From the 'Dolphin Nose'Setting the Clock-Tuner
On Tuesday, 22nd September, back at our Talcher quarter in Orissa, a bustle of activities began at about 3:00 AM in the morning. I could barely sleep from the excitement of the trip the previous night – it had been almost four years since our last tour. We took our baths, our morning tea, completed the last minute tid-bits, Baba did the ticket-money-key verification (that’s something Baba does every time we leave our station), put on our sneakers and shoes, locked the doors and the gates, got into the car and lo! The journey began!
It was about 5:00 AM in the morning. The township was still asleep, it was still nightly dark. A sea of kaash phul (pardon me: “kash flowers” simply do not sound that sweet somehow, to the Bengali ear that is!), a light cool breeze, the making of the dawn – the black turning into reddish blue, then red, then reddish yellow and slowly to white,,, marked our long drive from Talcher to Bhubaneshwar. Normally, it takes about three and a half hours to get to the capital city. The road was particularly traffic-free and our driver drove well, so that we got there within 8:00. I bought three books at a station-stall for the kids we were going to meet – Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Unaccustomed Earth’, Paulo Coelho’s ‘Like the Flowing River’ and a ‘Hardy Boys’. Our train, Visakha Express, was on time. We had a bit of a problem about the seats. Almost as soon as we had started pondering ‘bout it, the ticket-collector came and solved it. And, then, with a “cooooo” and a “hoosh”, our train left the station at about 8:30 AM.
How Green Was My valley......
We reached the Vishakhapatnam station at around 4:00 PM. It had just rained. The weather was lovely – cool, breezy and pleasant. Coming out in the open, outside the station, the place seemed to have been scrubbed clean and fresh. The Eastern Ghats, the narrow green strip we are so familiar in our geography maps, was suddenly there- bordering all around the city, seen in the distance, almost like a huge stage prop. It had just rained, and, wherever be it, I always love the colour of the green after the rains. Today, particularly, the greens looked so beckoning. The godly hills stood against the grey sky like an affectionate father. The greys of the clouds clung to the greens, the blues of the hills, lending them a far-off-the-mind misty hue and I was suddenly wondering if I were in a dream!
An ambassador arrived about half-an-hour later and took us to the NTPC project colony at Simhadri. A room had been booked for us at the NTPC field-hostel. Here, I must tell you that the main purpose of our tour was a ‘get-togethering’ of old family friends. Mr. Pinaki Ghosh is currently posted there. He stays with his wife, Mamata Aunty and two sons: Joy and Jitu (whom we lovingly call “Toy”). Joy is my childhood friend. We used to be neighbours in Kahalgaon, Bihar. We have gone to school together from nursery to Class 5 and so, we share quite a lot of sweet and sour memories from the past. Toy was born when we were in UKG, i.e., he is about six years younger than us. They have been staying in Simhadri for the past ten years. Mr. Tarun Mitra is currently posted in NTPC, Farakka. He also stays there with his wife, Rimi Jethima and his son: Ritam. Ritam and Toy are of the same age. They left Kahalgaon around the same time too, about ten years ago. Baba knew Tarun Jethu since he first joined NTPC in Shaktinagar back in 1984. Together they have organised many Bangali cultural programmes. While Baba led the choir, Tarun Jethu directed the plays. Well, they had reached Vizag on 22nd morning and had already checked in another room of the same guest-house by the time we arrived. It was with these people that we were looking forward to be reunited after so many years.
In the evening, we went to Pinaki Kaku’s house, and there was a short adda session. We took our dinner at the guest-house, discussed our plans for the next day, bade each other adieus for the day and went off to bed.
We slept like babies the first night and I still longed for some more when I was asked to wake up at 7:00 AM on 23rd morn. We got down to meet a huge 15-seater car (or more appropriately perhaps ‘a bus’) that Pinaki Kaku had arranged for a tour around the Borra caves and Araku Valley. On the way to Borra caves, we played Antakshari. It was an endless episode; neither of the teams would concede defeat. Baba, of course, was the master player, but even Tarun jethu was quite a sport in the game, and Mamata aunty too. We sang “Pathe ebaar naamo shaathi”, “Chalo na Digha” to “Zindagi ek safar hai suhana” to “Aamra nuton jouboner-i doot”. Finally, Baba, bored of supplying from his mammoth stock, called off the game declaring a “draw”! The circling and bends of the road on our way to the Borra caves gave a good stirring to my intestines, so that when we reached there, I was feeling dizzy. The others insisted that I should rest in the nearby canteen. But the sheer excitement of it saw me making a move towards the caves, sooner.
Into the bowels of the Demon and out of it to tell you all ‘bout it........
The entry to the caves is actually really not broad, but once inside, we let out a gasp for it felt like being gulped down by a huge mouth, that’s the roof of the mouth – we looked up at the ceiling, those are the teeth of the giant – the stones on the sides of the winding staircase, and that’s the big slithering tongue swallowing us down and down– we stared at the stairs leading down until it disappeared round a bend and we couldn’t see anymore! Yes, and then, we couldn’t keep ourselves from not being swooped by the demon, like we so wished; the tongue swiped us in, tossed us high up into the air and down we went. We half-slipped, half-staggered – our motion not anymore in our control – rolled and crawled down through the larynx (thank God, we weren’t chewed up!), through the food pipe to the stomach. We met with deeper cavities on our way, thank God, those didn’t make its food-path; deeper and trickier passages went here and there, perhaps to nowhere, I shuddered. And oh, yuck! What not does the demon live on! We wet ourselves with the calcium carbonate and humic acid – the juices secreted in its stomach. We slithered still down and down to its intestines. Here, we were awed by the gigantic intestinal muscles, rising up from the floor and down from the ceiling, stalagmites and stalactites, our fellow passengers called them,, made out of limestone, they said,,. At one point, they formed a curious formation that looked like a demon inside a demon! A smaller demon inside a bigger one, was that?? Yawning wide, showing off its bare teeth, flashing a venomous red eye at us – even the smaller one wanted to devour us! Gradually, slowly, finally,, we landed in a plane smooth part – the colon. The path was narrow but the roofs and the walls were all even. When we were so much looking forward to the way ahead at this stage of our voyage, the final act of the play – the climax, in fact, and be out in the open again, we hit the wall! The passage to the world outside was blocked! Oh! The monster had the bad bowels problem... We sighed deeply, together all of us. But isn’t excretion as inevitable as ingestion? We couldn’t be there forever! So, just when we had sighed despair and desperation, there was a loud “THUD!”, and a storm blew us upwards, up and up (once again we were unable to control our motion), along the same way that we came down. We met the small demon with the big yawn, the cavities, the tunnels, the secretions and the pipe, bounced upon the tongue, which swayed this way and that, until we were out! Gosh! Even monsters go sick...
Washed in the Greens, blues and other colours....
