CULTURE | HERITAGE | LITERATURE

Thinking local

SIKKIM EXPRESS, SUNDAY, 28 JUNE 2015, GANGTOK

In Praise of Heritage

My Tryst with Yoga

Revisiting Life
PART - II
RAJIVA SHANKER
SHRESTA

t was in 1986 once again I

was back to the National
Academy
of
Administration to find it
renamed with the name Lal
Bahadur Shastri* prefixed in
memory and honour of the
second Prime Minister of
India. On becoming the 22nd
State of India and being
inducted into the Indian
Administrative Service cadre
(from the State Civil Service
I opted for in lieu of the
Indian Audit and Accounts
Service for which I had
undergone two-year course
as a Royal Sikkim Civil
Service probationer from
1972-74) I was there with
three of my colleagues Palden
Tsering Gyamtso, Lal
Bahadur Rai and Lobzang
Bhutia for a month-long
refresher course. We had a
good time together right from
boarding the North East
Express at New Jalpaiguri
railway station when two of
us (me and Palden Daju, who
did a stint as Rajya Sabha
M.P. after his retirement and
wrote The History, Religion,
Culture and Traditions of
Bhutia Communities, 2011)
found ourselves left back as
we were on the platform for
some errandas the train
suddenly started moving and
could
get
into
a
coachlaterreaching the
compartment to join our
friends. It was a summer
season and we enjoyed eating
mangoes and other fruits
buying from the platform
wherever possible a bit more
careful now about the train.
From Delhi we travelled by
a taxi for Mussoorie where
we were put upin the Indira
Bhavan (renamed as it was
earlier Indra Bhavan in 1972
very much like the Indira
Nagar out of the Indra Nagar
a Delhi suburb we pass
through while travelling to
Dehradun.) I do not know if
the changes came during the
Emergency clamped down in
the country forty years ago
on 25/26 June 1975 which
is termed as the Black
Period in the annals of
Indian Democracy. This
course too had an early
morning session of Yoga
class to make us more
familiar and to practice it
better acquainted. Lobzang,
my room-mate in the hostel,
used to complete his own
daily practice of Yoga early
hours before going for the
Yoga class as I found him
doing it whenever he got the
opportunity even in the
flight, train or drive during
the journey. Palden Daju was
fond of running and he made
me buy a new pairs of
running shoes. Every evening
we used to go to the town
running and were treated
with snacks there. Lobzang,
an avid practitioner of
Yoga,is heading a section of
followers under the banner of
the Vihangam Yoga here
presently. A junior colleague
was also known as Bhotey
Kainya for his shrewdness to
some of his friends but
Lobzang could be Bhotey
Bahun for the Yoga he
practised, we then talked
about him. The best
Sarvangasana/Sheershasana
amongst us there was done
by L B Rai, who is now
devoted to his church nearby.
I believe my first friend in
Sir Tashi Namgyal High
School now Tashi Namgyal
Academy to share the desk

