banglore trip 2

In the darkness of the night I wasn’t feeling sleepy so I was just looking out side the window of the seat of the side berth. (The seat was empty for the time being.) It was an eerie feeling watching the stations of the suburbs where the train passed as if they didn’t exist. Those stations mostly had just a couple of benches and not more than 5 lamp-posts. It seemed deserted as if no one ever visited these platforms (though you can not imagine the rush that one can see here at dawn). The train drove past the villages but I would have easily taken them to be forests but for a couple of electric bulbs that peeped out of the thatched roofs of a couple of houses. There are long thin lanes which have a lamp-post at either ends. I see a motor bike riding through a road between long trees and there is no light except for that of the motorbike. In that darkness driving through such a path is like being off to the Himalayas and meditating (I don’t think I would ever be sitting on that bike and riding through that darkness). It is bewildering to witness such a scene as I am used to seeing the intoxicated night life of cities and this does strike me at once. But not all the world is asleep. Suddenly after a few stations I find a fair going on and that brightens up the whole place with the marry-go-around, giant wheels, load music and extensive lightings. In India everyday and night is celebrated by some community or the other for some reason often superstitious or religious in nature.

When traveling by train I seldom carry a book as generally I get to talk to someone or the other. Also there is so much to see and observe. The day starts with the caterers shouting chai and coffee. It makes sense to get up early and get down from the upper berth. Coz as I witnessed there would so many of these short trip travelers who find it convenient to get into the long distance trains instead of getting into a passenger train and of course they expect us the reserved travelers to make their journeys pleasant and make space for them. wont mind if there is a couple of them but there are so many of them that this train also becomes as crowded as a passenger train. And the agony never ends actually. I mean if someone gets down at some station then there are others who broad the train to go to some other station.

During the day I see a different type of marketing going on out there. A sentimental blackmail by the handicapped beggars. How many deformities they have and they show it in the most pathetic ways. Most of the people opt not to look at them and just at the other side to pretend that they didn’t see anything. Even I used to do that sometimes but now I don’t. I don’t know the reason, but even if I don’t give them alms I don’t ignore their presence. I don’t have an explanation for that, but I don’t do it. One girl I particularly noticed was what disturbed me. You know there are some deformities that you can attribute to diseases and malnutrition and things like that. But some are examples of human cruelties and that is something I never understand. How a person can be that cruel to another. This girl draped in green cloth from top to bottom just extended a hand with just a couple of fingers on it. Also from what could be seen, her skin below her chin was completely burnt. Something just told me that it was a brunt taken out on a girl by some insensitive group of people. I wonder if anyone can commit a crime grievous enough to deserve such things. It is just how some lives are wasted. Ok moving ahead removing that picture out of my mind. Also later in the day can be seen a group of girls (possibly muslim, don’t know what gives me that feeling) that come out selling pens and light emitting toys. People just stop and look at those things but never buy them. Also sometimes I see few energetic pre-teens boys that come on selling those things.

Banglore part 1

It was a great trip to Bangalore. Short and exciting never the less. I have been to that place before. It is pretty metropolitan not in the sense that it is very populated but also in terms of the way people live there. About half of the white collared job-holders population is migrants from other state. Though there are people from everywhere, a majority of them from the eastern and north-eastern part of India. Most of them have made it their home owing to lack of job opportunities in their hometowns. The city is well maintained and growing. There is a decent civil sense that prevails. Best thing is that due so many migrants this city is multi-linguistic. I can go around speaking Hindi or English. Mostly everyone understands English.

I left from Howdah station on 6th March. My train was scheduled to depart at 8.30 in the evening and thankfully it did. It is always a new experience to visit howdah as at every hour of the day and (most part of the night) there are people moving around. Just be there for one day and you will be amazed at the number of people that come into the city and go out of the city everyday. It is the gateway through which nearly a hundred trains carrying thousands of people and tones of goods come and leave. My coach was at the very end of the platform. Thankfully I wasn’t carrying too much of luggage. I was just standing in front of the coach and suddenly I heard a loud shriek of a lady. I turned back only to find that a thief had snatched the necklace of the lady and was running. The thief was well dressed (at least not rags as I just got a glimpse from a fair distance). There are pros and cons of escaping in a crowded place. Either you are not able to penetrate through the crowd or can get lost in the crowd. What happened to that guy is not known to me. Anyways, I got into the train and it was pretty much empty though I know it was fully reserved (It was full when I went to get the ticket). I got into the train and was waiting for someone from the pantry car to come and tell me that there was dinner available, because I hadn’t brought anything and I wouldn’t find a thing at the stations where the train would halt (at least not at this hour.) So after half an hour finally a couple of them did come up. Though, they didn’t bring anything for selling. But they said that they could get me vegetarian meals. Pantry car was far off (about 12 coaches) so it did take a lot of time. In the mean time I was chatting with one of the caterer guy. It was interesting to know about the life of these people. They are allotted a train for a season i.e. they will keep traveling on the same train for a period of about 3 or months. Their day begins at 3.30 am and ends at around 11 pm. The train leaves at 8.30 pm and they get in at around 6 pm and start preparing the food for dinner. Due to lack of berths to sleep they have to sleep on the floors on the pantry car and the passengers who get on the stations may have to cross the pantry car to reach their respective coaches so they can get to sleep at 12 midnight (after a particular station passes). Then they have to get up at 3.30 am and start the preparations for breakfast. They have to keep up with the schedule that they have to prepare about 6 or 7 items. They are done with the preparations for breakfast by 7 am. They start serving out things by 5 am as things get completed. Out of experience they have a decent assumption about the amount of the vegetarian food that they can expect to get ordered for. So they start preparing that by 7.30. They then send out caterers to get order for lunch. They have a decent enough idea about the order for non-vegetarian also but since it is more expensive so they better get orders beforehand so that there is no shortage of wastage. As the people are given breakfasts the orders are collected by 9 am by which time they are done with making the rice and vegetarian curry. Then as per the orders they make the rest of the food. This activity is over by 12 noon and they start packaging and dishing out the orders by 1 pm. Thereafter they eat whatever is left over or else they just boil some rice and eat that with curry. Within an hour of them having their lunch they start taking orders for dinner. They start making snacks for the evening till the order arrives and then while the snacks are being sold, they start making the dinner. They are done with the dinner by 7 pm and they dinner is distributed by 8 pm. Then they have their dinner eating the leftover and rice. They set up everything for the next day and then go to sleep by 11 pm and again get up by 4 am for the tea coffee that they serve the next day. The most interesting thing came at the end when he told me that they don’t work by clock but by the train station that comes along the way. For example they are supposed to finish the job A by the time the train reaches the station X. So they are always aware of which station has just passed and they can slow down a little when they know that the train is running late. What makes their job more tedious (though I would call it interesting and exciting) is the different kind of people that they need to serve. All kinds of people travel in the train and they get used to reading the nature of people and then accordingly talk to them. All in all I rate it as a very difficult job and frankly passenger who talk about them don’t quite consider them to be hard working and associate the same kind of lethargy they associate with the government employees. But these people are unfazed with that. They only know one thing and that is to sell as much food as they can and they work hard towards that. Of course they accomplish something that is not easy to think, preparing and serving food on train day in and day out on the largest railway network in the world. More so they meet the people of India in all their diversity.