Well, we celebrated our adventure and release, dining out in the canteen. We left Borra caves at about 2:00 PM. And, next, we started towards Araku Valley. On the way, Tarun Jethu asked me to sing the Antaheen song “Ferrari mon”. I sang and almost lullabied others to a siesta. As our car wound its way through the hills, we saw clouds gathering up in the horizon. But, thankfully, they didn’t look so ominous. We stopped outside a park, much like the Sim’s Park in Ooty, the only difference being the temperature. It was hilly and cold there, while here it was hilly and hot. Inside the park, there were beautiful tree houses built at one end that really tempted us to stay on, but we (we, meaning, of course, the grown-up like grown-ups) decided otherwise. I made ‘kshaniker’ friends with a local woman. She came from Andhra-Orissa border and took care of the cottages. “Baari kounthi?” “Kolkata”, I hummed. She nodded her head and repeated, “Korkatta, Korkatta... Boro sohor ochhi.. Mu januchhi.” Later, I plucked a small white flower, I didn’t bother about its name, shey ek naam na jaana phul,,, and gave it to her. She accepted it and smiled coyly. I was suddenly feeling a bit mad, you know. I took off my sneakers and walked over the grass in bare feet (to the great disapproval of my mother), singing, “..ghaashe ghaashe paa felechhi, boner pathe jete, phuler gondhe chomok lege uthechhe mon mete, chhoriye aachhe aanonder-i daan, bishmoye taai jaage, jaage aamar praan...”
The park had a toy train that ran at a speed of 1 m/min and yes, we rode it! The ride gave us a tour round the park, so that we had a good view of the valley from all directions, without having to put in the effort of walking. It is basically a stretch of plane land girded by hills, very much in accordance with the definition of a ‘valley’. On our way back from Araku, it started raining hard, but by the time we reached the field-hostel, at about 9:00 PM, it had slowed down to a light drizzle. It was once again a long day for us, and we were dead tired. We all slept a hungry sleep that night.
On 24th morning, Mahashashti, I woke up (with a good mind to get back to bed again at the first opportunity) to find Ma-Baba all dressed up for the day, waiting for me. By the time, we left Simhadri, it was well past 9:00 AM. Joy had stayed back at home (and he always stayed back after that, except for the lunch and the dinner). The plans for the day included the first view of the Vizag sea from the hill top to begin with, followed by the local beaches and view-points later in the day.
We passed the city and once again climbed up the hill. But, this time, we were surprised to meet another city there on the hill-top! Okay, may be not a city, a township, to be more accurate: a colony of the naval employees. Beautiful three-storied red-roofed apartments, with luxurious gardens met our sight. Our car stopped in front of the naval base camp. The road sloped down rather steeply along that part of the hill. We jogged down to a spot, next to the steep edge of the hill, where a romantic square, unfinished, roofless, windowless, brick chamber stood, with herbs and creepers and wild clumps growing out from its walls, floor and being. How old it seemed – like a great grandfather affectionately eyeing the new generations... Mamata Aunty stood near it and waved at us. As we came near her, I stopped short and gaped at the scene below: a whole world of ocean was awaiting us down there. I realised I had forgotten the magnificence of the seas all this time...
It was 11:00 AM when we reached the Yarada beach. Watching the waves rush towards us, as if in a worldly embrace, was a great joy. The entrance to the Yarada beach has been made into a lovely park, with a vibrancy of greens and other colours. Children were playing around riding the seesaw. I breathed the ambience and could almost feel the place to be etched in my memory for good…. sounds of the cackle of merry children and the roaring of the waves in the distance melted in a mellifluous symphony. We spent quite some time here. As a rule, it is forbidden to bath in the sea on this beach, as it’s a bit too rocky. The waves hit the rocks with a great splash and each time they did so, they showered a spray of white salty foam all over. The ocean was so much in action here, breathing and heaving with a fury, that suddenly I was left wondering if it is a living body too... The sand, with its bits of shining granules and shells, twinkled and shimmered in the sun. We met quite a few crabs digging holes in the sand, coming out, taking a stroll out in the sun, and then again scampering into their cool, dark homes underneath. Toy and Ritam had their time sitting atop a tricky large rock and romanticising with the beach. Tarun jethu was a bit quiet and lost. He stood on a large flat-surfaced rock, wind-swayed and enjoying the spindrift. With my forefinger, I scribbled a name on the wet sand and quietly saw it being washed away with the flowing currents.. I was humming an old song, “Ei baalukabelay aami likhechhinu ekti shey naam..”...
Paying an Unscheduled Visit to God’s Abode....
After the Yarada beach, Pinaki kaku took us to a view-point called the ‘Dolphin Nose’. It was so named, because just like the steep, sharp nose of a dolphin, the land here sloped down straight and jutted into the sea. We got there at about 12:30 PM. This place has been currently taken over by the Navy and they have fixed the visiting hours from 3 to 5 PM. Fortunately, the gatekeeper was a Bengali and so, with the familiar, “Daaran. Aami dekhchhi ki kora jaay..” he went off to take a special permission. Soon, we had the tickets and were allowed in. We walked through a rather wild zone, covered by trees and creepers, weeds, small plants, and herbs and finally, came to a cement-paved clearing. A two-storied building with a tapering tower faced us. Signs of a recent celebration were still apparent from plastic cups, flowers and bits of papers carelessly strewn around. A big silver cloth was hanging in the front, with “Light House Day, 21st September” emblazoned on it in deep red. For the first time, I gathered, I was standing so close to a light house and what more, I was about to enter it.
Inside, we went up a narrow winding staircase. Even though, the steps were steep and it was quite a long way to the top, to end with a tricky monkey ladder, it seemed I had a sudden merry spring attached to my feet. I was suddenly transformed to a nimble-footed cat! I bend a round, and then another round, then another and on it went, till I stood beneath the monkey ladder, made good use of it, slouched through the small door, almost like the proverbial alley cat and out through it to the balcony in no time! And, then, I drew in a breath – where was I? Was that the paradise? Or the heavens? Was it real at all? Or was I... It seemed a big sink of liquid (not water), very much similar to a magical Pensieve,,, the clouds of thoughts and the past hung low over the sink, as if,,, each mist of thought dissolving into another,, each reality taking the form of a fancy, (or the other way round??),,, spiritual to material and again from the dust to the sky... Everything all at once: living and dead, factual and fiction, past and future, tangible and non-tangible, that which is there and that which is not,,, all dissolved and overlapping, as if in a colloidal solution, to very minute particles, suspended but indistinguishable. You think you can touch them, “There! There! Yes, I got it – ” but it escapes through your fingers! We stood there for a long time and I kept wondering, “If this is not experiencing God, then what else is?”
Caught in the Earthly Aromas,,, a sliver of song, dance, food and frolic... and sadness of a lost sneaker....
We drove back to the city. I was feeling a bit dizzy after the ‘Dolphin Nose’. Pinaki kaku took us to a big bookstore and asked me and Ritam to choose two books of our choice. I wandered about for a long time, unsure which one to ask for. I was still feeling very uncomfortable; my knees were shaking and I could feel a distinct headache. Finally, I decided on Nehru’s ‘Letters from a Father to His Daughter’. We next went to a plush restaurant, and kaku ordered for a hefty meal, but I didn’t have the appetite. I stayed put in the toilet there for a long time, but it still didn’t help. We decided to return to Simhadri in a taxi. Baba requested the others to carry on, but they wouldn’t listen. And, so, we were back at the Field-hostel by 6:00 PM that day.
On 25th, Saptami, we stayed back at the guest house for the first half. Ma-Baba slept the entire day, while I enjoyed myself watching ‘Mamma Mia’ on the TV in the living room. It was a mainstream Hollywood movie, starring Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, but I loved the songs and the passion of the film altogether. It was raining outside all day long. We had opened the door to the balcony and watched it pouring, and I sang to my parents (when they woke and joined me in the living room), for the umpteenth time, “Chhaya ghonaichhe bone bone...”
