ORISSA AND CALCUTTA
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Bombay-Bhubaneswar-Puri
Namaste from Puri in the state of Orissa!
As is to be expected, I did not sleep much as I have a trip tomorrow. Stayed awake until about 2.00 am—so decided to get up and write! Another blog post in the bag later, it was 3.00 am. I set the alarm for 6.00 and hoped for at least 3 hours of sleep. I was gratified. At 6.00 am, when I could have easily slept much longer, I had to awake, strip my bed linen, take a shower, strip my bath linens, do last-minute packing, eat my breakfast of muesli (no time for coffee) and left for Dad’s. I left my laundry at his and said goodbye to him and Russel before leaving and going back home. I found a rickshaw on the street outside and hailed him, took him to my flat, picked up my stroller and backpack and raced downstairs. He took me to the domestic airport at Santa Cruz in time for my 10.25 am flight by Indigo Airlines to Bhubaneswar—where it just happened to be the last day of the Hockey World Cup Tournaments.
It was a pleasant flight—right on time. I did not even have to empty my bottle of water when I went through Security. There was no food served on board but it was available for sale and I picked up a Cup of Ramen Noodles in Paneer Makhani flavor which was actually not too bad for an airline meal! At Bhubaneswar airport, there was a lovely example of sand art (for which the state is famed) that featured a massive hockey stick and ball and the trophy. I started the naughty trend of everyone leaving their bags on the conveyor belt and taking pictures of the tableau!
I found a pre-paid taxi service by merely asking the IndiGo Ground crew if there was such a thing. They directed me to the right man who filled out the bill for me for Rs. 300. Next door was the Orissa Tourism Corporation and I managed to pick up a few maps as well as colorful brochures of the many places we will be visiting—apart from the state’s capital Bhubaneswar, we will be at the beach resort of Puri where the famed Jaganath Temple is also located and then on to Lake Chilka, the Temple of Konark, Raghurajpur where a tribal village and tribal artisans are to be found, before we take a train and head to Calcutta in West Bengal.
In the cab, I was impressed by a wide road that led into the city that went past long stretches of a wall that was beautifully painted with depictions of flowers. It was stunning. My first impressions of the city was of a modern metropolis that is thriving and devoid of the horrid traffic ills of Bombay. I was at the hotel of my friend Nafisa and her husband Hosefa in ten minutes. The Royale Midtown Hotel is very centrally located and I reached there by 1.15 pm. They had just finished lunch of delicious biryani and were ready to roll. One call to a pre-arranged taxi and they were checking out of the hotel (where they had spent the night having arrived in Bhubaneswar yesterday) and we were on our way to Puri which we would make our base for the next four nights.
The drive to Puri from Bhubaneswar was lovely—we were in the heart of rural India and it looks sufficiently rustic without revealing any overt signs of malignant poverty. The fields are still green following the end of our recent monsoons, the road was superb (a lovely highway that was devoid of pot holes or manic traffic) and the area was studded with villages that were actually quite prosperous to look at. There were many large posters of the current Chief Minister of Orissa, Nareen Patnaik, everywhere. I asked my cab driver is he is the son of the former Chief Minister, Birju Patnaik, and he said he was! The two look very similar! Seems he is doing a good job keeping his state in fine fettle.
Once reunited with my friends, we got into a cab and drove towards Puri. Nafisa asked the driver to make one stop en route—to the Buddhist house of worship called the Shanti Stupa at a place called Dauli. We could see the top of the stupa from a long distance.
The Shanti Stupa at Dauli:
The Shanti Stupa at Dauli is a lovely snow-white structure that follows the traditional architectural design of the Indian stupa. It was built in 1972 by the Japanese Nippon School of Buddhism and it is they who maintain it and keep it looking pristine. Hordes of Indian tourists were at the site, having arrived in tour buses. Many seemed to be from the neighboring state of West Bengal and were of lower income classes. As I do all over the world, I keenly observed the clothing of the women. No shalwar khameezes here—all the women were in sarees of a very colorful variety. However, they do not seem to have much color sense—there is no color coordination of any kind. It’s like a slap on, dash on kind of game is played with their wardrobes and they pick a bunch of things together and throw them on. At this time of year, when the weather is cooler, they are all enrobed in shawls over their sarees. I found the weather very pleasant indeed with no need for a wrap or jacket at 2.30 pm. There was also an overcast sky today so while we got good pictures without any shadows to spoil them, it was a tad too cool for Indian tourists but perfect for me.
The stupa involves the climbing of a low hill and then the climbing of several steps to get to the top. It also involves the removal of footwear before one ascends the steps. We did as required. Hosefa watched hawkishly over our footwear to make sure it was still there upon our return as footwear is known to disappear when one is at a religious site in India. We circumnavigated the circular structure at the top which is punctuated by four huge statues of the Buddha—two seated, one standing and one reclining. There are several sculpted scenes in bas-relief of the life of the Buddha all around the structure.
