Precious Pearls of Practicality from Puri.

We, (should I write I instead?) spent most of the next day lazing around.  The sight- seeing of all those local sites on the previous day, had taken its toll on my aging bones and I thought it best to recharge my batteries by resting to my heart’s content. We had earlier decided to go for boating on the Chilka Lake, one of the most beautiful coastal lakes in the sub-continent.

 The heavenly Chilka Lake is a real soul-soother.

Now before I get going, let me share one important incident of the afternoon of the 24^th.  Jaya, my wife, returned from shopping in the market, visibly excited.  She is passionate about shopping for all and was trying to make the most of the rest day.  She takes a childish delight in shopping and it was hard for her to stay put within the confines of our room, when there was a very enticing market waiting out there to explore and shop from. I was most probably napping when she was back, chatty like the people near a house on fire.  She muttered out that she had taken advantage of a drunken fisherman and bought some 16 pearls from him at an extraordinary price. She just paid Rs.100/- for those pearls! The man had gone fishing and had picked up some huge sea-shells. It seemed that while separating some of those conjoined shells, he had hit upon real luck as there were shining pearls inside them.  Rita, my nephew Kaltu’s wife was so much taken with her narration that she hurried her out of our room once again just to try her luck out as well.

As for me, I was having a tough time putting the pieces of this apparent jigsaw puzzle together.  There were so many questions going through my mind. If the pearls were really genuine, why did the fisherman sell them at such a cheap price? Was he really drunk or just pretending to be one? If he was playacting, why was he? Whatever the case may be , fishermen are normally not that naïve to try to dispense of a heavy catch like the way he was doing. I tried my best to make them see reason. Unfortunately, my words fell on deaf ears as my wife dearest outsmarted the sceptic in me and the doubting Thomas was laid to rest for the time being.

But God did not let me wait long. Next morning when Jaya and I were on the beach trying to catch a glimpse of the rising sun, we stumbled upon one Santosh, a local stone-seller. Finding out that we were not that eager to buy his ware, he tried enlightening us on his own.  He told us tens and scores of stone-sellers from all over, come to Puri almost every day in the hope of making a fortune. They buy the not- so- costly or valuable stones from the locals and make money by selling them in places like Kolkata or some other neighbouring cities at an exorbitant price. Taking out some real pearls and stones, he regaled us about the worth of the stones like Nila, Pokhraj and some others.  If some one is physically unwell and feeble, wearing a nila would do a world of .good to him and keep him from the harmful influence of Lord Shani, the fierce Hindu god.  He repeatedly warned us not to buy the cheap stuff from the majhis (boatmen) at a place called The Red Crabs on Chilka Lake, our destination of the day. One of the great truths about Jaya is she will melt but never bend without having ample proofs. I was in the meanwhile, biding for the opportune moment.

The habitat of the Red Crabs in Chilka Lake

At around 2.30 p.m. Kaltu and I hit the road again, with a view to confirming our trip to Chilka.  We were heading toward Ghosh Travels again, when I suggested we consult some other tour operators at first. The man at the first place seemed to be  taking time, keeping us at bay all the while, for making some mental calculations before telling us that as the sojourn would take nearly 8 hours, he would charge us Rs.1050/-.

We left him faster than I can describe and visited the office of another agency. This man asked us not to take Tata Gypsy, but he would arrange a more comfortable vehicle and for that he would charge us Rs.750/-.That made me open up to him and I started talking about how initially we wanted to stay for a few days, how unlucky we were not to be able to book the tickets before the 28^th, how we were trying to make both ends meet by staying in BSS, and how we were filling our stomachs with food from the roadside stalls. The man was understanding as he listened to me patiently. He then seemed to ponder over our predicament and wondered aloud if we would like to go by another car that could be arranged for a mere 500/-. That was not a bad proposal. One thing led to another and finally we agreed to travel by Maruti Echoe for the same price.

By the way, I ask for your forgiveness, Reader, as I have left out an important fact.  Om Prakash, our driver of the previous day told me on our way back (he also asked me not to mention his involvement in this transaction to anybody even remotely connected with Ghosh Travels,) that if we were thinking of visiting the Lake, it would not cost us more than Rs.750/-  though they might ask us for Rs.850/-  to begin with. The intimate way he uttered it to me , raised my suspicion and that is why I decided to make the enquiries before going to Ghosh Travels. Thank God for helping me to see through people like Om, who under the garb of playing the messiah ,  end up rattling our trust and confidence in them in the long run, leaving us wiser  in the process.