in 1956 Krishna Prasad

Khati too follows Vihangam
Yoga. He came to see me
having enjoyed reading my
article on our schooldays in
the local news-daily and is
now spending his days
practising Yoga at his
residence in Development
Area. This school of yoga has
quite a number of followers
here and one is Ramesh
Kumar Pradhan with literary
nom de plume Badal is
known for his active
participation in the Nepali
language movement of 1980s.
After his long innings with,
Ramesh took voluntary
retirement from the National
Insurance Company Ltd. and
dedicated himself to the
Ashram fulltime now
engaged helping in day to day
affairs posted at the
headquarters Allahabad. He
often drops in to my place
to collect his copy of Uday
Nepali literary quarterly
from me whenever in the
town. I am not sure if the
same faith Subhash Deepak
too is still following who
used to dedicate a space
regularly for quite a long time
with a shloka on Vihangam
Yoga with a picture of
Sadaguru Sadaphal Dev in his
weekly Wichar. He found it
no longer possible to
continue its publication more
due to his other preoccupations rather than
advancing ageor lack of
readers that scattered all over
the Nepali literary world. He
has a number of books to his
credit and quite a few in
Hindi as well. He has
popularized Nepali writings
translated to the Hindi
literary world. While I was
posted for the second time
as the secretary in the
Department of Cultural
Affairs and Heritage,
recognizing his lifelong
dedication to the Nepali
literature in spite of it not
being his mother language, I
suggestedhim why not a
compilation of the best
articles in the twenty-five
years of its publication and
he brought out Wichar Rajat
Jayanti Vishes hank (19812006 that also had a full page
advertisement for our Karuna
Devi Smarak Dharmarth
Guthi.) It gives us a good
account of the major events
and writings documented all
these years for those
interested and well recorded
for the posterity. He said it
finally a day for the Wichar
in its 30th year closing down
his establishment by
December end in 2011.He too
is an Uday subscriber and of
late associated with editing
the Hindi news-daily
Anugamini published from
Gangtok.
This day I also remember
Dai Durga Prasad Shrestha,
editor/publisher Uday that his
father Kashi Bahadur
Shrestha* started in 1937, more
for his devotion to the Yoga
than his dedicated efforts in
keeping the Uday flag fluttering
high in its 78th year with 156th
issue
recently.
His
contributions have been
recognized by the Nepali
Sahitya Sammelan, Darjeeling
and Nepali Sahitya Adhyan
Samiti, Kalimpong besides by
the Sahitya Akademi, which he
is closely associated with for
quite a long time now. It has
published a number of his
books as he is a quite popular
literary figure in Nepal as well.
He is regarded as a bridge
connecting India and Nepal
inthe Nepali literary world. He
has been awarded for his
contributions to the Hindi

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Venue: Durga Mandir, Tadong, Gangtok (Sikkim)

literature early in life. His

simple lifestyle as reflected in
this single instance I wish to
share with all the readers here.
Some years ago whenever I
tried to talk to him, he was
often unavailable on the phone
even during his Kathmandu
sojourn. On my enquiry with
the family member on the line
I often used to hear him to be
either in some Ashram at
Ranchi or at Budhaneelkanth,
whenever in Nepal. It was for
over two years and it was not
until one fine day finally he
reached here at Gangtok to
meet us on 30 October 2006.
It was a pleasant surprise to
receive as a token of love from
him a copy of the just released
Nepali edition of An
Autobiography of a Yogi by Sri
Sri ParamhansaYoganand that
he came out with all those days
he so dedicated in seclusion.
Naturally I hurried through the
title pages to find his name as
the translator of the book
Yogiko Atmakatha (ISBN 8189536-21-8 paperback 2006
650+ pages) and lo to my utter
surprise there was no mention
of him as such at all not even
in the customary foreword !
Trying to understand the
reason thereof he was simple
enough to let me share his
feelings that the work was done
as a humble service dedicated
to the Yoganandji and his
Yogada Satsanga Society of
India founded in 1817. Known
to beThe Book that Changed
the Lives of Millions has
sold more than 40 million
copies and counting. It has
been published in 34 languages
and has been designated as one
of the 100 Most Important
Spiritual Books of the 20th
Century.Now a Nepali
edition added, it is really a
greatcontributionto our
society and Durga Daithus to
be associated with the book
belonging to such an esteemed
institution and the utter
satisfaction one gets dedicated
to the cause making it a lifetime
experience, indeed. Subhash
Deepak shared with me once
that he enjoyed reading this
book a chapter every morning
like the Gita, it is so
captivating!
It was in 2006 on our
way back from the Divine
Life Society Ashram at
Rishikesh we also took the
opportunity to visit
Patanjali Yoga Peeth of
Swami Ramdev at Kankhal,
Haridwarto see the activities
and purchase some of the
publications useful for
practising Yoga back home.
To be continued..
(Disclaimer:
This is authors
personal account of
memories updated to cherish
and treasure often on a
detour here and there en
route to share the joy of the
journey called life. No
wonder if some narratives
are found read earlier also.
Some names (*asterisk for
those no more), places and
events mentioned are just to
connect with and no malice
whatsoever intended. He
can be reached on
shrestars@gmail.com or
phone 9434022677 / 03592202677 and at Rachna,
opposite Manan Bhavan,
Development Area, Gangtok
737 101 Sikkim India.)