At the top, the stupa looks upon vast sprawling plains. These are significant because somewhere out there is the battle field of Kalinga on which the Emperor Ashoka (one of India’s greatest ancient rulers) caused so much death and destruction that on surveying his handiwork the next morning, he instantly became a pacifist and embraced Buddhism. He vowed never to wage war again and his gesture is a very important one in ancient Indian history as it marked the nod that the people needed to embrace Buddhism themselves. In other words, the spread and propagation of Buddhism got an enormous boost under Ashoka—rather like Christianity got a huge boost when the Roman Emperor Constantine embraced it and converted to Christianity after his mother Helena became a Christian—this was somewhere in 300 AD and it ended the persecution of the Christians in the Roman Empire and allowed them to profess their religion publicly for the first time. This is why the stupa was built on this site and why it is called the Shanti (Peace) stupa. I was so delighted to recall my own grade schools lessons in Ancient Indian History as I stood on this site.
Nafisa and I then switched places with Hosefa who also took a look around upstairs before we got back to our waiting cab. About an hour later, we had arrived at Puri. Both Nafisa and I nodded off for a 20-minute nap in the cab and arrived nicely refreshed at our hotel—the Hotel Holiday Resort that faces the Bay of Bengal. Check in was quite swift and safely housed in a lovely hotel with a large and very comfortable room, the bell hop showed me how to switch on the TV, etc. Nafisa and Hosefa had the room next door. I unpacked, made myself a cup of tea (I always carry my own decaf products when I am traveling) and ate a couple of granola bars.
Exploring Puri:
About a half hour later, we were ready to get out again and found that our beach front hotel opens up directly on the water. Puri is known for its wide sand beach but there is not a single man made or natural structure on it—the sun must be quite merciless in the summer. We walked towards the lights of Golden Beach in the distance and then came upon a break that prevented us from going further unless we wanted to wade for a short way. We turned back and walked towards our hotel and out of it. On the main road, we started walking towards what is called Golden Beach—a good ten minute rickshaw ride from our hotel—and so we hailed one. It is interesting to note that it is only in Bombay that cabs and rickshaws ply by meter. Here you pay whatever the driver asks—and this involves bargaining! Anyway, we got one for Rs. 50 and in ten minutes, we were in the area where all the action is to be found.
Golden Beach was teeming with tourists—both the waves and the waterfront that has a broad promenade running alongside it. The main drag is filled with nice hotels, restaurants like Indian Kamats (part of a popular South Indian food chain), and a whole lot of shacks that sell fresh fish and sea food from the morning’s catch. The thing to do, I was told, by my companions, is to select one’s fish or shellfish and watch it being cooked right in front of our eyes. I have to ay that I was a bit squeamish about eating food on the road side from a shack where the bucket of water in which the fish was being cleaned looked none too clean to me. When I voiced my concerns, the fishmonger-cum-chef heard and understood what I said and immediately ordered his help to switch buckets and bring a fresh clean bucket of water! I felt quite gratified at his attempts to reassure me and I agreed to split an order of freshly caught tiger prawns—that were the size of small langoustines actually. We selected six (Rs. 200) and watched as they were chopped, cleaned and carefully deveined. They were then marinated in a spice mixture with a lot of turmeric, salt, white pepper and a bit of chili power and thrown into a wok where they were stir fried at high speed and then plated and served to us with an accompanying mustard sauce. I have to tell you that all my fears dissipated as they were simply superb. Maybe among the best shrimp (called prawns here) that I have ever eaten.
We then decided to have dinner in this fashion—moving from one stall to the next picking up little morsels and making a meal of them. Hence, a little later, when we spied a stall that was named Kolkata Rolls, I thought they were serving Kathi Rolls (made famous by Nizam’s of Calcutta) and decided to check them out. We discovered inside that they were not kathi rolls but sort of Frankie’s—except that there was no mutton: there was paneer and chicken. We chose two rolls and divided them and they were also delicious if a tad too greasy for our liking. Already feeling full with these offerings, we turned our steps back and made our way to a Momo stall where we chose steamed Mushroom Momos and fried Chicken Schezwan Momos—all simply terrific. At every stop, we were lucky enough to find seats where we could park ourselves and really enjoy these gastronomic delights. They made the best possible dinner. All that ways left was for us to get dessert--and this we found at a Wall’s Ice-Cream cart where we picked up chocolate Magnum popsicles and ate them with childish thrills.
It was not long before we found a rickshaw to take us back to our hotel where I spent a little while checking Twitter, calling my Dad to tell him all was well with us (he was in the throes of the last shoot out of the finals game and had no time for me) and then I was changing and preparing for bed after what had been a very nice introduction to a short touring jaunt.
Until tomorrow...
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