attuning us to the many registers of the lyric speaker in Kaanchko Pokhari, Tika Bhai has us thinking about the language we use to express ourselves. Do they really speak only for you?

This inward turn does not abandon the socio-political commentary that defines Bhai’s poetry. Rather, he shifts from being the analyst of the collective to the subject of analysis-and in expressing himself, occupies both roles, turning personal experience into the lens for a continued, now more intimate, political critique. Sanu’s father resists the market’s ideological domination not by commanding or persuading his daughter, but by offering her, as a companion in struggle, the weapon of ‘dignified silence’.

 The Lyricist’s Wager

The lyric speaker of Kehi Bhanirakhera Jana Ayeko Chu (I have come to say something before I leave) articulates Tika Bhai’s poetic ambition in Kaanchko Pokhari. His aim is to translate the quiet tunes of the speechless into a portrait of words. This is equally a desire to memorialise the quiet tunes. It reveals how music is salient to Kaanchko Pokhari’s project in more ways than one. For it is the subject (interiority), medium (speech) and form (song) of memorialisation. When Bhai speaks to roads and skies, he animates what cannot speak in order to give voice to those who no longer can. The poems wish to be remembered on the tongues of their people- to circulate orally, to stay in folk memory, the way songs outlast their singers. Consequently, the portrait is not in painting but is heard through the song. Bhai’s declaration of poetic ambition may not interest every reader but the music of his words will surely not leave them untouched. He writes:

The poem Badh (Flood) encapsulates in action all the vows made by the poet above. Its speaker listens to the unsayable ordeals of flood victims and translates them into a poem with memorable flow and a valuable message. I shall only cite its first few lines to highlight how it obeys the maxims enlisted by the above poem:

Sentences, words and letters are at once literal casualties of the flood and figures for the disintegration of speech, language and communication among its survivors. Traumatic experience resists ordinary language- it returns not as narrative but as rupture, fragment, silence. Bhai’s flood poem enacts precisely this: language doesn’t describe the flood, it disintegrates with it. In memorialising what the flood erases, the poet participates in the survivors’ struggle to recover it.

Tika Bhai knows poetry is made more memorable through music. He wagers on the strength of music to try and inscribe in our memories the experiences of his silenced subjects. These silenced subjects range from flood victims and plantation workers to, at times, the poet himself, whose own failures, griefs and silences are equally part of Kaanchko Pokhari’s memorial project. By taking up room in our memories, his lyric poems desire to change our usual ways of feeling about various issues of private and public life in our region in particular and India and the world in general. Through our feelings, the poems of Kaanchko Pokhari work on us slowly, the way only songs can. This is the oldest wager of lyric poetry, that to move someone emotionally is to move them ethically, and that the poem which stays in memory also quietly reshapes the conscience carrying it.

References

Bhai, Tika. Paitalatalatira. 1st ed., Manvi Prakashan, 2012.

Bhai, Tika. Kaanchko Pokhari. 1st ed., Upama Publications, 2024.

Culler, Jonathan D. Theory of the Lyric. Harvard University Press, 2015.

There’s a Carnival Today, originally written by Indra Bahadur Rai as Aaja Ramita Cha, grabs attention with the word Ramita in its title, a term that feels very familiar and deeply rooted in Nepali culture. The word ramita in the Nepali language often denotes a public performance, festivity, or spectacle. In common Nepali usage, the term ramita seems light-hearted, informal, and even amusing, yet it frequently carries an undertone of irony. Common phrases like Ramita hernu aako? (Come to see the spectacle?) Or Ke ramita heri baseko? (What’s with the staring?) are frequently used to mock and dismiss serious situations as insignificant. Rai’s use of the word ramita in the title is deeply ironic: what appears to be entertainment or festivity is actually a metaphor for the everyday struggles, societal turmoil, marginalization, and hardships faced by tea plantation workers and the people of Darjeeling. The title thus serves as a significant political and cultural metaphor, making it more than just a light-hearted reference to celebration.

Set in the fascinating Darjeeling hills, the novel is a clear and panoramic work that provides a comprehensive, multi-layered portrayal of the region’s politics and culture, accurately portraying many facets of its social and economic life. In addition to offering a unique, honest, and frequently unpleasant vision of Darjeeling during the post-colonial era, the novel provides a thorough perspective on the political and social developments that affected the local population there during the 1950s. Indra Bahadur Rai’s fictional work illuminates the political turmoil, cultural identity concerns, and diaspora issues that still affect the region. The novel does more than just tell a story: it also highlights the reasons why Darjeeling has historically been a region marked by frequent disruption, instability, and unrest.

Rai presents the novel in a non-linear, layered perspective that moves beyond a single storyline. It delves into the everyday lives of diverse characters caught in the tensions of personal ambitions, the struggles of identity and belonging, political moments, and the collective concerns of the tea garden community. The novel’s non-linear structure features several short scenes, voices, and events that seamlessly guide the reader through conversations ranging from bazaars to tea shops, gatherings, festivities, and arguments.

