OF G IANT FERNS &

T INY PRAYER TEMPLES

Notes of my learning walk in Dzongu, Sikkim

28th Jan – 4th Feb 2015

Marianne Esders

My special Thanks goes to Tshering Gyatso Lepcha

without whose countless efforts this Shodh Yatra

would not have been possible.

I would also like to thank Sonam, LakPao, Kipu,

Thinlay, Laachunl, and others who tirelessly

guided us on our path in the mountains and

made this Shodh Yatra an unforgettable experience

Shodh Yatra

is a journey

for the search of knowledge,

creativity and innovation

at grassroots.

Shodh Yatra

is an attempt to reach out

to the remotest parts of the country

with a firm belief

that hardship and challenges

of natural surroundings

are the prime motivators

of creativity and innovation.

www.sristi.org

3

My idea of bliss is walking alone in the forest,

feeling the breeze caress the leaves and then

caress my hair. I walk alone. I follow the rocky

trail further up into the mountains,

somewhere between the river Teesta and

Kangchenjunga, the third highest peak of the

world. I am close to something that I cannot

completely grasp. Two women from a

nearby village pass by. Soon they are far

ahead. Despite being many years younger, I

feel slow and sluggish in comparison. My feet

and legs are not used to the uneven

mountain terrain

My phone camera is tucked

away somewhere in my

shoulder bag; I want to record

this strange performance. But I

am not fast enough. Don’t stop

dancing, I say. Please don’t

stop. The leaf doesn’t listen,

follows its own rhythm of

movement and rest. When I

finally get hold of the camera,

the performance is over.

I wait a little, but the leaf won’t

dance again. How can it be, the

breeze has not changed, or at

least I assume it not having

changed in intensity and

direction. After a while I give up

the wait and decide to continue

my walk.

When I look up, my heart

jumps. Right in front of me, a

giant fern leaf bows down from

the head of its stem. I would

have completely missed it

without the tiny leaf calling out

for me. Is this why you danced, I

say to the leaf. Realising that I

speak to a fern, I turn around to

see whether some of the other

yatris are catching up. Yet

nobody is in sight.

I AM CLOSE TO SOMETHING

THAT I CANNOT COMPLETELY GRASP

Winter light falls gently through the canopy

of leaves. The days are fresh but not cold. A

valley of green opens up to my right. My

eyes are not trained to distinguish the vast

variety of plants growing on these foothills.

Something catches my eye. At the slope, a

single fern leaf stands out; it is dancing in

joyful swings.

I pause and imagine the leaf dances just for

me.

5

I turn left to continue my walk and realise

that for the last minutes I have been under

surveillance. On the other side of the trail

stands an assembly of funny creatures with

widely protruding hair. A group of giant

ferns, brothers and sisters of the one that I

just discovered. Something about their

appearance seems strange. An aura of

secrecy surrounds them, thickens the air and

fills my heart with melancholy and happiness

at the same time. For a moment I feel like an

intruder. Then I give in to a smile that comes

from somewhere deep within my heart. I

sense I have discovered something precious.

I am sure the little dancing leaf stopped me

on account of the taller ferns, so that they

could take a better look at me. Was it not for

the leaf, I would have passed by heedlessly

without noticing them. So here I am, from a

far and foreign land, feeling strangely at

home among the local Lepchas, I came into

jungle

this jungle driven by my heart and curiosity.

Times have changed; it is so easy to get to

places that a hundred years ago would have

been almost unreachable. I am aware

though that even today parts of this

particular region require special admission

and extra effort to reach. Not many have

come here before. What actually am I doing

here? A moment of self-realisation

overcomes me. I choose to stay for a while

and take rest, in save distance from the ferns,

seated on a rock, watching them watching

me.

How long does it take for a fern to grow to

such height? I have never seen ferns grow so

tall. What have these creatures observed in

their lifetime, which stories do they have to

tell about people who have come here

before me? How deep is their longing for

company, new observations, wanderers

passing by?

How long have these ferns been standing

here and what do they think about the large

group of strangers, shodhyatris, walking into

their protected territory in one single day?

