Down the East Coast – Puri

Puri – Temple Town in the East

In Kolkata, the trip to Sunderbans with Soma had to be cancelled because of bad weather. People advise against going to Digha due to heavy rains. Would have been nice to go to Kharagpur -- so much a part of Dad's life. The university town of Shantiniketan is on vacation until Diwali. So, I head to Puri.

That's the beauty of wandering. You plan, there are things you want to do, and yet nothing is cast in stone. The path sort of paves its own way. There is joy in discovering the path. The surprise element is very joyful. So I am not disappointed when we return from the tourist office in Kolkata, backpacks and all, when Sunderbans is cancelled. Soma is disappointed. She finds my irreprisible spirit irritating -- 'this is all because of the yoga and meditation you do,' she grumbles good-naturedly. We head instead to Flurys for a big breakfast and follow it up with browsing at the music store next door.

Travel teaches us to be in the moment. To trust the instinct which direction to head in. Of course, we take wrong turns, but everything becomes part of the journey. Because the truth is the journey is the end, the destination is just an excuse to make the journey.

Train journeys are great to explore changing topography. The morning train from Howrah takes me to Bhubaneswar. From the well branched-out tall and wide trees and coconut palms -- the lush of forest and marshland – to the shorter trees and rice fields of Orissa.

From Bhubaneswar, I take a shared auto with a young Bengali couple to Puri. I head for Puri hotel, apparently very popular and by the beach, recommended to me by an Oriya colleague. It is afternoon by the time I reach. I don’t have prior booking but I get a room. A woman travelling alone is unusual here, so I say I am a media researcher travelling on work.

The hotel room gives a breathtaking view of the sea, a stone’s throw away. I can see it, hear it, almost feel it. When I put my hand on the table I can feel the rumbling. This is a complete sensory experience. Never before have I got this chance to live by the sea. I want to do nothing except watch the sea.

After days of incessant rain in Kolkata, I am relishing the simple pleasures of laundry dried to a crisp in the sun. Very happy to see all around me people had put their balcony to good use. None of the snobbery of ‘please don’t hang clothes outside – it spoils our look’. Good old Indian middle-class, rather good old Bengali traveler. Am impressed – they come in all age groups.

Two weeks on the road and I get used to being on my own and away from home. The responsibility and mindfulness that comes with the freedom become natural. Kolkata was wonderful to observe a culture so vibrant. What a rich history – birthplace and centre for so much activity during the last century. From freedom struggle to spiritual reawakening, music and literature, Bengal has contributed much. I hear the music of the baul -- familiar, thanks to S D Burman, and I think of how much Hindi films have been my window into this culture.

Puri is strangely noisy – horns, gadgets, swings that make irritating noises. The revelers on the beach create a racket. Although this is not half as bad as what I have seen the Biharis do to Goa some years back. This picnic spot thing is weird. The sea must be revered. When adults don’t do this, we can have little hope from Gen Next.

Morning at the beach is wonderful. The sea holds such immense power. Amazing to see dispersion of the morning rays on water. To feel the sea one has to be 'in it'. Teeming millions stand on the shore, scared. They shout and scream in delight every time a wave touches their feet. They miss out on the ‘real thing’. Which is, remove shoes, carry them in a plastic bag, offer pranams to the sea and walk in the water, ankle deep, in the direction of the rising sun. Watch the play of light, listen to the music of the morning sea. That is little short of magic. The gem sellers and pearl sellers will come but they will also let you be if you don’t show any interest. A mobile chaiwala makes me excellent adrak chai in front of me. These guys beat the west coast at chai.

Watching the sea at different times of the day – early morning, noon, evening, midnight, sometimes even middle of the night – is to see it alive in every way. Listening to the sound of the sea – the waves crashing and the sound that seems to come from inside the sea, is like the nada, unstruck sound. The sea is vast, deep, constantly moving, ever changing. A woman in her 30s – youthful, energetic, with the groundedness and maturity and motherhood. One who knows love, compassion, tenderness as much as pain, anger, separation.

I decide to take a tour to the Chilka lake. So much for ambitions of dolphin watching – jumping dolphins and what not. Turns out to be all imagination – well, almost. Staring at the water, after a long while we see a black metre-long something shining below the surface. That’s it – that’s the dolphin, we are told. But the Chilka Lake is magnificent, no doubt, a fragile ecosystem that has been an area of great interest for its biodiversity.

