Ten minutes of greenery

Sikkim has been doing its bit for Mother Earth. Numerous efforts and policies have been undertaken as a part of its ongoing "Green Mission". Plastic bags have been effectively banned for many years now. It practices organic farming and the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc is banned.

Such efforts by the Government of Sikkim has earned the CM the title of the Greenest Chief Minister and the state is now often referred to as the Green State, having successfully managed to increase the forest cover in state from 38% to 46% in few years and making "living green" as a way of life for the Sikkimese people.

Sikkim Government recently organized a unique program called "Ten minutes of greenery". This initiative called upon the entire 6 lakh population of Sikkim to plant trees for 10 minutes on July 15th starting at 10.30am anywhere within the state boundaries. A fellow blogger writes that the event was a huge success with over 6 lakh saplings being planted.

You can read more about the event here.

My First Vishu - again!

Well, I can consider this year's Vishu as my first (again) because this was officially the first Vishu of our wedded life. I had written about this festival a couple of years ago, when I had set up the Vishu kani as a surprise for V.

Below is a picture of our kani for this year. This time it is a little bit more authentic due to the more bounteous presence of yellow color and of course the Vilakku lamp. Hopefully the next time will will have an idol of Guruvayoor Krishna to make it more complete.

On the new year day, I woke up early in the morning when I felt V's hand over my eyes. I remembered  it was Vishu, and he guided me downstairs towards the kani. I opened my eyes and V prompted me to look at each and every thing that symbolizes prosperity. It felt lovely! He then gave me some token money known as Vishu Kaineettam which is given by elders to youngsters during this day.

Though a little bit late, I wish you all a very Happy Vishu, Naya Barsha, Vaishakhi, Puthandu, Nabo Borsho and Bihu.

One hour can change the world

Its that time of the year again. March 28th from 8:30PM till 9:30PM is the Earth Hour. Be sure to turn off the lights!

A one-of-a-kind event

This piece of information is so interesting, that I had to share with you all. Two books are to be launched in Sikkim soon. What's so special about it? Well, read on and you will know!...

Here's an excerpt from the launch announcement:

It gives us great pride to announce that our two Friends at Rachna are soon to do a worldwide release of their books here at our showroom. While this certainly is the first of its kind event in Sikkim, what will make it doubly extraordinarily special is the fact that two are a father-daughter team.

Dechen P Tenzing is a 9th grader and has been working on her comic book "Wolf's Fang" for a long time. This comic, stylised in the popular manga fashion, is undoubtedly going to be the first manga comic to come out of India. The layout and design for this comic is underway in the able hands of Sokpa Productions, a design studio in Gangtok. The venture is being published by Dechen's father P.G.Tenzing.

Mr Tenzing took voluntary retirement after serving in the Indian Administrative Services for 20 years and went on a 23,000 kilometer motorbike expedition all over India. His experiences and encounters are chronicled in the book "Don't Ask Any Old Bloke For Directions". This book, published by Penguin India, is going to have a worldwide release along with Dechen's "Wolf's Fang" at Rachna Books sometime in mid March.

The launch has been scheduled for 23rd March 2009. So if you happen to be in Gangtok around that time, be sure to be a part of it. You can read more about this event @ rachnabooks.com

Link: Coverage of the event in The Telegraph, India.

Mr. Weatherhog forecasts long winter

2nd of February which is the Christian holiday of Candlemas, is also popularly known as the Groundhog Day. It is believed that today when a groundhog emerges from its burrow, if it sees its shadow, then winter is going to be long and will continue for 6 more weeks. On the other hand, if it does not see its shadow, the winter will be short and spring is around the corner.

This year's star groundhog is a furry big little thing called Punxsutawney Phil hailing from a small town of Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania. Today when Phil emerged from his burrow after a long and cozy hibernation, he cast a shadow (since the day is bright today) and forecasted a long dreary winter.

