FINALLY BAKRESHWAR

i have heard of the hot water springs of bakreshwar since my chilhood. my mom always wanted to take me there on a trip. yet, somehow we never manged to visit the place. turns out that it was a good thing too as this time it was an unforgettable experience, the kind you get to read in books and dream of experiencing someday. even as this world is getting steadily mechanised, men are searching for new avenues to reach the solitude that lies in their hearts. the only places where that is still possible seems to be some remote corner of the earth, far away from the maddening crowd and the incessant hum of civilisation. i had no idea that bakreshwar had such a treat in store for me. the place has made me realise, in a whole new way, how beautiful rural bengal is. God bless the people and and the land.

since the decision to visit bakreshwar was only a last minute decision, there wasnt much chance to get any official accommodation. but me, i'm not one to give up so easily. i visited the SDO's office and got the number of the local PWD accommodation officer of Birbhum district from the SDO. bakreshwar and shantiniketan happen to be a part of the birbhum district. although the ploitical fault lines have appeared quite close to birbhum they havent penetrated the district as yet. the naxal menace isnt as apparent in birbhum as it is in neighbouring purulia. pulak babu, the accommodation officer was indeed a gracious gentleman who went out of his way to get me the inspection bungalow. we decided to travel from bakreshwar to shantiniketan daily. the only fallacy in my planning was that i had taken into account the distance from bakreshwar to shantiniketan, but not the standard of the village roads. what i had planned to be a hardly 1 hr long drive turned out to be a marathon 3 hr drive. travelling to and fro from bakreshwar to shantiniketan was impossible.

even as our car approached shantiniketan, the foliage started to get denser and the forest came steadily closer. temperature dropped and suddenly the cold wind had started to bare its fangs. the entry into shantiniketan was a rather tedious process encumbered by numerous police posts placed to ensure that no vehicle without the required clearance was allowed to enter. thanks however to my defence card, the car managed to unentangle itself from this complex mess and we crossed the shyambati canal and discovered my brother who was already in shantiniketan with his friends. once he was onboard we started off for bakreshwar. the road leading towards siuri from shantiniketan is more heavenly than my words can explain. the open roads, the red soil, the greenery all around, the barren slopes, rocky banks, gurgling streams, crystal clear ponds with white angel-like swans floating around, the clean air was like wine to the tired soul. it was all too much for my mumbai-starved heart and i kept jumping up in glee everytime something like a mustard field or a shady grove came across. the car sped along at too fast a speed i felt, too little time to drink in all this splendour. evry now and then we came across a bullock cart making its way slowly through the broken roads, or an impoverished village with mud huts.

today when we see a village we wonder how much improvement has actually taken place and proof that the government is actually at work. true and, yet, saddening. the development in the cities isn't the work of corporate houses alone. its the government that plans, builds roads, transport, public facilities etc. yet, whenever we talk of amenities, the first thing that comes to our minds are the private ones and how good they are. the government cant charge as much as they do and carry out the unscrupulous tactics that they employ because it has to act like the responsible parent. yet, compared to the rate of development in the cities, the development in the villages has been peanuts. its not just the government's fault. equal blame is to be shared by us. when a son grows up and is capable of standing on his own feet he is expected to share the family's burden. then why should the same principles not be applied to our society? we as a society have actually grown up, at least in the cities. although there isn't any end to our demands, we can still say that we have sufficient. yet, no one takes the time out to go and help out in the villages in whatever way we can. why hasn't the concept of gap-year, gap-month, gap-week taken root in our society? is it because we are too selfish to notice our brother's agony? i like to believe that it's actually because we are still in our teenage and we need some more time to learn what our responsibilities are. lets hope we start sooner than later.

the accommodation in bakreshwar was better than what i had anticipated. admitted, there was no geyser, no great furnishing in the rooms. yet, the bungalow was located in the most picturesque place possible. alone, away from the rest of humanity and traffic. only empty fields and greenery as far as the eye could see. we had the most fabulous time in this isolated bungalow. but more on that in my next blog. i had mentioned in my last blog one quirky fact about women. i read in today's paper that women feel worse after having an emotional transgression and not so bad after sexual infidelity. with men its the other way around. any takers on why this is?

yesterday, was new year's eve, and i wish all of you a happy new year. a certain lady i know, happened to have a serious leg injury the last month,. yet, she went partying wearing her high heels. but if you tell them that they are all about their looks and very little else, they will give withering stares and cold shoulders. mrs v, a certain woman i know has been complaining to me for the whole of last week that her husband isn't responding to her emotinal tactics as well as he used to. she claims the cold war has become that much more difficult ever since her husband has started to pick up the rules of the game. in her opinion her husband would have relented in a day or two at max in the good old days. so, she feels she has to take it to new heights considering her status as the WOMAN OF THE HOUSE. she feels she has to either fall seriously ill or go shop for a huge amount or maybe go for a party and not take her husband with her. which one do you think would be the best possible idea?