At 5:30 PM, we got into two ambassadors that kaku had hired for the day and drove to the Sea Water Pump House of the Simhadri project. It was about 6:00 PM when we got there. The night was falling low and it was getting dark. We climbed up the stairs to the pump-house, lighted by yellow neon bulbs and met the nightly queen. There she was, with all her aura and gravity, rumbling yet composed and cool, sitting by the nightly king. He was there, erect, strong and mighty, touching the sky, guarding his queen. The Yin and the Yang. I stood there, resting on the rails, closing my eyes, taking big gulps of the salty air, paying my respects to them.
From the pump-house, we left for the Puja Mandap of the colony. (It was actually the Indoor stadium of the township where the puja had been organised, but still everyone knowingly referred to it as a ‘mandap’.) We opened our shoes outside, as was the rule, and went inside. We were back to the small damp earth of NTPC. Like the habitants of the earth, the people of NTPC don’t find it necessary to discuss things outside their project world (so that I normally can’t stand the gossips for more than five minutes) and like the earth is always round, we always meet old acquaintances from previous places in an NTPC gathering. The good part was here that we met Dr. Bardhan and his family there, were informed that Rashmi’s father has been transferred to Simhadri and that she is there too, met Mr. Venkateshwaran, the General Manager of the Simhadri project and many others. Meeting with old friends always feels good, but somewhere, it seemed, a big chunk of time from the huge time-cake had been sliced out, and we merrily jumped over this ‘missing link’ to arrive here... All was going well, but the anti-climax was that just as we decided to head back to the field-hostel, and went outside to put on our shoes, I found my sneakers missing. Well, “we always have to lose something to gain something”, I tried to console myself. We later heard that shoe-stealing at the mandaps was a rather common crime in that area. Baba left us there and got to get my pair of slippers. I put them on, tried not to be gloomy over the small loss, succeeded, ate a fine dinner and the day came to a close with an unusually peaceful sleep.
Of Emotions, misty eyed, of the Ethereal and the Mortal...............
On Ashtami morning, we went to the Puja mandap and attended the Pushpaanjali (Bardhan uncle guarded our shoes while we were gone). The priests and the dhakees were from Bankura, so that it was a completely ‘Bangali pujo’. Outside, the weather was pleasant and through the large windows of the stadium, light flooded in. The hills could be seen in the distance. There was a low murmur of talk,, a giggle, a guffaw, a roar of laughter now and then,, a mist of dung-cake and incense vapours and emotions hung heavy in the atmosphere, the idols looked lovely in the light of the day, the illuminations on the stage adding effect to it... As the aarti started, the dhakees hoisted up the dhaaks, and there was the familiar music of “dhing-dhi-da-dhang-dhidang-dhidang” and the “dhaa-kur-kur” along with the bells that rattled for the aarti. The dhakees played it with so much ardour and love, that I was all smiling. I was so much absorbed in the fervour of it all that when Baba patted me on my back and nodded towards Ma, I was surprised to see her all wet with tears. She missed Dida-Dadu (both of whom were alive and well during the last Puja), Baba explained...
We had the best lunch that day, with the khichuri-bhog at the mandap: there was a “khanti Bangali chochchori”, paapad, chatni and paayesh accompanying the kaaju-kishmish smeared khichuri. We got back to the field-hostel, took a short nap, and joined the others in a big Bolero that would take us to the left-over sites of Vishakhapatnam.
Between the sandy Beach, corn candy , and the Vastness of the Skies.....
We reached the Rishikonda beach at about 5:00 PM. It was a busy place, apparently the most famous beach in Vizag. It was nothing short of a mela there, with all kinds of vendors yelling hoarse over the noise of the crowd and the waves. A green giant of a hill on one side, and the beach on the other,, rocks garlanding the golden sands in some places, the scene appeared freshly lifted from a picture postcard I had seen in my old family album. Indeed, the most remarkable feature of Vizag may be here that you get the fun of both the seas and the hills at the same time. There was a part of the golden beach that rested on a higher platform supported by rocks a little distance away. Baba, Ma and I walked towards this part, climbed up the platform and the three of us stayed there for some time. A woman was selling baked corns. Baba bought me one. We sat on the sand, while I gorged on the bhutta. The sandy platform stretched out to the ocean, bending rightwards, thinning away towards the tip, ending up in rocks only and meeting the sea, halfway. We could have sat there for ages, it seemed... But, it obviously couldn’t happen that way: the others were waiting for us. So, we snapped some shots of the sea in the dusk-hours, retained quite a few of those which couldn’t be clicked anyway in our mind map, to be cherished long thereafter , hopped down and joined them to make our way to Kailash-giri.
By the time, we reached there, it was already dark. It was a splendid sight to look at the city below, sprinkled with numerous, big and small, white and yellow stars. The beach road of Vizag seemed to be flooded with lights, the golden sands of the beach reflected the light in turn, stretching in front of which was the nude blackness of the vast sea. The sea from the top suddenly transformed to a nothingness, an emptiness just like the space above. And, I suddenly felt as if, reed-like, I was falling through a sieve – deep, dark, bottomless and hollow...
It was a memorable experience too watching the colossal, life-sized, marble-white sculptures of Shiva and Parvati on the top of the hill. Kailash-giri is actually famous for the rope way and the beautiful little toy-train that gives a tour around the place, so that one gets a vantage view of the twinkling city from the top. But, unfortunately, we didn’t have much time, and all of us badly longed for a cup of coffee. Yes, above everything, I’ll remember the place for the little coffee-party we had in the snacks-canteen there. Of course, wherever we went we made quite a scene. However big or small the restaurant might be, we always requested to put up an arrangement for nine people (ten, if Joy would be there), which mostly involved the dragging of a table with a great deal of commotion, joining it to another table, putting up some extra chairs and requesting a few other customers to “kindly” move to that empty table and help us achieve our adda-cum-culinary mission. Well, after all this, we’d take about 10 minutes deciding the menu and ordering it and then, not putting a wee bit of effort in keeping our voices low while discussing – a discussion that we Bengalis so lovingly call as ‘aadda’ – on all topics under the sun and all this surely in absolute nirbhejal Bangla! Well, so, at the Kailsh-giri food-stop, we debated for a while on whether it would be egg pakodas or chicken pakodas, decided on egg finally; devoured on two plates of egg-pakodas, a plate of onion-pakodas and the special Telugu adrak-tea.
N. Raju, the Gandhi, Motionless beside my Pesky Baba......
The Bolero next drove us to the R K beach, another busy beach of Vizag. We met N. Raju here. He is a boy of about five to six years, who had been painted in bright silver all over when we met him (and we still don’t know how he looks naturally), sporting a round spectacles and a knee-length dhoti, holding a crooked stick in his right hand, posing with his right foot ahead of his left as if his walk had been frozen in a snapshot – being Gandhi. In front of him, a small steel can had been placed in which N. Raju’s admirers dropped a coin or two. We did the same. Baba kept remarking on his astonishing stamina to stand still for so long (Baba is a real pesky kid when he has to stand still for long at a given place. He is happy to sit or sleep on a wide range of comfortable and uncomfortable assortments of furniture, but not stand). We, and our nine long shadows (created by the neon lights of the evening), stood on the beach for just about 10 minutes, watching the queen of the night – a closer view this time. I wanted to stay for some more time, but we had to leave as it was getting late.
