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Sikkim awoke to heartbreaking news on July 12, 2025, with the passing of Sanu Lama. He was one of the prominent torchbearers in Sikkim’s civilizational journey, especially in terms of its literary awakening.
Sanu Lama’s emergence as an author warrants a deeper look into the era in which he lived and the locational challenges he faced. He rose to literary prominence at a time when the pursuit of literature was a rarity,even among the educated elites of more "advanced" societies. Sikkim, then grappling with a severe lack of literary infrastructure and widespread illiteracy, was far from fertile ground for nurturing a literary spirit.
Born in 1939, his literary instincts were likely kindled by the cultural stirrings of neighbouring Darjeeling, where a nascent Nepali literary movement was gaining ground. The late Lama’s primary challenge was to carve out a space for storytelling in a society that had yet to fully grasp the power of the written word. He more than rose to the occasion, becoming a pioneer who gave Sikkimese literature its voice within the broader canvas of the Nepali literary tradition.
His death marks far more than the end of a remarkable life. If Sikkim only remembers his accolades like the SahityaAkademi Award (1993) and the Padma Shri (2005), the institutions he founded or served, the titles of his books, his voice, vocabulary and values and yetfails to ask what his absence means for us as a society, then we risk missing the essence of his legacy. This is an invitation to reflect deeply and honestly on what Sanu Lama’s passing demands from us in return.
First, Sanu Lama, a native son of monarchical Sikkim who emerged as a literary voice in the democratic era, embodied the transition between two distinct political epochs and therefore stood as a bridge between eras. His generation witnessed seismic shifts: the end of a nearly three-and-a-half-century-old monarchy, Sikkim’s merger with India in 1975 and the gradual evolution of a pluralistic, multilingual democracy. Politically clumsy but hypersensitive, Sikkim knows only two ways to respond to the merger, either romanticize or reject it. Authors like Sanu Lama helped Sikkim preserve the soul of a land caught between transition and tradition with poise. His legendary song, JahaBagchha Teesta Rangeet, released in 1970 to mark the birthday of the Chogyal, Palden Thondup Namgyal, not only withstood the post-merger ban imposed by the Indian government but eventually became an enduring anthem of Sikkimese identity. That it continues to resonate more than fifty years after the merger is a testament to the lasting power of his pen.
Notably, the lyrics evolved over time, with Raja Rani later replaced by Janmabhumi, a shift that vividly reflected the changing consciousness of a people whose identity is delicately yet powerfully rooted in a land that was once a kingdom. In this, Sanu Lama was more than just a writer; he was a witness, a prophet, a chroniclerand a bridge between old-world Sikkim and its modern democratic incarnation.Ironically, his death occurred in the very year Kanchenjunga was summited, an act that flagrantly defied the existing ban. In the aforementioned song, he referred to Kanchenjunga as shir, the crown of Sikkim.
Secondly, in Sanu Lama’s passing, we are confronted with the fragility of our collective cultural memory. Sikkim has precious few writers devoted to chronicling, through fiction, verse and song, the spirit of a transitioning land and preserving the vivid memories of an older Sikkim slowly dissolving into the past. With each elder’s passing, countless unrecorded tales face the risk of being irretrievably lost as unpreserved heritage.
In his legendary song BalapankoAagan, we are transported to a bygone era and invited into the emotional and cultural struggle of a bride leaving her parental home forever, a theme as intimate as it is timeless. In his short story PhurbaleGaonChhadyo, Lama paints a vivid portrait of the tender romance between a rural couple in an economically disadvantaged Sikkim. Here, he masterfully blends the universal emotions of love and the ache of separation with a deeply localized setting, vocabulary and tone.
In today’s rapidly evolving Sikkim, we no longer have the luxury of viewing our past through a literary lens. All too often, it is the political lens that dominates our retrospection. Thankfully, Sikkimese authors like Lama have gifted us with literary windows, rare and precious, through which we can still glimpse the emotional truth of our shared past.
His death is a quiet alarm bell. What will happen to our cultural inheritance if we do not preserve it? Sikkim, with its rapid urbanization and digital influx, risks forgetting the depth of its own literary soil unless we digitize, translate, critique and re-circulate its early works.
Thirdly, although Sanu Lama received prestigious awards, he seldom sought the spotlight. Instead, he played a vital role in shaping the literary ecosystem founding the Bhartiya Nepali RashtriyaParishad, contributing to the Nepali Sahitya Parishad Sikkim and serving on boards such as the National Book Trust and the SahityaAkademi. He edited, mentored and opened doors for countless others. Today, are we seeing literary figures from our state who are equally capableor even more so, leading and serving these institutions? His absence leaves thisquestion hanging in the air.
It is time for literary institutions, both state-run and private, to move beyond the routine of annual awards and begin investing in translation fellowships, regional writing residencies and the preservation of endangered literary voices.Sikkim must also reform the system of nominating members to literary bodies, which is currently swayed by political influence. I recently attended a Sikkim Akademi event where politicians basked in the limelight while the authors, ironically, had little to do but applaud from their seats.
Fourthly, Sanu Lama’s contribution must be celebrated not merely as that of an author but a keeper of linguistic dignity. In a multilingual country like India, often caught between dominant national languages and local dialects, he asserted the worth of Nepalinot in slogans and speeches but through literary excellence. His life reminds us that the true defence of language and culture lies in creation not in complaint, translation not in mere talks.
His discipline, humility and unwavering pursuit of authenticity must become the foundation on which younger writers build. To honour his legacy is not merely to remember his name but to write with the same rootedness, to live with the same clarity and to speak from the same depth of silence that he mastered.
Finally, the irony must not be lost in a land where government posts are seen as the pinnacle of social prestige and titles like 'Secretary,' 'SE,' 'Minister,' 'Panchayat Babu' etc often define public identity, his literary pen managed to eclipse both his professional stature as Chief Engineer and his birth name, Gadul Singh Lama.In other words, his pseudonym as a writer commanded greater recognition than his prestigious engineering post. This inversion of the norms of the hierarchy of prestige speaks volumes to Lama’s profound cultural impact.
“In
today’s rapidly evolving Sikkim, we no longer have the luxury of viewing our
past through a literary lens. All too often, it is the political lens that
dominates our retrospection. Thankfully, Sikkimese authors like Lama have
gifted us with literary windows, rare and precious, through which we can still
glimpse the emotional truth of our shared past.”
jiwanr@gmail.com
