Word: gangtok
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When India got its independence from the British in 1947, so did Sikkim. For a while the Sikkimese tried to run their own show. But one day in 1949, peasants in their high boots and yakskin suits surrounded the Maharajah's yellow palace at Gangtok (pop. 7,000), a capital of doll-like houses with blue pagoda roofs, perched precariously 6,000 ft. up a mountain. In a bloodless revolution, they got their demands for an elected national council and an end to tax collection by landlords. But after a 29-day experiment in democracy, the Maharajah dispatched...
...dewan worries about Sikkimese students who copy "some cute design" from an Indian magazine. "We must watch very carefully," he warns. Both he and the crown prince are aware of ushering in the 20th century too rapidly. When Gangtok's first movie house opened a few years back, Sikkim's young people took one look and promptly went out and engaged in drunken brawls and prostitution. The movie was closed down...
India's Prime Minister Nehru convinced the people in remote Gangtok, capital of the northern province of Sikkim, that he really wanted to see them. He arrived for a visit grim and weary after a 27-mile pony ride, which included crossing a 15,000-foot Himalayan pass on the old trade route to Tibet...