The novel centers on Janakman Yonzon (Janak), an Indian Nepali, as the main protagonist, and his wife Sita, who is from Dhankuta, Nepal, and who comes to Darjeeling to study and later marries Janak. Rai delves into the inner lives of a wide range of characters while examining the central theme of identity, especially as it arises from the tense, often hostile coexistence of various ethnic groups in the region. These groups struggle with economic insecurities, racial and caste hierarchies, and the pressures of cultural assimilation. The novel depicts the tensions of a society seeking to modernize, yet remaining bound by entrenched social systems. Rai’s depiction of caste identity remains central to the novel’s exploration of social hierarchy and belonging in Darjeeling.

The characters ultimately adapt, sometimes reluctantly or strategically, to the new dominant regional identity, a process made visible by the arrival of later characters in the narrative.  One clear example is Janak’s neighbour, Ajoy Das, who is of Bengali descent. In the novel, Janak and Ajoy trade crude, ethnically charged insults in the most casual, informal tone: “You go and eat fish bone sauce. What do you know, you Bengali who sleeps in a skirt?” “You go and eat stale rice. What do you know, you hill man who sleeps in a sack?”(p. 27). The exchange lays bare a sense of racial superiority and the deep anxiety over identity that lies at the heart of the story.

Many characters, including Janak and Namgyal, are locked in an ongoing, often unspoken struggle to define who they are- within a nation-state that refuses to fully acknowledge or include them. This exclusion does not announce itself in dramatic events but seeps into everyday conversations, where the impact is subtle and reflected in interpersonal conflicts and a persistent sense of displacement. “We must make Nepalis buy at Nepali shops” (p. 23), revealing both solidarity and desperation. Later, that same frustration erupts more bitterly: “It’s become laughable, as it is, for us to claim to do business. The best businesses are in the hands of those of other castes and kinds. The petrol pumps, the lumber trade, rice and dal, clothes, these all were snatched up a long time ago by others. What’s in our hands, other than vegetables and oranges? To claim that we do business…” (p. 125). These lines lay bare the economic marginalisation that compounds a deeper sense of identity-related insecurity: an insecurity that stems from living in a place you call home, yet knowing that the nation does not fully return the claim.

Globalization and transnational mobility have reshaped diasporic perspectives on nationhood. The ease of crossing borders has produced fluid, volatile identities in which people adopt new affiliations and drift away from the supposed “purity” of their original roots, giving rise to inevitable hybridity (Bhattarai, 2025). This tension is poignantly captured in Janak’s proud yet conflicted declaration, “We, the Nepalis of Darjeeling, are trusted by both India and Nepal, and so both India and Nepal try to win our love and affection; but Darjeeling is ours, and we are Darjeeling’s” (p. 170). This statement reveals a heart pulled in two directions. Though Janak’s family migrated long ago from Dhankuta to Darjeeling, and though he has built his life on Indian soil, his emotional anchor remains tethered to Nepal and Nepali culture. He claims belonging to Darjeeling with fierce local pride, yet he cannot (and does not want to) erase the Nepali part of himself. In that single breath, he embodies the hybrid, in-between identity of the hill diaspora: neither fully Indian nor fully Nepali, but irrevocably both, and therefore fully neither.

Through the distinct political activities, interests, and goals of Janak and Bhudev, Rai portrays the constantly evolving socio-political environment of Darjeeling. The novel addresses significant concerns such as employment, trade, and the demand for land resources. In addition, Rai addresses concerns about the region’s growing population, pointing out that “there was also a proposal on the matter of Nepalis who, year after year, migrated over to settle in Darjeeling and Assam” (p. 67). This demonstrates how issues of migration, belonging, and political legitimacy are linked to the economic crisis in the area.

The novel highlights the simmering grievances of the tea plantation workers. Janak’s son, Ravi, works as a school teacher and is portrayed as a committed supporter of the cause of the tea plantation workers. Through his active involvement, Rai illustrates that the political unrest in Darjeeling goes beyond mere occupational issues; it is not merely about labour rights. It reflects a broader desire felt by the majority of the population to overhaul existing power structures and achieve genuine social justice.

Rai’s depiction of domestic spaces and interpersonal relationships forms one of the strongest thematic strands in the novel. Through Janak’s lens, the novel vividly portrays the chaotic yet revealing nature of domestic life in Darjeeling. Janak’s marriage to Sita, a woman who embodies the customary expectations of married women in Darjeeling society, highlights the patriarchal structure that defines and often disregards women in domestic life there. Sita’s identity is primarily shaped by her responsibilities as a wife and carer, reflecting the traditional constraints placed on women.

