The Gorkhaland Forecast

Paul Rai, KalimNews, Kalimpong 1 November 2013: The sudden outpouring of heavy rain causes flood in the plains, landslide in the hills and leaves a lot of miseries to the people and the entire system of networks.

The recent hurricane ‘Phailin’ caused a huge loss in the coastal as well as in the neighboring areas. Thank God, it wasn’t like hurricane ‘Katrina’ or ‘Tsunami’ although it gave a fore signal of something is happening somewhere in the deep and as per the future weather analysis something is coming mightier than what the coastal have experienced so far.

Government, Nongovernmental organizations, Medias, Scientists associated with geology and people from all walks of life gets cautioned when weather goes bad or it signals in natural phenomenon.

To mitigate the risk in case of such disaster, organizations are doing their best to improve the standard of measures to ensure fewer casualties, if not for combat. We do need rain but at what measure? No one can set the measure for rain. It’s unstoppable though predictable. These happenings are the games of nature, it plays without caring anyone; its consequences are the matter of no concern.

I got to hear from my mother the stories of ‘the tremors of 68’: I used to get spine-chilling feel as she narrates the way they tried to cross Teesta. She used to say “this is the age of Kali (Modern time), anything will happen, you don’t have to wait for long”, I nodded my head in half understanding. Now I feel she was true.

Likewise, I am forced to assess the current statehood drama: some behave like Suras and some Asuras, after watching for a while, I get to notice that their roles are unknowingly reverted (exchanged) to each other, as if they are good in alternative roles and it was a miscalculation on director’s judgment to give opposite roles.  It is very curious to watch, full of thrill than any Hollywood thriller. 

While these Suras and Asuras are busy in saying their dialogues in officer’s and pirate’s outfits, fed up with the roles beneath the grave some stinky zombies tries to scale the hills again, and says beyond the script dialogue ‘just to check the roads have been made’.  “Oh My God…, your turn is still not come ‘you stinky zombies’, get to the grave, I’ll have it knocked with hammer when time comes” screams one of the directors at top of his voice.

(Backstage scene: Suras are momentarily quite as they are little tired of 6 years of consecutive innings – as soon as this was realized by Asuras, they start pretending like Suras in the hills):  Now Asuras talks about the development (obviously character changed), gets hold of some amateur (part-time) employees like water boys-cameramen-extras and pitches their camp at Keroseong. 

What happens next is: Jumley Depp all of a sudden appears from no-where, shaking his whole body just like a baby desperately trying to stand on its own, he says “Drink up me hearties, yo ho! Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me! A toast to piracy and its many shiny rewards. yo ho! We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs” – the whole platoon of amateurs exclaims “hail….. Captain Jack’s Sparrow – the king of piracy”.Indeed, Amateurs tries to sell the pirated version of Suras in original cover of Gorkhaland. 

Somehow they managed to sell some in Gorubathan, Kalimpong and in few tea states. Now the whole company is drunk with pirated suras (this time it’s ‘wine’), they proclaimed, “It’s better than ‘Nausagar’ or the ‘Battery’ versions of local ‘arrack’”. They too manage to say beyond the script dialogue ‘in vernacular’ - “Koi…. Cha—mo….. san-ga….Khelne”, though it sounds old but still have the magic to intimidate~ unless one accepts with all humility.

Somewhere ‘sultan of swing’ is being played, while with the indistinct sound of 70’s number Kanchi is preparing for ‘Julus’ (the procession). She is hardly 16. “Aju chai.. ko ko- lai chai…sallak_kai.. pari_dinchu” she murmurs.  Jethi and Bhunti comes with lavish dress-up and thick layer of cosmetics on their faces. They reached Power House and wait for the others, Jethi breaks the silence and says: ‘Daju chai Chokho (genuine) cha ki.. tara advisor haru chai ni….kata- kata cha jasto lagdaicha hai……malai chai’. ‘Aha ho ta’ - Sunita already overheard what Jethi just said while coming to join the party.

On the other camp Suras are confused as all the ‘Astras’ have become futile because of the moisture as there was heavy rain from all sides. Seeing the situation the director graciously overlooked the fact and became little lenient to the Asuras and indirectly helps them to have media coverage in order to speak out on the next episode of the shoot.  It looked like the director made some changes in the script and manipulated little on the next scene as the person was aware of the heavy rain in the hills which certainly brings flood in the plains. As far as the shooting is concerned they put some rainy day scene – and at this event, even the students had ‘rainy-day’ off for about 40 days.

As per the scene all the key supporters of Suras camp need to take shelter behind the bar to mitigate the risk of getting flushed down to plains as they never know what is next in the script. Mr. Lama tried to peep through the script. Shaking his head said to Mr. Rai “Ohhh…bro..  wish I was ‘the professor’ of Hebrew”, in fact, it was in Greek. And they looked emptily at each other’s faces. Even amidst the heavy rain Mr. Lepcha is busy serving the guest in mela-ground in perfect disguise. ‘C…U….T…’ – director wants a break and it happens for a brief period.Everyone relaxes and plans about the next scene to begin.

The entrance of a character like sloth (the slowest animal in the whole world) with thick eye brow and long body, a little scar in the chin, with a long coat: voice like famous Puri was a cut throat moment of the entire shooting, it looked really scary. He was supposed to be taking flight from New Delhi but to everyone’s surprise he took the flight from Kolkatta. And the irony of the scene is: till date he was playing the part of ‘Maxi-can’ for Gorkhaland but now I get to hear that even his role is changed and his playing as ‘Maxi-can’t’. 

During this hustle and bustle of: role changed and dialogue theft, the parikrama for the premier of Gorkhaland beyond the boundaries as admitted by Parishang was in peril in the event of getting the wheel changed while driving the same. Whereas, all India Box Office contender for 2014, the band called Bjp twisted the major chord of Gorkhaland in Delhi which on purpose caused a temporary paralysis and ‘they call it rock n roll’. Everything’s at its climax: the shooting, the dialogue, the dengue, the actions and the verbal collusions of various personalities.

Well, it is reported that in Suras camp scientists are working on the Dengue virus and side by side for the treatment of the ‘Verbal Loose-Motion’ of its official spokesperson. Experts say it needs to be treated immediately before it becomes too contagious. Oh…. I can see~ S. Spielberg – he is hiding his face in the crowd, he feels like there’s competition of too many faces. He doesn’t want to get noticed before the actual release of Gorkhaland, officially. However, he keeps an account of ground realities – as his old hobby. Hopefully, at last the director opens his mouth in this fashion: “dialogue, dialogue and only dialogue”, now the man is talking, I guess he found the script for Gorkhaland in its originality.  Thank you, at-last somebody’s indicating that something is happening somewhere in the deep as far as the Gorkhaland forecast is concerned. 

Due to the heavy rain everything is at fix, the next shooting will be held at the parliament as ‘Schedule Tribe Bill’ is about to pass. And then………..     The END!                      

(and now read ‘rain’ as ‘politics’ again)