Mayel Lyang
“Mayel Lyang” is part of the collection Indigenizing What It Means to Be Human. Read the introduction to the collection here.
I come from the land of Kanchenjunga
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Mayel Lyang is the “mythical nucleus” of the Indigenous Lepcha community of Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills. It is also defined as the ancient Lepcha territory.
Snowy peaks
And a river that speaks
I come from the Queen of Hills,
And chilblains
We have tea, we have timber, we even have our train
I come from the nest of spies,
But I tell no lies
We have cheese, we have noodles, we even have some peace
I come from Mayel Lyang
The land of eternal paradise
With our Holy Land, Dzongu
But how can I tell you what we have?
How can I draw
Maps of the mind
Maps of the heart
Maps of the soul?
To show you
My heartland,
Mayel Lyang.
Abrona Lee Pandi Aden teaches in the English department at Sikkim University, India. She is interested in the politics of representation surrounding gender and Indigeneity in literature. She belongs to the Lepcha community Indigenous to Sikkim and the Darjeeling Hills. Some of her short stories and poems have appeared in Muse India, Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, and Mekong Review.