In contrast, Janak’s infidelity with Yamuna introduces a modernist female figure who is assertive and self-reliant, underscoring tensions between tradition and emerging gender roles. At the same time, Janak’s strained connections with his children reveal generational clashes and conflicting aspirations, further complicating the domestic landscape. Together, these relationships- Janak’s ties with his neighbours, his marriage to Sita, his affair with Yamuna, and his bond with his children- illustrate the layered and changing dynamics of family, gender, and social change in Darjeeling society.

There's a Carnival Today is a captivating novel because it is both a story about the past and a reflection of the present. Many of the issues Rai outlines still exist in Darjeeling today, including youth unemployment, political unrest and regular protests, anger with politicians, inequalities among tea plantation labourers, identity issues for Gorkha/Nepali-speaking Indians, and a sense of neglect by the state. Rai captures why Darjeeling continues to experience periods of turmoil. He demonstrates that the crisis has deep roots in history and ordinary life, not just in political movements. The title serves as a powerful thematic lens and metaphor. Indra Bahadur Rai’s usage of the carnival metaphor emphasises that the political upheavals in Darjeeling are neither fixed nor permanent, but rather everyday events in which identities are constantly contested, challenged, and redefined. Thus, the carnival symbolizes both an indication of and a potentially unsettling reminder that meaningful change, while essential, involves chaos, disruption, and instability before any resolution emerges.

Reference

Bhattarai, P. P. (2025) “Diasporic Identity: A Transnational Consciousness”- in Rai’s There is a Carnival Today, Adhayana Journal.

When, the legendary Nepali Rock Band 1974 AD sang the song ‘Chyangba and the Bloody Revolution’, which goes:

"There is a rumour in the villages

The Chyangba from the other house has disappeared

Has he joined the army, where has he gone?

It's been a couple of months

Here father and mother are dying with worry, oh dear !"

It soon became an anthem among the Dajus on the Indian side of the border, loitering freely in Darjeeling town, whom I quite intimidated looked up to. And what perhaps hit the right chord was that it was not far from their reality. In fact, it was deeply ingrained in the traumas of our brothers who lost their youth to the bloody year of 1986.

The YouTube Blurb of the song reads: Chyangba and the Bloody Revolution was written during the Maoist war/revolution that took the lives of 13000 or more Nepali people. The song depicts a story of Chyangba (a boy from the mountains) who goes missing and no one knows his whereabouts. He could have joined the army or the Maoists. Is he dead or alive? The question lingers among his loved ones.

Ripden and his friends, the main characters in the story Faatsung by Chuden Kabimo were a band of young changybas, who succumbed to one such bloody revolution.  Song of the Soil translated by Ajit Baral is the English translation of Faatsung written by Chuden Kabimo. The book preserves the humorous voice of hope and despair and the succinct story-telling style of the original, thus making for a gripping and tragic read.

The Gorkhaland agitation of 1986 is one of the most important movements of Sub-National self-determination which transpired in the Darjeeling and Kalimpong Hills. A mass movement to form a separate state under the Indian Union under the leadership of Subash Ghisingh’s Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) faced suppression by the then government of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) when Chief Minister Jyoti Basu was in power in the state of West Bengal. The movement ultimately led to the creation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, a semi-autonomous administrative body on 22 August 1988.

In Faatsung, the events of 1986 unfold as a memory of bygone days. The story follows Ripden and the narrator on a journey to find Ripden's long-lost father, who vanished after 1986. The duo then encounters an old survivor of the time, who recounts the happenings of the 1986 Andolan revolution).

Through the search, the author reconstructs the agitation via a series of staggered recollections - which are fragmented and deeply subjective.

As the narrator travels to his native village in Malbung to document the passing of his childhood friend, Ripden, in a tragic landslide, he evokes his memories of school days, his village, and his friends. Using a simple and humorous voice, typical of Darjeeling's lexicon, the author points out subtle socio-political dynamics of the present day.

The landslide itself becomes a cruel metaphor of the situation that Ripden, symbolizing the unsteady youth that grew up after the agitation

'"Sainla Baje dies because of drink. So, I don't like the villagers getting drunk. Nor do I like them selling their land to get drunk."

"Three months after he disappeared, a shakha branch, of the Rastriya Swayamsewak Sangh was set up on the school playground."

The Gorkhaland movement of 1986 witnessed mass participation from the youth, organized into the Gorkha Volunteer Cell (GVC). In Kalimpong, Chattrey Subba was at the forefront of one faction of GVC.

As the novella progresses, we are allowed into the space of the youth of 1986, particularly from the GVC Faction of Chandra Singh Subba. Young boys who had probably just wanted to skip math tuition suddenly find themselves manufacturing crude bombs to fight state forces. Even as these characters grow up through the thrill of a revolution, they succumb to personal losses and resentment.