So, as per our tiny little weatherman, I still have chance to wear some of the jackets that have remained untouched this entire winter!

Only in America

During our Christmas gift shopping spree, we went to this one store and got a couple of items, one for $10 and another for $25. We used a $10 off $25 coupon and with taxes, we got both the items for a total for $26.48.

Turns out, we ended up not gifting the $25 item to anyone. And since we ourselves didn't have any particular use of it, we decided to return it.

So, a few days ago I went back to the store to return it....and guess what, with taxes I got a refund of $26.49. That's 1c more than what we paid for! The $10 item we had got was completely free! The girl at the counter did realize something was wrong, but she couldn't do anything about it.

This can happen only in America!

New girl on the block

After watching the well deserved sweeping win of Slumdog Millionaire at the Golden Globe, I have been extremely impressed with - not Dev Patel, not Danny Boyle, not even A R Rahman - but with Freida Pinto, the girl who plays the character of adult Latika, the love interest in the movie.

While watching the movie, I was more engrossed in the amazing direction and awesome acting by the child artists - and so failed to notice her as anything more than a "regular" actor. But when I saw her on the stage with Shah Rukh Khan at the Golden Globe awards, I was struck by her confidence and her ability to hold herself alongside SRK.

Since then we have been scouring YouTube to catch what we can about her and the movie. And while at it, we came to know that these two young debutantes, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto - have appeared in a number of television interviews in the US. And as we watched her interviews in various award ceremonies and TV shows, my admiration for her grew. Just see how well she handles herself with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. Compared to much experienced Aishwarya's appearances on network television in the US and the difference is obvious. Freida is poised and confident, knows how to talk well and her command of the English language shows.

At this point, I would have linked to the You Tube video of Freida's appearance on The Tonight Show. But unfortunately, the video's been removed from YouTube by NBC due to copyright reasons.

No wonder that one of the top agencies in Hollywood, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) that represents the likes of Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kate Winslet, to name a few, has signed her up. The girl's gonna go places! Watch this space.

Aamir likes ShamWOW!

I was reading the recent entries of Aamir Khan's blog....and one post Homeward Bound (Nov,06,2008) interested me. In that post he mentions about US tele-shop products and how they sell unusual stuff and how tempted he is to buy some of them.

One such product that he mentions is this piece of cloth with amazing absorbing power. I am pretty sure Aamir is talking about ShamWOW.

It has one of TV's most irritating salesperson ever featured in its advertisement. But every time the ad comes on TV, I end up watching the entire ad, no matter how many times I have already seen it or how annoying that guy is! I just dont know why! He is even worse than Billy Mays who normally markets a lot of similar products on TV, from Kaboom to Mighty Putty. Do check out the ShamWOW ad, if you haven't already seen it. Maybe you can explain to me why I get transfixed everytime I see it on TV?

Welcome 2009!

2008 has been a pretty good year for me. I got married to V, need I say more?

However, I do know overall 2008 has been a rocky year for many, and here's a wish (or rather a prayer) from my side that may 2009 be a better year for all, bringing happiness, cheer and prosperity in our lives and may it fulfill one's deepest desires.

Wish you all a Very Happy 2009!

Sikkim girl in a Bollywood flick

This morning, as I was browsing through the Internet, trying to get into my regular grind, back from a great 4 day vacation, I was pleasantly surprised to come across this piece of news:

A local Sikkim girl Geetanjali Thapa has been casted opposite Ranvir Shorey for an upcoming movie "Tina ki Chaabi".

Just look at her pic, isn't she gorgeous?

As I did more research on her, I found that she was the same girl who had acted in Myth which is the first English movie made in Sikkim by the local talent. The movie itself had won rave reviews. She was also crowned the Mega Miss North East in 2007.

Way to go Geetanjali! You make us all proud!!

Happy Holidays!