visiting baba dham (contd...)

We woke up in the morning at around 4 and started to get ready. The water was really cold so we waited for the geyser to heat it up. Though the geyser didn’t seem to be working there, or may be not as effectively as we would have wanted. Anyways hot or cold we had to take the bath and be ready in an hour. So we all got ready and got into the car that we booked yesterday night. As we came out just out side the main gate was a chai- shop. So garam garam chai was really enjoyable in that chilling weather. Wonder what the condition here would be in the months of December and January when the winter is at its peak. Anyways it was Jharkhand and as we moved forward I saw the dhoni effect taking place with a gang of 6 or 7 girls, with tikka smeared on their foreheads and cricket bat and ball in hands gearing up for a battle on the pitch nearby, maybe. One thing that I really liked was the fact that the roads there were very well built. The driver said that they were built during the time when the state was born a decade back and this area of Jharkhand was well maintained, but also there is not much of heavy duty truck to do damage to the roads. It was early in the morning so the place was quiet but some people were to be seen near the small market place. We traveled for around an hour and half. Then we reached a small market-place where no shops except the tea shops were open. We left our slippers in the car and proceeded towards the temple. As we reached the gate we were flanked by four or five pundits who would want to take us through the temple. Basically the temple compound has 22 temples but we didn’t have to go through all of them. I often pity the lack of time when on a trip to some place. Anyways we went to the main temple (the temple of lord Shiva called the baba-dham). It was pretty crowded. We took the mugs containing a mixture of Ganga-jal, milk, sandalwood paste, bhaang etc. and entered the temple. It was a small door about seven foot high and the floor was very slippery because of the water that kept spilling on the floor with people finding it hard to balance themselves in the rush. That was the rush early in the morning; I wonder what would happen when the day grows. What people do inside the temple? Well there is the top of a huge Shiva-ling that is visible and the structure is not more than a foot tall. Thought they claim there is a huge Shiva-ling beneath. People pour the water, milk etc. on the ling. With such a jam-packed area the people are literally swarming over each other and most of the mortals are bathed in the holy mixture. The pundits who sit the closest to ling keep pleading and coaxing the devotees to put some money there and the pundits that bring people into the temple keep yelling at others to give space. Thankfully the enclosure is not really large and can accommodate not more than 30 people at a time. So we get out of that place and then we are guided to the Parvati temple just opposite the one we just visited. Here the idols are placed on a platform and there are stairs that lead to them. Though they are just three steps but they are each one foot high; again it is the same wet slippery floor. Thankfully it is coarse stones else people would certainly slip and hurt themselves. (Though that does seem to be a possibility is not a certainty). There is no sense to the climbing and descending of the stairs and that is what creates a chaos of sorts. On the high platform are a couple of idols carved out of the stones. The idols carved on the walls of the enclosure are bright orange (result of being smeared with the tikka for a long time now.) We come back and buy some pedas that this place is famous for. Then we make a move towards basukhi-nath (another temple of lord Shiva about 60 kms from baba-dham). It was pretty similar to this place except for the fact that it was smaller and had a lesser number of temples in the compound and the floor was covered with marble tiles and at the entry there was a person who was beating a big drum with some vigor. Wonder whether he can carry that enthusiasm though the day. We didn’t spend much time there either. We decided to make a move and reach the Jasidhi station where we had to catch a train at 11.30 am. We reached the station an hour before the scheduled departure. We had to get some food packed that we could have on the train. It was hard to believe that it was the same station that I came to last evening, with so much movement around. It was hard to recognize the place as it was pitch dark yesterday night. I moved around to different shops enquiring what they had to offer. Got the puri and sabzi packed and returned to the station to find that the train is running an hour late. We got a couple of seats in the waiting room. I went around the station just for some time pass. It was a pretty long station for a small town. Actually at the last track of the junction the goods carriage is lightened and loaded and thus to accommodate those long trains such a long platform had been built. Just as I was roaming about I found an assemblage near a shop. I wondered what it was all about. Then on closing in I found that there was a cricket match between India and Australia, final of a series and there was a television in the shop that was beaming it. Now that explained the occasional cheer that was to be heard. Finally the train arrived half an hour late than the delayed time. No need to complain at least it came.

