back from kalinga...

I visited Orissa last weekend. Landed in Bhubneshwar on Friday night and a lush green land overcast by dark clouds welcomed me to its seemingly never ending monsoon showers. Landing was bumpy (in words of the captain of DN677 flight) and clouds were so heavy that I could not see where to the plane was declining until just a few meters above ground I saw the runway of Biju Patnaik airport. Approaching dusk complimented the darkness of clouds and it was love at first sight with the weather and greenery. I slept away the night, letting rain drops beat the asbestos off the narrow and poorly built roads of the city.

Though the rain was intimidating my travel plans, still early next morning, I started off for the Sun Temple at Konark. It was an hour journey from Bhubneshwar to the famous world heritage sight that could have given the Taj Mahal a tough competition for being seventh wonder of the world had the weather and time not wore it off its beauty and grandeur. Temple was built under the regime of Ganga Dynasty king Narsimha somewhere around 1200 AD devoted to the Sun god. One thing I inferred from the temple’s architecture was that, sex-wise our ancestors were very wise. The 800 years old erotic architecture on temple walls gives a healthy impression of the lavish life the king lived.

I was also awed to imagine that how emperors worked (or made others work) so hard towards preserving their lives in form of temples etc for the future could remember them. How there has been little change in the fundamentals of life since the beginning. How today, even though the life is running on wheels still the direction is missing and every path leads to infinity from everywhere.

I tried to gather some new experiences too. For instance, I smoked the local Oriya Beedi, tobacco wrapped around some leaf! People eat lot of ‘paan’ in Orissa. So to have a local feel I ate lot of ‘paan’ including one with beetle leaves! God bless my lungs and throat. The calcium carbonate (choona) has blistered my tongue!

After appreciating the grandeur of Konark, I headed towards one of the most important religious places of Hindus – Jagannath Puri. Considered to be the only living god on earth who savors ‘somarasa’ (the heavenly drink) everyday - the lord Jagannath (lord of the world) is very famous for granting liberation to His sincere devotees. But visiting the temple didn’t quite work out for me. Before meeting the lord, his official peons (informally called ‘pandas’) met me outside the gate and liberation was postponed there and then. After getting stained with ‘choona’ of 80 rupees, somehow I escaped from that place littered with money-thirsty crows. I don’t know, once I had been to this Baina beach in Goa (red light area), but there wasn’t much difference in the way I felt after coming out of Baina beach and Lord Jagannath temple - I was happy that I escaped, I was guilty that why the hell did I go there…! I had gone to the temple to clean my sins, but it felt as if I have sinned by going there! This temple visit became another tale of frustration for the attitude of Indian Hindus towards religion and God. Anyhow! Towards the end of the day it was time for India-Australia semi finals at ‘pantha nivas’ hotel near Puri beach and happily – India came out in flying colors.

It rained heavily in the night and next morning the wind was cyclonic! The plan was to visit the biggest brackish water lagoon of India – the Chilka Lake! I reached Satapada – the place from where one can see the awesome lake in its full grandeur. But unfortunately due to last night’s rains and heavy wind the Bay of Begal had flooded into the lake and nobody was ready to go in with their boats. Disappointed, I started back to Bhubneshawar. But on the way back I discovered a place called ‘barakudi’ (a small village some 5 kms away from the main road) where I met a nice Hindi speaking villager who instantly agreed to take me into the lake on his wooden boat. Price was fixed and I was on my way into the wild lake. The waves were hitting the boat furiously and after speeding in for around 45 minutes when I could no longer stand the anger of the waves, I asked the fellow (named Duryodhan) to take me back! From Duryodhan I came to know that ‘Barakudi’ is worth a visit in winter months when around 200 species of migratory birds from all around the world fill the lake which is at that time calm and has flushed all the flooded water into the sea.

After that adventurous boat ride, I headed back to Bhubneshwar. On the way back there was this place called ‘Dhauligiri’ – where around 2300 years ago the Great Ashoka lay down the weapons of violence and embraced Buddhism after the bloodshed of Kalinga war. This was the most amazing and inspiring place on this visit. Indian government built a ‘pagoda’ on this hill in 1972 with Orissa’s trademark tigers-statue guarding its gates. The pagoda has four idols of Buddha in four different postures. (Beware! You may find some ‘pandas’ here also. Don’t encourage them. Just ask them to f**k off…) The weather was complementing the moment of greatness. Dark clouds, lush green fields and muddy ‘daya’ river… One can understand what made Ashoka leave violence and embrace Buddhism. I saw the rock on which Ashoka wrote his edicts in ‘brahmi’ script and the elephant mouth he carved symbolizing the Buddha in one of his forms (Gajattame) where he was conceived by his mother in her womb in elephant form.

I didn’t feel like leaving the place, but it was getting dark and it was about to rain so I headed back to the city. On the way I thought of visiting the ‘Linga Raj’ temple but before I could step out of the car, the God’s crows surrounded the vehicle and I had to postpone the liberation once again indefinitely. Feelings remained unchanged as described before.

I had a couple of hours to spare before ending the day, so I thought of exploring the city malls. One thing is pretty clear, once you are into the cities and into the shopping malls, there is hardly any difference in any state or country except the language at a few places. Maximum of the times it is the remote outskirts of the thriving cities that give any place its unique identity!

On my way back to Hyderabad next morning, when I was reading the free magazine of Air Deccan flights, I realized I missed the Nandan Kanan wild life sanctuary which is just 18 kms away from Bhubneshwar. On that sad note, I am preparing with more research for my next trip…