An address damaged and a region after shock

When anyone called me up to reach my residence at Siliguri, I would say 'Reach Hatimore, Subhaspally, turn left, from Ashim Sweets or now Monginis turn right and then straight, keep coming till you reach a Shiva Temple near Vibgyor Sporting Club, take a U-turn left from the Children Park...the earthquake today has brought down the roof of this Shiva Temple and a wall close to my house. This is the visual all of you must have been watching in almost all television news channels.

 

The temple has been there since time unknown, a prominent conical roof, which used to be coloured during every Shivratri, was supposed to have been after the 2^nd World War, when the American troops of the allied forces had left some cement at the present FCI Godown just opposite to the Shiva Temple. Things must have turned worst for Sikkim. None of the phones that I have been trying since long seems not reachable. Earthquake is not new to this area, but I don't remember a time when it has happened so strong, that it shook people out of their confidence.

Today morning, I could get through with several of my friends and relations in Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills. Mangan gave the message of the damage at Chungthang, Hee told about damage in Jorethang. Situation does not seem to be at its best, as electricity and telephone connections were not working in several areas, but since morning some places it resumed and the people could be contacted. The Government at the centre and the states are at their toes, about 500 reserve forces have arrived last night at Bagdogra. The major concern is the panic among the people and the fright of repetition.

Knowledgeable people have said that we have been saved because of the type of sedimentary rocks that we have, but have shown their concern about the several dams on the different rivers. As general public all of us believe that we have been saved because it was Biswakarma (God of all construction and engineering) Puja yesterday. Most of the time we tend to forget that we are in the Eastern Himalayan Syntaxis, an area for major earthquakes, which repeats almost after a little more than every 50 years. The last major in the region was the one in Lohit & Dibang areas. We need to be extra careful about what we build.   
02 major concerns about East Himalaya, when the bamboo flowers, and when the earth shakes...the 1950 shake of Assam is still fresh.

2nd Gitanjali Mango Festival

2^nd Gitanjali Mango Festival

10^th to 12^th June, 2011. Utsav Complex. Uttorayon, Siliguri

Organized by

Modella Caretaker Centre & School (MCCS) and The Orchid Choicest Enterprises Ltd

As promised last year, this year again the Gitanjali Mango Festival is being held, almost around the same time and ofcourse the same venue. With all your cooperation, the event was a great success last year. There were about 30,000 footfalls, 2000 kilos mangoes handled, 200 mangoes in competition, 35 varieties on sale, 100 competitions and cultural programs organized, all in the three days. Even the tourism stalls received extraordinary response. And believe it, this was the only ‘Mega Mango Event’ for East and Northeast India.

As the festival was dedicated to the 150^th Birth Anniversary of Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore and 100 years of Gitanjali last year, the title Gitanjali was added to Mango Festival. The name every year will remain the same to remember the Kabiguru’s love for Mango Orchard (Amrakunja) and this year’s theme will also revolve around him and in a greater context will be ‘Epar Bangla-Opar Bangla’, the cultural ties between India’s West Bengal and Bangladesh based on Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore.

Taking into consideration, the response at the tourism stalls, this year a special travel mart will be organized, Rural Tourism Baazar, based on the theme ‘connecting heritage beyond boundaries’, which will be coordinated by Association for Conservation & Tourism (ACT). The Northeast part of India, which is connected to the country through the Siliguri Corridor or the Chicken’s Neck as it is often called shares about 98% of its borders with Tibet (China), Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh, which amounts to about 4500 kms of International border and only 02% with the country. As per the ‘Look East Policy’ of India, the success of this region lies in trade and cultural ties with the neighbouring countries and we believe rural tourism can be a major tool to achieve it. As ACT has organized 02 major policy workshops based on cross-border tourism, the responsibility has been left to them.

The Mango Exhibition and Competition, Mango Eating Competition, Cookery Classes and Mango Recipe Competition, Seminars, Sit & Draw, Picture Postcard Art, Picture Story Writing, Mango Quiz, Ethnic Dress Competition, Face of the Day, Cultural Programs will continue like last year. The new activities which will be added would include Alpana Competitions (revival of a old domestic art form of Bengal), Poster Exhibition based on Heritage Sites of Bengal, A Trio of Films from Shekhar Das will be video projected by the Director himself who will be available for interaction, Ajoy Roy’s documentaries of Bengal and India’s Northeast will be projected by the maker himself and more surprises to come during the Festival.

We shall meet again on the 5^th of June, 2011 at 3PM (15:00 hrs) for the Reception Rituals of the Festival with plantation of Mango Trees at the venue, The Utsav, Uttorayon, Siliguri.

6^th May, 2011                          Abhaya Bose, Organizing Secretary