Word: sikkim
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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...
...came Indian troops, and a dewan or Prime Minister furnished by India. When the Reds seized neighboring Tibet, India made Sikkim a protectorate, posted troops on the Tibetan border to prevent the smuggling of Communist propaganda in mule trains, required all visitors to Sikkim to give two weeks' notice before getting clearance to enter the country...
Naked Pink Lady. To this day, Sikkim's mountain climbers lift one flap on their fur caps, the better to hear the devils that always go uphill, never down. Lamas stage skeleton dances to drive away evil spirits. The country has no newspapers, and mail goes by pony express. There are no lawyers, because the government thinks that lawyers stir up more trouble than they are worth. A magistrate hears both sides of an argument, makes his judgment. Crime is so rare that there are never more than 15 prisoners in jail...
...Tashi Namgyal, is the eleventh in a line of consecrated Lama rulers. He leaves politics to others. A shy, untraveled man with a pinched face and faint mustache, a delicate porcelain figurine who goes about in green-tinted glasses, Tibetan cap and a golden bakkhu (robe), the Maharajah paints Sikkim's misty peaks and glaciers in a surprisingly abstract style. Recently he had a "vision" of the Abominable Snowman, put him on canvas as a skinny, jet-black creature with a red face, carrying a naked pink lady across the peaks of the Himalayas. When he is not painting...
...Rustomji, spent 18 years in Britain, but has become so attached to his work that he walks around Sikkimese style in a gleaming, embroidered bakkhu with a Great Dane said by the Sikkimese to be a reincarnation of Albert Einstein. The dewan considers his main task to be "the Sikkimization" of Sikkim-the attempt to preserve Sikkim's culture and identity from too much Tibetan or Chinese influence. The Indians are also pushing a $7,000,000 seven-year plan to modernize Sikkim's covered-wagon transport, build schools and roads...