Aaah! Its finally Wednesday! Today we are leaving for Columbus, Indiana ... our "hometown" in US. Its been more than three years since I last went there, when V was still there. I have so many memories related to the place which has been fading over the years and I had been waiting for an occasion to go back and refresh them. Lots of our old friends are still there and those not there are also travelling to Columbus. So it's going to be a reunion of sorts.

Me and V have been spending hectic weeks doing X'mas shopping, finding the perfect gifts for our friends while trying to keep them all within our budget :) We have early release from work today, so we will be leaving right after work....that's like a couple of hours from now. Its a long drive of over 10 hours, but V and our friend S will be driving, so I can lounge in the back seat of the car with the control of the iPod in my hands! Buhahaha!

I shall be back on Sunday, so until then wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Hope you all have a fun and safe, warm and cosy holiday season!

Haunting San Antonio

During the Thanksgiving weekend, we along with a few friends went for a trip to Texas. We were in Irving, a suburb of Dallas for a few days and had planned to drive to New Orleans, Louisiana from there for a day. However bad weather in New Orleans forced us to change plans and we ended up visiting San Antonio instead.

While in Irving we spent most of the time at our friends place with their kid. Other than that, we visited an ice sculpture exhibition called ICE! and also went for a rodeo show at nearby Fort Worth. Due to time constraints, I was unable to go to a Nepali restaurant there but did manage to have a great lunch at my childhood friend's place. Nepali restaurants are a hard find in US, so I was excited about it. Well, maybe next time.

San Antonio, though a small city, turned out to be very beautiful and well planned. A canal runs through the downtown which is lined with wonderful restaurants and lively pubs. You can walk along the canal, aptly called the River Walk and can even take a guided boat tour. We reached the River-Walk in the evening and spent quite some time walking around, enjoying the view and the people. The great weather also helped. While in Texas, how could we not have an "authentic" Tex-Mex food? Tex-Mex is basically a cuisine from Texas that is highly influenced by Mexican cuisine. After a scrumptious dinner, we went to a pub and spent a good time there.

The next day we went back to the downtown and checked out some tourist attractions like the Alamo where the Battle of Alamo had been fought. I found it very interesting that the battle was fought right where the San Antonio downtown now stands. While we were having our lunch back at the River-Walk, a friend of mine called and when I told him we were in San Antonio, he asked if we had been to the historical haunted site yet! Haunted!! My ears immediately popped up! I did a quick search on my iPhone ;-) and sure enough, there was a haunted place near town where you can experience the "haunting" yourself!

It seems that some time in 1940's and bus of school children were passing through a railway track when all of a sudden the bus stalled right when it was over the tracks and unfortunately an oncoming train hit the bus and six of the kids along with the bus driver died. Now, legend goes that till this date if one takes their vehicle to the railroad crossing and stop right in front of it and put it on neutral, unknown forces move the vehicle until you have safely crossed the tracks to the other side. That happens in spite of the fact that the road just before the tracks is inclined upwards! And to top it all, many people swear that when they spread baby powder over their car's rear bumper and once they were across the tracks when they examined their car, they could see distinct baby palm prints all over the bumper!

After reading about such an interesting place, we had to check it out. So we went to the location and we saw another vehicle in front of us trying the same thing. We stopped our car at a safe distance and watched the vehicle in front of us smoothly crossing the tracks. Of course, from where we stood, we couldn't make out if they drove over the tracks themselves of did little invisible hands actually helped them? We had to find this for ourselves. So we drove towards the tracks (and trust me, the tracks in front of us are at a steep upward inclination), stopped the engine and put in on neutral. Sure enough! We could feel our car smoothly moving towards the tracks, cross the tracks over to the other side! We were flabbergasted! Of course, there has to be some scientific explanation behind all this! We made a quick u-turn and tried it again. And yeah, it happened for the second time too! There were other cars there who were also trying more than once. I even saw some families peering closely at their rear bumpers for tiny hand prints.