It was about 10:00 PM when we reached the field-hostel, to our comfy two-room suite. A long day it was, but a happy one nevertheless. In fact, it was one of my most memorable Ashtamis.
On Navami morning, nothing eventful happened, except that we had to shift to the main guest-house as the rooms were booked for some official guests. In the afternoon, Dr. Bardhan and his family hosted a little party in our honour at the guest-house. Dr. Bardhan is also an old friend from Kahalgaon, though his wife, Rina aunty, is an old friend of Maa’s, connected through an old music teacher of Konnagar. Rina aunty has a brilliant sonorous voice and is a well-known Rabindrasangeet singer in NTPC. I almost grew up admiring her singing. But, sadly, she told us that she is out-of-touch with music for long and howsoever we might request her, she wouldn’t sing. Instead, all of it fired back on poor me and it was I who finally did the singing of the noon. We had a good, Doctor-ish lunch (a real balanced diet) to end with.
The Mythological, logical and not so logical.......
Late in the evening, we went to the project-auditorium to witness a live Odissi performance of Ratikanta Mahapatra’s troop. It was indeed a most prized experience. They had divided their show into four acts: one of Krishna showing his Vishwarupa to Arjun in the Kurukshetra battle-field in Mahabharata, one of Shiva’s parlay-nritya with Parvati by his side, one of Ravana cruelly cutting off a wing of Jatayu (performed by Ratikantkanta Mahapatra himself) from Ramayana, and the final one based on Durga, the Mahishasuramardini. The sways, the tilts, the natural curves, the mudras, the vigour, the expressions,, that the dancers brought out so gracefully, almost as if giving a total outworldly dimension to the art of the feminine body, an adorable yet a proud one, that for once I felt physically superior to the other gender.
It was the beginning of closing the chapter. We bed good-byes to Tarun jethu, Rimi Jethima and Ritam, who had to leave for their train scheduled at 11:35 PM from Vishakhapatnam that night. We missed them at the dinner-table. Joy was more talkative during the last feast. He gave us a CD, with some photos copied down from their digicam of our sojourn together. And, all through the dinner, Toy kept chuckling to himself, remembering Ratikanta emoting Jatayu, with all his funny expressions even as he actually tried to look sad and hurt, creating a more than a serio-comical sight. Baba, in an attempt to correct Toy’s idea, said, “No, Toy. Actually, what he wanted to do wasn’t funny at all, you know, but what he ended up doing might have been funny though..”. At this, Toy started giggling even harder than before!
Well, by the time they left the guest-house, it was 11:30 PM in the night. And, I made a miserable scene getting up at 4:00 AM on the morning of Vijayadashami. On the way to the station, I wanted to have a last glimpse of the ocean. But, either we couldn’t convey ourselves properly or the driver was too much of a Telugu to understand Hindi, so that even though he nodded his head sideways in perfect understanding, he never took us there, and reaching the station, while we were still trying to comprehend his actions, he got our luggage down on the road from the back of the car (very helpfully) without even our asking him to do so.
So long and longing for..........
Somehow, in the end, we were left with a slight incomplete feeling about the whole tour. Of course, the reunion with old friends did score very high, but may be, we couldn’t do full justice to our ‘Vizag-ghora’. Perhaps, we’d have loved to spend some more time with the sea, stay in a sea-facing hotel in the city, perhaps we’d take a trip to the temple at Simachalam that Dida used to remember so fondly, perhaps, for just some more while, sitting idly on the Rishikonda beach or the R K beach, the three of us sharing a thread of thought now and then, connected through the silence of the night and the roar of the sea,,, and when the night would try to envelop the white foams of the rushing waves still prominent in the dark,, perhaps Baba would sing, “Raatri eshe jethay meshe diner paarabaare, tomaay aamay dekha holo shei mohanar dhaare...” Yes, all these are carried over to a probable second visit to Vizag in future. In a future , soon or a far one?? I really don’t know. All I know is this that there is the wish.
Of Nature’s beings – Mishakha ....
But our tour ended on a sweet Mishakha note. On the train, we got a young Kannada couple, travelling with their little daughter Mishakha of two and a half years, as our co-passengers. The child was a real delight. She was all cackles and glee and great wondrous questions about the world. In fact, she was mostly joy for her parents, obedient and matured at her age, instead of being a trouble. Even as her mother taught her the alphabets, spellings and the rhymes, she took it all with an adorable curiosity and enthusiasm. She regarded us with a plain joyous interest and we hardly got a blink of sleep, with her twittering away and putting up a grand show all the time. When I took out the camera to click a photo of hers, she was all ready with a pose and a perfect ‘cheese’ smile, looking straight at the lens.
For most part of the journey back home, I lay on the lower side-berth, and watched the cloud patterns outside,, the cotton-ish mists of clouds lower down blew by fast, while the fluffy milky ones higher above stayed longer.. A new mist kept replacing the old, as I gazed on. The old mists are always left behind, I mused, to be swapped by the new...
....Chilika.......
I was just dozing off when Maa cried, “Look, Mimi!” And, there it was, stretching wide and vast, surrounded by forests and fields, the Chilika lake! Though we have stayed in Orissa for long, we have never made it to the Chilika, but, of course, we’ve heard about it so often. The young couple also saw it eagerly, trying to spot it on the map of Orissa that they had brought along. The kid took some time to track the source of our amusement, peeped out from behind her daddy, herself amused now, she started clapping merrily with her little chubby fists. And, with that, our day was made, and our jaunt too... well almost.
.....and Brisha, the bull.............
And then, from the station as we wearied our way home, lapping up the final phase of our jaunt with all the thoughts, smiles and memories delicately suffused inside, our quiet reverie was snapped sharp by the sudden loud din and bustle and heat and dizzy lights of the Bhubaneswar highways.....As if the entire city was trapped in a mad rush to bedeck itself on the Vijayadashami day,,,, the puja processionists , the revellers, gyrating and drumbeating their way before and after slow moving matadors, the trombones and cymbals played in the background in uneven unison , the buses and autos and free wheelers frenetically honking for a right of way without yielding an inch to others, amidst a sea of humanity, from the curious to the casual, moving in waves, I saw, yes, a forlorn bull stuck in the middle of the road, out of nowhere, bewildered and lost. May be forsaken by the rakhal, it stood there, salivating and mildly shivering, its horns bloodily bruised, looking askance beyond the hype and hoopla, its large watery eyes – a shimmering ocean reflecting the lights, the dazzles and shadows of an ever busy city life....
On Tuesday, 22nd September, back at our Talcher quarter in Orissa, a bustle of activities began at about 3:00 AM in the morning. I could barely sleep from the excitement of the trip the previous night – it had been almost four years since our last tour. We took our baths, our morning tea, completed the last minute tid-bits, Baba did the ticket-money-key verification (that’s something Baba does every time we leave our station), put on our sneakers and shoes, locked the doors and the gates, got into the car and lo! The journey began!
