about me
Khamree! My name is Cholamoo Lepcha, people also call me ‘Cho’.And I was born, raised and completed my education including my +2 from my hometown, Gangyap, Gyalshing district, West Sikkim.
Cholamoo comes from one of the Highest lake in the world located at Sikkim. Cho meaning ‘water’ and Lamoo ‘goddess’. I am shy around people during the first meet and I don’t open up much. When something lits a spark in me, I can’t stop creating scenarios in my mind, sometimes I create song lyrics with it or a poetry, and that’s what I appreciate myself about.
I grew up speaking Lepcha, yes! But I couldn’t study nor read the alphabets until I was in 6th standard. My father was the one to teach me how to read and write Lepcha Language. And now I understand how significant it is for the parents to make their child learn and appreciate their own language, the knowledge which was passed on from generations to generations and to be able to dive into it, to understand and make your literature known to the world.
Description of the topic you chose and why
There are lists of Translations I worked and iam still working on. The works are sacred, beautiful and engaging. But the one that captivated me, was by Rachelmit Takboo, her work starts with a quotation ‘What didn’t you do to bury me. But you forgot that I was a seed.’- Dinos Christianopoulos. And that made the whole work beautiful, where she talks about her childhood experiences, the places she grew up watching and the changes that came along with it. It’s sad at some point but you just have to brush it by acknowledging the change that are bound to be.
Why do you speak this language and work around the language?
Lepcha Language is my mother tongue and I deeply appreciate it. It’s not because you are born with in as a mandate, but because it’s my identity and that’s what has shaped me as of today and if I don’t appreciate it then who will?
What interested you most about working on translations of Lepcha to English and English to Lepcha?
I could learn new words that I was unaware about. Translating English to Lepcha seems difficult and tricky, the flow of sentences gets changed and we have to be very careful about how we construct the sentences without altering the original script.
What were the challenges of the translation work?
Ofcourse yes! Finding the right words to translate into and the Lepcha keyboard. I really hope someday we will be able to work on Laptop without any inconveniences.
What made you feel good about the translation work?
Engaging in this work provided me with some amount to support myself and also that it gives experiences on typing in Laptop and understanding the keys supporting the Lepcha font. It was easier to remember the keys that way.
What was the hardest word or sentence you translated and how did you go about finding the meaning behind the word?
As of now I have not struggled with the words as I own a Lepcha Dictionary which made me find the words easily.
Why is translation meaningful to you?
Translation makes me look into a story visualising it. Although the translations are basically the mere version of the original story, but the way you depict each words in the process of translations, it just gives its own different meaning.