Career opportunities in Music

usic has no boundary

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There are many leading
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Viswa Bharati University,
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One needs to have excellent
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Social Medias Social Concern for Nepals Disaster

BABIKA KHAWAS
Even a casual Google search
attempt with the key words used
in the title of the present essay
yields 18,20,000 results within
0.35 seconds. This is
symptomatic of the burgeoning
capacity of the on-line opinion
makers as to how they have made
an impressive entry to persuade
the off-line reality. The concern
of the present communiqu is to
make a preliminary assessment
of some significant issues that
camouflaged under the rubric of
aid, relief or rehabilitation
initiatives undertaken by the
outside world when the tiny
landlocked nation Nepal faced the
devastating earth quake measuring
7.8 Richter scale onApril 25, 2015
and more than hundred
aftershocks that had hit the
country thereafter. Killing more
than 8,000 souls and making more
than two lakhs of people spend
homeless nights even today
Nepals recent experience of the
natural calamity has become the
major challenge that the nation has
to cope up in the days to come.
The assumption that the
digital divide in countries like
Nepal is far higher than the
situation in the global North
might have reduced social medias
significance in the country could
be a misapprehension.Among the
South Asian countries Nepal
offers a very impressive picture
so far as the number of internet
users is concerned. According to
the recent World Bank data the
percentage figure of internet users
(per 100 people) in Nepal is
13.30, which is much higher than
Bangladesh (6.50) or Pakistan
(10.90) and little short than that
of India (15.10). Beyond figure
the real significance of the virtual
world created by the social media
lies in the fact that it enables its
users to create a focused
interactive platform where they
participate not merely as surfers
but also as creators and
disseminators of opinions,
arguments, aspirations and
aspersions even. Though
informal in character social media
has emerged perhaps as the
biggest public forum with a global
reach. Twitting is no less
significant today in raising a public
concern or in organizing a
transnational appeal than the
televised news reports. Even in
its most selective avatar social

media leaves the rooms open for

the unreflective many to come
out of their cocooned selves.
These were some such concerns
emerged in the way social media
has made its intervention in quake
affected Nepal of the recent past.
In a politically stymied
country struggling for
unanimity on the question of
Constitution and federalism
Nepals disaster management
would have been much more
vulnerable in the absence of her
vibrant social media. It is
undeniably true that the huge
response that Nepal has
received from her children
settled abroad and the foreign
aid and cooperation from
outside the country were to a
large extent social media driven
responses. Immediately after
the catastrophe took place
social media has emerged as the
first platform where comments
and concerns regarding
governments
little
preparedness to tackle the
disaster situation came up.
Facebook did activate its safety
check feature providing safety
status updates. Within 48 hours
of the April 25 tremor Twitter
and Facebook were flooded with
requests and appeals for funds,
help and cooperation. Some
platforms of social service like
the blood donation groups
known as Youth for Blood
turned up immediately as social
media driven relief vehicle
known as Rapid Response
Team, which acted as a viable
platform, when telephonic
communication got largely
disrupted, to address the
digitized requests from both
inside and outside Nepal to
contact the family members and
friends either missing or were
killed in the wreckage. Within
36 hours around 10,000 such
requests were received by Rapid
Response Team.
Social media has appeared as
a viable platform for diplomatic
purchase even. It created political
sensation when it was known that
Nepals Prime Minister Sushil
Koirala got to know about the
April 25 quake of Nepal from
Narendra Modis twitt at that
period of time when Koirala was
about to fly for Bangkok to make
a personal medical checkup soon
after concluding the AsianAfrican Summit in Indonesia.
Quite
understandably

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Addl. Director
OFFICE OF THEADDITIONALDIRECTOR
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MINISTRY OF HEALTH & FAMILY WELFARE, GOI
GOPINATH NAGAR, A.K.AZAD ROAD, GUWAHATI, 781016
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E-mail: cghsguwahati@yahoo.com