Anecdotes from 1986 live on in almost every family and village in Darjeeling and they are seldom untouched by violence and grief. The morbid realities that unfolded during those years are well-captured in the books, causing an uneasy discomfort in someone like me, who had the privilege of growing up in times of peace. My neighbours talk about bloody heads hanging on the nearby trees and houses being looted in broad daylight, as if they were talking about the weather. The gravity of their experiences catching on to them, as their eyes turn worried, like an after-thought.

The essence of Faatsung is in its insider lens, a forgiving one that discusses the hopes and dreams of young boys as they navigated the violence of a revolution they barely chose.

But it is not to say that there was no free will in this young foot soldier's participation in the movement. It is also the nature of things that when citizens are left to cope with socio-political neglect, resentment is bound to boil over. The 1986 agitation was hardly an abrupt overnight adventure. The demand for the right to self-determination for the people of Darjeeling hills is a long-standing one documented as early as 1909 when the Hillmen's Association appealed for a separate administrative setup for Darjeeling to the Morley Minto Reforms. So what fueled violence in an otherwise diplomatic political movement, and what led it astray?

Soon after the agitation, the streets of Darjeeling were flooded with brown sugar, easily and cheaply accessible for a common man. It slowly engulfed the unemployed Gorkha youths who would often indulge in this rare fantasy to ease the scars left behind by the agitation.  As the Government authorities turned a blind eye towards the epidemic, an entire generation was lost and not even accounted for. (Chasing the Dragons in the Hills,14 Nov 2016 - Darjeeling Chronicle).

What followed the years after the agitation was hardly a resolution, but a slow erosion. It echoes in global histories that when violence subsides, addiction to cheap narcotics is often what breaks the back of the motivated youth. The pattern is not unique, like the spread of heroin through urban Black communities in the United States following the civil rights movements. In Darjeeling too, free-will succumbed to chemical frenzy, and quietly neutralized the hopeful dreams for self-determination.

What is also quite thoughtfully captured in Faatsung, is the complex experience of being a youth in the 80's. The imaginings of Darjeeling's youth were imprinted with the Pop-rock music and the action films from the Global Media. The jingoistic cowboy-rockstar hero was in wide circulation through cassettes and cinema halls, offering a masculine fantasy of revolution.  Kabimo captures the internationalization ironically:

“Every night in his dreams he would run like the hero of Rambo, carrying a gun.”

The fantasy, however, proves tragically hollow. The spectacle of resistance eclipses its ethics, leaving young men emotionally unarmed for the aftermath of defeat.

"We won’t pick a fight with other boys from now on. We will fight against the CPI(M)."

Even as the fighting escalates between the GNLF and CPIM cadets, revolutionaries, and the CRPF to culminate in infighting between the two factions of the GNLF, we get glimpses of lesser-known narratives of loss and tragedy.

What I found most remarkable about Chuden Kabimo's observations is his attention to the inconsequential moments within the revolution. Such fleeting moments of human vulnerability add layers of emotion against the violent unfolding of events. The author articulates the characters' nostalgic longing for Home, their encounters with love, and hopes and dreams of family. From homes being lost to landslides or set on fire amidst the revolution, the author questions identity and belonging by emphasizing the symbolism of Home and dreams.

"When a house burns down, it does not merely mean that some pieces of wood have been set on fire, or that stones and mud have been left to smolder. It means that an entire world has gone up in flames. Faith itself has gone up in flame. Belief has gone up in flames. Possibilities have gone up in flames. One’s self has gone up in flames."

The Covid-19 Pandemic taught me a term called 'collective grieving'. When violence crashes into our lives, it leaves behind after waves of grief that get carried on for generations. Via the subplots of Shahid Ram Prasad, Budhathoki’s daughter, Neptay, and the narrator himself, Faatsung consolidates the personal griefs of the surviving characters of 1986. In holistically covering narratives, the author points at the larger impact on the masses of conflict and deceit orchestrated by a powerful few.

Song of the Soil resists grand narratives of revolution and instead chronicles its residues: memory, longing, and unresolved mourning. Its longlisting for the JCB Prize for Literature in 2022 marks an important recognition as the first Nepali translation to achieve this. However, its true significance lies elsewhere. Kabimo reminds us that revolutions may end, but their afterlives of grief, addiction, and longing for home continue to shape those who survive them.

Dancing Frogs and Other Creatures in Verse. Zai Whitaker. Talking Cub.Speaking Tiger Books. (2025)ISBN: 9789363369931

These two beautiful poetry collections by Zai Whitaker offer a warm and whimsical collection of poems from the world of tiny creatures that we often seem to care less about or be fearful of. They form a delightful read for children (8+ ) and young adults who enjoy reading about animals and their habits, in verse. The Boastful Centipede and Other Creatures in Verse was first published in 2006 by Penguin Books India. Then came The Dancing Frog and Other Creatures in Verse, which is the revised and extended version published in 2025 by Speaking Tiger. This new edition has ten more poems, covering creatures such as the Dancing Frog, who discovers a cool way to attract their females, the plight of the bumblebees amidst the crisis of climate change, the orb spider with its camouflage trick and beetles who deserve everything but our beratings, and the list goes on. 

