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Gorkhaland Diaries
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232 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 2, 2022
After a long hiatus from social media, I am back with a book review. I got the opportunity to read a lot of books in this period, and Gorkhaland Diaries by Satyadeep Chettri sir is one of them. I was looking forward to reading this for a long time. I grabbed a copy at the book launch at Rachna Books, and I dived into it immediately.
Gorkhaland Diaries is one of the few novels to be based on the Gorkhaland movement in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. It claims to be the first English novel to capture the Gorkhaland movement in its entirety, and to a great extent, I feel it has succeeded in doing so.
The story is primarily based on two characters Rajen and Bijay and their different yet related quests for the fabled state of Gorkhaland within West Bengal. Rajen is the son of an army officer, and the novel begins by tracing his experiences as a college student while the Gorkhaland movement reaches a peak in 1986. Bijay, on the other hand, is a timid Nepali boy raised by a tea estate owner. The story shows how their lives change amidst the local people's surge for identity and the search for a homeland.
The novel manages to cover almost all phases of the Gorkhaland movement, right from the disturbing events of the 1986 movement - the undisclosed deaths and molestation inflicted by the CRPF - to the formation of the Gorkha Hill Council, and to the Indian Idol's second season in 2007 which influenced a change in the leadership in Darjeeling. It also covers the complex political environment changes in between, like the formation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) until the movement again reached a crescendo in 2017.
It was horrifying to learn about the deaths and molestation and the arduous life that the people from Darjeeling had to face in the past. However, despite that, the quest for a separate state remains to date.
The characters are well-etched and relatable. You feel like rooting for them, even though Satyadeep sir goes for more telling than showing sometimes, somewhat diluting the readers' attachment with the characters. However, the characters are likable enough. I appreciate the fact that even the secondary characters have been given ample space to develop. I particularly loved the interactions between Bijay and Burra Sahib, Bijay's tea estate owner. Those scenes were beautifully executed. Birey Daju is another lovable character.
The ending is also decent; all loose ends are tied up satisfactorily.
The descriptions of the ethereal beauty of Darjeeling along with the dreadful incidents of the violence are done with equal expertise. I loved them.
The language, despite its simplicity, is classy. Satyadeep sir has a rich vocabulary and employs it skillfully in the novel. There are not too many big words, but even avid readers won't be able to label the language as colloquial. It is perfect for this book. However, there are some minor grammatical - mostly punctuation errors - in the edition of the book I read, but I have heard that most of them have been rectified in the latest edition of the book.
Overall, I must say that Gorkhaland Diaries is a great piece of fiction. It is not easy to cover a thirty-year-old movement in its entirety and yet make the book sufficiently light with relatable characters. It is a must-read not only for people from outside the region who want to know about the Gorkhaland movement but also for local readers, especially the youngsters who have just heard about the movement in fragments and don't know about the horrors that people from our neighboring hills had to go through.
4.4 stars from my side.
Gorkhaland Diaries is one of the few novels to be based on the Gorkhaland movement in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. It claims to be the first English novel to capture the Gorkhaland movement in its entirety, and to a great extent, I feel it has succeeded in doing so.
The story is primarily based on two characters Rajen and Bijay and their different yet related quests for the fabled state of Gorkhaland within West Bengal. Rajen is the son of an army officer, and the novel begins by tracing his experiences as a college student while the Gorkhaland movement reaches a peak in 1986. Bijay, on the other hand, is a timid Nepali boy raised by a tea estate owner. The story shows how their lives change amidst the local people's surge for identity and the search for a homeland.
The novel manages to cover almost all phases of the Gorkhaland movement, right from the disturbing events of the 1986 movement - the undisclosed deaths and molestation inflicted by the CRPF - to the formation of the Gorkha Hill Council, and to the Indian Idol's second season in 2007 which influenced a change in the leadership in Darjeeling. It also covers the complex political environment changes in between, like the formation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) until the movement again reached a crescendo in 2017.
It was horrifying to learn about the deaths and molestation and the arduous life that the people from Darjeeling had to face in the past. However, despite that, the quest for a separate state remains to date.
The characters are well-etched and relatable. You feel like rooting for them, even though Satyadeep sir goes for more telling than showing sometimes, somewhat diluting the readers' attachment with the characters. However, the characters are likable enough. I appreciate the fact that even the secondary characters have been given ample space to develop. I particularly loved the interactions between Bijay and Burra Sahib, Bijay's tea estate owner. Those scenes were beautifully executed. Birey Daju is another lovable character.
The ending is also decent; all loose ends are tied up satisfactorily.
The descriptions of the ethereal beauty of Darjeeling along with the dreadful incidents of the violence are done with equal expertise. I loved them.
The language, despite its simplicity, is classy. Satyadeep sir has a rich vocabulary and employs it skillfully in the novel. There are not too many big words, but even avid readers won't be able to label the language as colloquial. It is perfect for this book. However, there are some minor grammatical - mostly punctuation errors - in the edition of the book I read, but I have heard that most of them have been rectified in the latest edition of the book.
Overall, I must say that Gorkhaland Diaries is a great piece of fiction. It is not easy to cover a thirty-year-old movement in its entirety and yet make the book sufficiently light with relatable characters. It is a must-read not only for people from outside the region who want to know about the Gorkhaland movement but also for local readers, especially the youngsters who have just heard about the movement in fragments and don't know about the horrors that people from our neighboring hills had to go through.
