Tashila Jet Airways Sales Agent TOURS & TRAVELS the Oriental 94341-53567 Mahatma Gandhi Marg Telephone: Gangtok 229842 / 222978 SIKKIMNOW MATTERS VOL 2 NO 11! Rs
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September 03-09, 2003; NOW! 1 SOUTH-EAST ASIA editorial: POLICE! DISCOUNTED GANGTOK, WEDNESDAY, 03 - 09 September, 2003 AIR TICKETS TOUR FOR INSTANT RESERVATIONS CALL: CALL FOR BOOKING: Pineridge Travels Tashila Jet Airways Sales Agent TOURS & TRAVELS The Oriental 94341-53567 Mahatma Gandhi Marg Telephone: Gangtok 229842 / 222978 SIKKIMNOW MATTERS VOL 2 NO 11! Rs. 5 Ph: 221182 / 221181 / 221180 The Drying of SALES KE LIYE Sikkim’s “Ocean” Gyam Tsona, Sikkim’s highest lake, and the only “loud lake” [in that its waves were actually loud enough to be heard PEPSI BESHARAM kilometers away], is also re- corded to have played host to highest number of migratory birds in the past. In the last four years, however, man has played spoilsport again. Bull- dozers have been plied into action and this “Ocean” lake’s feeder spring has been dammed and diverted. The lake has since shrunk HAI! to a sliver of its original size and if something is not done soon, Sikkim could soon have another oxymoron on its map – a dry lake. USHA LACHUNGPA, Senior Re- search Officer, Wildlife, profiles the lake, its high days and eventual decline... TURN TO pg 4 The Pepsi ad-blitzkrieg FOR DETAILS in Sikkim will have us believe that entire range Want to do better in studies and is produced from the produce better results? clean “mountain spring Want to prepare effectively for today’s job-world and get through job interviews? SALE SALE SALE water” of Bhutan. What if ‘Good news for you first time you were told that the 2 full-day Self-Management advertisements offered in Sikkim’ only one-third of the truth? NEW STOCK!!! 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Phone: 227917 Nayuma Building, Namchi Bazar Namchi. Phone: 263919 JOB PLACEMENT ON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION e-mail: [email protected] 1 2;GANGTOK NOW! September 03-09, 2003 03-09 SEPTEMBER, 2003 ED-SPACE NOW! The Man Who Had Lived Life Passes On SIKKIM MATTERS harles Bronson, the Penn tion of Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, a sylvania coal miner who coal-mining town in USA. His real POLICE! Cbecame an international name was Charles Buchinsky, and film star and archetypal American he was the 11th of 15 children born Policing is a tricky issue. Too little and there is anarchy on the streets tough guy, died of pneumonia last to Lithuanian immigrants. and too much and the fundamental rights of the people start getting Saturday at a Los Angeles hospi- He knew little about his father, trampled upon. It is perhaps because a foot soldier cannot work out tal, aged 81. who died when Bronson was ten. the right balance that officers are trained by experts for two years Bronson was best known in But he knew abject poverty on the finer points of policing. The policy makers have been working these parts through the Death Wish throughout his early years. His at ways to take the exclamation mark that normally conjoins itself to “Police!” in public conversation. That is a tough task. The force has series and the hugely popular spa- family was so poor, that when he ghetti westerns he starred in ranging was six he was sent to school in a after all been the arm extended for centuries by the colonial rulers CHARLES BRONSON; from Magnificent Seven to Chato’s frock, a hand-me-down from an and then by the democratic masters to keep an unruly janata in check. 1921-2003 The feeling of invincibility that such power can inflict is not easy to Land. Many old-timers still remem- older sister. abandon and the day-to-day grind of policing after all falls on the beat ber Bronson for his roles in The Dirty with his portrayal of an itinerant By the time he was 16 he was of constables who take an inflated sense of power as granted. Dozen and The Great Escape. prizefighter in Hard Times. working in the coal mines, earning Let’s take Gangtok’s case. From the numerous complaints voiced There was a time when restau- Bronson will, however, always about $1 for each ton of coal he by the taxi-drivers against traffic police personnel and home guards, rants in the region put up only be best known for his roles in what clawed out of the earth. In 1943, there must definitely be some [which are enough for a public outcry] Charles Bronson posters and teen- were some of Hollywood’s most he was drafted into the army. Years which are not exaggerated. Frankly speaking, if the cops on traffic agers mimicked his grimace and hair- violent films of the 1970s. None later, after he established himself detail are over-stepping their authority, they are not displaying style. There are still some around was more so than the 1974 movie as an actor, his press releases uncommon traits. Grant too much power to any individual and it who continue to sport the Bronson Death Wish, in which Bronson would say he had been a tail gun- does not take long before it goes to the head. Ever wondered why locks. The huge popularity of “cow- portrayed an architect turned vigi- ner during the Second World War. reports of police brutality and human rights violations come only boy” hats is another hill trend at- lante who hunts muggers in New After the war, Bronson held from troubled areas? The answer is simple. It is because the police tributed to this action star. Although various jobs, until, in 1949 he went are granted more powers there. Even in Sikkim, the only instances York after his wife is killed and his of human rights violations by local cops were recorded at a time he has not had a release since the daughter raped by thugs. to California and took lessons at when the police was being excessively used as the enforcer. late eighties, Bronson is still in de- Critics denounced the film as a the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1951, But that is not the situation anymore and yet we are exposed to an mand at the local VCD stores which vehicle for legitimising violent behav- he had a minor role in You’re in the ugly side of the force almost everyday. Why? continue to bring in Bronson starrers iour. The movie nevertheless became Navy Now, which starred Gary The answer perhaps lies in the fact that the cops have taken it upon on demand. a hit and made Bronson, then in his Cooper. Bronson later explained themselves to police every aspect of public activity. For example, it Bronson’s appeal, agree movie early 50s, a star in America. that he got the part because he was would be only logical for cops to check vehicle documents and experts lay in his “tremendous face Bronson did not care much for the only one among the audition- licenses to curb thefts and dangerous driving. The nitty-gritty’s of - cast from stone - that kind of grim critics. In fact, he even fed stories ing actors who could belch on cue. whether all taxes have been paid or whether a vehicle is stony determination.” of his tough-guy persona to jour- He changed his name to Bronson environmentally “non-polluting” should be left to motor vehicle Bronson, it is universally ac- nalists. He told interviewers that in the 1950s because he thought that inspectors. The local force is short-staffed and expecting them to cepted, had that physical presence he had been in fistfights and had the anti-communist crusade then implement too many rules at too many places stretches their patience and looked like he had lived life - been arrested on charges of assault being conducted by US Senator and professionalism. Cops are forced to take the help of home that he was a survivor - and con- and battery, and he liked to sug- Joseph McCarthy made it unwise guards and this force is less trained in policing than the career vinced movie-goers that he was a gest to journalists that his hobby for someone in the public eye to have policeman/ woman. Their reactions to a situation are thus more man capable of violence. a Russian-sounding name. emotional than proper. Ask any local and they will have a nasty was knife-throwing. anecdote of a run-in with home guards to share. This is a force that Although hugely popular in But reporters who checked out By the 1970s, he had a loyal is underpaid and overworked and not even trained properly for the Europe and Asia, his acceptance in his stories found no police record, following, and even many critics job. What too many rules also lead to is an increased public interaction the United States was delayed and no assault and battery, no predis- agreed that although the scripts with police personnel.