When I first read The Boastful Centipede and Other Creatures in Verse, I was quite drawn to its use of humour with each entry on habits and quirky personalities of tiny creatures. This somehow reminded me of Ogden Nash’s animal poems. In particular, Nash’s ‘The Centipede’ is very similar to Whitaker’s ‘The Boastful Centipede,’ because of their playful and comical approach to the subject. In both these poems, the centipedes contend with humans, while Nash rebukes, and Whitaker exposes. 

However, the tone differs vastly despite both being playful. Whitaker’s stand is amusement and mildly cautionary, while Nash’s is dismissive, which is typical of his style. Additionally, the irregular meters in both poems somehow reflect the cheeky and unpredictable nature of the subject. What makes both appealing is the use of rhyme scheme and rhythm, which amplifies the comic effect. This playful combination runs throughout the collections under review, highlighting Whitaker’s skilful use of verse infused with rhythm and humour.  

 As children’s poetry,  the collections’ strength lies in providing a sensorial experience through rhythm and structure. These elements allow them to speak directly to the hearts of the young readers, as they did to me. The poems have a steady rhythmic beat and structure, often featuring four-line stanzas with simple meter, such as ABCB or AABB rhyme schemes. Furthermore, the anticipation of sound, along with countless visual imagery, as shown in two examples,  expands children’s imagination.  

These poems beautifully capture the cognitive approach to children's poetry, as outlined by critic Karen Coats (2013). She asserts that children’s poetry is what it does and how it makes you feel rather than what it is. According to her, it keeps the body alive in language through rhythm, movement, and imagery rooted in the senses. And in doing this, it supports emotional connection and nurtures empathy in children and others who engage with children’s poetry. 

To give a very personal account, the creepy crawlies or, in polite terms, the ‘tiny creatures’, unnerve me despite having lived amidst nature for as long as I can remember. Their uninvited adventures, including spiders, hammerhead worms, bugs and caterpillars in my room, are a mandate which is either met with fright or disgust. I guess it is unfair to treat them this way, after all, we have taken their homes and complicated their lives with our presence. As Whitaker writes, ‘it’s unfair. We hardly ever think about the small animals around us.’ Here is where the collections work best, bringing their readers closer to nature and wildlife, big and small. It nudges you to begin your journey appreciating the tiny beings a bit more, even in your discomfort. In fact, after reading about the stick insects, I began to question my childhood superstition, which associated them with death.

I wish that I could learn this trick
Of simply looking like a stick
A good escape from people who 
You’re not so very keen to view!

However, I’ve come to realize their clever antics, which mean no harm and ask nothing more than to be left unseen or unjudged. Now, one might wonder why a seemingly trivial shift over something so small warrants mention. Yet it only reveals how we easily dismiss the presence of such creatures and how deeply entrenched our discomfort and superstitions are with such beings. They may not all the time fit our ideas of beauty, comfort, and usefulness, but we cannot ignore the ecological value they hold. This is one of the many charms of the collections, seeking to hold space for young minds to build compassion for non-human entities. 

Furthermore, the intention behind the collections is sincere and genuine. Zai is a well-known naturalist with a keen interest in animals, big and small, especially those that the rest of us overlook or misunderstand. In the first edition, she writes, they do plenty that is very fascinating, which tells us why the books came into being. We see her commitment to share the secret lives of her tiny friends, including scorpions, skinks, bullfrogs, hermit crabs, and many more, and expose their contributions, just in case we have forgotten about them. Thereby, the thematic intention is purely ecocritical as it breaks away from anthropocentric views on ecological realities. It wonderfully foregrounds the complex, absurd, beautiful, and vulnerable lives of creatures from the natural world. 

As literature for children, it is apparent to the discerning readers that these poems reaffirm the instinctive and emotional bond between children and the natural world. This echoes You’s (2021) discussion on creatureliness, a post-human ethics widely explored in children’s literature that fundamentally binds children and animals with shared vulnerability and physicality. Zai’s poetry, hence, effectively showcases the notion of creatureliness in its own right by illuminating the resilient interconnectedness found in nature, and in doing so, it invites children to engage in the meaning-making process. 

The other aspect that truly resonates with me is the thoughtful arrangement of the collections, which clearly follows a pedagogical scaffold that considers the reader’s imagination and their capacities to engage. Whitaker pauses after each poetic entry, offering a brief note to guide the readers for the next creature in line before concluding with a graceful verse. This reflects the consideration of an educator who advocates not only for the tiny creatures but also for the readers as well. Adding to this is the use of minimal illustrations in shades of black, grey and white, which creates a subdued monochromatic visual appeal. The first collection relies on one or two small vignette-style images serving primarily as reference points for the readers. In contrast, the new edition brings a sense of movement, action, and emotion, which in many parts serves as a story of its own accord. For example, the bumblebees crying under the sun, clownfish’s quick manoeuvre to trick predators into the sea anemone’s mouth, or even a mischievous mongoose running away with a paintbrush while its weary owner chases after it. 