It was about 5:00 AM in the morning. The township was still asleep, it was still nightly dark. A sea of kaash phul (pardon me: “kash flowers” simply do not sound that sweet somehow, to the Bengali ear that is!), a light cool breeze, the making of the dawn – the black turning into reddish blue, then red, then reddish yellow and slowly to white,,, marked our long drive from Talcher to Bhubaneshwar. Normally, it takes about three and a half hours to get to the capital city. The road was particularly traffic-free and our driver drove well, so that we got there within 8:00. I bought three books at a station-stall for the kids we were going to meet – Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Unaccustomed Earth’, Paulo Coelho’s ‘Like the Flowing River’ and a ‘Hardy Boys’. Our train, Visakha Express, was on time. We had a bit of a problem about the seats. Almost as soon as we had started pondering ‘bout it, the ticket-collector came and solved it. And, then, with a “cooooo” and a “hoosh”, our train left the station at about 8:30 AM.
How Green Was My valley......
We reached the Vishakhapatnam station at around 4:00 PM. It had just rained. The weather was lovely – cool, breezy and pleasant. Coming out in the open, outside the station, the place seemed to have been scrubbed clean and fresh. The Eastern Ghats, the narrow green strip we are so familiar in our geography maps, was suddenly there- bordering all around the city, seen in the distance, almost like a huge stage prop. It had just rained, and, wherever be it, I always love the colour of the green after the rains. Today, particularly, the greens looked so beckoning. The godly hills stood against the grey sky like an affectionate father. The greys of the clouds clung to the greens, the blues of the hills, lending them a far-off-the-mind misty hue and I was suddenly wondering if I were in a dream!
An ambassador arrived about half-an-hour later and took us to the NTPC project colony at Simhadri. A room had been booked for us at the NTPC field-hostel. Here, I must tell you that the main purpose of our tour was a ‘get-togethering’ of old family friends. Mr. Pinaki Ghosh is currently posted there. He stays with his wife, Mamata Aunty and two sons: Joy and Jitu (whom we lovingly call “Toy”). Joy is my childhood friend. We used to be neighbours in Kahalgaon, Bihar. We have gone to school together from nursery to Class 5 and so, we share quite a lot of sweet and sour memories from the past. Toy was born when we were in UKG, i.e., he is about six years younger than us. They have been staying in Simhadri for the past ten years. Mr. Tarun Mitra is currently posted in NTPC, Farakka. He also stays there with his wife, Rimi Jethima and his son: Ritam. Ritam and Toy are of the same age. They left Kahalgaon around the same time too, about ten years ago. Baba knew Tarun Jethu since he first joined NTPC in Shaktinagar back in 1984. Together they have organised many Bangali cultural programmes. While Baba led the choir, Tarun Jethu directed the plays. Well, they had reached Vizag on 22nd morning and had already checked in another room of the same guest-house by the time we arrived. It was with these people that we were looking forward to be reunited after so many years.
In the evening, we went to Pinaki Kaku’s house, and there was a short adda session. We took our dinner at the guest-house, discussed our plans for the next day, bade each other adieus for the day and went off to bed.
We slept like babies the first night and I still longed for some more when I was asked to wake up at 7:00 AM on 23rd morn. We got down to meet a huge 15-seater car (or more appropriately perhaps ‘a bus’) that Pinaki Kaku had arranged for a tour around the Borra caves and Araku Valley. On the way to Borra caves, we played Antakshari. It was an endless episode; neither of the teams would concede defeat. Baba, of course, was the master player, but even Tarun jethu was quite a sport in the game, and Mamata aunty too. We sang “Pathe ebaar naamo shaathi”, “Chalo na Digha” to “Zindagi ek safar hai suhana” to “Aamra nuton jouboner-i doot”. Finally, Baba, bored of supplying from his mammoth stock, called off the game declaring a “draw”! The circling and bends of the road on our way to the Borra caves gave a good stirring to my intestines, so that when we reached there, I was feeling dizzy. The others insisted that I should rest in the nearby canteen. But the sheer excitement of it saw me making a move towards the caves, sooner.
Into the bowels of the Demon and out of it to tell you all ‘bout it........
The entry to the caves is actually really not broad, but once inside, we let out a gasp for it felt like being gulped down by a huge mouth, that’s the roof of the mouth – we looked up at the ceiling, those are the teeth of the giant – the stones on the sides of the winding staircase, and that’s the big slithering tongue swallowing us down and down– we stared at the stairs leading down until it disappeared round a bend and we couldn’t see anymore! Yes, and then, we couldn’t keep ourselves from not being swooped by the demon, like we so wished; the tongue swiped us in, tossed us high up into the air and down we went. We half-slipped, half-staggered – our motion not anymore in our control – rolled and crawled down through the larynx (thank God, we weren’t chewed up!), through the food pipe to the stomach. We met with deeper cavities on our way, thank God, those didn’t make its food-path; deeper and trickier passages went here and there, perhaps to nowhere, I shuddered. And oh, yuck! What not does the demon live on! We wet ourselves with the calcium carbonate and humic acid – the juices secreted in its stomach. We slithered still down and down to its intestines. Here, we were awed by the gigantic intestinal muscles, rising up from the floor and down from the ceiling, stalagmites and stalactites, our fellow passengers called them,, made out of limestone, they said,,. At one point, they formed a curious formation that looked like a demon inside a demon! A smaller demon inside a bigger one, was that?? Yawning wide, showing off its bare teeth, flashing a venomous red eye at us – even the smaller one wanted to devour us! Gradually, slowly, finally,, we landed in a plane smooth part – the colon. The path was narrow but the roofs and the walls were all even. When we were so much looking forward to the way ahead at this stage of our voyage, the final act of the play – the climax, in fact, and be out in the open again, we hit the wall! The passage to the world outside was blocked! Oh! The monster had the bad bowels problem... We sighed deeply, together all of us. But isn’t excretion as inevitable as ingestion? We couldn’t be there forever! So, just when we had sighed despair and desperation, there was a loud “THUD!”, and a storm blew us upwards, up and up (once again we were unable to control our motion), along the same way that we came down. We met the small demon with the big yawn, the cavities, the tunnels, the secretions and the pipe, bounced upon the tongue, which swayed this way and that, until we were out! Gosh! Even monsters go sick...
Washed in the Greens, blues and other colours....
Well, we celebrated our adventure and release, dining out in the canteen. We left Borra caves at about 2:00 PM. And, next, we started towards Araku Valley. On the way, Tarun Jethu asked me to sing the Antaheen song “Ferrari mon”. I sang and almost lullabied others to a siesta. As our car wound its way through the hills, we saw clouds gathering up in the horizon. But, thankfully, they didn’t look so ominous. We stopped outside a park, much like the Sim’s Park in Ooty, the only difference being the temperature. It was hilly and cold there, while here it was hilly and hot. Inside the park, there were beautiful tree houses built at one end that really tempted us to stay on, but we (we, meaning, of course, the grown-up like grown-ups) decided otherwise. I made ‘kshaniker’ friends with a local woman. She came from Andhra-Orissa border and took care of the cottages. “Baari kounthi?” “Kolkata”, I hummed. She nodded her head and repeated, “Korkatta, Korkatta... Boro sohor ochhi.. Mu januchhi.” Later, I plucked a small white flower, I didn’t bother about its name, shey ek naam na jaana phul,,, and gave it to her. She accepted it and smiled coyly. I was suddenly feeling a bit mad, you know. I took off my sneakers and walked over the grass in bare feet (to the great disapproval of my mother), singing, “..ghaashe ghaashe paa felechhi, boner pathe jete, phuler gondhe chomok lege uthechhe mon mete, chhoriye aachhe aanonder-i daan, bishmoye taai jaage, jaage aamar praan...”
