The ‘Chandipur’ Travelogue

This post and maybe the subsequent post would be about my quick getaway to Chandipur, made famous by ISRO (our interim missile test range is there). This holiday came after almost 3 years and was a welcome break from the maddening work schedule. This was also the first time my wife and me got to travel with my office colleagues, since we had relocated to Kolkata. We were four families in all, Jishnu, his wife and two kids, Sumanto and Basetti along with their wives and daughters. We were 12 members in all and that, in my reckoning, is not a bad party size!

We left Kolkata (Howrah) early in the morning of 12 August by the Falaknama Express. We were enroute to Balasore, a small sleepy town in Orissa, from where Chandipur is a 30-minute drive. We had already booked our hotel accommodations before leaving Kolkata and saved ourselves the pain of hunting for suitable staying places! It was drizzling when we alighted at Balasore and with Jishnu not keeping well we had to pay the coolies literally through our noses to cart all the luggage that got shipped along with us. Jishnu took the cake when it came to luggage. He had managed to cart one large suitcase, two big side bags and two small bags. Basetti bagged the leanest traveler award with only one suitcase. The steady drizzle did not help matters since we had to haggle with the taxi drivers for a solid 20 minutes before we could arrive at the most ‘amicable’ price to drive us down to Chandipur.

The road connecting Balasore and Chandipur is fairly good, thanks to ISRO, and scenic. Feasted my eyes on the earthly rural view of farmers busy planting the ‘ravi’ crop. By the way saw a number of shrimp farms, for the first time in my life. Checking into the hotel was a breeze and in no time we were in our rooms sipping good hot tea. A quick shower and lunch (totally veg, since Sumanto had this weird idea that after so much of traveling we couldn’t stomach non-veg stuff) later we all plonked for a leisurely siesta. It had got somewhat dark by the time we got up. We decided to take it easy in the evening and walk up to the beach and hear the waves. Imagine our shock when we landed there and found that the sea was nowhere to be found and the vast expanse of the beach staring at us. We were terribly dejected, specially my wife since this was her maiden visit to a beach front. We decided to return in the morning.

Chandipur is a one-street town and I have rechristened the street as ‘Souvenir Street’. Expect for a string of souvenir shops selling sea shell based trinkets and marble carvings there is a rickety doctor’s clinic – walls pasted with posters of the human anatomy, a restaurant, a couple of cigarette shops and tea stalls. We walked up and down the ‘Souvenir Street’, got bored and landed up in the hotel for some drinks.

The guy who served us at the hotel enlightened us on the mystery of the ‘beach without the sea’. Chandipur is perhaps the only beach in the world where the sea resides upto 5 kms twice a day. We were advised to hit the beach at 9:30 – 10:00 am in the morning if we were to enjoy the sea!

The next day we dutifully landed up at the beach at around 10:30 and lo and behold the waves were lapping right upto the edge of the barren expanse that we had seen yesterday. We all eagerly jumped into the sea, me with my jeans et all. Had a splash of a lifetime and felt getting drowned by the waves a number of times.

More to come in the next post......

Successful Migration to Version 2.0

Have been able to successfully migrate to version 2.0 of my blog. This is the spanking new blog! The change over was seemless and extremely painless and I have been able to get all the third party functionality

Cheers to the google team for the new version of Blogger. It's just great. Keep up the good work guys.

The Lord must have wept....

Ustad Bismillah Khan saheb is no more. With his passing away we have lost a doyen of Indian Classical music. Ustad Bismillah Khan was single handedly responsible for giving the shehnai the pride of place it enjoys today. He brouught the instrument out from the marriage halls to the rarified heights of the classical music stage. A typical Banarasi – his language, courtesy, simplicity and straight forwardness were legendary. A story goes - narrated by Khan saheb himself - that a certain rich American gentleman once requested him to migrate to the US. To that Khan saheb remarked, "When I am out of the country (India), I see its image wherever I go and when I am in any city in India (Mumbai, Chennai etc) I see images of Benaras. Can you Sir replicate Benaras for me here, with the Ganges, Shivalas and temples. If you can't then I shall have to go back". A deeply religious man who read his namaz 5 times a day, irrespective of where he was, was once asked by Pandit Jasraj what he thought about missing his namaz when he was in the midst of a long recital, replied "Woh hi to asli namaz hai jo Allah kubool karte hai" i.e, "my music is the only prayer that is really accepted by the Lord". There are so many anecdotes about the man that I can't resist putting them down. Once at a musical function Pandit Jasraj was slotted to perform after Ustadji, to which he felt very guilty (in a typical classical music function the juniors are followed by the seniors and a hierarchy is maintained). When Panditji complained to Khan Saheb that the organisers had really goofed up (by scheduling him after the mestro), Khan Saheb told him, and I translate, " Beta (son), the organisers are God's own people and they follow the Lord's dictat (firman) and it is His wish that you perform after me, so why are you feeling bad! Just be yourself and sing".

Khan saheb also, sadly, stands testimony to the apathy we Indians can show to our truly legendary masters. Save for the last minute dash of a Rs. 2.5 lakhs cheque that the PM sent across, the great master lived in penury. At times I wonder if we, as a nation, deserve to have such stalwarts among us. What have we been able to give to such men? Had he been born in US or Europe he would have been able to live a much more comfortable life but then, on second thoughts, there is ‘life’ in India.

Lets us spend a few moments from our busy lives remembering the great master and wish for his blessings.