Before Gods Had Names, We Had the Earth

KARMA CHODA BHUTIA

Before any temple was raised, before any scripture was inked, mankind had one religion. We bowed to rain. We thanked the wind. We whispered to rivers like children to a mother’s hem. Nature was not part of belief. She was belief. 

Centuries passed. Religions rose like mountains across every land. Yet the old faith never left. It hid in the marrow of tribes, in the songs of communities who still read the sky for omens. 

The Lakota of North America still speak to the Great Plains. The Shipibo of the Amazon still paint the forest’s visions on their skin. The M?ori still call the Whanganui River their ancestor. The Tuvans of Siberia still throat-sing to the steppe. 

And here in Sikkim, that first religion still beats under every other.

The Lepchas call it Rum. The Limboo honours it in Chasok Tongnam. The Kiratis dance during Sakela for the soil’s blessing. The Bhutia celebrating Pang Lhabsol to the guardian peaks. The Khas community’s celebration of Makar Sankrati. The Bhume Parba of the Magar tribe. The Biharis gathering at rivers for Chhath, lamps trembling on the water like prayers made of light. Even the Marwari homes, far from their plains, still set out water for the sun. 

Every festival is a conversation with the elements. We pay homage. We ask for peace. We admit, once a year, that we are not the masters of this house. 

But look at us now.

We drape Khatas on the mountains in the morning, and by noon we drill holes into their bones. We chant for Kanchendzonga’s protection at Pang Lhabsol, then sell her foothills to machines that chew stone and spit dust. We celebrate Tendong Lho Rum Faat — the mountain that saved us from the flood — while we carve new floods into the valleys with dams. 

This is our irony: we worship the mother with garlands, and strangle her with concrete. 

They say, “Do not tease a sleeping lion.” For centuries, Mother Nature lay curled in the Himalaya, patient as granite. We mistook her silence for permission. 

Then came 2023. The South Lhonak GLOF tore through Sikkim like a scream we refused to hear. The Teesta, that silver thread we tied rakhi to, became a blade. Its scars are still raw — in Chungthang, in Singtam, in the eyes of those who lost everything in one night. 

Every monsoon now, the hills bleed. Landslides are no longer seasons; they are verdicts. Roads vanish. Lights die. Homes slide into gorges we once called holy. Bhaley Dhunga stands cracked and hollow — we blasted the cliff’s heart and act surprised when it cannot stand. The hill is not collapsing. It is shrugging us off. 

Geologists have told us, again and again: the Himalaya is a child. Young. Fragile. Still growing. Still restless. But we treat it like a quarry. Greed files the permits. Corruption signs the checks. And we — all of us — watch. 

Some for a contract. Some for a commission. Most for the comfort of silence. We became spectators at our own undoing. 

The graph of disaster does not dip. It climbs. Seasons arrive drunk and out of order. Rains that should nurture, now punish. Winters that should heal, now confuse. The earth is fevered. We call it global warming. The old ones would have called it anger. 

So, I ask: how much more weight can this cradle hold before it breaks?

When do we stop?

Or have we already bartered our children’s monsoon for our own electricity? 

This ruin cannot be blamed on thrones alone. Every silent citizen laid a brick in this dam. Every head that turned away helped dig the grave. 

In my opinion let us all stop pretending that we care about nature and our own well-being. Let us unfollow every ritual and festival associated with Mother Nature, or let us stop harming her. The choice is ours. Better late than never.

We remember to pray to nature. We have forgotten to protect her. 

And so, I leave you with Tagore, who saw it long before we felt it: 

“The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.”

— Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali 

If the stream is poisoned, we drown too.