Trip to Deoghar

My uncle and aunt arrived from Mumbai in the morning and i went to pick them up at the airport. Well just as is possible only here the flight scheduled at 9.15 a.m landed at 8.50 and the one scheduled at 9 am arrived half an hour late.Anyways waiting inside a centrally air conditioned area doesn't hurt and also some paisa vasool on the Rs. 30 entry fee that they charge at there.
We got a pre paid taxi that took the longer route to my house as the driver wanted to drop the so called helper (or some relative of his as it could be). No qualms from us as the fare was already paid and the road was clear so not much waste for time. And the driver too would be least bothered of the fuel burnt as they charge premium price for pre-paid services.
We reach home and everyone freshens up and we are ready to leave for Deoghar. We leave the home in perfect condition as it is on its own (& we hope it remains that way) for the next 30hours. We reched the railway station one hour before the departure and the train arrived 40 min. before the departure. ( it was the source station)We all got in to the train and so did other passengers on that platform and believe me waiting on the platform is better than sitting in the train and waiting for it to move.
We were 5 of us and my ticket was for a berth in the cabin adjacent to that accommodating my uncle-aunt and my parents.We sat together and had lunch (food we brought from home). Then we decided to get some rest. I went back to my seat to find another person sleeping there. As it turned out to be the person was traveling on an unreserved ticket. Such things keep happening on trains running in these routes. This I figured out a couple of hours later when i woke up from sleep to find that the seat below the berth that is supposed to be reserved for 6 people was accommodating 9 persons and of course i was sleeping on the upper berth. It was a mix of bengalis and biharis, that was good ammunition for war of words. bengalis dont want to leave anything under the sun and have an opinion about everything whereas just keep quite and nod their head in affirmative. but then they have better ideas about the ground situations and thus have simple logic about everything. Bengalis do most of the talking till asansol and biharis after that. that is when the train moves out of bengal and enters bihar!!
There is no catering service on this train and so whatever we bought was from the local vendors and we can bargain like anything. However at the end of it the quantity of whatever they give is very less and so it is only loss for us but then we loose less. The train was running late and it was dark by the time we reached.We were anticipating the arrival of the train at the Jasidi station and just then the train stops. We thought it was waiting for the signal to enter the station. Just then the lights on the station turn on and we realize that the train has already halted beside the platform. Train doesn't stop here for long and so we grab our bags and dash for the gate.We move through the freshly lit station and move towards the exit.though it was dark there was a decent enough crowd there.As soon as we got out of the station we got plunged back into the darkness of the night. some how the auto-wallahs saw us and came to us with their own proposals to loot us.Then we started to move on the road. Just then a vehicle which in true term was like a jeep that was running on the engine of a tempo stop by us. After a bit of bargain it agreed to leave us at arogya bhavan. we reached there at 8 pm and checked in . My dad is very fond of the place . Arogya Bhavan in some sense is the original health resort concept of India. It is a lovely place and I wish that we could have spend a day or at least a morning there. It is full of well maintained gardens and it is residing as close to nature as is possible. Next day morning we are to leave for visiting the temples.

visiting chennai

I was born in Mumbai but spent the first 7 years of my life in the crazy city of madras (was not named Chennai till then). Such is a chance that I am appearing for an exam and my centre is in Chennai. It is a strange feeling coming back to the city after almost 14 years. Not that I remembered anything much about the place. Also I had long ago forgotten whatever little Tamil I had ever learnt. Well started the preparation to go to the city. Trains are all booked up and so I decided to avail the bus service. After a whole lot of roaming around the garden city I finally got a ticket to Chennai in a Volvo bus at a decent enough rate. It was a first hand experience for me travelling in a bus (a so called luxury one at that). The seats were comfortable and A/C was reprieve from the heat. I had been warned of the torture of watching tamil movies played on the TV. There was a tamil movie going on there. As usual a night before the exams I never feel sleepy. So what better to do than watch a movie? It was decent movie overall. Though, the ending was a bit shocking. (Ok I understood all that was going on thanks largely to the English subtitles). Well the aunty that was sleeping beside me was very troublesome and another elderly couple at my back was not comfortable so I could say good bye to my sweet-dreams. So whenever the bus stopped I got down getting some fresh air. It was always a good site to watch a well maintained brightly lighted highway. Anyways I woke up (not that I slept too much) at 5 am and by 5.30 I am at the bus stand and then I called uncle (a former colleague and close friend of my father). He comes up on his motor bike. Well reached his home and freshened up and got ready to go to my exam centre. Aunty prepared some dosa for me. It was really tasty, can’t wonder where I will be able to so tasty chutney. Ummmm… Then uncle takes me to the centre.. It takes almost quarter to an hour to buzz through the busy roads on a scooter. We had great food in lunch and I was just hoping that I wont get sleep after having eaten so much food. Then we went to the examination hall and uncle sat there in the school compound till the exam got over and this entire period he was just watching the school students indulge in a close game of soccer on the school grounds.

Then after the exam I came out and we went and spent some time on the marina beach. My parents used to bring me here every alternate weekend quite some time back and today I come back to the place again. I hardly remember having been here earlier.

We have some snacks and talk a little and then we move back to home. Back though a maddening traffic we squeeze our way out on the scooter. Then we had a photo-session of sorts and had dinner and back to bus stand and going for catch a bus back to the garden city.

My sincere thanks to uncle and aunty for their assistance and hospitality.