4.4 stars from my side.
March 14, 2024
Book Review of Gorkhaland Diaries by Satyadeep Chhetri published by BEE BOOKS
There is an opening quote in Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. “History has failed us. But no matter.” Reading Gorkhaland Diaries took me right back to that quote. History did fail the Darjeeling Gorkhas, and time, too, laid a lid over the bloody past whose legacy we still carry but have perhaps subconsciously repressed. That collective trauma still lurks, I’m certain, in the depths of our psyche, dormant, and ever so thinly spread now, and quite frayed around the edges.
Until, of course, a book like this comes along and excavates the past, laying it bare with meticulous detail, revealing to us the nature of our lost identity and the origins of our present state of indifference.
As I intensely pored over the pages, a spark seemed to kindle memories of our doomed and reckless struggle for land and identity that currently lay in the shadows, quite deliberately forgotten. This ignition, I say, was good because it was like running a knife through old wounds, opening them all over again.
Narrated in a piercing and thought-provoking voice, Satyadeep Chhetri eruditely captures the disappointment and indignation of the masses bearing the brunt of a lost cause.
Told through the perspective of two male protagonists, Rajen Thapa, who actively and fiercely fought for statehood in the 1986 uprising but sadly left the fight with not just a shattered femur but also a crushed morale after realising that all the bloodshed, rape, and deaths amounted to only a handful of people at the top selling their cause to meet their selfish ends.
Come 2008, leaders have changed but the situation hasn’t. People still rally, shouting the same old lines for identity & land, riled up by self-serving politicians, and people still end up shot dead and hacked in broad daylight; women continue to be raped, and houses burned. Bijay, a young simpleton from the tea gardens, ends up becoming putty in one of the local leaders' hands,deluded into thinking he can be instrumental in realising their long-cherished aspiration for land and identity. His dreams are abruptly aborted when hunted by the police for a crime he didn’t commit. Forced to leave the hills, he ends up selling momo in Delhi, never to return to the hills while new ‘state-sponsored’ leaders crop up in the name of progress and development.
Nothing changes as far as the Darjeeling Gorkha identity is concerned. It was always a lost battle for the masses.
This is an important book for those who want to remember & understand the blood-soaked history of a recent past of the Darjeeling Gorkha people. I especially urge the generation of millennials and onwards, in Darjeeling Hills, to delve into this book. Those who do not quite comprehend why history and time have failed us. The enemy didn't come from outside; they emerged from among us.
Can’t wait to read what the author writes next.
There is an opening quote in Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. “History has failed us. But no matter.” Reading Gorkhaland Diaries took me right back to that quote. History did fail the Darjeeling Gorkhas, and time, too, laid a lid over the bloody past whose legacy we still carry but have perhaps subconsciously repressed. That collective trauma still lurks, I’m certain, in the depths of our psyche, dormant, and ever so thinly spread now, and quite frayed around the edges.
Until, of course, a book like this comes along and excavates the past, laying it bare with meticulous detail, revealing to us the nature of our lost identity and the origins of our present state of indifference.
As I intensely pored over the pages, a spark seemed to kindle memories of our doomed and reckless struggle for land and identity that currently lay in the shadows, quite deliberately forgotten. This ignition, I say, was good because it was like running a knife through old wounds, opening them all over again.
Narrated in a piercing and thought-provoking voice, Satyadeep Chhetri eruditely captures the disappointment and indignation of the masses bearing the brunt of a lost cause.
Told through the perspective of two male protagonists, Rajen Thapa, who actively and fiercely fought for statehood in the 1986 uprising but sadly left the fight with not just a shattered femur but also a crushed morale after realising that all the bloodshed, rape, and deaths amounted to only a handful of people at the top selling their cause to meet their selfish ends.
Come 2008, leaders have changed but the situation hasn’t. People still rally, shouting the same old lines for identity & land, riled up by self-serving politicians, and people still end up shot dead and hacked in broad daylight; women continue to be raped, and houses burned. Bijay, a young simpleton from the tea gardens, ends up becoming putty in one of the local leaders' hands,deluded into thinking he can be instrumental in realising their long-cherished aspiration for land and identity. His dreams are abruptly aborted when hunted by the police for a crime he didn’t commit. Forced to leave the hills, he ends up selling momo in Delhi, never to return to the hills while new ‘state-sponsored’ leaders crop up in the name of progress and development.
Nothing changes as far as the Darjeeling Gorkha identity is concerned. It was always a lost battle for the masses.
This is an important book for those who want to remember & understand the blood-soaked history of a recent past of the Darjeeling Gorkha people. I especially urge the generation of millennials and onwards, in Darjeeling Hills, to delve into this book. Those who do not quite comprehend why history and time have failed us. The enemy didn't come from outside; they emerged from among us.
Can’t wait to read what the author writes next.
May 13, 2022
It is highly recommended to read if one wishes to learn about the Gorkhaland movement in its entirety, as well as for an insider's perspective.
August 8, 2024
Extremely well written book.
August 16, 2025
I picked up this book on my vacation to Darjeeling and was glued to it till I finished.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews