Learning to partake of the Blissfulness of the Present.

I have always been scared out of my wits end at the thought and prospect of being cheated by every Ttom,, Dick and Harry. The fear has taken such deep roots in my psyche that everytime  I am faced with the  need of paying from my pocket for anything, I  feel the end of the world is near and bankruptcy is going to be my lot.  So on the 24^th of January, for site-seeing, when my nephew Kaltu and I visted most of the travel agencies in and I around Puri, I was on tenterhools all along thinking that our days in the holy place were numbered.  There was not much encouragement from the tour-operators except for the names of the places worth visiting. From the brochures and leaflets provided, we came to know about some of the important places in Orissa to be visited any how.

Eventually we hit upon the idea of going to Ghosh Travels.  The man at the counter made a deal with us that in addition to paying Rs.200/- in advance, we would have to pay Rs.1350/- to the driver next day at the days end. Reasonable. We set off at around 9.30 in the morning and at around 11, our driver, a young chap dropped us near a tea shop. We then had to follow hordes of other pedestrians to get to our destination, the beautiful Konarak temple. The temple which was built by a great king of the eastern region in the fag end of the 14^th century, is a marvel of modern times and I simply could not have enough of the exotic (erotic) stone carvings on the walls of the chariot like temple.

The  amazing Konarak

 

As we had started quite late, it was almost lunch time by the time, Om Prakash, our driver screeched his car to a halt near Lingaraj temple. The door of the main altar was closed, but it opened within 5 minutes. We learned that it was time for anna bhog as well from one of the purohits (priest) of the temple. They say if the devotee cannot come to the deity, the deity will. So within the next 15-20 minutes, we had lunch from a place called Ananda Bazaar and that too, at a very fair price.

Our next stop was Udaigiri and Dhavalgiri, two historic spots in Orissa. As I started climbing the seemingly countless stairs, my mind went back to the time in the late 80s, when I was fortunate to escort my late Ma along the same path. In her late 60s or early 70s at that time, the stiff climb was testing her will-power and mental strength every passing minute. Panting heavily, with her face flushed, she nearly drove me to the edges of desperation. I started thinking that it was a great blunder on my part to have agreed to her desire of going up to the top. Today, looking back in time, that act of climbing up along with my Ma seems to be one of my priceless possessions. I cannot put into words the invaluable lessons I learnt from my Ma during that unbelievable climb. She was a great lady. A faithful fighter to the core and never gave up, even in the face of heavy odds, without fighting to the last.

The Sublime Buddha at Udaigiri.

From the twin-hills, we raced against time to get to Nandan Kanan, the famous zoo in Orissa that has been drawing a lot of tourists of late, at around 3 in the afternoon. We really had a great time there and scampered from one animal to another for sheer fun. Akanksha, my eldest daughter, continued snapping their photos and if she stopped in the end, it was mainly due to exhaustion.

On our way back to Puri, Om Prakash asked me casually near Hanuman temple, if we would be interested in visiting Sakshi Gopal, another historic temple dedicated to lord Krishna in Orissa. I remember someone having told me long time back that a visit to Jagannathdham is incomplete without a visit to this temple. Inside the Hanuman temple, all the other members thought it was a good proposal as by then the young driver had cast his spell on one and all with his graceful manners and behaviour. My only wish was not to be cheated out of my means.

It took another 40-45 minutes to reach there. Just outside the temple, Om Prakash repeatedly reminded us to be careful of the pandas and not to touch anything at all. We all entered insides. The pandas in white dhotis with saffron scarves around their necks, accorded a hearty welcome, asking us to wash our feet at that quiet hour. The sceptic in me raising his head, I could not help asking them if washing our feet would cost money. Without going into the details, let me tell you that for the darshan alone, we were made to part with Rs.151/-. I pretended to be angry and shouted at them to be afraid of the One up above, being holy cows as they were. Interestingly, visiting the rest of the altars in the temple did not cause us any further problem.

Finally, Om brought us back to Swargadwar  and dropped the others at the place which branched off with one path leading to BSS and the other to Kakatua, the popular shop selling khajas (some kind of sweetmeats) like hot cakes, and upto Ghosh Travels as well. I got off at the turning to slip a hundred rupee note into his hand.  Clever me, as this is how I had planned to make up for the money the pandas at Sakshi Gopal had squeezed out of us!

On our return to BSS, I requested Mr.Partha Sengupta, the Manager, for an extension of our stay for three more days. A request he readily complied with. He told us to vacate the room on the morning of the 28^th, the day we were returning to Kolkata.

Sitting at my computer, I am wondering right now about the near-perfect stay in Puri.  My only regret right now is that I should have lived in the moment and cherished my days in the holy place in the true spirit rather than worrying about being cheated and made a fool of and all that. I should have possibly realized that the Great Lord has love, compassion and protection for all, even for the wrong-doers and the atheists.