The park had a toy train that ran at a speed of 1 m/min and yes, we rode it! The ride gave us a tour round the park, so that we had a good view of the valley from all directions, without having to put in the effort of walking. It is basically a stretch of plane land girded by hills, very much in accordance with the definition of a ‘valley’. On our way back from Araku, it started raining hard, but by the time we reached the field-hostel, at about 9:00 PM, it had slowed down to a light drizzle. It was once again a long day for us, and we were dead tired. We all slept a hungry sleep that night.
On 24th morning, Mahashashti, I woke up (with a good mind to get back to bed again at the first opportunity) to find Ma-Baba all dressed up for the day, waiting for me. By the time, we left Simhadri, it was well past 9:00 AM. Joy had stayed back at home (and he always stayed back after that, except for the lunch and the dinner). The plans for the day included the first view of the Vizag sea from the hill top to begin with, followed by the local beaches and view-points later in the day.
We passed the city and once again climbed up the hill. But, this time, we were surprised to meet another city there on the hill-top! Okay, may be not a city, a township, to be more accurate: a colony of the naval employees. Beautiful three-storied red-roofed apartments, with luxurious gardens met our sight. Our car stopped in front of the naval base camp. The road sloped down rather steeply along that part of the hill. We jogged down to a spot, next to the steep edge of the hill, where a romantic square, unfinished, roofless, windowless, brick chamber stood, with herbs and creepers and wild clumps growing out from its walls, floor and being. How old it seemed – like a great grandfather affectionately eyeing the new generations... Mamata Aunty stood near it and waved at us. As we came near her, I stopped short and gaped at the scene below: a whole world of ocean was awaiting us down there. I realised I had forgotten the magnificence of the seas all this time...
It was 11:00 AM when we reached the Yarada beach. Watching the waves rush towards us, as if in a worldly embrace, was a great joy. The entrance to the Yarada beach has been made into a lovely park, with a vibrancy of greens and other colours. Children were playing around riding the seesaw. I breathed the ambience and could almost feel the place to be etched in my memory for good…. sounds of the cackle of merry children and the roaring of the waves in the distance melted in a mellifluous symphony. We spent quite some time here. As a rule, it is forbidden to bath in the sea on this beach, as it’s a bit too rocky. The waves hit the rocks with a great splash and each time they did so, they showered a spray of white salty foam all over. The ocean was so much in action here, breathing and heaving with a fury, that suddenly I was left wondering if it is a living body too... The sand, with its bits of shining granules and shells, twinkled and shimmered in the sun. We met quite a few crabs digging holes in the sand, coming out, taking a stroll out in the sun, and then again scampering into their cool, dark homes underneath. Toy and Ritam had their time sitting atop a tricky large rock and romanticising with the beach. Tarun jethu was a bit quiet and lost. He stood on a large flat-surfaced rock, wind-swayed and enjoying the spindrift. With my forefinger, I scribbled a name on the wet sand and quietly saw it being washed away with the flowing currents.. I was humming an old song, “Ei baalukabelay aami likhechhinu ekti shey naam..”...
Paying an Unscheduled Visit to God’s Abode....
After the Yarada beach, Pinaki kaku took us to a view-point called the ‘Dolphin Nose’. It was so named, because just like the steep, sharp nose of a dolphin, the land here sloped down straight and jutted into the sea. We got there at about 12:30 PM. This place has been currently taken over by the Navy and they have fixed the visiting hours from 3 to 5 PM. Fortunately, the gatekeeper was a Bengali and so, with the familiar, “Daaran. Aami dekhchhi ki kora jaay..” he went off to take a special permission. Soon, we had the tickets and were allowed in. We walked through a rather wild zone, covered by trees and creepers, weeds, small plants, and herbs and finally, came to a cement-paved clearing. A two-storied building with a tapering tower faced us. Signs of a recent celebration were still apparent from plastic cups, flowers and bits of papers carelessly strewn around. A big silver cloth was hanging in the front, with “Light House Day, 21st September” emblazoned on it in deep red. For the first time, I gathered, I was standing so close to a light house and what more, I was about to enter it.
Inside, we went up a narrow winding staircase. Even though, the steps were steep and it was quite a long way to the top, to end with a tricky monkey ladder, it seemed I had a sudden merry spring attached to my feet. I was suddenly transformed to a nimble-footed cat! I bend a round, and then another round, then another and on it went, till I stood beneath the monkey ladder, made good use of it, slouched through the small door, almost like the proverbial alley cat and out through it to the balcony in no time! And, then, I drew in a breath – where was I? Was that the paradise? Or the heavens? Was it real at all? Or was I... It seemed a big sink of liquid (not water), very much similar to a magical Pensieve,,, the clouds of thoughts and the past hung low over the sink, as if,,, each mist of thought dissolving into another,, each reality taking the form of a fancy, (or the other way round??),,, spiritual to material and again from the dust to the sky... Everything all at once: living and dead, factual and fiction, past and future, tangible and non-tangible, that which is there and that which is not,,, all dissolved and overlapping, as if in a colloidal solution, to very minute particles, suspended but indistinguishable. You think you can touch them, “There! There! Yes, I got it – ” but it escapes through your fingers! We stood there for a long time and I kept wondering, “If this is not experiencing God, then what else is?”
Caught in the Earthly Aromas,,, a sliver of song, dance, food and frolic... and sadness of a lost sneaker....
We drove back to the city. I was feeling a bit dizzy after the ‘Dolphin Nose’. Pinaki kaku took us to a big bookstore and asked me and Ritam to choose two books of our choice. I wandered about for a long time, unsure which one to ask for. I was still feeling very uncomfortable; my knees were shaking and I could feel a distinct headache. Finally, I decided on Nehru’s ‘Letters from a Father to His Daughter’. We next went to a plush restaurant, and kaku ordered for a hefty meal, but I didn’t have the appetite. I stayed put in the toilet there for a long time, but it still didn’t help. We decided to return to Simhadri in a taxi. Baba requested the others to carry on, but they wouldn’t listen. And, so, we were back at the Field-hostel by 6:00 PM that day.
On 25th, Saptami, we stayed back at the guest house for the first half. Ma-Baba slept the entire day, while I enjoyed myself watching ‘Mamma Mia’ on the TV in the living room. It was a mainstream Hollywood movie, starring Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, but I loved the songs and the passion of the film altogether. It was raining outside all day long. We had opened the door to the balcony and watched it pouring, and I sang to my parents (when they woke and joined me in the living room), for the umpteenth time, “Chhaya ghonaichhe bone bone...”
At 5:30 PM, we got into two ambassadors that kaku had hired for the day and drove to the Sea Water Pump House of the Simhadri project. It was about 6:00 PM when we got there. The night was falling low and it was getting dark. We climbed up the stairs to the pump-house, lighted by yellow neon bulbs and met the nightly queen. There she was, with all her aura and gravity, rumbling yet composed and cool, sitting by the nightly king. He was there, erect, strong and mighty, touching the sky, guarding his queen. The Yin and the Yang. I stood there, resting on the rails, closing my eyes, taking big gulps of the salty air, paying my respects to them.