To be continued ....

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.

Going gaga over God’s grace:

The 22nd of January, 2014 was as eventful and enriching a day as it was full of pleasant surprises, chance acquaintances and encounters. I am no firm believer. I have never been. But the unfolding events on the first day in Puri, made me take stock of things from a different perspective and am I not floored?

I was full of apprehension as we boarded the Howrah-Puri Express after 10, on the night of the 21^st.  There were lots of questions clouding my mind: Where were we going to put up? How much would the hotel cost us? On the previous evening Jaya was trying to find us from the net how much staying in an ordinary hotel might amount to and she found out that even an ordinary hotel would cost us Rs.550/- and above per day for a double-bed room. That meant, as there were 7 of us, two bed rooms. So for boarding and lodging alone, we would have to pay over Rs.1000/- per day.  Taking into consideration that lunch and dinner would make us part with another Rs.1000-1500/-, I knew that with the kind of money we had, we could not stay in Puri for more than 4 days. That should be fine as there are not many places worth visiting, I thought. Then there was the problem of the return tickets.  Despite our best efforts, we could not book the return tickets from Sealdah as all the trains were booked beforehand. I was very jittery and jumpy by the time the train started streaming out of the station.

We were unfortunate in not having the berths in the same compartment, though we were in the same coach. The first sign of ‘things were going to be all right’ showed up, when the man with the side upper berth, agreed to vacate his berth for one of ours. That eased things up a bit. We, the elders, could now stay together with one of us staying with the kids in the other bogey.

Towards the early hours of the next morning, I remember having switched over to the children’s side, when many co-passengers got off at Bhubaneswar, the present capital of Orissa.

The train arrived at Puri a little latter than the scheduled time. As we started heading towards the exit, we found an auto-driver coming our way.  He was the domineering type and would take us to Bharat Sevashram Sangha at Swargadwar at any cost. By the way, we had earlier decided to go to BSS for dear life as the organization is renowned for its voluntary humanitarian service. Besides, a religious organization is always a safe bet compared to all those money-mongers, I mean those hotels and all, that would make money at our expense like a money-making mint.

Anyways, we cleverly got rid of the driver, but there was another smart chap, who promised to reach us there at BSS at a cheaper price. We took his bait and reached there at around 9 o’clock.  There were some people milling around a table for various reasons. Soon we got introduced to Mr.Partha Sengupta, the Manager of the esteemed organization. The encounter with Mr.Sengupta made me hopeful that things were bound to look up soon and, in reality, that was the beginning of the end of all the troubles during our stay in Puri.

I honestly told him about all our problems and worries, our being strangers to Puri, not having enough cash and how panicked we were of being subjected to daylight robbery if there was no room for us in BSS.

Not only did Mr.Sengupta arrange a single room that could accommodate all seven of us, but he also got the lunch coupon, meant purely for the ashramites, for us.  The meal would cost us Rs.40/- per head! Once we had room no-6 on the first floor, we rushed out for our first encounter with the majestic sea. We came back just before lunch. In the dining room, I met someone sitting next to me. The man must have been a god-send and he helped me immensely by providing a lot of unsolicited but useful information.

In the afternoon, Kaltu, my nephew, and I decided to go to Puri station to see if there was any possibility of the return tickets. The handsome, young man (God bless his soul) at the counter was decency personified and helped us book the tickets on Puri-Howrah-Dhauli Express on the 28^th. We had to pay less than Rs.1000/- for the return tickets! And to think that I had spent a lot of time the previous night worrying about 3-nights’ stay in Puri, pockets permitting!

On our way back, we dropped in Orissa Tourism to gather information regarding some of the must-visit sites. Once back in the Ashram, we had an hour of pure fun and frolic with Jaya and Rita (Kaltu’s wife) as to the day of departure. We went out once more in the evening for a more breath-taking view of the sea.  The young talent who made the mermaid out of sand, was nothing short of pure magic.
                                                                           

 

 
The talented artisan at work on the beach of Puri

.While we had some tea at a tea-stall, the bearded man sharing the same bench with me, provided me with some useful know-how of a ‘within the budget’ stay in Puri. I came to know from him that the least amount one could pay for a puja of Lord Jagannath was Rs.151/-. He even wanted to introduce me to his Panda (Priest), who is a very influential person in Puri. And then my unknown benefactor went on to give me some gems of advice as the following:

ü  We must not eat any fish being sold from the stalls near the beach,

ü  Try to arrange our own cooking by hiring a cylinder along with the oven at around Rs.120/- per kg and an additional Rs.50/- for the oven. The initial deposit of Rs.1750-2000/- was mandatory. The amount was to be adjusted with the total amount of gas used.