These visual elements work together in the storytelling process, which invites engagement and facilitates meaning-making, which is essential in children’s literature. However, when it comes to children’s poetry specifically, the overpowering play of illustrations is one obvious reason which may translate into passive engagement from children. Nonetheless, a balance is needed, which I see here in both the collections, providing a smooth synergy along with the verse.  

To conclude, Zai’s poetry is more than just what meets the eye. Whether it is the employment of verse with wit and charm, the intention or the pedagogical stance, it organically proposes young children and readers alike to acquaint themselves with the natural world through rhythm and curiosity. A tool vital for nurturing ecological awareness in young children.  

References

Coats, K. (2013). The meaning of children's poetry: A cognitive approach. International Research in Children's Literature, 6(2), 127-142.

You, C. (2021). The necessity of an anthropomorphic approach to children’s literature. Children's Literature in Education, 52(2), 183-199.

When I began to read,  the usual authors that my generation of children grew up with were Enid Blyton and other popular writers of the time.  We were the lucky ones, having attended private schools with a strong emphasis on the English language and thus had access to a variety of children’s books, fiction, adventure stories specifically for girls like Malory Towers and the Anne of Green Gables series and the Hardy Boys series for the boys.

As I grew older, I began to wonder at the absence of books and stories from our land.  Of course, we were compensated for this lack by stories of adventure from our elders, especially those who had returned from the war front. But those stories were narrated to us orally, and we were enthralled by the battlefield actions and long marches in alien lands. Stories of camaraderie and of friendships in unexpected turns of their wartime journey also interested us. 

Both the World Wars drew hundreds and thousands of youths to its faraway battlefields from our hills. The empire drew millions of lives from countries under its sway. There were many young men, some barely fully grown, recruited as the machinery of war swallowed them. We would also hear about the trauma they suffered from experiencing indescribable violence and hardships. But there were no written records of these young men who ventured out for adventure and honour from the quiet villages of Sikkim.  

Ganju Lama, VC: Sikkim’s Hero in War and Peace by Anuradha Sharma is a timely publication in filling this gap. The book begins with the setting of Sangmo the beautiful, peaceful village in South Sikkim, where our hero was born, named Gyamstso, meaning the infinite ocean. 

“Sangmo, in the southern part of the kingdom, was an enchanting village with endless terraced fields hugging its slopes. Lovely homes made of wood and stones dotted the lush green landscapes.  The sky stretched like a vast blue canvas, its colours changing with the rising and the setting of the sun, and the comings and goings of clouds and mist. To the east, loomed the stunning mountains of the Chola range, hiding a secret door to the ancient land of Tibet.”

Although Gyamtso’s mother passed away when he was still an infant, his stepmother nurtured him tenderly. From his stern father, he learned discipline and moral values.  As he grew into a young man, he yearned for an adventurous life fueled by his soldier uncle, who regaled the youth with colourful adventures and the lure of the lands beyond the hills.

At 20,  Gyamtso enlisted in the Indian Gurkha army.  At the recruiting centre, his name changed to Ganju Lama. The Gurkha soldiers who were categorized as a martial race were  Rais, Limbus, Magars, Thapas, the hill tribes.  By the time ,Gyamtso presented himself to join the army, the war was already into its fourth year and the growing need for more soldiers most probably influenced the recruiting officer to accept this sturdy youth from a non-martial tribe.                                 

After his training at Palampur, he was deployed to Imphal in 1943 in the Burma campaign. It is here that Ganju Lama came into his own.  The Japanese had captured Burma and were advancing decisively towards Manipur. For the first time, he experienced the hard truth that “…war brings great pain and destruction. It ruins homes, hurts people, and tears families apart. He quickly understood that war should always be the last option, something to be avoided whenever possible”.

Ganju Lama was a brave soldier when it came to defending his country. He fought with grit and intelligence. On May 16, 1944, the Gurkha soldiers launched a surprise attack and defeated the Japanese troop at  33 on Tiddim Road.  The action barely ended when the Japanese tanks rolled in. Ganju Lama saw a tank of such monstrous size for the first time, but he was armed with a powerful anti-tank gun,  the PIAT.  He fought till the last and destroyed the enemy tanks and thus saved his comrades. It was for this brave action that Ganju Lama was honoured with the Victoria Cross, the British army’s highest award in 1944 and with Sikkim’s Pema-Dorji title in 1966. 

The story of our hero does not end here. He was a great hero during peacetime as well. After his retirement from the Indian army, he returned to his village, building schools, roads and monasteries. His action as a civilian hero is as much of importance to us as his valour on the battlefield.