From the pump-house, we left for the Puja Mandap of the colony. (It was actually the Indoor stadium of the township where the puja had been organised, but still everyone knowingly referred to it as a ‘mandap’.) We opened our shoes outside, as was the rule, and went inside. We were back to the small damp earth of NTPC. Like the habitants of the earth, the people of NTPC don’t find it necessary to discuss things outside their project world (so that I normally can’t stand the gossips for more than five minutes) and like the earth is always round, we always meet old acquaintances from previous places in an NTPC gathering. The good part was here that we met Dr. Bardhan and his family there, were informed that Rashmi’s father has been transferred to Simhadri and that she is there too, met Mr. Venkateshwaran, the General Manager of the Simhadri project and many others. Meeting with old friends always feels good, but somewhere, it seemed, a big chunk of time from the huge time-cake had been sliced out, and we merrily jumped over this ‘missing link’ to arrive here... All was going well, but the anti-climax was that just as we decided to head back to the field-hostel, and went outside to put on our shoes, I found my sneakers missing. Well, “we always have to lose something to gain something”, I tried to console myself. We later heard that shoe-stealing at the mandaps was a rather common crime in that area. Baba left us there and got to get my pair of slippers. I put them on, tried not to be gloomy over the small loss, succeeded, ate a fine dinner and the day came to a close with an unusually peaceful sleep.
Of Emotions, misty eyed, of the Ethereal and the Mortal...............
On Ashtami morning, we went to the Puja mandap and attended the Pushpaanjali (Bardhan uncle guarded our shoes while we were gone). The priests and the dhakees were from Bankura, so that it was a completely ‘Bangali pujo’. Outside, the weather was pleasant and through the large windows of the stadium, light flooded in. The hills could be seen in the distance. There was a low murmur of talk,, a giggle, a guffaw, a roar of laughter now and then,, a mist of dung-cake and incense vapours and emotions hung heavy in the atmosphere, the idols looked lovely in the light of the day, the illuminations on the stage adding effect to it... As the aarti started, the dhakees hoisted up the dhaaks, and there was the familiar music of “dhing-dhi-da-dhang-dhidang-dhidang” and the “dhaa-kur-kur” along with the bells that rattled for the aarti. The dhakees played it with so much ardour and love, that I was all smiling. I was so much absorbed in the fervour of it all that when Baba patted me on my back and nodded towards Ma, I was surprised to see her all wet with tears. She missed Dida-Dadu (both of whom were alive and well during the last Puja), Baba explained...
We had the best lunch that day, with the khichuri-bhog at the mandap: there was a “khanti Bangali chochchori”, paapad, chatni and paayesh accompanying the kaaju-kishmish smeared khichuri. We got back to the field-hostel, took a short nap, and joined the others in a big Bolero that would take us to the left-over sites of Vishakhapatnam.
Between the sandy Beach, corn candy , and the Vastness of the Skies.....
We reached the Rishikonda beach at about 5:00 PM. It was a busy place, apparently the most famous beach in Vizag. It was nothing short of a mela there, with all kinds of vendors yelling hoarse over the noise of the crowd and the waves. A green giant of a hill on one side, and the beach on the other,, rocks garlanding the golden sands in some places, the scene appeared freshly lifted from a picture postcard I had seen in my old family album. Indeed, the most remarkable feature of Vizag may be here that you get the fun of both the seas and the hills at the same time. There was a part of the golden beach that rested on a higher platform supported by rocks a little distance away. Baba, Ma and I walked towards this part, climbed up the platform and the three of us stayed there for some time. A woman was selling baked corns. Baba bought me one. We sat on the sand, while I gorged on the bhutta. The sandy platform stretched out to the ocean, bending rightwards, thinning away towards the tip, ending up in rocks only and meeting the sea, halfway. We could have sat there for ages, it seemed... But, it obviously couldn’t happen that way: the others were waiting for us. So, we snapped some shots of the sea in the dusk-hours, retained quite a few of those which couldn’t be clicked anyway in our mind map, to be cherished long thereafter , hopped down and joined them to make our way to Kailash-giri.
By the time, we reached there, it was already dark. It was a splendid sight to look at the city below, sprinkled with numerous, big and small, white and yellow stars. The beach road of Vizag seemed to be flooded with lights, the golden sands of the beach reflected the light in turn, stretching in front of which was the nude blackness of the vast sea. The sea from the top suddenly transformed to a nothingness, an emptiness just like the space above. And, I suddenly felt as if, reed-like, I was falling through a sieve – deep, dark, bottomless and hollow...
It was a memorable experience too watching the colossal, life-sized, marble-white sculptures of Shiva and Parvati on the top of the hill. Kailash-giri is actually famous for the rope way and the beautiful little toy-train that gives a tour around the place, so that one gets a vantage view of the twinkling city from the top. But, unfortunately, we didn’t have much time, and all of us badly longed for a cup of coffee. Yes, above everything, I’ll remember the place for the little coffee-party we had in the snacks-canteen there. Of course, wherever we went we made quite a scene. However big or small the restaurant might be, we always requested to put up an arrangement for nine people (ten, if Joy would be there), which mostly involved the dragging of a table with a great deal of commotion, joining it to another table, putting up some extra chairs and requesting a few other customers to “kindly” move to that empty table and help us achieve our adda-cum-culinary mission. Well, after all this, we’d take about 10 minutes deciding the menu and ordering it and then, not putting a wee bit of effort in keeping our voices low while discussing – a discussion that we Bengalis so lovingly call as ‘aadda’ – on all topics under the sun and all this surely in absolute nirbhejal Bangla! Well, so, at the Kailsh-giri food-stop, we debated for a while on whether it would be egg pakodas or chicken pakodas, decided on egg finally; devoured on two plates of egg-pakodas, a plate of onion-pakodas and the special Telugu adrak-tea.
N. Raju, the Gandhi, Motionless beside my Pesky Baba......
The Bolero next drove us to the R K beach, another busy beach of Vizag. We met N. Raju here. He is a boy of about five to six years, who had been painted in bright silver all over when we met him (and we still don’t know how he looks naturally), sporting a round spectacles and a knee-length dhoti, holding a crooked stick in his right hand, posing with his right foot ahead of his left as if his walk had been frozen in a snapshot – being Gandhi. In front of him, a small steel can had been placed in which N. Raju’s admirers dropped a coin or two. We did the same. Baba kept remarking on his astonishing stamina to stand still for so long (Baba is a real pesky kid when he has to stand still for long at a given place. He is happy to sit or sleep on a wide range of comfortable and uncomfortable assortments of furniture, but not stand). We, and our nine long shadows (created by the neon lights of the evening), stood on the beach for just about 10 minutes, watching the queen of the night – a closer view this time. I wanted to stay for some more time, but we had to leave as it was getting late.
It was about 10:00 PM when we reached the field-hostel, to our comfy two-room suite. A long day it was, but a happy one nevertheless. In fact, it was one of my most memorable Ashtamis.
On Navami morning, nothing eventful happened, except that we had to shift to the main guest-house as the rooms were booked for some official guests. In the afternoon, Dr. Bardhan and his family hosted a little party in our honour at the guest-house. Dr. Bardhan is also an old friend from Kahalgaon, though his wife, Rina aunty, is an old friend of Maa’s, connected through an old music teacher of Konnagar. Rina aunty has a brilliant sonorous voice and is a well-known Rabindrasangeet singer in NTPC. I almost grew up admiring her singing. But, sadly, she told us that she is out-of-touch with music for long and howsoever we might request her, she wouldn’t sing. Instead, all of it fired back on poor me and it was I who finally did the singing of the noon. We had a good, Doctor-ish lunch (a real balanced diet) to end with.
