Beneath Magnolia Skies: Writings from Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills

A glimpse into the lives of women from Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills, this anthology brings together homemakers, teachers, students, professionals, cultural practitioners, researchers and artists, each offering a unique lens into everyday life in the region. Geographically connected, yet with distinct political and economic trajectories, women have very different lived experiences in both Sikkim and Darjeeling. But, like the magnolia—a shared symbol rooted in memory, culture and landscape—their lives are shaped by common cultural norms, expectations and institutions that transcend borders.

Beneath Magnolia Skies traces journeys through time, space and place, capturing moments of solace, strength, reconciliation and redemption. More than just personal reflection, this anthology is also an act of resistance, a way of claiming how the writers wish to be seen, heard and understood in their own words.

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MONA CHETTRI is co-founder of Reading Himalaya, a research and policy consultancy focusing on the eastern Himalayas. She has worked as a post-doctoral research fellow in India, Denmark, and Australia. Co-editor of Development Zones in Asian Borderlands (2021), author of Ethnicity and Democracy in the Eastern Himalayan Borderland: Constructing Democracy (2017), and editor of the Eastern Himalaya Series, she has published widely on borderlands, gender, environment, and development in international peer-reviewed journals, books, and magazines.

PRAVA RAI is founding director of Dumigaon Reading Room Resource and Education Foundation in Sikkim. She edited The Book Review (1981- 1984), worked at the Institute of Mass Communication in New Delhi (1984– 1986), and was part of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad team researching the ‘Nationalisation of Minor Forest Produce and Tribal Movements’. She joined PRADAN, an NGO working for rural development, edited Parmal (the Goa Heritage Action Group’s journal on culture and heritage), curated and edited a special issue on Sikkim for MARG Publications, and has edited books on the social sciences for leading publishing houses.