It was quite an out-of-body experience for us, but I am sure there must be some valid explanation for this all. Still it was a fun thing to do! Once I got back home, I did more research and found people have posted their experience with videos and pictures and some have even carried out experiments and provided explanations too.

On our way back to Irving from San Antonio, we stopped at Bandera which is supposed to be the cowboy capital of the world. However, we didn't have enough time to spare to explore the town and the ranches there. We did however stop at a saloon where I tried my very first (and second) tequila shot. It was fun!

Life

When I first read about Google making available the millions of photographs published in the Life magazine over the years, I was quite excited.

Long years ago, our bookshop used to sell the magazine and I remember leafing through them when I was a kid. Later on, when I was in middle school, I too had caught the "autograph" bug. We all wanted to have the "coolest" autograph or memorabilia book where our friends could write nice things about the owner of the book. I wanted to decorate my auto book with collage of pics of good looking people. So, I turned to these magazines. Our bookshop had closed by then and we had plenty of books and mags at our disposal. I cringe now, thinking of how stupid I was to have cut up such rare mags for the sake of my silly book! Brother, if you are reading this, do you think we still have some of them left? Or did I trash them all??

Anyway, like I said, I was quite excited about the latest Google antics. I have been browsing through the beautiful rare pics. And today I came across this picture.

This picture is from a collection of pictures taken in an Air India flight in 1946. I didn't know Air India even existed in the '40s!! And check out the air hostess' uniform. Its so chic! I wonder when did they change their uniform to the printed saris? Of course, I then went to Wikipedia to quench my thirst for knowledge about Air India and was pleasantly surprised to know that the airline was in fact founded in 1932! Who could have guessed? But the Wikipedia article is incomplete - no mention about air hostesses' uniforms!

Find more interesting Life pictures here.

Politics and Technology

Like many people, we too were glued to the TV on the US Presidential election night. While V actually watched the election coverage the entire time, I went missing for a while to my friend's place to watch an election movie Recount, which focuses on the 2000 election between Bush and Al Gore and the mess that was Florida.



I know CNN has been the frontier in the election coverage since past many months, going on and on, day after day, hour after hour - bringing panel of experts from all fields discussing each and every aspect of the campaign.

But on Election Night, I was bowled over by CNN - not by their extensive coverage or detailed analysis, but by the technology they have used. The "Magic Wall" in the CNN studio is a piece of technology art - a huge multi touch screen on which Wolf Blitzer and the rest where swiping maps just by a flick of a finger. Just by a touch they could pull our charts and numbers. And it was so smooth and slick.

But the best part of it all was when they went all sci-fi and Star War-sy by beaming up a hologram image of a reporter who was located remotely, right into their studio! My! That was impressive to say the least. They even managed to beam in Will.i.am!

Learn more in cnn.com about the Magic Wall and the Hologram.

Miracle on Lakshmi Puja

If this is not miracle, then what is?

All over the world today, people are celebrating Lakshmi Puja, worshiping Lakshmi - the Goddess of Wealth and look, the market's doing better after a long downward spell.


Happy Diwali to all of you. May the blessings be with you, now and forever!!

My top iPhone Apps

Its been almost 4 months since I got my favorite toy, the iPhone. V calls me an iPhone addict coz I am always doing something on it. And with the load of applications available, I thought I would list my favorite ones. The best part is that all these applications are free!

AOL Radio: Its an Internet radio. What's cool about this is that I can access not only my local radio stations but local stations of other cities as well. It also has two Indian radio stations (both from NRI radio) but they mostly play Telegu/Tamil songs :(

Facebook: With the recent upgrades, the Facebook iPhone application has certainly gained the spot of being my favorite. It includes a whole lot of features which makes it a good replacement for the full fledged web version. Wish Orkut too comes up with one coz browsing Orkut via the in-built Safari explorer can be a bit tedious.