the long night

when we came back down the whole way there was not much peace to be . As most of us felt sleepy but hungry at the same time , we came to know we had to rush to the bhojanalay (the place where food is served ) as there was a huge group of 100 turning up and there wont be anything left once they are done with their thing . as it turned out some of us skipped lunch and instead had the watermelon that we had picked up on our way from rajgiri .then we all had rest . I went to have a bath and then came out and saw that it was raining . I rued the fact that I had missed the chance to get drenched in the rain ( It doesn't make sense to get drenched after having a bath) . But anyways that made the place even more cold . As everyone felt sleepy I was kinda bored . So I was just lurking around in both the rooms trying to find out who wasn't sleepy and thus trying to get them in some conversation . Of course they had become tolerant of my inability to converse in their language and were not reluctant to talk in Hindi . Anyways we had a train to catch from a nearby station Pushkar . they said it was a half an hour drive and our train was at 9.30 . So we had planned to leave by 8 for overcoming any worst-case scenario . But there was more in store , no car was allowed to leave the premises of shikharji after 6 pm because of naxalite threats . So when we came to know about it at around 5 pm there was a rush hour once again . Everybody woke up from their late siesta and all were set to move by 5.30 . but then it was pouring , after waiting for 10 mins we decided to make a move . we got into the sumo we had hired . loaded the luggage over it and provided it cover with a plastic sheet . And here we were set to go . It was so lovely to pass through a road surrounded by green on either in such a rainy whether . though rain stopped , the sky was overcast . anyways by 6 we were at the station . and what a way to greet us at station . people started climbing on our cars and we reached the station . when we got down then we realized that they had climbed on cause we had so many suitcases and they thought we would hire someone to carry them for us . We reached the station went to the platform and sat there for some time . then we came to know that the train was late . how long will it take to come ?not known . anyways we were told it will come by 12 midnight . It was a very small station . though it is a stoppage for many trains that travel from Delhi to Calcutta .and the major shock came when we saw a rajdhani stop at this station of which we had never heard of and which looked no bigger than a platform on the suburban lines of kolkata or mumbai . Anyways in this hour of uncertainty we all decided to stay awake . but for how long . We had some fried snacks from outside the station for dinner . then I went to the station master to get some clear idea about the position . He said that the train will take 2 hours after it reaches Gaya and there is no report of it reaching there . He said that we had been fooled in being handed over the tickets of Dhoon express which is always given last preference on these routes . There we were all doomed . Ideally it is a great time to be in a group as it becomes easier to pass time . But there was some tension between the members in the camp . I wasn't quite understanding what was happening , and my friend who was supposed to understand just kept giving me situations which i was least bothered to listen to . All that mattered was how to spend time . finally everybody started to sleep . on the seats , on the luggage etc. there was something or the other happening till an hour past midnight though . One incident for example was that there were a few people who were sleeping on the platform just beside a pillar . Suddenly everyone started shouting . The man at whome it was directed woke up to find a snake near his neck . though it fled away admist the chaos that it unintentionally caused. ( wonder what reputations human have in the animal kingdom, i would say crazy.) It was a preety busy track with lots of goods-carriages(mostly carrying coal) passing through the time we were there . they never stopped but sped past at full speed , cleaning up the platform in their fury run . that explains how we came across such a clean platform in Jharkhand .As the train timings were uncertain we were to stay ready for the train any moment it came. So we thought of deciding how we would get accommodated in the train . It was then that we saw the berth number that were reserved for us: 8,16,24,32,40,64,72 in S-7 and 48, 50,51 in S-11. those who know about the Indian railway seating system would understand the situation and laugh out loud. I finally went to sleep at 3 am and with the news that the train might come by 4 . i woke up by 4.30and went to the Sation master and came to know that the train has left Gaya but there are many rajdhanis that were stuck in the route so they will be cleared thus it will take another 3 hrs for our train to come . i came back disgusted . After another hours of sleep i woke up to check with the station master and came and told about it to one of the uncles there who said that he had cancelled the tickets . it was ok that he got frusterated , but the problem was that he didn't consider what other options were available once we canceled the tickets. And no matter how insane it may sound but what happened in the end was that we cancelled our reserved ticket for dhoon express and then bought general tickets (as reserved tickets are not available before 8 am) and then we boarded the same train with those general tickets and for the next 5 hours we all along with our luggage stay put in the passage at the entrance of a boogie in which we would have had seats had the tickets not been canceled. Anyways Somehow everyone kept slipping off to sleep and the journey was not that inconvenient. My ordeal was coming to an end . We got down at Burdaman and got another train that would take us to my friends home where all these people were staying. We reached there in another hour or two. I think i kinda dosed off during that period. Finally we reached his place and had lunch . I bid adios to all those people with whom i had spent my vacation and headed to home which was another hours journey in the bus. It was a trip that i will never forget 1)coz it was my first trip without any of my family members. 2) I was with a bunch of people whose language i couldn't follow. 3) I went and lived in Bihar & Jharkhand where people are not really concerned about the opportunity that life is . The are untouched by the shining economy and thus have no complains about the way their lives are. A testimony of the UPA government's failure to bring changes over its tenure is that there people still think that the prime minister of India is A.B.Vajpayee . No matter how strange it seems to be it has given me an insight to what state of mind are people in rural areas and has made me more determined to do something about it in future.

and final day( or so we thought)