ü  To bargain for almost everything sold out on the streets and the markets as well.  Finally, I was repeatedly asked not to forget to circumbulate the main temple starting from behind.

 

How do I thank these total strangers for all their help and advice? Like the youngster at lunchtime, or the handsome man at the Computerized Reservation Centre? Don’t you feel like thanking your lucky stars, every time you run into a stranger like the one at the tea stall? Do not all these incidents prove beyond an iota of doubt that there is a benevolent angel guiding us all through?

I thought we had had enough excitement for a day. I was yet to learn about the ways of The Almighty. I took them all to a very posh hotel (not exactly, to the restaurant attached to it) called ‘Sonar Tori’ to celebrate our first hassle-free day at Jagannathdham. When I finally called all the others to follow me down the stairs, there was a look of utter bemusement on Kaltu’s face. The other elders looked no different. I ordered with some hesitant help from Jaya, rotis and eggtarka. The dinner, by the grace of The Almighty cost us Rs.232/-!!!

That is not all.  As we had ordered quite late, we had the food served at 5 minutes to 9. Worried about the fact that the door of the Ashram closes at 9.30 sharp, I had to leave behind one roti untouched and run a walkathon along with the others, to get back to it by 5 minutes past 9! We still had 25 minutes by the time we were back.

Thank you God for being all merciful and for a ‘well-begun is half-done’, first day at Puri.

 

 

Faith Will Keep Our Dreams Alive.

Before writing about the divine intervention, let me tell you that on the forenoon of 20^th of January, 2014, I had the blues. I felt miserable, low and lost, completely. The holidays would be over soon. Another year was coming to an end and I was where I was at the beginning of the year. But for the PAN card, I had no other authentic documents to prove my identity as an Indian. Just a few days back, the photocopy of my ration card was rejected by my bank at the time of the submission of the KYC, on the ground that there was a spelling mistake in my name. I have never had a Voter Card.  So I felt low thinking that another year would go kapoot without any of those much-needed documents.  Surprisingly, someone, something at the back of my mind asked me not to loose hope as all my anxiety and anguish would prove to be unfounded in due course of time.

Having reached my tether, I decided to head for Sealdah Station to prove a point to my wife and daughter that the Puri trip was just out of the question due to the heavy  rush for travel across Bengal and the neighbouring states before the holidays ( 23^rd is Netaji’s Birthday and 26^th happens to be The Republic Day and in between there was a Sunday).

Eventually book the tickets we did.  Even then neither my misery nor my anguish would unburden my soul. How were we going to manage everything before the train next day? The thought of ready cash coupled with the running around I had to do at a break-neck speed , from the queue to the photocopier outside the station , was beginning to take its toll. When the counter closed at around 12, ( we had been in the queue for nearly 30-40 minutes by then!) that was the last straw. I could not help venting my anger on Jaya and asked her to cancel the tickets.  Sensing my murderous mood, she also readily agreed.  But the very next minute the next counter, which was closed till then, opened. Jaya made a dash for it and finally the ticket to Puri was ours!

Now to get back to the gist of the matter, when we were back to Deblane from Sealdah after booking our tickets and about to troop into our ancestral home, we found a young chap sitting on the corridor of the Chowdhury’s, showing some papers to one of my local friends, Ghana.  Jaya asked him if he had anything to do with Aathar card.  Surprise of surprises, he did. At Jaya’s request, the man flipped through the papers for 41 Deblane. I caught sight of a paper containing the name of my late brother, Amitabha Bhattacharyya. “He is no more. He passed away in November two years back …”.  I had very little hope of my name being there in the lot. But the very next page contained my name and details! After years of anxiety, there was a glimmer of hope of my getting this priceless possession!

I realized then once more that there is a superior power driving us on to our pre-destined destination.  Every time you feel like giving up on Him, He lifts you up to show mercy, justice and fairplay, call it what you will, to assure you that all is not lost yet.  And this divine interference keeps us going and from hitting the deck. All you need to do is to have faith and take a step closer to Him.