This turned out to be a less of a destination based trip, and more of a road trip. And yeah this time I
had a company - Couchsurfer Saurabh. My views might be biased here, as I
was travelling immediately after the day I got done with my week long exam schedule.
With less than three
hours of sleep, it’s only the enthusiasm to travel to a new place that can pull
me out of my bed. We started off early to avoid the peak hour traffic and, it
was a wise decision. We got to see the fields not through the window of
polluted gases but through the early sun rays, or, may be again, it might just
be the sheer joy of not going to the library and cursing my bad memory the
whole day.
As luck would have it,
we were taking the Chandanpur route and decided to take a halt at Raghurajpur. Saurabh
had not been to the place before and I absolutely had to show this place to
him. It was a quick visit, for about an hour. Saurabh seemed mesmerized by the
beauty and sheer serenity in the air.
(Experience of my first
visit to Raghurajpur -
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| The little Krishnas of Raghurajpur |
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| Ganesh Puja Preparations |
Now, the advice here is
to go with a bigger group of friends, because it’s not the per-head cost but
the boat ride cost.
The weather was better
than what I could have asked for. It seemed like the moment - “just before it
rains”, had been paused. However, I did miss that sweet scent which comes to
life when mother earth embraces the first raindrops - I was surrounded by only
water. Although the river Dolphins pretty much compensated for it!
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| Picture courtesy - Google |
There was an island
where a guy jumped into our boat and started showing with his artistic hands
the method of finding a pearl in the oysters. He would break the oysters to
find either nothing or a pearl. He claimed they were natural pearls, and what
we get in Hyderabad are cultured ones. Now the story was good till here, but he
went on to convince us that there were also precious stones like emerald and
ruby found the same way in oysters - sound echoing in my head - ‘Busted’!
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| Picture Courtesy - Google |
After around 4 hours of
boat ride, we reached an island where Chilika Lake meets the Bay of Bengal. The
place was full of red crabs, and the only business on the island seemed to be
of sea food. People flaunted their catch; I went on to see what they really had
in store. When one of them started hard selling, I told him with a smile - ‘I’m
a vegetarian!’ (Which in fact is true).
The determination to
make a sale was commendable; a man accompanying this shopkeeper started
persuading me to turn into a non vegetarian immediately. All I could really
think of at that moment was ‘PETA’. They took pride in their stock still being
alive, and I could not help pitying the little creatures.
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| Again from Google |
We had tea, some snacks
and headed back.
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| Travelling indeed is eternal bliss |
During the boat ride,
our helmsman told us how they are being exploited. The operator charges 1800
from the customers but all the helmsmen get is Rs. 135 and when there’s no
customer, Rs. 30 is all they get. He might have been lying to get an extra tip
but we still went on to do that coz if he was not, then he did deserve a lot
more than what he was already getting.
Although I do agree that
Tipping is not the solution, but like it’s ingrained in us, I chose the easier
path that gave instant satisfaction to our desire to help others in our quest
of making peace with life. Because, more often than not, we help others to help
ourselves. We derive happiness out of helping someone in whatever small way we
can. This happiness is what I call peace.
On our way back we went
to Puri lighthouse; enjoyed the bird’s eye view of the city;
discussed my B-Plan at length, and my other dreams. In short, all the things
that occur to you when you’re not studying aimlessly, they come to you when
you’re at peace; at peace with yourself and the world around.
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| The top of lighthouse |
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| City View from up there |
We headed back,
determined not to take anymore halts as it was already pretty late. I could not
help criticizing the bad roads with no street lights. We managed to reach my
college alive. I Gave Saurabh a quick tour of my college. He appreciated the
green, the crowd - actually he appreciated everything. This helped me like my
college a little more than I already do.