2finally came the last day of the trip (or we thought so ) . I don't know what the reason was but i didn't feel like sleeping and though it was awkward i stayed up all night and that too without a company . whether it was loneliness or solitude i am not sure but there was something within me that told me that i needed to do so . Also it didn't make much of a difference as we slept around 10.30 and were supposed to wake up at 2 in the morning . yeah we woke up at 2 in the morning. the reason being that we had to climb the mountain and considering the heat of the day makes it more stressful , people opt to start climbing from 4 a.m in the morning . So amongst all the unidentified emotions I found one logical reason to not to sleep viz. it would be difficult for me to get up after sleeping peacefully for 3 hours , especially considering the fatigue that had started to settle in after three days of travel ( i wouldn't have done that if i knew what the future had in store for us) . anyways I woke up or rather got off my bedding at the scheduled time and got involved in the daily chores on morning which I usually did at least 4 hours later on any other day . the most chilling part of the process was the bath i took . the water was as if custom made to give people shivers. I had never felt tap water to be so cold , no not even in winters and right now is the time when summers are at its peak . anyways It was refreshing and was just the right thing to fill the body with a renewed energy and enthusiasm .
We came out of our rooms with the water bottles and other things that we had decided to accompany with us for the trip to the top of the mountain , which was house to shikharji . ( interestingly shikhar mean peak and the temple is at the peak of the mountain ) . i was not told by my friend that we wold be climbing this big a mountain . over the course of time we were to realize that we had to walk as much as 9 miles then to visit the temples on the top another 9 miles (there were many small ones) and finally to come down another 9 miles. i was cursing my luck . why did I were kitos instead of sneakers . also i was wearing a cotton trouser where a denim would have been an obvious choice . anywasy there was a temple inside the dharamshala , which we had to visit before starting the climb . It was the temple of bhomi baba sho is said to guide all the pilgrims to the topand bring them down in sound health . it was supposed to open at 3.45 but opened at 4.10 so we kinda stated late but what was basically irritating us was the anxiety that we had to hold on to longer . It was during this period of wait that i saw people who came and sold thin bamboo sticks that would help in the process of ascending . Of course i didnt feel the need for it and didn't get myself one . finally the temple opened and we all did the general prayer and bowed down three tines and prayed to recieve his guidance on the way . as we came out of the dharamshala and started waking up the slope started to get steeper . the route was made up of coal tar for the next couple of hundred meters .there after started the actual steep slope . the route we were to travel was well defined . It was made up of concrete and thus was pretty rough at times .Just think of the dwigamber Jains who walk up this route bare footed . We were a group of ten people out of which the two older ladies had opted for palanquins . the others I thought would move up together . I saw that the eldest person of our group , my friends eldest uncle would be left alone behind and thus I decided to accompany him also we were moving in the vicinity of the palanquins , which were being carrier by a group of four that synchronized their steps by the minutest measure possible . It was early in the morning the sun had not yet come up . I felt like I would be doomed to move up all the way with this person way more than thrice my age .I mean what in the world would we find in common to talk about . the other day he said that he liked to hear to cricket commentary but didn't like to make judgments or talk at length about it . That was a shattering thought that struck me because in India one thing that one should know about is cricket . no matter where you go whome you meet , if it is a stranger still you can talk to him or her about cricket at length and though the outcome is worthless but still you talk instead of looking at each others face . but what about this situation . But then as we moved ahead this man felt the urge to drink tea and we found a tea stall after traveling about an hour up the slope. during this period the discussion was mainly on how he was a tea addict in the greener years of his life and how he came over it . though such a topic meant that the responsibility of carrying it on was on his shoulders and his effort did break the shakles and we started conversing more and more freely and over various things , ranging from religion to life in remote areas of gujrat , to the religious politics of Gujarat and communist politics in west bengal and to the karma of a person . He is a very liberal person i realised and i was surprised to listen to what he said because he said he didnt gather much of education but still had a vast knowledge and an intellectual level of thinking that most of the educated urban apartment clan people never reach in life. It was amazing to see how much life teached a person . He has a whole lot of things bugging him in his life but he never utters a word about it , seemed as calm and cool as fedrer on grass court and at 68 was ready to match steps to step with me . We rested quite a number of times on the way at tea-stalls which gave some refreshing tea to the travellers so that they feel rejuvenated to pursue their path and get an assessment of the task that lied ahead . at times in our path we found a few dogs that were walking in front of us as if guiding us to the path we were to travel . these dogs are said to be blessed by bhomi baba and thus guide us on way . as we moved further ahead towards the completion of the first 9 mile of the trilogy the tea were replaced by lemon juice that we had to avoid dehydration . It was after finishing the first part of the journey that we found a lemonade stall . after resting there for around 15 minutes we moved ahead and found there were a few choices to make . there were three directions in which we could move . One lead to the shikarji , along the way there were subsequent small temples that were home to the footprints of various tirthankars that had meditated at the place . on the other side we had a way leading to parasnath through a path that took us to another peak of the mountain . and also there was a way leading down towards Jal-mandir . It was a temple in middle of a water shed . IT was being renovated . We found other members of our clan and proceeded towards the steep declining slope and it was then that i realized that moving down a slope can be more strenuous than moving up . but it was fun as I could just run the whole way , of course at times it was becoming difficult to control the speed . if i could run at that speed on flat ground i would become the fastest sprinter in the world . Anyways it was a very pretty site the temple , and we spenmt some time there after all the effort that we had put in to climb down and were to put in while climbing up . after that we came back to what i would call the choice-making-crossing . At this point we made an assessment that how much could we walk . We decided to give a skip to the main temple which was 9 miles away . We decided to move around the place visiting the footmarks of the tirthankars . We just kept moving and moving , quite aimlessly , moving up and down , right and left , up the slope and down the slope , even reaching places wher we feared being lost with no one to be seen . But fortunately as soon as we felt like this we found someone around the corner . At one point we were moving through a curved path that pretty much defined the shape of the mountain . It was such a great feeling to look at the scenery there . I wished there that i could fly . I felt like jumping of that place and glide through the air and have a feel of the oneness of the sky , the greens and the earth ( but i thought my life would give me more pleasure than that in years to come :grin: ). We were at par with the clouds and as we felt them approach us we felt how even nothingness gives us a sense of being. a whole cloud could pass through us without us realizing that . It does give a feeling of dampness , but really it is nowhere near something that can flood a whole city ( as it does every monsoon ) . The weather was a respite from the harsh sun that beated down on us the whole day . Then all of a sudden we found that in a matter of 15 minutes we were near the stairs leading to the temple that we once felt was at the peak of another mountain . We had certainly taken a detour without realizing it . Reaching to the top we found my friend and his cousin already out there . It was unspoken but decided that it was our last stop on the mountain and spend quite some time out there . then we started moving down . we went to a food stall had some palak pakodas there which hardly had any palak in it . but it was nice to have something hot in that ambiance . then we started the decline , visiting the daak-banglaa along the way . the decline as i had a brief experience earlier was pretty strenuous . though we were moving much quickly but still it puts a lot of strain on the ankles and knees . and this led to me repeatedly cursing my friend who didn't tell me about this or else i would have carried my sneakers along . Also I was wearing a cotton trousers which i didn't want to get spoiled . I would have loved to rough up my jeans out here . Alas ... . unlike the ascent , we just sat once while coming down . also as i was with my friend and his cousin I could take the liberty of taking the shortcuts that were a roughed up way that one could take to avoid a long curve of the concrete path . It took us quite a while to get down . when we were told that we had another 6 miles to go from the place where we rested , we weer kinda shocked . We kept meeting people of our clan ( or our group) and started moving along . We expected the journey down the mountain to be easier and shorter so it was really frustrating to keep walking and that is when most of us felt demoralized and started feeling tired . the spirit with which we started was diminishing . a thought popped up in my mind that may be it is true that all our feeling are after all dependent on our state of mind . Once again I stopped with the elderly uncle as I saw he was finding it difficult to walk down the slope . We took a considerable amount of time to complete what i would call the last leg of the journey . I bought a pain-relief ointment from a chemist and moved towards the dharamshala . Well we thought that it was finally over . Now all we had to do was catch the train that we had booked at the dharamshala. Well little did we know what was to follow . ( too much to be stuffed in one post )To be continued......

