about me
Name: Takbothing Tarjokmoo Lepcha.
From: Calcutta.
Meaning of my name: the last prophet of the Lepchas.
Value and respect: well there are thousands of things but if I have to choose then that is the value of unity and brotherhood among my tribe that I hold most dear to my heart.
“A straight answer from my side – to contribute to stopping the disappearance of Lepcha oral tradition – will be by continuing it, because for me oral history is not only a simple bedtime story, it also represents a bonding of a family and a sign for developing of brotherhood within the same tribe which unfortunately I personally see breaking fastly in this modern generation.”
Takbothing Tarjokmoo Lepcha
What is storytelling to me?
Till now the concept of storytelling as far as i have known was only up to oral one , but after attending most of the sessions i was star struck that the concept of storytelling is not upto oral recitation but it can be of different forms such as music , VFX graphic designing , fashion ware & last but not the least photography , which in itself tells a thousand things.
What is sacred to me?
to see my tribesmen rise to take the glory that modern world has to offer but at the same time not forgetting their roots of origin, because many may argue with what I have said but it’s the bitter reality that we tend to loose ourselves and our roots in the process. Just like this picture of Victoria Memorial built by the colonial rulers, though we achieved freedom from them and have moved forward, we are still reminded of the past.
Though being born and brought up in a big metropolitan city like CALCUTTA where there are countless DISTRACTION in which one may easily tend to forget their roots & culture. Hence for me sticking to my rich CULTURE , TRADITIONS , RELIGION & LANGUAGE means SACRED to me , though I lack in the latter one.
Finding my sacred place
I could reach in an old memory which I dream sometimes abt a lady in white dumvun and it seems that she wants me to follow her. The next thing I see is hundreds of Lepcha people lying dead beside a pond and many Lepcha girls screaming for help … well this is all I could see sometimes.
I as a Lepcha
Most historians have described being a LEPCHA in their own way but for me LEPCHA/RONG means, “THE TRUE SON OF THE SOIL” of the eastern HIMALAYAN region, in which our so called land have been divided by the force of time & the main culprit for this division is we RONG ourselves only.