They are just one assembly of leaves in a

long line of ancestors. My imagination about

them seems to have gone wild. Maybe they

do not take notice of me at all, of us, passing

by, each one of us navigating on a different

path of learning. .

I imagine life as the canvas of a loom. Below

this web of pathways, I feel, there is a

common string that guides all of us into a

similar direction, then again separates us,

weaves new patterns, ever creative and

unpredictable in its repertoire of images.

Watching the giant ferns, I think of all those

precious feelings that we leave untouched.

When we are in anger, we barely hold back

and easily burst out with hurtful words. But

when there is a moment of love, we often

shy away from sharing our feelings. We

stand still and clueless like giant ferns,

watching time passing by. Sometimes we

shed a leaf. If only in such moments we had

little leaves dancing for us as reminder to

take a closer, a better look at those details,

feelings and thoughts that we keep tucked

away. Emotions swimming like tiny fish in a

turbulent stream of consciousness, hardly

visible but nevertheless an important part of

what makes us whole and confuses us at the

same

7

same time. How beautiful the world would

be if we decided to share more such

moments of intimacy and love. How intense

would each and every single life be if we

decided not to hide these feelings in the

shade of some callous anonymity? What are

the things that really touch us made of? Do

we ask the right questions?

A local farmer walks by and shares a

mandarin orange with me. I learn that the

people of Lum, the village from where we

started our yatra two days before, grow the

best mandarin oranges in Sikkim. I am

fascinated by the fact that I can easily

communicate with the Lepcha people living

in this remote part of the world, much better

than with people in many other parts of

India, or even Europe.

Their English is pretty profound. My Hindi is

still bad. In one school I saw the script of the

Lepcha language depicted on a wall. I

wonder how difficult it might be to learn it.

The farmer leaves, I enjoy the fruit he gave

me and after some time also I set out to

continue my walk.

The many different variations of green,

patches of shade and light shaping my

surroundings, completely take me in.

According to Greenpeace, India makes up

only two percent of the world’s land mass,

but eight percent of the world’s biodiversity.

Certainly a vast amount of this diversity can

be found here in the mountain range at the

foothills of Mount Kangchenjunga.

The Lepchas refer to this habitat as the

mountain’s kitchen garden. And it really is.

Various sorts of wild and cultivated eatable

plants such as yam, cardamom, leafy

vegetables, millet and fruits grow here in

abundance. Pineapple, oranges, grapefruit,

ginger, cinnamon, plums, herbs, red rice and

many more. Just a decade back, the region

was known for its extensive cardamom

production. Now the production has

declined, the locals say the climate has

changed, people’s lifestyles have changed,

oranges, TVs and SUVs have started taking

over.

over. The Lepcha women know how to

prepare tasteful dishes from the local plants

and every time we are welcomed in a village,

a new variety of cooked and fermented

dishes is waiting for us. For the first time in

my life, I taste banana plant flowers and

cannot get enough of it.

9

There are millet pancakes filled with leafy

vegetables, bitter and sweet, rice with green

dal, and walnut tea as well as a very sour

local fruit. I cannot recall its name, but the

better do I recall how one bite of it empties

the mouth of all saliva within just a second.

In this region, sale of commercial liquor is

banned and fined with ten thousand rupees.

But a variety of fermented tubers and tasteful

organic liquors is available ranging from yam

and millet over guava and other fruits to

cinnamon and even bamboo. And the

Lepchas offer us what they call pocket wine,

fermented tubers that can easily be carried in

the pocket and eaten in a moment of “need”

or indulgence.

The shells of wild cardamom growing here

look a bit different from the ones I know.

Their colouring is darker, their structure is

rougher and the taste is more intensive than

that of the cardamom I usually buy in the

market. There is also a very small round fruit

called amala which tastes similar to nut and

is eaten by hunters in case they cannot find

enough water.

Taking into account the fruit’s tiny size, I

assume one needs to eat a lot of amala to

ease the desperation caused by thirst.