day 3

After a brief discussion it was decided that we would depart from rajgiri early in the morning to reach our last stop viz. shikharji . shikharji is a temple situated over a mountain . to visit that place one has to start from the foot before sunrise . so even though we would reach shikharji today we cant do the climbing today . but anyways not much of a thought was given and we departed as early as we could from the place . when we were out of rajgiri i got some details from my friend . (actually i was not able to follow the discussions that took place last evening , first of all i dont understand their language completely and secondly i was feeling sleepy .) . he said that our destination is just about 4 hours away and we have to stay there the whole day and start the climbing the next day . also there is no place to hangout nearby . so staying put in a room with so many people who will again dose off to sleep was a really boring prospect . so i thought really hard and viola came out an answer . i suggested an idea of visiting gaya and bodh-gaya in the way. he gave some more weight age and some how propagated the idea through the group and then the driver was asked to proceed towards gaya . we went though village filled with logged water and reached the temple of gaya where prayers are offered to our ancestors . of course we didn't have much to do there , so we just went through the temple and came out , took some refreshments (lassi , buttermilk, juice etc. and packed some for the trip ahead ) . then from there we headed towards bodhgaya . it had a few really beautiful Buddhist temples . the premises of the temple were beautifully maintained . one sign that i will never forget is one that said : " this is the land where such great humans (who marked the beginning of Buddhism ) walked , and we should be proud that we are born here . so be proud and say we are bihari " . I would have loved to describe the beauty of these structures but find myself short of words to do so . all i can say is that the structures and interiors were simple yet elegant and still majestic . we didn't find any cheap hotel around the place and didn't want to move back towards that waterlogged village so we bought ourselves a dozen mangoes and a pack of sliced bread . then we hit the highway and found a tree large enough to provide shelter to us all . then we sat down under it and had mangoes with bread slices. it was an experience that i enjoyed quite a lot . actually i could never image doing that . but it certainly was a memorable experience. we moved along a decent enough highway with two broad lanes . however our journey was halted by truck that had skidded away from the road and was being pulled out by a crane . it was some sight . at times it was hard to conclude whether the crane was pulling the truck or the truck was pulling the crane . anyways the wait was not too long . once we got way , we sped along the highway . after traveling for around an hour we entered jharkhand . how we came to know about it ?? well the answer is simple that we moved back to the zigzag highway where the vehicles were moving in both the directions though the same lane , changing lanes every couple of miles. anyways it was a long distance to shikharji and we reached the place at around 5 pm . there again we had a dharamshala ( this one being really big , as this pilgrimage means a lot to those following jaininsm ) . we unloaded ourselves in the rooms and rested for a while and then off we went to have a look at the market settled at the sides of the road that slanted considerably . then we went back to our rooms and prepared for a small nap , as we had to get up by 2 in the morning and get ready for climbing the mountain and visit the temple .

