Our West Bengal trip- (5)

2-01-2023

Earlier in the morning I saw an old lady coming into the yard of the homestay. There are some chairs by the side of the big tree. She sat there basking in the sunlight. I wished her. She said she could speak only a few words in Hindi but could speak English more fluently. She lives at the Old Age Home in the adjacent plot. Her children live far away and she likes coming to Desher Bari to talk and drink a cup of tea. The people who live and work there are like family to her. She told me she comes there every morning without fail.

We had gone to the temple of Goddess Kali and from there proceeded to the Deer Park in the toto. We had hired Gupin’s toto for the whole day. The toto moves very slowly and we felt it was a good way to see the place, slowly and steadily 😊. We were on a vacation. We always like to travel on our own and not on conducted tours. This way we can spend as much time as we want in any particular place and not rush from one tourist spot to the next.

We walked around the deer park and saw many spotted-deer. We had got some fruits; we sat on a fallen tree and ate them. Those were relaxing moments. We were back in our homestay by 2.  Farida cooked a very tasty lunch of rice, dal, mixed vegetable sabji, brinjal fry, aloo chokha and curds. Aloo choka is a very popular potato dish in West Bengal. It is very easy to make and I am planning to make it after some time. We like potatoes but we ate a little too much of it on our trip 😊. Potato is grown extensively in West Bengal. We saw miles and miles of potato fields.

At 3.30 we started for Srijoni Shilpagram. This place is a cultural centre which showcases the cultural heritage of the Northeastern states of our country. There were beautiful replicas of the houses typical to those states. A Baul singer was singing soulful songs. We stopped to listen to him. We spent an interesting time there before returning to our room. It is dark by 5.30.

Later Sajal Dey came to talk to Aravind. Prof. Sajal worked for fifteen years and then left his job to study. He did MA in Russian and went on to complete his PhD. He is a professor of Russian Language in English and Foreign Languages University, Shillong. He and Aravind were in the same university in Hyderabad during their MA days. They are very good friends.

My son and husband

Whenever we go on a trip, I like to keep a diary. At the end of the day, I write down all that we did from morning to night.

aloo chokha – Dassana’s Veg Recipes

Baul – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baul

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 26th 2023, is “family.” Use the word “family” any way you’d like. Enjoy!

(to be continued)

Advertisement