hyperactive Indian media made

full use of this story and Modis
twitt came up as a major event,
yet another wholehearted public
backing for Indias diplomatic
efforts towards Nepals relief.
About 40 minutes after the first
tremors hit Nepal, PM Narendra
Modi twitted about the
Earthquake from his official
account, which was reportedly
the first source of information
from which Koirala learnt about
the deadly earthquake back home,
news reports mentioned. China
did also paid huge attention to
Nepals disaster through the
activation of its social media
networks such as Weibo (a
Chinese version of Twitter) and
Weixin (Chinese equivalent of
WhatsApp, also known in
English as WeChat). There were
several other reasons beyond
philanthropy as to why foreign
countries became concerned to
Nepals recent crisis created out
of natural calamity, but what is
significant is to note that
diplomacy this time got
overwhelmed with social media
networks.
Nepals earth quake and the
shocking aftermath involving
peoples grief and sorrow became
staple news stories for quite
some time for Indian journalism.
Indian journalists were so
hyperactive in projecting
Nepals misery vis--vis Indian
armed forces enthusiasm as part
of Operation Maitri, the official
name of Government of Indias
relief drive for Nepal, on screen
that it emerged more as a
publicity phenomena showing
off Indias role in the
rehabilitation of post-quake
Nepal. Needless to mention that
social media networks
immediately emerged as a very
significant platform for
registering aspersions of the
Nepali citizens regarding the

tragic role played out by Indian

media. Within a week of the
devastation took place 60,000
tweets with the hashtag
#GoHomeIndainMedia were
registered in Nepal itself. By
May 4, 2015 the number
increased to 144,000 tweets
with the same hashtag. Nepali
citizens outrages against the
aggressive presence of Indian
media were manifested through
such tweets like Nepal is a
sovereign country and not a
satellite state, or that
Dear@narendramodi our
Dharahara may have fallen not
our sovereignty! If Indias role
in the recent crisis of Nepal
would have been fruitfully
highlighted through television to
the larger audience beyond India
then social media networks did
emerge as a countervailing force
to pinpoint how public
relations affair went on under
the disguise of relief and
rehabilitation gestures.
It is undeniably true that
social media has enabled Nepal
garner cooperation and create
sensible solidarity attempts
from both within and outside
Nepal at a time when the nation
needed them most. It needs also
to be mentioned that the
experience of social media in
tremor inflicted Nepal of the
recent past was not of a kind of
unmixed blessings alone. Social
media did appear also as a
strategy of marketing for some
brands those propagated their
products by using the catch
phrases drawn from the popular
experience of the devastation.
Some brands even went for
offering special discounts when
people were in grief and utter
despair. Lenskart, an online
shopping website for example,
went out with an advertising
message for its sunglasses with
a special discount twitting thus:

Shake it off like this

Earthquake. The website
Scoop Whoop also posted an
article criticizing earthquake
reactions as a handy target for
attack, which was untimely and
uncalled for at that moment.
Both
Lenskart
and
ScoopWhoop had to apologise,
when all-round reactions came
up in the virtual world against
their unpalatable courses of
action.
This again raises a serious
question: how far we can rely
upon social media as the real
vanguard of social cause. As long
as social media by definition
remains a free space where each
incumbent user can participate in
it with their own personal interest
and to park opinion without any
restrictions, there is every
possibility that social medias
concern may get disconnected
from what is understood as
social. Polarizing the social
concern through debate and
dissemination of opinion may
have serious negative
consequences for crisis situations
and in the context of Nepal these
ramifications were also in vogue.
What is needed therefore is the
continuation of social media but
with the caveat that its concern
should be related with the social
cause, if it has to experience
smooth sailing in contemporary
time. Though social medias
intervention in the context of
contemporary Nepal has been
noteworthy, nevertheless we are
yet to be sanguine to accept social
media and the virtual world as a
matchless boon for the real world.
(The author is a
Doctoral Fellow in the
Department of Sociology,
University of North
Bengal
(E-mail:
estrella.bebika@gmail.com)

OFFICE OF THE PCCF-CUM-PRINCIPAL SECRETARY

DEPARTMENT OF FOREST ENVIRONMENT & WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT
GOVERNMENT OF SIKKIM
DEORALI 737102

APPEAL
As an integral part of Paryavaran Mahotsav 2015
the Department of Forest, Environment and Wildlife
Management, Government of Sikkim is organizing
Greenathon Green Run and Green Walk for clean
and green Sikkim on the 28 th June 2015 at
M.G.Marg, Gangtok. On this occasion the
Department of Forest, Environment and Wildlife
Management, solicits kind participation of all for
making this event meaningful and successful. The
Department appeals all the participants to report at
6:30 A.M. at M.G.Marg, Gangtok for start of the
event The Greenathon.
(Dr. Thomas Chandy, IFS)
PCCF-cum-Principal Secretary