The Mythological, logical and not so logical.......
Late in the evening, we went to the project-auditorium to witness a live Odissi performance of Ratikanta Mahapatra’s troop. It was indeed a most prized experience. They had divided their show into four acts: one of Krishna showing his Vishwarupa to Arjun in the Kurukshetra battle-field in Mahabharata, one of Shiva’s parlay-nritya with Parvati by his side, one of Ravana cruelly cutting off a wing of Jatayu (performed by Ratikantkanta Mahapatra himself) from Ramayana, and the final one based on Durga, the Mahishasuramardini. The sways, the tilts, the natural curves, the mudras, the vigour, the expressions,, that the dancers brought out so gracefully, almost as if giving a total outworldly dimension to the art of the feminine body, an adorable yet a proud one, that for once I felt physically superior to the other gender.
It was the beginning of closing the chapter. We bed good-byes to Tarun jethu, Rimi Jethima and Ritam, who had to leave for their train scheduled at 11:35 PM from Vishakhapatnam that night. We missed them at the dinner-table. Joy was more talkative during the last feast. He gave us a CD, with some photos copied down from their digicam of our sojourn together. And, all through the dinner, Toy kept chuckling to himself, remembering Ratikanta emoting Jatayu, with all his funny expressions even as he actually tried to look sad and hurt, creating a more than a serio-comical sight. Baba, in an attempt to correct Toy’s idea, said, “No, Toy. Actually, what he wanted to do wasn’t funny at all, you know, but what he ended up doing might have been funny though..”. At this, Toy started giggling even harder than before!
Well, by the time they left the guest-house, it was 11:30 PM in the night. And, I made a miserable scene getting up at 4:00 AM on the morning of Vijayadashami. On the way to the station, I wanted to have a last glimpse of the ocean. But, either we couldn’t convey ourselves properly or the driver was too much of a Telugu to understand Hindi, so that even though he nodded his head sideways in perfect understanding, he never took us there, and reaching the station, while we were still trying to comprehend his actions, he got our luggage down on the road from the back of the car (very helpfully) without even our asking him to do so.
So long and longing for..........
Somehow, in the end, we were left with a slight incomplete feeling about the whole tour. Of course, the reunion with old friends did score very high, but may be, we couldn’t do full justice to our ‘Vizag-ghora’. Perhaps, we’d have loved to spend some more time with the sea, stay in a sea-facing hotel in the city, perhaps we’d take a trip to the temple at Simachalam that Dida used to remember so fondly, perhaps, for just some more while, sitting idly on the Rishikonda beach or the R K beach, the three of us sharing a thread of thought now and then, connected through the silence of the night and the roar of the sea,,, and when the night would try to envelop the white foams of the rushing waves still prominent in the dark,, perhaps Baba would sing, “Raatri eshe jethay meshe diner paarabaare, tomaay aamay dekha holo shei mohanar dhaare...” Yes, all these are carried over to a probable second visit to Vizag in future. In a future , soon or a far one?? I really don’t know. All I know is this that there is the wish.
Of Nature’s beings – Mishakha ....
But our tour ended on a sweet Mishakha note. On the train, we got a young Kannada couple, travelling with their little daughter Mishakha of two and a half years, as our co-passengers. The child was a real delight. She was all cackles and glee and great wondrous questions about the world. In fact, she was mostly joy for her parents, obedient and matured at her age, instead of being a trouble. Even as her mother taught her the alphabets, spellings and the rhymes, she took it all with an adorable curiosity and enthusiasm. She regarded us with a plain joyous interest and we hardly got a blink of sleep, with her twittering away and putting up a grand show all the time. When I took out the camera to click a photo of hers, she was all ready with a pose and a perfect ‘cheese’ smile, looking straight at the lens.
For most part of the journey back home, I lay on the lower side-berth, and watched the cloud patterns outside,, the cotton-ish mists of clouds lower down blew by fast, while the fluffy milky ones higher above stayed longer.. A new mist kept replacing the old, as I gazed on. The old mists are always left behind, I mused, to be swapped by the new...
....Chilika.......
I was just dozing off when Maa cried, “Look, Mimi!” And, there it was, stretching wide and vast, surrounded by forests and fields, the Chilika lake! Though we have stayed in Orissa for long, we have never made it to the Chilika, but, of course, we’ve heard about it so often. The young couple also saw it eagerly, trying to spot it on the map of Orissa that they had brought along. The kid took some time to track the source of our amusement, peeped out from behind her daddy, herself amused now, she started clapping merrily with her little chubby fists. And, with that, our day was made, and our jaunt too... well almost.
.....and Brisha, the bull.............
And then, from the station as we wearied our way home, lapping up the final phase of our jaunt with all the thoughts, smiles and memories delicately suffused inside, our quiet reverie was snapped sharp by the sudden loud din and bustle and heat and dizzy lights of the Bhubaneswar highways.....As if the entire city was trapped in a mad rush to bedeck itself on the Vijayadashami day,,,, the puja processionists , the revellers, gyrating and drumbeating their way before and after slow moving matadors, the trombones and cymbals played in the background in uneven unison , the buses and autos and free wheelers frenetically honking for a right of way without yielding an inch to others, amidst a sea of humanity, from the curious to the casual, moving in waves, I saw, yes, a forlorn bull stuck in the middle of the road, out of nowhere, bewildered and lost. May be forsaken by the rakhal, it stood there, salivating and mildly shivering, its horns bloodily bruised, looking askance beyond the hype and hoopla, its large watery eyes – a shimmering ocean reflecting the lights, the dazzles and shadows of an ever busy city life....
4 comments:
It was a straight-from-the-heart account of an exciting visit to that beautiful beach city Vizag. The only thing you missed is a climb up the steps to Kailasgiri, which is to your right as you drive from Rishikonda beach to R K beach. If you're fond of long walks, legging it from the port all along the beach road to Lawson's Bay and then up the Kailasgiri hill, esp in winter, will be cherished lifelong.
Thanks a lot, Sir, for commenting. The first comment for a blogpost always feels like the first showers of the monsoon.:) And, for this one, I got the showers really late and so, they are all the more awaited. And, that they are from you makes them truly precious.
We did visit the Kailasgiri, Sir, and the bigger-than-life-size statues of Shiva and Parvati were really mesmerising. But, no, pity, we didn't take the long walk up there. We had little time left with us by then... Next time, may be!
Thanks, Sayantani. My recent visit to Vizag was a get-together of five of us who had spent some of our bachelor days in Vizag. You can see a few photos at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Satish.Murty.Challa/SBIMeetFeb20212010?authkey=Gv1sRgCK7ztZLi5da-8wE&feat=email#
The photos are really beautiful, bringing in a swift breeze of warm nostalgia.. We had also planned a trip to the forests of Jagdalpur, where the recent Maoist attack took place. It was later cancelled mainly because our driver was reluctant to take such a risk. Pinaki kaku gave Baba a call last Wednesday to discuss The Jagdalpur Massacre, terrified after watching a footage on the TV...
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