11

Two kids from a lower village carrying a

basket of tomatoes and a bag of cement

overtake me with ease. A few minutes later I

reach a broken prayer wheel. I feel like

repairing it, but I do not know how to

accomplish the task since I do not carry any

tools that could be useful here.

The wheel is made of a wooden, beautifully

decorated upper part which is connected to

a broken lower part, a blue wooden wheel

that lies dusty in the shade of the little

temple it once has been set into. I do not

completely understand how the prayer wheel

works. Later throughout the yatra I will find

an unbroken wheel and see that the lower

part is supposed to be pushed by running

water which then turns the upper part of the

wheel that in turn strikes a bell, sending out

its high, clear sound into the forest.

The two women and the kids that overtook

me are resting nearby. I see that people have

put little fern leaves close to the prayer

wheel. I follow their example. At many places

I see leaves given as gesture of gratefulness

to nature. Here and there on a rock one can

find a nicely arranged staple of leaves, the

lower ones withering, the upper ones fresh

and radiating in the sun. Given the beauty of

nature that surrounds me, I can completely

empathise with the urge to worship it and I

add my own offering every time the

opportunity emerges.

Many prayer flags adorn the path we walk

on. Every bridge that helps us cross the river

is decorated with colourful flags. I learn that

the larger white flags that we see at many

waysides are dedicated to the deceased.

13

15

The Lepcha people pray to the mountain

Kangchenjunga, nature and their ancestors.

Their religion is known as Mun. In translation

they call themselves worshippers of nature.

They marry in presence of their mountain

deity. With sunrise the snowy pinnacle of

Kangchenjunga turns golden and the locals

of Dzongu say that beyond this peak lies

paradise. I feel I am in paradise already, a

place so beautiful, fertile and green with

smiling people living together in harmony.

The Lepchas’ knowledge about the higher

and lower altitude herbs and plants of this

region is vast already at a young age. Just

two days earlier, on the first evening of our

walk, I met a six year old girl in a shining blue

dress wearing a necklace with big blue

pearls, who took me by the hand to

introduce me to her friends. At one point of

our stroll, we reached a row of posters that

the shodhyatris had put on display on a

nearby wire mesh. I started to explain the

creative

creative and innovative ideas of children

from various parts of India depicted on some

of the posters to the girl in blue. Suddenly,

she spotted a bee on one of the posters.

Then a second one on the height of her

eyes.

Why are there bees drawn here?, she asked.

Hmm, it is the symbol of the Honey Bee

Network, I started, the network that has

brought all these people here … Before I

could continue she exclaimed:

I know! I know why it is a bee!

Why is it a bee?, I asked.

One bee does the work, the other bee makes

the honey, she said.

I smiled and decided to leave it at that.

Now I want to show you something else, she

said with a smile. A few metres further

someone from Lum village had fixed little

transparent plastic bags to the mash wire.

Look, she said, this is a collection of plants

from the forest.

Do you know what they are used for?, I

asked.

Without hesitation she started to explain:

This you crush in your hand and put on

wounds, this one you take when you have

cough, this one is to be used when you cut

your finger.

She kept talking vividly and I was amazed by

the knowledge this girl had about the plants

of this region, Dzongu Forest.

“ONE BEE DOES THE WORK,

THE OTHER BEE MAKES THE HONEY”

17

I leave the broken prayer wheel behind and

follow the path further up the mountain.

Someone has prepared the pathway for us.

Shaky bamboo bridges have been laid out or

tied to rocks for our support so that we do

not lose balance when crossing small gorges

or waterfalls. Someone has chopped foot-

sized dents into withering trunks that block

the jungle passage. It makes it easier for us

to climb over them without slipping down

the steep hillside slopes.

I enjoy walking alone but sometimes it is

good to have company. The day before,

someone slipped but was successfully pulled

up by Siddharth and other fellow yatris who

walked behind the lucky one. Especially when

the path is steep or long, the local songs and

encouraging shouts of our guides Sonam,

LakPao and others help to tackle the way

with a lighter heart. Aachuley! Up we go. Or

down. Climbing down is more difficult for

me. Pain in my knees and a nasty cough

make

make this yatra a challenge. But I will walk it

from beginning to end.

