I am back in Gangtok after many years. As I grew up here, I call it home. During a whirlwind book tour in India to talk about my new book, The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia, I decided to take a few days off to go home.
It is raining heavily. I sit with a few friends at the Tashi Delek, the first posh hotel to be built in Gangtok bazaar. These are friends that I was with in school from kindergarten until I completed high school. A couple of them are doctors, one is a successful businessman. All still live in Gangtok, by the way. Nobody leaves this Himalayan paradise unless they are foolish, or perhaps in search of something. Speaking of myself, I have been living in the US for many years. I was one of the few who left.
The conversation is convivial. We sit under a canopy, the rain cascading down around us, taking in the glorious vista of mist-covered mountains and impossibly verdant valleys that stretch before us. The view from the Tashi Delek terrace is quite something. We talk about old friends, our school days, our teachers and high school romances, successful or otherwise, until one of my friends, out of the blue says: ‘I’m going to ask you something that’s a bit controversial; what do you think of Guru Dongmar?’
I am a bit nonplussed. What do I think of Guru Dongmar? It is a remote lake in the northernmost, most inaccessible part of Sikkim, that Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru is said to have visited. Of late it has been the subject of a most unseemly controversy that I am only tangentially aware of.
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