I am reminded of the ‘penguin parade’ tour in Melbourne. Thousands of tourists gather at the beach to see a daily ritual: Thousands of six-inch high penguins return to their homes on the beach every evening. There is a conservatory and a veterinary hospital for the penguins. They have managed to sell the site as a ‘hot’ tourist destination, complete with souvenirs and photographs. The learning experience begins from the bus drive itself. The driver is the guide, we are shown a 10-mt film on the little penguin, also do’s and don’ts and also why the don’ts. Eg no photographs because the flash from so many cameras can blind the sensitive eye of the penguin.

At Chilka, there is a small research center, entry is ticketed. I wander in. Some postcards and stickers, a dolphin model where you can hear recorded sounds of the dolphin. The people there are so amazed to see me, seems they are not used to visitors and ask me more than once if I am a researcher. Half the stuff on show does not work.

It’s irritating to be a woman traveler alone here. In the bus, you are stuck with the kids because you can only be put with a woman or children and there aren’t any women travelling alone. Once again, I remember the bus tour to the penguin parade: We are four women in a row all solo travelers. At 30, I am the eldest. What a mix – a Japanese working as a waitress at a local restaurant, a Punjabi NRI from Toronto, a German on a holiday, and me, a Delhiite in Melbourne on work, using my last evening there to do some touristy stuff. As we share a dinner of pizzas, the Punjabi NRI says she is headed to Mumbai post Melbourne to meet grandparents who will probably hook her up with prospective grooms; the German says in her country people love holidaying; the Japanese who has been in Melbourne about six months is saving up to study.

Sometimes, we feel more at home in the strangest of places and at home we feel strange. At Chilka, I use the toilet at the conservatory, and that’s paisa vasool of my ticket (Rs 10) as the only other toilet is far from usable. Why don’t we have toilets at tourist places? If there’s one thing I could change about travel in India it is availability of public toilets.

On my last day, I visit the Jagannath temple with the guide from the hotel. It’s intimidating. We don’t like temples where we don't understand what's happening, and where people pounce on us for money. Yet, we believe in reigning deity of a land, much like the master of a house, so we must pay obeisance. This is the month of Kartik, supposed to be auspicious for widows. The temple hall is full of widows. Outside I can see old and destitute women begging. Heartbreaking to see that. A 30-something man sitting on an edge offers me charnamrit; I take some, and he promptly demands I place some dakshina. A punda appears from somewhere wanting to know family history. I have become so used to lying – saying I am married, even cooking up names, but here I feel I must desist, wouldn’t want to confuse my descendents.

The food in Puri is strange and over-priced so I buy a bread, go around looking for cheese – don’t find any. The place has a cyber café but they don’t seem to know cheese. Puri’s strange cuisine is probably trying to cater to the Bengali tourist but at least to the north Indian, it is a big mish-mash. I find a south Indian joint and that’s a mish mash too. I couldn’t agree more with the travel writer who says Oriya cuisine is well, for lack of a kinder word, strange. On the last day I find a Marwadi kind of vegetarian place that also has a good view of the road to the temple. Finally.

Thank God for no television – much time saved. We are the channel-flicking generation. Thank God for only one paper – tells me all I need to know. It is six years since the Orissa cyclone, papers say coastal villages are complaining that rehabilitation is not being done. Mangrove plantation, highway building has not been done as promised, only cyclone shelters – very short term measures – have been made.

By evening, the sky has darkened and the sea is turbulent. There is also some thunder and lightning. There is a pregnant uncertainty, or is it my imagination just because I read the weather forecast warning a cyclone. The rough sea is a bit frightening. In the music of the sea, this is the fast-paced raga. There is immense energy building up. The lightning lights up the sky and the sea. I have never seen nature like this. From my room the waving flags down below tell me of the wind velocity. Crowds on the beach have thinned out. No public announcement. Locals seem pretty cool. Usual?

The sea has come closer. I think of the proverbs: Storm in a tea cup, Lull before the storm. If the body is a microcosm of the universe the raging sea must also lie within.