FlyCast: This is another Internet radio applications with radio stations categorized by genre/hits/era. They too have wide variety of stations including one Bollywood station. Infact I am listening to it right now and they are playing Suraj Hua Maddham from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham.

Fring and Palringo: Fring is an instant chat client on which I can set up not only my Yahoo, MSN and Gtalk account, but also the Skype account. The most awesomest feature is that I can call my contacts through it - no talk time used! Palringo is a similar client where you can set up your regular chat accounts. You can not talk directly using this, but one cool feature in this is that you can send voice message and pictures to the other person. The picture can be from a saved one or taken directly using the iPhone camera.

Google (Mobile and Maps): The Google iPhone search includes Google Suggest which is very useful and accurate. Now, if there's an argument among my friends, its just a matter of few clicks to in/validate one's claims. The map application has a built-in GPS which has helped us a lot at times when we go exploring and (in)conveniently forgotten the GPS back home.

Midomi and Shazam: I had once written a post on Midomi. Both these applications listens to the song currently playing in your vicinity (you can sing or hum to it too) and it will find that songs in its huge database and tells you which song is playing, who is the artist, etc. It even provides you a link to iTunes store for you to buy the song. I have tried it a few times with Hindi songs, and they have that too in their database!

Now Playing: For a group of movie buffs, this handy application helps us find the show times and reviews of movies running at our nearby theatre. V found this very useful when he was staying in NYC for a few days with a friend and there within a few blocks you can find lotsa small theatres that show movies normally not played everywhere else. He ended watching some nice French movie.

Pandora: This is an iPhone application of the popular Pandora music service. Those of you who are unaware of Pandora should definitely check it out. Once you register (its free!) you choose a song to play and it will automatically create a playlist of similar songs. As you play songs from the playlist, you can mark it as whether you like it or not and it picks up future songs based on your choice. The more you play songs, the songs played will be more to your liking. And you can create multiple playlists.

Save Benjis: This application, as the name suggests, help you save money. (Benji stands for Benjamin Franklin whose picture is on all US$ 100 notes). All you need to do is enter the product name or bar code and it will list stores selling at products and the its price on each of them. We find this tool very useful like recently we was checking out this nice Corelle dinner set in Target and we entered the bar code and lo! found out it was cheaper in Amazon and they had more variety too!

Stanza: Stanza is an e-book reader. Its database includes a wide selection of books. I am currently reading Jane Austen's "Persuasion" which I somehow missed reading earlier. Downloading an e-book takes a few seconds and the font size is easy to read.

You Tube: What more can one ask for when one can watch a video on-the-go? Imagine getting to watch Rock On!! videos in the car on our way back from the theatre right after watching the movie! I have troubled my friends in recent road trips by playing them "Jimmy Jimmy Aaja" songs from Disco Dancer and by M.I.A. I think they liked the Bappi Lahri version better :)

Alright...so the above are my favorite useful applications. Now below are few of my favorite games.

Aurora Feint: This is one of the coolest games available for free. Though initially it felt like Tetris and Bejeweled but as I played on I realised its more of a fantasy RPG game with crystals to collect and levels to gain and hidden powers to unleash. Great music and great graphics!

Dizzy Bee Free: This is a cute game with cuter graphics. The aim of the game is to help a buzzing bee save his friends from evil monsters. The free version has few levels and we had so much fun playing this game that we are thinking of buying the full version which is modestly priced at just $2.99.

Labyrinth Lite Edition: This game makes most use of the iPhone accelerometer. You tilt the iPhone to guide a steel ball from one end of a maze to the other without dropping it in the many holes along the maze. Slick graphics - the maze looks like its made in a wooden box and when you roll the ball, it makes sounds that actually feel like the real thing! Neato!!