day 2

it was a really still night . there was no wind blowing but the was lightening in the clouds(which seemed to have mysteriously arrived , as there was none in the day when the sun was beating on us) . me and my friend could no longer bear it when there was power cut-off and went to venture out in this sleepless night just to stop the mosquitoes from sucking out all the blood from our body. we came out of the room to see that the light near the temple at the other end of the courtyard of the dharamshala was on and just kept moving towards the huge structure (possibly made out of red stone) . around the temple were old buildings with many rooms ( maybe these were in use before the new building was constructed) and could have been used in case too many people came to the place ( though looking at their condition it seemed a doubtful proposition) . there was some renovation work going on there evident from the fact that there were these bamboos , cement , ropes , other construction tools which were visible courtesy a solitary dim bulb that hung in front of a building (from where it was drawing the tension i couldn't see) . well the place did seem a little spooky but we decided to give a round . i don't know but at that point of time as we went around the temple i did think that i was hearing some sounds , but i ignored it considering them to my hallucinations . however we were not at ease and that was evident from the speed at which we completed our trip around the temple .
then as we completed the round we were back to the world of light in front of the temple . there we saw a well , yeah a well . we having spent the whole life in the city had never had the experience of drawing water out of the well so the bucket tied with the rope gave us the temptation to try our hand at it . so we picked the bucket and plunged it into the well . as we did so , we heard a spine chilling shriek , and for a moment our heart sank . then we saw that it was cat near the well , and started to breath normally again. the bucket hit the water and we excitedly pulled out the bucket . it did seem heavy so expected to complete the mission of drawing water and get away from the place . when the bucket came out it was not even 1/10th filled with water . then we thought of giving it another try and again the outcome was a little more than 1/8th of the bucket . then i told my friend that there ain't seems to be enough water in the well . just then a heavy voice from the behind says that there is water in the well . we look back even though we didn't want to move even our nails . we see a lumpish man in white dhoti-kurta , eyes red , a torch in hand , cheeks falling down like that of a bulldog and huge mustache turning upwards at the end, as sharp as a needle . he went on further saying that it was the wrong way in which we were putting in the bucket that resulted in so less water coming out . he asked us to tilt the bucket and throw it in with some force . we did it and this time around we knew that the bucket was filled because it was so heavy that we had to pull it out together . he walked along saying that city boys need to tone their body . point well taken , we pulled out the bucket . he went along with the torch in the dark shouting something maybe to show that he was awake and got some response from other watchmen who were awake . then we used the water we pulled out to wash our hands, face and legs . when we were done then the man come back and starts chatting tells that he is the head watchman out there . then he inquires about us where we were from and where we were heading and all that stuff . when we fell at ease then suddenly my friend out of nowhere asked him that the place looks so spooky , doesn't he feel so . then he gave a laugh and we knew that it was not a good question to ask . and gave a glaring stare to my friend who just kept looking down . anyhow the watchman kept continuing and we didn't even realize when he started an account of some incident that had witnessed . he started saying some weird things that had happened which did seem to us could only have been the brainchild of some mischievous spirit. then he said that we accompany him to the place behind the temple we he had observed something strange . we were out of our minds or what . we refused the proposal , hearing which he started laughing . the somehow made us agree to accompany him . he started moving towards the back of the temple , we sensing the opportunity just ran away from the place and moved towards the room at some pace. when we crossed the courtyard we heard the man laughing and going back to make his rounds. of course we didn't have any further sleep instead we were the alarm that day waking every one up in the morning at 5 am . well the place that was silent a couple of minutes ago was now hushing-bushing with everyone just telling the others to hurry . then we had a breakfast of tea and some snacks that we were carrying . after it was done we headed towards or vehicle to find that we were not allowed to take our vehicle(such as car , suv s, buses etc. ) to the temples we were to visit . so we were forced to hire a couple of auto-rickshaws which looked as if they could be instantly be dismantled . we had no option so we haired a couple of them and hit the road . it was some road . i would preferably call it a road that can be used to test the toughness of a vehicle . all the way long the rickshaw rocked like a cradle . we reached a temple shining in the whole of whiteness . the temple i wasunderstood was called samosaran as it is the place where the lord mahavira sat down and gave preaching to a gathering of all the creatures in the world as well as the lords from the heaven . It was made up of marble and round in shape . inside sat lord mahavira and around him was engraved in three different levels the lords from heaven , the creatures that moved on the earth and the creatures who flew . also at the ground level were small ponds which signified the presence of water creatures at the gathering . then the holy man showed us a well and said that the water from the well used to be used in ancient times for lighting up lamps (instead of the conventionally used oil) . we came out of the place and moved towards the auto that was waiting for us for taking us to our next stop which was jal-mandir (water-temple) . this was a temple in the middle of a large square shaped pond . the story so goes that when lord Mahavira died then he was cremated in this place then the ashes spread over such a long area that when the ashes were picked up it dug up such a big hole that it became such a big pond . and a temple in erected right in the middle of the pond as a remembrance of the place where he was cremated . in near vicinity were a couple of temples whose significance i am not aware of. but at least after having been to these couple of temples , i got some idea of the life of lord Mahavira and why he is worshiped . now we left the place and we had our bolero waiting for us to get loaded and move towards the Raj-giri . in between we were to stop at a place called kundulpur . it is the place where lord Mahavira is supposed to be born . there is huge temple built there with an idol around 10 feet tall made out of possibly green granite . out there was a building which had the idols of the 24 tirthankars of three periods i.e. the past , the present and the future . it was here that i came to know more about the lord who is worshiped . lord Mahavira was the last of the tirthankars of the past and it was him who through a tedious life tried to spread the message of Jainism to the people and it is due to his influence on the people and his selfless life devoted to the cause of preaching Jainism that makes him a lord to be worshiped .from here we moved towards Rajgiri . in between came a place that has always fascinated me . Nalanda Vishwavidlaya . i know i will regret the fact that i couldn't watch the place because we didn't have time . well after a drive of about an hour we reached rajgiri . it was basically a place at the bottom of a couple of hills . at the top of these hills are a couple of jain temples . we reached the place at around 11.30 and even here we got a dharamshala to live in . here i figured out that there are two class of worshipers in Jainism . one is shvetanber and the other is dwigamber . shvetamber worship the lord by making him wear clothes where as dwigamber believe that lord moved around without clothes and thus should be worshiped without them . both these cults have their separate dharamshalas at every place and thus the people of the respective section of worshipers enjoy the services of the respective dharamshalas . now by the time we reached rajgiri we were late for climbing the mountains to go to the jain temples . so we hired horse carriages which took us to the different places worth visit . the rider of the carriage told us that there were many historical monuments here but most were destroyed in an earthquake that hit the place in 1966 . anyways we were taken to the japanese temple on the top of a hill . to reach we were to get up on a rope way taking 7 1/2 minutes or walk at goo pace on the stairs to reach in about 45 minutes . we opted for the rope way and there was no reason to regret . it was a nice ride up the hill at a very easy pace . another 5 minutes walk and we noticed what was termed as Japaneses temple was basically a shanti stupa and beside it was a Buddhist temple . we spent quite some time out there taking some photographs of the picturesque scenery that was on offer . then was the time to come down again enjoying the services of the rope way . after coming down we took the carriage ride to a well that has hot water in it . people worship and do all sorts of thing there . i went there and washed my hand and face there and yeah it was quite a refreshing experience to splash naturally hot water on your face . anyways next we went to a place called veerayatan . it is locally known as a museum . i was surprised at the thought of visiting a historical museum at such a place . anyways we got our tickets and went inside to find that it basically depicted various incidences of lord Mahavira life through beautiful depictions using dolls and clays structures and various other things that completed the scenes and at the bottom a plate describing the scene . it was beautiful and very tedious done making the descriptions both detailed and beautiful to look at. it very beautifully conveyed the messages that lord mahavira had spread amongst the masses during his life time . it certainly was a place i would like to visit again and again . i rue the fact that i didn't pick up a CD which claimed to have all the illustrations along with a running commentary . anyways out of that place we were then escorted by the carriage to a Buddhist temple . it was huge and it had some thing special about it . it was one of the most peaceful place i had ever been to . we came out and headed straight to the dharamshala . it was already a long day . then i and my friend decided to move around the market . it was not much of a market , just a couple of stalls chats and boiled eggs . and the rest was some fruits and vegetables . but the hustle bustle around the place made it look like a very busy market . what i and my friend were looking for was something called taadi . it is a juice of some fruit that is fetched from long trees which were in plenty out there . anyways there is an interesting story around it which i shall disclose later . anyways there was not much adventure left in that day . we just went to the dharamshala rested a little and came out at around 8 and went to restaurant and had our dinner . went back and slept. i must say that these people were not that much of chatters . i mean whenever we were not traveling they all dosed off to sleep instead of having fun and chatting around . well i am a complainer and i would have complained even if they talked because it is a strange feeling of sitting in midst of a bunch of people who are speaking a language that you don't understand . whatever we got ourselves mortien coil for the night so that we were not troubled by the mosquitoes again . and then went into the dreamland till the next morning .

a trip to ...