Further up on the path, I close up with the

yatris who walk in front of me. Most of the

time, the Bregadier, who is an experienced

shodhyatri, and a few others surrounding

him, form the first group of yatris to

accomplish our daily walks. This group now is

waiting at a parting so that latecomers won’t

take the wrong turn. While I wait for the next

group of people to catch up, Diken discovers

a mysterious construction. It looks like a clay-

puppet in a boat set out to sail on the

currents of a breeze. I learn from the

Bregadier that it is a site of worship for the

local people to commemorate their

deceased. In several places, usually close to a

house, one can find white threads and thin

wooden sticks formed into beautiful and light

geometric shapes. The Lepchas make these

to remember their ancestors.

19

I have forgotten about time. It is not

important which day it is, which

month. Everything seems small

before the mountain. I am irrelevant.

All that counts is beyond

comprehension.

Kangchenjunga has entered my

mind and my heart. As long as

water flows, a prayer wheel sends

out a melody. Giant ferns listen,

waiting for nothing. I am part of it

all. Everything is intertwined.

Something incomprehensible grows,

takes lead and reminds us of our

roots.

Traditionally, the houses have been

constructed out of wood and bamboo

standing on wooden stilts. The region is

prone to earthquakes with the latest incident

in 2011. Because of the stilt construction, the

houses shake but do not break and collapse

when the earth is shaking. One villager

shares with us that traditionally, the houses

have been facing North-South direction.

That way they can move in unison with the

movements of the earth plates. Also,

traditionally, the houses were constructed

without requirement for even one nail to

hold

hold the parts of a building together.

Nowadays

Nowadays, government funded schools and

also private buildings are constructed from

concrete and other non-locally sourced

material. Not only are these modern

buildings aesthetically inferior to the

traditional bamboo buildings. More

importantly, they cannot withstand an

earthquake. Further thoughts are needed on

how to better integrate local resources and

traditional knowledge of carpentry with

modern elements of construction.

In some villages with access to a road, locals

offer homestays to tourists who would like to

experience the beauty of the region. Close to

the road, guest houses are under constrution

with the best rooms offering a view of the

higher mountain peaks and Kangchenjunga.

In their attempt to protect nature, some

Lepchas try to follow a path of sustainable or

eco-tourism offering traditional local dishes

and hiking days in the surrounding nature.

One homestay heats water by directing the

pipe through the kitchen stove.

On many tree trunks one can find trash bins.

They remind wanderers to avoid littering.

These efforts stand in vast contrast to what

has been done to the region’s natural hot-

spring though. Instead of preserving the

unique natural ambience, a concrete building

was set on top of it, thereby destroying the

hot-spring’s beauty and natural charm.

In those mountain regions that cannot be

accessed by road, these issues still seem to

be far away from daily reality. I climb further

up. The sun is warm and my winter sweater,

which is indispensable in the nights, is

needless now. In my bag I carry a small

bottle with water that I collected the day

before at a fireplace. The water’s smoky taste

runs down my throat and gives me the

energy to carry on climbing further up and

down and up … and down.

Houses are scattered here and there and

mostly made of bamboo and other types of

wood. Soon we come to a single house on a

mountain slope. I imagine that only rarely

people come up into this region. The lady

living here has prepared boiled yam for us

and offers it on a plate to every yatri passing

by. The Lepchas’ overwhelming hospitality

leaves me speechless again and again.

21

The lady’s son has won the

medals in two-hundred and

five-housand meter runs. The

professor and the yatris applaud

the boy’s success and slowly we

set out to continue our walk.

I am told that Lepcha people

are shy as fish. They prefer

privacy and silence for which

this mountain region offers the

best conditions. However, they

also know very well how to

dance and sing together.

Almost every village welcomes

us with a cultural performance,

dances and songs, sometimes

someone

someone is playing a flute or a local string

instrument. Local youth perform their

dances in traditional dresses.