Sol Free Solitaire: Out of the many free solitaire card games available this one's my favorite since it has neat graphics and games like Klondike and Spider. My favorite is its Demon game which is quite tough to break. I play this trying to up my overall score but mostly end up lowering it even more. :(

Space Monkey: Another cute game I recently discovered. According to the info, its free only for a short while. Like Wall-e, this cute monkey is left in space to collect trash. The more trash you collect, the more levels you cross. I have played only a few levels till now and now I have to play a yo-yo with one hand while collecting trash with my other hand and feet. Hours of senseless entertainment! :) This app is free only for a limited time, so get one soon!

Tap Tap Revenge: This is the iPhone version of the famous Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero in which instead of dancing or playing the guitar, you just tap the beats. If you get tired of the default songs provided, you can download more songs and whats more they even have a challenge mode where two players can compete and find out who's the best tapper!

Apart from the above mentioned games, there are many more free classic games like Sudoku, Pegs, Hangman and other board and word games. The list can be endless.

Apple App Store: And last but not the least. The Apple App Store has tons of apps, most of them free and they are adding new ones everyday. Their very own iPhone application is a great way to browse through these apps, and check out their ratings and reviews and download them right there. Their Top 25 list makes it easy to find apps, that are popular and it is by using this feature that I knew about most of the above apps, hence this app itself makes it to my favorite list.

Chatter

I have always considered my childhood to be blessed. I had lovely dresses to wear, most of them stitched by my mom. She has a wonderful sense of style and was great with her hands. I remember us poring through "foreign" design magazines - me pointing at the prettiest and fluffiest of the dresses, and she trying to figure out if she can replicate them for me.

I had no complaints regarding food. Though like a typical kid, I used to hate most subjis, but provided I had my favorite Nepali tamatar ko achaar (tomato chutney) to dip my index finger and mix it with rice, I used to gobble up everything obediently. Due to tonsillitis, I was not allowed to have ice creams - had them only when we were out of town, like in Siliguri where the weather was warmer. Once, my doctor told me I can have ice-creams provided I heat them up first. I thought that was a great idea!! So what if it was a little bit warm! Silly me!

I had plenty of friends, both in school and home. Most of my "home friends" were my classmates - so I was one of the few lucky kids to have the same kid as my "home best friend" and my "school best friend". I had plenty of toys to share them with too. I feel extremely blessed that my earliest friends, right from the KGs are still in touch and we are still very close friends.

I used to get most of the toys that I wanted - maybe I knew when to limit my demands. Throughout my childhood, I only remember one incidence of me crying over some toy I wanted. We were in Nepal and I saw this toy sewing machine with which you can sew woolen threads over pictures of butterflies and flowers. I fell in love with it but my parents refused to get it for me. They tried to explain to me that it was expensive and how anyway at the Indian customs they would not allow us to take it back home and they will keep it for themselves. I cried and sulked the entire time we were at the mall.

But most of all I feel blessed because my childhood has been full of books. From the time I started to learn to read, I have been surrounded by books - starting right from the colorful nursery rhyme books with pop up cut outs. I remember as a kid I was always hungry for books. Apart from the books I used to get from the school library, I had also joined our local library. But that was not enough, so I used to get books from our bookstore too. At that time our bookstore was closed for business. I have always been a timid child, shy to go anywhere alone - not even to buy bread or milk from the nearby store. But to get those books, I used to gather up all my courage and hike for about half a mile, go to the store, unlock to big heavy locks, open a door panel and enter the room - the musty smell of damp books welcoming me. The books used to immerse me in world of fairies and goblins and robbers and secret passages - thanks mostly to Enid Blyton. From childish stories of Noddy to Famous Five and the Faraway Tree to more "matured" Malory Towers and Nancy Drew. From children classics like Tom Sawer and Moby Dick to Emma and Pride and Prejudice. I used to read them all. Book lovers themselves, by parents used to encourage me to read books. They had me and my brother subscribed to magazines like Wisdom, Reader's Digest and my all time favorite, Target. Target was a teen magazine published by the Times of India group. And then of course there was Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha comics. I don't think you can find many people of our age group who can imagine their childhood without these comic books. They were not only fun to read but each story had a moral.

