A Rose by any other Name...
What's in a name, you say? In Kalimpong I overheard a little girl complaining about the name of the mountain to her father. "What kind of name is Kanchenjungha? I don't like it." "And what do you think the mountain should be named?" "Megha Mountain. Because it touches the clouds." A while later, as her parents called after her, I realized she had given the mountain her own name. We were leaving, so I didn't get around to asking them, but I have questions. Did she mean to claim the world as her own, or did she want to become the world? Or did she, as a child, recognize that she was , in fact the world- she was the mountain in the horizon and the clouds kissing its snowy peaks? Kanchenjungha is a Tibetan name, by the way, meaning 'the five treasures of the snow', named after its five high peaks. The mountain is worshipped by the people of Darjeeling and Sikkim. And mankind has long worshipped the immens...