I wake up at 4 in the morning .(generally i wake up a couple of hours later) I got a train to catch . Yeah my eyes are sleepy because i slept late , as i was not sure if I would be leaving till late in the evening . At around 9 my friend had confirmed . so it was then that i started packing my bag (trying to make it minimalistic so that we don't have to carry the burden through out . anyways back to the morning , i was ready to leave for the trip with people i had never met and to place i had never heard . i get out of the house with a small bag containing my wardrobe and necessities for the days to come (how many i am not sure) . now out on the roads at quarter past five , the roads are as empty i had ever seen . Am i going to get a bus here?? As if the almighty told my sixth sense that the answer is no . So i will be making a luxurious start to my trip driving all the way to railway station in a taxi and handing over a hari patti . anything to reach the station in time and join the troupe . well one thing nice about traveling in the morning is that you get to see Kolkata like you want to see it during the day while standing and sweating profusely in a bus hold up in a traffic jam. So finally i reach the station about around 6 in the morning . The train black diamond express,will leave at 6.20 . so need to find them fast . well I pace down the platform in a sort of wild goose chase . don't know anyone except my friend and how am i supposed to know the other people as they are the relatives of my friend who arrived from Gujarat a couple of days ago, it was then the first time my friend had met them . Since it was group of 10 so it was easy to spot . on meeting them it came to my knowledge that the tickets we had were not confirmed . So for the first time(there are many firsts waiting to happen in this trip) i got into the general compartment of a train to reserve the seats for this BIG group of ours. though i have traveled in general compartment but then we being young don't quite care about getting a seat . since there were a couple of elderly people and a whole lots of luggage (i was asked to bring less luggage and now i understood why cause they already had 4 suitcase and a couple of handbags but thankfully they were not very heavy) . We managed to get 6 seats so there was a decent level of comfort . it was a passenger train so only seats and no berths me and my friend were roaming around the train just so that we don't get bored . anyways one good news that came to me was that we had to spend 5 hours in the train . another piece of information was that we were to get down at dhanbad . once a couple of hours passed the rush kept shedding and after we crossed Burdwan , there was enough space for all of us to sit comfortably and a couple of stoppages the compartments were so empty that everyone could sleep if they wanted to . anyways finally dhanbad arrives. We got down at the station and were greeted by someone I don't know who (actually i figured out that i might not know many things on this trip cause these people were from interiors of Gujarat and thus spoke the language spoken in kutch district , so even though i understand Gujarati it was difficult to follow what they were saying.) . He escorted us to the vehicle that was to carry us through the trip . we were 10 people with a 10 years old child and to our utter shock we were to travel in a bolero . well though there were a couple of girls nearing anorexia but still it was too small a car for a group of 10 1/2 . anyways we just hopped on somehow (i cant explain how but it was so stuffy it seemed we were trying to establish a record for most people that can be accommodated in that car . ) anyways our first stop was not far off where we were to have our lunch . so we got down and had what could be called proper Gujarati food (more sweet less spice) . then we moved back to the car and tried to figure out how we can adjust within the car as we had to travel in it for the next 3 days (at least as per the plan at that point of time ) . so things were sorted out and we moved ahead towards a place called pawa puri . the place was supposed pretty far off as we were scheduled to reach that place around 7.30 even though we left dhanbad around 1 pm . but what was in the future was still to be seen . after a couple of hours of bumping my head sitting on the roof of the back seat on the so called highways of jharkand . we stopped at a place for refreshment s and then got to sit in the front seat . i had a feeling that we were traveling in the wring lane while in the back seat . but when i came to the front seat i came to know the way the vehicles move on the highways there . where the other states repair their highways once a year there is jharkhand and bihar who dont have a highways as of yet . even though the work has been in progress for almost a decade the work is not complete .there are two broad lanes alright but seldom do they operate together . mostly the vehicles of both directions share the same lane. The other lane seems almost complete but may be is not opened so that the project never ends . I need not be a rocket scientist to understand why the project is kept pending over a long period of time . after all everyone knows how politicians are in these states . anyways the worst thing was that whatever road we had was really bumpy . moreover our driver was the eight wonder of the world , who didn't understand why speed breakers are made . it seemed that they made him go even faster . well it had to take the toll on the car and finally near dusk we had a flat tyre and that brat went off to the nearby garage to get the tyre repaired and the job of changing the tyre was left to us . (i mean i never seen a driver like him and never wish to see anyone like him future either) . well the royal highness came back from the so called garage with the news that we have to travel some distance without a spare tyre as it couldn't be fixed at these small settlements near the highway. and oh yeah on more thing that brat took the keys so we were changing the tyres in the dark without the indicators on , with the bypassing trucks not missing us by much of a distance . well as we proceeded further we come to know something that was going to bother us for the next couple of days. the driver didnt even know the route to the places we were going . well somehow we managed to reach the place after having asked the route to many a people . the curious thing was how these people estimated the distance or what a mile or kilometer meant to them . i mean we ask this guy about how much further we need to go , he say about 27 km . then we move about a couple of KM ahead and we ask someone how far it is and he say 45 km . I mean how is that possible . well as we figured out it was basically a range it was at least 27 km and at most 45km . with all this quizzing around it took us a hell lot of time to reach pawa puri . finally one thing that was good was that there was a huge dharamshala of Jainism followers there and these people i was accompanying were jains . so we got easy lodging and came to believe that finally we get some comfort . well the wish was short lived not cause it came true but because it went to the trash bin , when we found that we wont get any food at that time of the day , 9 pm . so we had to order the chaiwallah for a dozen cup of tea to drink with the thepalaas they had brought for an emergency like this . well as we dosed of in the night we came to realise that life can cruel some times . this time around this message was delivered to us by the fearsome messenger of nature , mosquitoes . wow there was some population of them out there . we had too wake up early in the morning but i don't think we needed to worry about that as we were not gonna get any sleep at the first place . well what a first day to the trip . well lets see what was to come as we wake up on 17th may 2007, the 2nd day of our trip .