Travel Tales Part 2
But these were as trifles. The weather was delicious: cool,
but not too cold, the sun was pleasant and the Red Silk cotton was in bloom. Of
the flowers which make the Bengal spring so delightful, the red silk cotton is
perhaps the first to flower. The trees are totally leafless but the blood-red
blooms are on every branch. The space below is often carpeted with red and the
flowers are powerful magnets for a large variety of birds. On or two “madar”
trees were also blooming I noticed, but the palash trees, not so common In
Howrah District, were yet to blossom. There is something that makes me very
nostalgic when I travel by a local train, or more specifically by the EMU
coaches. It reminds me of many journeys made in my childhood to Krishnanagar to
visit my grandparents, of journeys, made just to see the green fields when we
tired of Kolkata and of our journeys to small stations in Jharkhand and Purulia
with our rucksacks en route to a camping holiday.
Babusona and his gamchas
Hawkers are a ubiquitous presence in local trains. To many, they are a nuisance, but I love ‘em. The compartments are full of young men and
not so young men and some positively old men hawking such a wide variety of
snacks, knick-knacks, sweets, costume jewelry, home remedies, fruit and
everything else that can be transported in a bag and dragged onto a train. Many
of them are marvelous salesmen and their spiel often lures the unwary into
spending money on articles that they will never use. This does not really
matter because the prices are so low that it is difficult to be cheated out of
more than ten or fifteen rupees. And you can buy a variety of things which are
very useful indeed. From ball point pens, safety pins, hairclips and stain
removers, there is no limit to the variety. In this journey, we had our eyes on
the food. There were singaras, alu ( potato) chops, all sorts of fritters and
you could buy a box of sohanpapdi for just Rs 15. One man especially caught my
attention. He was making a strong case for a “Babusona’s” gamcha . Each for Rs
40. It seemed quite a bargain and in fact, Swapanda decided to buy one. His sales
talk was mesmerizing and it was no wonder that he made several sales in our
compartment alone.
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| Midnapur Station |
We were in Kharagpur by about 12 noon and then we deviated
from the usual Mumbai or Chennai route towards Midnapur. Soon we were crossing
the Kangshabati River which here was fairly wide and full of water and ten
minutes later we were in Midnapur. It was lunchtime and as everybody knows one
feels twice as hungry when traveling as one does in normal times. Just across
the road from the exit from the station was a plethora of eating joints. Not of
the cleanest, but in this sort of travel, you cannot be too particular. What was
amazing was that you could have a basic vegetarian meal for Rs 20, if you added
on an egg curry, you paid Rs 30 and a fish meal would set you back by Rs 40. So
I set aside my trepidations and we tucked in at the Sarbamangala Hotel. I forgot to say that this meal
came with papad and chutney free!
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| Sarbamangala Hotel where we had our lunch |
Midnapur is fairly old town. I had never visited it earlier;
I am not sure why because I have come to Jhargram and very often to the
adjacent Purilia and Bankura districts where we used to have nature camps and
rock climbing camps every winter. It was
the district town for the Midnapur District which was one of the largest in
West Bengal. Now, of course, the erstwhile Midnapur District has been trisected.
There is East Midnapur which is mostly the riverine and coastal part and West
Midnapur and Jhargarm which are more forested and formed part of the so-called
Jangal Mahals in the Mughal era, though mostly it comprised Purulia and Bankura
as well as parts of what is now Jharkhand.
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| Station Road, Midnapur town |
West Midnapur was part of the frontier between the the
Maratha territories, more specifically the areas that were controlled by the
Balasore Fauzdar of the Maratha administration and they, in turn, reported to
Cuttack and then to Berar. In the later years of Mushid Quli Khan’s
administration of Bengal, this area was difficult to administer and the local
Zamindars had for all practical purposes become independent. However with the
Diwani of Bengal passing to the British, they took measures to control the area
and finally set up new administrative structures. These were, however, modeled
on the Mughal structures which had been present since Akbar’s time and in fact
this area was the route by which imperial troops from Maghadha had marched to
subdue the Kingdom of Kalinga during the famous invasion by Ashoka the Great.
Our plan was to explore the natural beauty of these areas.
There are many important archeological discoveries that are worthy of
exploration, but we were not planning to visit those now. As I was saying
Midnapur is an old town and maintains some of the charms of the old mofussil
towns of West Bengal. Now, of course, it has developed considerably and has a
Medical College as well as the well regarded Vidyasagar University. The role it
played in the freedom struggle has been well documented but is not so well
known that Hassan Shurawardy, later to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan
also hailed from here or nearabouts.
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| The main gate of the Vidyasagar University, unfortunately, some repairs were on |
Having lunched well, our first target was to visit the Gopeshwar
Eco Park. We hired a toto and set off. The town as I said is pleasant,leafy
and uncrowded. The route we took went past the Vidyasagar University. The
campus is huge by Indian standards and there appeared to be a mini forest
inside as far as we could discern from outside the walls. Another college set
up by the then ruler of Narajole, Raja Narendra Lal Khan is now an autonomous
college and has a proud history of contributing many participants to the
freedom struggle.
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| The Raja N L Khan College |
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| En route to the Eco Park |
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