For  Anuradha Sharma, writing Ganju Lama’s biography, she was beset by the dilemma of writing about valour and courage in the battlefield without glamourising war and violence and balancing with the need to nurture a peaceful outlook on life.   Ganju Lama VC: Sikkim’s Hero in War and Peace is a well-chosen title giving equal importance to courage on the battlefield: duty with utmost discipline and bravery, as well as advocating for peace after the war.  The biography of our hero in times of war and peace fills the gap in Children’s literature about extraordinary personalities from our region.

The book is illustrated by Pankaj Thapa, one of our best illustrators from Sikkim and the Darjeeling hills. With meticulous research and attention to detail, his illustrations enhance the narrative and capture the excitement of the battlefield.

The book also includes useful information about the war, the participation of Gurkhas and their sacrifice. Anuradha Sharma’s style and treatment of the subject strongly reflect the best practices of her profession as a journalist. She combines a compelling story telling skill with very useful information.

This book opens the way for many others to be written. Congratulations to Foothills Publication on taking this initiative to enrich literature for children.

When I was invited to review Beneath Magnolia Skies: Writings from Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills, edited by Mona Chettri and Prava Rai, my first instinct was to approach it as a research scholar, expecting to offer a conventional academic critique. Yet as I moved through its pages, that framework began to feel insufficient. The collection spoke to me in ways that extended far beyond my academic or professional role. It resonated with me as a reader of literary fiction, as a woman, as a daughter-in-law, a wife and a mother, as a migrant and as someone who calls Darjeeling home. Beneath Magnolia Skies is, in many respects, a rare gem: unfiltered, raw, painful, and richly evocative. It offers myriad possibilities for anyone seeking to understand what it means to be a woman in Sikkim and the Darjeeling hills, and beyond. The book presents a powerful collection that foregrounds women’s perspectives on life in the Himalaya without reducing the scope of what that may mean. In their introduction, the editors pose a deceptively simple question: as the world changes, is it also changing for women in the Himalaya and what might such change mean for traditions, patriarchal structures, inequality and violence, as well as women’s agency and self-definition? What struck me first was the sheer number of chapters and contributors, bringing together 42 women writers. It signalled the timeliness of the volume and filled me with a sense of pride-women in these hills want to speak, they want to create, to express, and to share. And they do so with a quality that kept me captivated across all 303 pages. A quick glance shows that there are academic essays-often anchored in biographical and narrative interviews focussing on the lives and viewpoints of the women involved in the fieldwork-alongside works of prose fiction, reflective autobiographical essays, and poetry. Some contributions include photographs or artworks. Such an openness to different writing styles, but also to alternative ways of knowledge production within one book is rare and enriching. Additionally, the editors did not stifle the expression by favouring English over local languages. While the book is published in English, several contributions were submitted in Nepali and then translated by other contributors and the editors, giving importance to the role of translation in knowledge-making as well as establishing the anthology as a space of collaboration and solidarity among women.

These editorial decisions are not merely technical; they are a statement in itself. They honour the diversity of being, self-expression, and knowledge creation. This is empowering and much needed in the context of Sikkim and the Darjeeling hills. While this region is complex and diverse, shaped by histories of shifting borders, allegiances, and people, these political and ethno-cultural entanglements coexist with pressures to flatten cultural, historical, and ancestral narratives or impose uniformity. Against this backdrop, the anthology’s editorial ethos feels like its credo: to let women speak for themselves, unapologetically and without censorship. 

What affected me most were the silences written within or between the lines. These silences made me angry, sad, and unexpectedly vulnerable, because they resonated with some of the experiences in my own everyday life. I realised that writing through these silences is how women’s stories are often told, and this anthology does so with remarkable honesty. I read the contributions through this lens, through how women are silenced, how they silence themselves, and how they may silence others. I am acutely aware, therefore, that the lines and passages I draw from the writings and the way I weave them back together-reflect the contours of my own interpretive lens. They do not, and cannot, capture the full range of possibilities the authors may have intended, nor do they encompass all the readings these pieces invite.

Silence takes on many forms. It originates in social sanction and norms, it is imposed by restrictions, internalised restraint or behaviour. The silent acceptance of traditions that treat women as property to be owned, used, discarded, and repurposed by men threads through the narratives, as does the silent existence of caste-based violence, shown through the innocent question of children in Hitaishi Gautam’s “Kanchi” (90): “Hajurama le kina hamro matai khutta na dhognu bhako tika lagayera?” (“Why did grandmother not touch only our feet after applying the tika?”). The contributions call to mind my own weary efforts to keep such deeply entrenched injustices from seeping into the fabric of my own home life.