Especially the Lepcha girls are eager to show

the traditional dance forms. Often there are

not enough male dancers in a group. The

girls take up those roles as well and wear

male dresses inclusive the required

moustaches drawn on their faces. Once per

year the Lepchas organise a huge festival

with dance and food competitions to keep

their traditions alive.

The traditional long dress for girls and

women is made of off-white cotton, worn

over a red silk blouse, or a colourful silk

drape pinned to the shoulders and arranged

into three folds that are held by a hand-

woven waistband. Their hair is covered with a

white scarf and sometimes the cheeks are

coloured pink with rouge. The men and boys

wear hand-woven garments in the traditional

pattern of the region.

theirOn their heads they wear either a bamboo

hat with a bird’s feather, often that of a

peacock, or a black hat made of stiff felt with

a colourful middle part. Traditionally, the

Lepchas walk barefoot and they wear short

knives at their waist (men) or their back

(women). Women and even the young girls

wear necklaces with big pearls matching the

colour of their dress.

In the doorframe of the woman’s house, I spot

a little kitten. In my attempt to catch it, the

kitten runs into the building. I follow and soon

many yatris enter the house. It consists of two

main rooms, of which one is the kitchen with a

traditional fireplace and a balcony. Corn is

drying in the sun. Soon Anil Gupta discovers a

row of medals on the kitchen wall.

enter our hearts and leave a feeling of

contentment and happiness. The song texts

reveal tiny sparks of wisdom. Don’t keep the

darkness of foregone days in your heart.

Every new day is a new beginning.

At the end of the shodhyatra many of us will

have got hold of one or two songs on their

mobile phones to be taken home and

replayed when the memories are fading and

need to be revived with melodies.

The dancing steps are simple and after a few

days many of us join the local dance

performances. Throughout this yatra we

really begin to connect with the local people,

walk, dance, sing and laugh together.

It will be impossible to forget these moments

with each other. We are not only walking

through Dzongu Forest, we are on the way

to making new friends.

The dances they perform may depict a

farming or harvesting scene with men and

women doing their tasks and coming

together to celebrate the completion of their

work. At other times, the dances show scenes

of boys and girls courting or simply dances

that resemble gratitude for nature, the

mountains, the circle of life.

Also the smaller kids already know very well

how to dance. In the background of a

performance one can sometimes watch

children imitating the steps of the dancers.

One small girl dances herself into the heart

of everyone. We are told that she is only two

years old. She knows all the steps by heart

and is truly the incomparable star of this

region.

.

The melodies are catchy and soon no one

can escape the urge to hum these Lepcha

tunes over and over again. The melodies

enter

23

Shodh Yatra

is a journey

for the search of knowledge,

creativity and innovation

at grassroots.

Shodh Yatra

is an attempt to reach out

to the remotest parts of the country

with a firm belief

that hardship and challenges

of natural surroundings

are the prime motivators

of creativity and innovation.

www.sristi.org

25

List of images

Title page – Element of Buddhist stupa

4 – Dzongu forest

5 – Giant fern, Dzongu forest

6 – Assembly of giant ferns, Dzongu forest

7 – Detail of handwoven bag, Dzongu, Sikkim

8a – Orange farmer with bamboo ladder used for harvesting

8b – Lepcha script, Lum

8c – Lepcha kids playing

9 – Local kids and Lepcha script

10 – Bamboo house in Dzongu

11 – Variety of traditional dishes: Yam, millet pancakes, momos, served on banana leaves

12a – View over Sikkim

12b – Buddhist prayer flags

13 – Temple with prayer wheel in Dzongu forest

14 – Kids

15 – Kids

16 – Mount Kangchenjunga in the morning sun

17 – Kids

17 – Wall of a mountain house with corn hanging to dry and daily utensils

18 – Shodh yatris and guides walking up into the mountains

19 – Prayer site

20 – Outside a mountain house

21 – Traditional food of the region

22 – Kids in a dancing performance

22 – Bamboo hair pins

23 – Shodh yatris crossing a river

Back cover – Variety of high altitude medicinal plants on display

Thank you.