One on One with Prakriti Giri!

By Barun Roy

The rise of yet another talent from Darjeeling Hills into the parleys of the Indian Entertainment Industry is surely indicative of the resurgence of Gorkhas in all fields. Prakriti Giri, whose smile can make anyone shed a tear of joy is now not just the symbol of Gorkhas in India but Gorkhas abroad including all Pahariya (Hill dwellers of all races) from Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Kangra, to Arunachal Pradesh. While Prashant won over the world with his smile, humility and perseverance, Prakriti has done the same with her teenage innocence, unfaltered spirit and a simple joy of the occasion. At her age when children can hardly find it easy to cross the road, she has crossed over the road to destiny with the charm of a mountain princess. [Inset: Prashant and Prakriti. Photo courtesy Mysansar]

I have always written passionately about her and we have in this blog split our hair discussing on how and why the Judges treated her. But in reality as I was told by Prakriti herself that it is of no consequence. It does not bother her not while she stood there before the world and not now when she has become the youngest global Gorkha celebrity. She has risen to the occasion and knows that the world has just opened up its flood gates. Talking intermittently in Nepali, Hindi and English, she also does not forget to thank everyone across the globe that stood by her. Her paternal aunt whose guardianship during the entire period sheltered Prakriti from great pressure has also participated in the extravagant talent show bringing much dignity to it. Her assertions may tomorrow be forgotten by her very people but the rest of India will always remember her as Prakriti’s wonderful aunt who spoke the right things.

I had a chance to have a One on One with the Little Dragon Princess and her aunt where both shared there magical journey to fame and glory. This One on One was essentially arranged by Bishal Rai, Executive Member, Gorkha Welfare Society, New Delhi and I am extremely grateful to him.

One on One with the Dragon Princess – Prakriti Giri

Q. First of all please accept my congratulations on a wonderful performance in each and every episode of Amul Voice of India Chhote Ustaad. You have done very well and we are all very proud of you.

A. Thank you! I am extremely grateful to everyone who supported me right from the beginning. In fact, I was crowned the Jaipur Queen and people from all communities voted for me. It was such a wonderful experience.

Q. Speaking about the experience… You have never had such a huge challenge in your life where you had to perform on stage in the front of the entire world and compete with some of the best talents in the nation, how was the entire journey like?

A. It was a very nice experience. I never imagined that I would reach the top three. I would like to thank everyone who helped me.

Q. But then how have you changed in the entire process?

A. (Hmmmmm!) I have changed! I guess so. I used to be very much nervous when I first started performing on the stage but then I realized that being scared affected my performance and my vocal was shaky and weak. I gave up being nervous and scared and started performing well. All the three judges gave me good remarks and in fact it was they who brought me back. Today, I have been told that I am the favourite of the entire nation. It is so great. I am treated like a celebrity everywhere I go. My friends call me and tell me that they are no longer as good as me, which hurts me deeply. I still love spending time with them.

Next weekend you can be at … Hee Gaon

Darkness descends early in autumn. It’s only five in the evening but the road ahead is dark. Our Sumo has put all its lights on to negotiate the steep ascents and hairpin bends on the mountain road cutting through a jungle. There is not a soul in sight to ask for direction and we don’t know where we are.

We had crossed Soren, a hamlet in west Sikkim, and, according to the driver, are somewhere near Kaluk. But he wasn’t confident. We had been told that Hee Gaon, our destination, is about 7-8 km ahead of Kaluk on the road to Dentam.

Our only link to the outside world is the cellphone, which, surprisingly, is working. But every time I called up the owner of our hotel in Hee for directions, his first question was: “Where are you?” To which, unfortunately, we had no answer.

Suddenly the car headlights caught a signboard by the side of the road, proclaiming Hee Police Outpost. As I yelled to the driver to stop, a young man materialised out of the darkness. He introduced himself as the brother of our hotel owner and informed us that we were close to Hee Bazar.

IN FEAR OF FEAR ITSELF - India can afford to take a stand on Tibet on the merit of the case

 By Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

Nothing highlights Tibet’s tragedy more starkly than the parliamentary exchange between Pranab Mukherjee and V.K. Malhotra. When the latter expressed dissatisfaction with government policy, the former shot back, “What did they (the Bharatiya Janata Party) do when they were in power from 1998 to 2004? Or in 1977?”

If it’s not one-upmanship, it’s tit-for-tat. Tibet is a football on the soccer field of international politics, kicked around by whoever has an axe to grind. An American president bumps “accidentally” into the Dalai Lama — more would look like serious intention and affect Washington’s options — when he wants to thumb his nose at China for being obstreperous over trade. Sliding ratings prompt showbiz personalities to romanticize Tibet. The Nobel committee’s peace prize countered the world’s horror over the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Does India also exploit distress? When I asked P.V. Narasimha Rao, he retorted angrily, “What other country has given a home to the Dalai Lama and 85,000 Tibetans?” That hospitality is often forgotten. Or, perhaps, it places a responsibility on India to do more as the current crisis underlines. Instead of comparing the Congress and BJP records, India has to examine the moral issue and its own national self-interest to determine the scope for a useful response. Wen Jiabao’s cunning “appreciation” complicates the task by suggesting that Beijing and New Delhi are on the same side, and that the demonstrators were restrained to assist China. Honour and practical politics demand that it be made unambiguously clear that the restraint was for reasons of domestic civil order and in no way indicates endorsement of Chinese methods in Tibet.

It is too late in the day to cite history. The issues now are autonomy, saving Tibet’s demographic identity from Han settlement, preserving its lifestyle, avoiding economic exploitation and — of greatest immediate importance — preventing cruel Chinese reprisals. Younger Tibetans might denounce the Dalai Lama’s pragmatism as negation of principle, but even the Drepung monastery monks, who sparked the disturbances on March 10 and whose protest soon spread to Lhasa and thence to the separated provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu, cannot realistically expect more.