Shockingly (or maybe not?) many contributions capture the public silence surrounding male sexual violence-a silence that normalises such violence, often fuelled by alcohol, leaving women vulnerable and dependent, without a way to escape unless in silence or death. The normalisation of male violence is deeply entangled with notions of female purity and impurity that erupt in internalised shame and victim blaming. Here, I am reminded of the magnolia on the cover. As in the Himalaya the plant is associated with dignity and purity, it becomes an apt symbol for the contradictory pressures placed on women’s bodies: revered as sites of purity, yet continually subjected to scrutiny and the weight and violence of the male gaze. While reading about the mothers and daughters in this anthology, as a mother myself, I carry an undercurrent of icy fear, knowing that I as well might not always be able to protect my own daughter.

Aspirations and the pursuit of dreams thread through many of the pieces, rooted in hope much like the magnolia blossom that announces spring and the promise of new beginnings. However, time and again, the writings show how control over the female body and its silenced and normalised enforcement-regulates women’s options shaping their dreams and diminishing their imaginary horizons. Avinam Manger’s questions to Baari, a migrant women worker, capture this poignantly: “[…] do you have enough choices? Have you had enough opportunities to make proper use of them? (71) […] Baari, has your life now stretched into your dreams, too? Have these nightly visions killed your aspirations?” (73). Control over the female body regulates women’s movements, pace, and self-conception rendering the world, or at least the cities, “a graveyard for those dreams”. The need to control the female body is deeply rooted in the male gaze that reduces women to objects of desire. Radha Panday challenges this gaze by urging readers to look beyond male lust and instead recognise in women the possibilities of love, nature, and creation. Her call evokes female strength and grace, qualities that echo throughout many of the narratives in Beneath Magnolia Skies.

Resilience can be grounded in strength, as Munga Rai’s Woman of Kali Yuga states “I am the epitome of power of self, my soul’s resilience is my strength and belief, […] my resilience is my protector, I am one, because I am a twenty-first-century Woman.” (233). It can emphasise endurance and adaptation, making a life worth living or flourishing despite the most challenging experiences. But yet again silence also reveals resilience’s deceptive darker side. Women are expected to carry dukkha, pain and sorrow, with grace and dignity, in the local context especially within roles of the buhari (the dutiful daughter-in-law) or the obedient daughter, sometimes also stumbling entangled in their own dreams. These local variations add another facet to a global glorification of female resilience, of women as the silent bearers of pain. 

Silence also emerges through self-regulation, the conscious or unconscious concealment of one’s authentic self or one’s desire to meet expectations of others   This is felt most acutely by women who do not fit into the heteronormative gender roles or those who do not belong to the majority community of “Nepalese”. In this context, I become aware of my difference-perhaps my privilege. Though my upbringing was not free of gender bias, I was not taught to regulate my body, desires, or aspirations to the extent expected of many women in these hills. Because of this, I move differently through these social expectations-perhaps because they weigh less on me-my otherness and independence offer a form of protection. This awareness deepens my respect for women who pursue lives that do not conform to prescribed roles. Alyen Foning, for example, illustrates with great sensitivity what it means for a woman to shape her own trajectories, along with all the vulnerabilities and consequences such choices entail.

Silence also erases women’s knowledge, as if their importance was forgotten and their deep wisdom of creation and procreation meaningless. Women carry and embody knowledge of their ancestors, but it is often overlooked, perceived too small or too ordinary to be worth articulating, as indicated by women migrants from Nepal in Nangshel Sherpa and Shuvangi Khadka’s contribution. Mridu Thulung Rai bridges the silence surrounding her grandmother through conversations with photographs, while Amala Subba Chettri recovers the story of Mujingna Khiyangma, the first Limbu, counterwriting the loss of ancestrally transmitted knowledge. Similarly, Alyen Foning reminds that passing on ancestral wisdom requires responsibility, respect, and reverence. As a socio-cultural anthropologist, these contributions resonate with me, because they centre women’s knowledge, trace lines of female ancestry, and demonstrate how women today actively create and transmit knowledge in alternative ways-with reflexivity and care.

Amidst and through these silences, the anthology uncovers relationships among women, in all their complexities as poetically captured in Apsara Dahal’s poem “Mirabhai says “Listen Radha”. While these relationships can reproduce patriarchal norms and pass down the structural violence and suffering, stylised in the figure of the mother-in-law they also reveal support and care, whether with the wish to free the next generation of their restraints, with the solidarity of a mutual traditional Sangini songs, or in shared laughter behind shabby green curtains. Some contributions centre female relationships free from the immediate frame of patriarchy, relations of nurture, safety, and intergenerational care, even if intertwined and complicated, packaged in food, bottled preserves, and memories, or supported by an ancestral spirit. 

Beyond the pain and violence, beyond the silences that weave through these writings, I read Beneath Magnolia Skies as an invitation to readers to imagine and even begin to shape spaces of women’s solidarity and healing, both within and beyond Sikkim and the Darjeeling hills. It is an invitation worth accepting.