Im back to my office chair in pune...My Kolkata trip was very different the past. Here's a brief recount of the happenings in the last 2 weeks.
11th May - Reached Kolkata at 5 in the morning. Taxied myself to Salt lake. Lots of food, pampering, sleep, television et all.. Woke up in the middle of the day to find that CPM had managed to garner an astounding win. Lot of hulla gull here n there.
12th May - Woke up to see most of the dailies throwing away praises at wholesale quantities at Buddhadeb babu..Tata's announced plans of setting up their 1 lakh car manufacturing facility in the state. Videocon too spelt out grand plans as well as some foreign steel company whose name i cant recall. Buddha on his part portrayed the perfect "Bhardralok" by downplaying his role and toying the fine line between party ideology and capitalism.
13th May - Again lots of Buddha here and there. Calcutta dailies commented CPM for trying to balance socialistic values with capitalist necessities. Isn't moving with the times considered a normal phenomenon in today's times??? then why this hullaboo about understanding the need of the hour??? I guess doing normal things these days gets people lot of positive airtime and editorial pages. Evening descended and I was on my way to Howrah with mom to catch the train to Sahibganj.
14th May - ( 5.00 AM) - The Howrah - Gaya express which normally reaches Sahibganj at 5.30 A.M decided to take it easy this time. We reached Sahibganj at 6.00. I have never really been to small towns in my life. Life has always been between the four cities Mumbai - Pune - Kolkata and Delhi so the first thing that makes me uncomfortable in chotta places is the lack of dust and car honkings. Pretty much the same happened here. Though the air was cool the people seemed pretty different. In Bihar villages you will rarely come across some one who has a decent amount of idle fat hanging from his/ her waistline. Is it the lack of Mcdonald's or more manual work done by people in this side of the country, I really dunno. Having managed to amass a good quality of " CHARBI" I was clearly a standout.
Out of the station we managed to convince a jeepwala to drive us to the Sakrigali ashram for 150 bucks. The road I must say was better than than what I had heard or expected. It took us close to 45 mins to reach the final destination
