-Lungmying Lepcha
Having read books about the Internet and reflected on how I have been engaging with it, I am venturing into writing about my experiences with the internet. This essay is about connecting with my identity with the help of the Internet, how it has given chances to my writerly passion, and learning about my roots and meeting like-minded individuals online. This made me realise what the universe of the Internet holds and how it has shaped my thinking from the very start to the current situation, and vaguely even about the future.
In 2020, when COVID gripped the world, our mode of education changed to online. I was in class 9 during that time, and it was very difficult for me to attend classes since I didn’t have a personal gadget. I had to ask my parents, aunts, and siblings for their gadgets to keep up with attendance and studies. My parents, both in the medical field, didn’t stay home and were constantly on COVID duty, which made it hard for me to use their phones until my mother bought me a cellphone. It was an exciting journey to start with since I had always been nagging my parents for a cell phone, mostly due to peer pressure, when I was in elementary school. I can still look back on how I had carefully used the phone for the first two months. It wasn’t until later that I started to use the phone for socialising purposes through Facebook and Instagram, along with educational purposes.
These were the two major platforms where most of my friends were socially active. Out of which Facebook used to be a less-used site, as it was mainly for educational content about my culture shared by the adults of our community.
It was at the end of my high school years that I realised I was interested in writing poems and short stories. It all started through a post on Instagram, which had an open call for submission. Somehow, I felt I had to submit my unpublished poems, although I received many rejections in various open calls, but at the same time, there were some wins which have kept me going. Back then, I used to wonder about how I could contribute to my culture, how I could learn about it and how I could connect it to the world with the beautiful Lepcha stories.
At present, I can totally fulfil this dream with the help of the Internet by writing about my community and presenting it to the world on such platforms.
The Internet plays a very crucial role in shaping an individual’s life. I am a published writer, and my works have found their home even in books and magazines. As a fan of nature and its artistic pictures and designs, especially flowers in various places, I clicked and archived them on the internet. I came across a flower community, which was based in Bangalore, named “Hoovu Finds”, where they initiated various activities on Instagram, encouraging flower lovers to post their seasonal flowers in and around them on stories and posts. Every weekend, a person is selected to take over the Instagram page and share their flower story. Last year, when I was selected as a curator for a weekend series in “Hoovufinds”. I had written about what Reep (flowers) in Lepcha and expressed my ways to build up stories, narratives, and visuals around it.
A week after my takeover, since the Hoovu page has thousands of followers across the world, I got a DM from a Nepali lady currently residing in the United States with Lepcha roots. She expressed her interest in learning about Lepcha culture. She grew up not knowing about her roots in Nepal, but the Internet gave her content about the Lepcha. To her, it seemed like the only way she could learn her mother tongue was online, by connecting to native speakers like us. The photos and videos I shared on platforms like YouTube were helpful, but not helpful enough for her to master the ability to write in Lepcha script. However, with much practice, she has mastered her grip over the pen and continues to learn how to write. Helping her made me realise that I could help someone in my community who had nearly forgotten their roots. Even though it was a small act, I was able to plant in myself the courage to start with whatever knowledge I had, instead of waiting for the correct time. It makes me extremely proud that she has learned Rongring (Lepcha language) online- I believe this is the best use of the internet- learning languages.
I enjoy learning Lepcha still, and I have found that there are many online creators who teach Lepcha for free through reels and daily vlogs. These are creators born and working in the village where this language originates, so I feel very grateful to continue connecting with my roots. I know many of these creators– they hail either from my village, nearby neighbourhoods, or teachers at my cousin’s school. Since a few months, I have also started helping out here with the alphabet and consonants of Lepcha, along with its pronunciation and usage.
Recently, as I was scrolling through Facebook, I saw a couple of videos on the page of “Government of Sikkim”. They have started a new initiative– where every week, a couple of short-form videos are posted online to teach different words in the languages of Sikkim– implying that the Government finally acknowledges the importance of tribal languages and is making efforts to preserve them. The internet is a huge platform to archive such data to enrich and uplift one’s cultural identity.
On a personal note, the internet has continuously allowed me to form deeper connections with myself through many open calls for submissions in various themes, media, and genres. I have applied to and been selected for a few magazines where I was able to explore my culture and identity more, encouraging me to keep applying. Instagram has been particularly helpful for me to get access to opportunities to even connect with good researchers of my ethnicity. If it hadn’t been the bandwidth of the internet that was exposed to me, I wouldn’t have achieved it and made connections this far.
As a tribal girl learning about her roots, this was how the internet made a pathway towards her culture.
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