Darjeeling Carnival 2006_Updates_27 Nov 06

11 days to go for D-Day! Everyone's in a hurry to get things done and beat their deadline. Good to see the office packed with people working their ass off. The No-Smoking rule inside the office is still not being followed too seriously! I can see tired faces and droopy eyes, top it up with the late hour team meetings in empty stomachs and and you have the perfect zombies next morning!

We have managed to inspire a group of proactive youth from Kurseong and they have decided to take up the challenge of organizing The Kurseong Carnival from 13 to 14 December. Mirik is on its third edition from 8 to 11 December. Arbin, Gyanendra and the gang are doing a great job there.

The Press Conference was perfect with all our local press friends attending and reporting well. Ajoy stirred the crowd’s emotion once again with his explanation on the Darjeeling Carnival. Its great to hear him talk, revives our faith in what we are doing. You can also hear his speech and read the press release at http://www.darjeelingtimes.com/

Darjeeling Carnival 2006_Updates_14 Nov 06

Its good to attend the Darjeeling Carnival meetings. Feels like coming back home. The energy is high and there's so much enthusiasm within the group now. Great ideas are coming up and the program schedule is finally taking shape. People are spending more time at the Carnival office than at their workplace or at home, but then thats what happens when you are so engrossed with the Carnival!!!Kundan is still trying to juggle his time between his job and the Carnival...

Good news! Ajnish is back from London after his first international performance so the team can now gear up for the Darjeeling Carnival Idol to be choreographed by Ajnish and the Darjeeling music fraternity. Sweta, Shradda and their gang are busy preparing for the inauguration ceremony, Lipok and his cronies are gearing up for the music audition of all the local bands to be held tomorrow, Monlom and Nita are out begging hotels to sponsor rooms for visiting participants, Ranjeeta and her gang of architects are busy researching and collecting materials for the exhibition "Darjeeling - Past, Present & Future". Rajeev and Yangchen are running around trying to get the cultural communities involved, Ruben just came back after distributing the invitation letters to 22 schools. So much running around!!!

Mary is still in Calcutta going crazy with the "city of joy" and its irritating humidity. Narayan has again started his financial nagging and bringing us back to the ground. Love him for his reality checks! Ajoy is still running his brain and his imagination overtime (as always) coming up with new ideas for the Carnival. Neeraj is busy with his work on heritage awareness with support from Victoria Memorial, Caclutta.

We have finally managed to convince Alvin (Shalvin???) to stay back and work on the Press & PR dept. He was running away to Australia! The Superintendent of Police has promised his full support and participation so all the drunk rowdies can start running for cover!

Endless discussions, never ending meetings, empty stomachs, freezing feet, late nights, groggy mornings.... but hey, its worth doing it all over again just to make sure that Darjeeling regains its former glory.

Darjeeling Carnival 2006_Updates 10 Nov 06

The Darjeeling Carnival is actually here, I can feel it, smell it and see our guys falling sick! Ajoy is admitted at Planters' Hospital, Narayan is runing a high fever, Reuben has his backaches and as for me I have my perennial congestion and tonsilitis.... Yes, Carnival time is really here!!!

AIRCEL will be our official presenting sponsor for the Darjeeling Carnival 2006. Isn't that great news! The guys from Aircel were here on Monday and the deal was sealed over ham, bacon and sausages at Keventers. As for the volunteers, they can now work their ass off and then gorge on Urgen daju's "sungur ko khutta and bhaat" without worrying too much in how to foot the lunch bills! Ofocurse, Narayan will go mad but then, thats so much like Narayan...

Poor Mary, she is in Calcutta trying to woo in more sponsors and make people understand what the Carnival actually means to the Darjeeling Hills. She's done more for this place than most of the fence sitters who are born critics. We are praying that World Space and Pepsi comes in also. No replies yet from the Chaudhary Group and so many others... Pray guys pray.

The team meeting on the 7th went off extremely well with lots of new faces and new ideas. Responsibilities have been taken up eagerly by the volunteers and we have a feed back meeting on the 13th Monday. All are welcome to join.

For more information get in touch with us at darjeelingcarnival@gmail.com
or come and meet us at: 22 Ajit Mansions, Chowrasta, Darjeeling - 734101
or call me at 9434209887 / 03542253905 (Samir)

Darjeeling Carnival 2006_Updates 04nov06

The sponsorship proposals are going out and the team members are busy trying to convince people to support and participate in the Darjeeling Carnival 2006. We badly need a presenting sponsor from whom the bulk of the finance will come. Ajoy, Mary and Reuben had a meeting the other day at Siliguri with the top brass from AIRCEL, a cellular service company. We are keeping our fingers crossed for positive news. Beside that the team is also approaching other comapnies for sponsorship.

If anyone would like to support the Darjeeling Carnival then please write to us at darjeelingcarnival@gmail.com

For sponsorship details please get in touch with the following members:
Mary B. Lama @ 9434176995
Ajoy Edward @ 9434006782
Samir Sharma @ 9434209887

Darjeeling and the Darjeeling Initiative_Thoughts from a friend

Hi All,
Here's what Karma's written to me about her feelings... She's in Delhi working for Wipro and we miss her like hell...
Sam

"Dear Darjeeling people,
When i walked down the Ajit mansion building for the first time , I never knew that life would take such a beautiful turn, was tired of monotonous life and wanted to make some changes in my own life and seeing nothing interesting happening in Darjeeling....everyday the same talk about youths getting spoiled, politicians screaming from chowkbazar and elders telling us "hamro time ma darj yasto theyo ra thesto" but no one did anything.......which could have done by them was done by these 25 youths, whom i met at Ajit mansion.

And the one man who will remain immortal and the biggest loss for darjeeling is our dear friend "Shasheesh"...........he was the one person whom I had big discussions with, worked together and ofcourse my last days with him was when he took Sameer da and me to Nirula's in Delhi and gosh he spoke for two hours about how to make Darjeeling beautiful. At that time I never took it so seriuosly but when think of it now, he was the one who made the DARJEELING INITIATIVE what it is now and I know no one can replace him.... We want to stay back in Darjeeling and work for betterment, but at times greener pastures are also needed to survive in this world but no matter what, we will do everything to make our palce beautiful!!!
cheers...
Karma"