about me
Khamrimo. My name is Palden Lepcha and I’m from North Sikkim.
What is storytelling to me?
“I had many opportunities to listen to some of the best folklores ever of my times. We used to stay around by the firewood and my Nekung used to narrate so many folklores at times they used to give us goosebumps, at times the lores were so scary that we couldn’t sleep at night and used to stay awake all night by outing our head inside the blanket and other times her lores used to take us to another utopian world. But with the advancement if science and technology, firewood stove arent at the place and instead of listening to the stories we are all busy with our mobile phones. Also our grandgrandparents are busy with televison these days. So the whole practice of storytelling is lost today with which even knowledge is getting wiped out. I would contribute through documenting the folklores from getting vanish. So that our future generations can be peoud of their rich haul of folklores and documentation. Also i was wanted to collect stories from other places but by bringing together the elders from different places under roof. It would be so nice to hear them know. Everyone of them reciting different folklores from one podium.”
What is sacred to me?
Anything that has a connection to our ancestors.
I as a Lepcha
without it, I’ll be rootless.
“How can we say KingchumDzongu as our guardian dirty? How can we claim Tendong hill as ours? How are we claiming Damsang Gree as ours? How can we claim Daramdin as ours? This is all because we have documentation in our hands. Look at the pitiful fate of Pandam Gree, one of the Gaeboo Achyok’s ruined fort in Central Pendam near Singtam, East Sikkim, though we are trying to convey and deliver that this giant ruined fort belongs to Great Geaboo Achyok but since there is no documentation in our hand, we are not being able to prove. Not just this, Paris Polyphylla was widely used in medicinal plants during ancient times by our elders and they knew the benefits of it even before the world knew about it. But today everyone has forgotten its name even our elders are not being able to recall its name. If documentation was done do you think we will see this sad scenario today? The same might happens with another thing, so we must work on documentation. Mostly our folklores are oral-based and were passed on to us orally, imagine if tomorrow if we stop listening to these stories. All this might gets lost if we don’t document them also the passed folklores to us by elders orally loses their original essence, so documentation is need of an hour for endangered community like us.”
Palden Lepcha