Strike Off for Now

The strike let up on Thurs­day and Fri­day in antic­i­pa­tion of going back on strike start­ing today, Sat­ur­day.  They have pushed the strike back again until Mon­day though.  The sit­u­a­tion changes on a daily basis.  I have moved into a room with a small stove and bought plenty of sup­plies, so if things do shut down for a while, I should have no prob­lem.  The mar­kets were total chaos these past two days.  I don’t have any pic­tures of that because I was too busy being part of it.

On Thurs­day evening, there was a vigil and rally in response to the death of two Nepalese peo­ple in Silig­uri, the big town in the planes region just on the edge of Dar­jeel­ing.  The deaths were a result of eth­nic vio­lence sparked in response to the agi­ta­tion for Gorkha­land state­hood.  Right now, the polit­i­cal party in Dar­jeel­ing wants Silig­uri to be part of the new state.  The Ben­galis in Silig­uri aren’t into that idea.  2,000 to 2,500 peo­ple attended the vigil in Dar­jeel­ing town cen­ter.  The rally was peace­ful and vibrant.  I got an impres­sion of hope and resolve.  A friend later sum­ma­rized the speeches as mov­ing back toward Gand­hian meth­ods, which is a shift from a more aggres­sive stance a few weeks ago.

Yes­ter­day, I came across the school kids gath­ered in the same town square lis­ten­ing to a speech.  School will be in ses­sion through any strike.