Recently I came across the Amar Chitra Katha website which took me back to those good old days and hence the chatter. The website's pretty good though I wish they had some more on-line content to read apart from the story of the week.

While we are in the topic of books, there's another interesting website I'd like to share with you. WOWIO has hundreds of e-books which are free provided you read them on-line. You can find many of the favorite classics titles. Explore a bit and who knows, you might just discover some great new writers! Let me know if you come across a good read.

Check out my new license plate!

Ain't that cool?

Save Diki

As per my daily routine, I was scouring through the local Sikkim news sites when I came across this article about a girl with kidney failure who needs financial help for her transplant surgery. You can get more details from the article below.

If you are willing to help, please leave a comment and I will give you more details on the hows, or else you contact Pema Doma directly at the phone no. provided in the article below.


Kidney patient needs financial help
Staff Reporter GANGTOK, July 28:

Nobody knows what’s in her fate. But with both of her kidneys damaged, Diki Sherpa still has a will to survive.

The 26-year-old is a resident of 9th Mile in East Sikkim. Her father, Namgyal Sherpa being a simple Buddhist monk cannot afford the expenses for her transplant, though the donor is her own mother.Like all other young girls of her age, Diki had dreams of a productive and purposeful life till the year 2000 when she fell victim to life-threatening condition of kidney failure.

Mr. Biswadeep Dutta, who runs a hotel in SN Banerjee Road in Kolkata, has been her guardian angel. The Samaritan has been her caretaker providing her food and lodging in this unknown city. He runs around to pull all his sources together so he can help this ailing lady.

It was informed that just when all appeared lost and Diki was to be packed off to Sikkim on July 12, a family from Taltala gave her shelter. The Duttas had been frequenting the bodyguard lines to meet Diki ever since they learnt about her from doctors in Sikkim during a trip there in Sikkim in the year 2007.

Presently under treatment at Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, Kolkata, her final hope is kidney transplantation that costs Rs. 4 -5 lakhs. Despite her mother Pramila Sherpa’s willingness to donate one of her kidneys to Diki, the major factor has been financial constraints. Dialysis has kept her alive which she goes for every Thursday but it is only a temporary reprieve.

To add to her determination to live, the Sikkim Students Association of Kolkata, an association of Sikkimese students studying in Kolkata has come forward to help collect funds for Diki. “When we saw the people of Kolkata helping Diki after her case was reported in one of the newspapers, we too wanted to help her out,” said Pema Doma Sherpa, External Affair Manager of the Association while talking with SIKKIM EXPRESS today.

She further said that the rickshaw pullers, banana sellers, police constables in Kolkata teemed up to assist Diki financially. Back in Diki’s hometown, the student association is leaving no stone unturned to collect maximum funds for the patient’s kidney transplant.

“We want all the people of Sikkim to respond over the matter and chip in few rupees as Diki desperately needs our help. We hope that taking positive points from our initiative, the Sikkimese people will contribute heartily and make sure Diki Sherpa lives, Pema said.

Diki desperately needs more Samaritans to come her way. Only her medicines and dialysis bills amount to Rs 3, 250 a week. A year’s postoperative care will cost another Rs 2 lakhs not to mention the amount need for transplant. So far, the association has managed to collect about five thousand rupees from the students in two days, she told SIKKIM EXPRESS.

Although, the fund collection is unsatisfactory, Pema said that people have started donating some.

Those willing to extend a helping hand to Diki can contact Pema Doma Sherpa, External Affairs Manager of Sikkim Student Association of Kolkata or call her at 98743-50109. The lists of the names of the donors will be published in SIKKIM EXPRESS.

Sikkim Express:TUESDAY, JULY , 29 , 2008

My new iToy

Months of waiting, 3 stores, 1 Starbucks coffee, 1 free bottle of water (courtesy: Apple) and 5 hours later, I finally own it !!