Chapter 1 – In search of Kalapani

Prelude

Young Naru would remain mesmerized when the stories of Shoilobala Majumdar would start to be unfolded. After the end of the rainy season, at the advent of the autumn when she used to travel from her home in Kayetgram to her home of the maiden days at Nilganj in Kishoreganj of present-day Bangladesh, that time the river bed could be clearly visible through the crystal clear water. Bright moonlight happened to beam through the greeneries along the banks of that river. Naru used to be transported to another world by that description.

During the early years of the secondary schooling, when Kalapani ( ‘black water’ when translated verbatim ) appeared in the study books, then it became rather difficult for Naru to digest the notion that the colour of water could be so blackish that it might be termed Kalapani.

Many decades later, when the information technology industry was touching new heights with every passing day, then Naru came to know about the existence of a river at the boundary of the Khasi and Jaintia hills of the North-Eastern India where the boat on the river water seems to float in the air as the unbelievably clear water cannot be captured in the photograph.

All through his life Naru went on getting amazed by the ever changing beauty of water. In his tender age it was a huge depression that brought multi-day long, very heavy rains at the end of the official rainy season in Bengal. Sparsely populated, huge open tracts of land of his birthplace were submerged with ankle-deep water. Green vegetations (mainly short grasses) were swinging under the clear flowing water. The flat ponds were being overflowed. Naru was sitting alone on the high embankment of a huge pond in the middle of that landscape. The afternoon sun was hidden behind the thick cloud cover stretched deep into the western half of the sky. The western part of the sky was opened-up to the horizon. The sunlight that was being reflected from the clouds somehow created a highly luminous, glittering silver coating on the all pervasive water-land. Every one of those millions of ripples on the surface of the mercury-like water-sheet was sparkling in that whitish light. That time Naru lifted a silvery fish with his fishing rod and the fish came flying through the air from the water of the pond. In that evening while studying in the coziness of the second floor of their residential building, Naru faced a lot of difficulties in accepting that natural water can be of black colour, so that it may be termed Kalapani.

Kalapani could never be got rid of as Naru’s mind never accepted that explanation. Naru even revisited the map books again and again to reassure himself that the colour of the ‘Black Sea’ was not shown in black colour there. He did remain unable to find the description of ocean water that was so dense in colour that it could be termed black water. Every new amazing experience with water caused the resurfacing of the issue of Kalapani.

Puri – Sea Beach at the Dead of the Night 

It was the full-moon phase. Probably one or two days were to go before the full moon. In the early evening the Moon was yet to appear. A good number of visitors were there scattered on the beach around the place called ‘Swargodwar’, the central area of the Puri Sea Beach. In the second half of the 1980s the atmosphere on the beach at Puri was quite different than what it is today. The rides, camels, horses were not present on the beach and the number of tourists, though were large but not as huge as it is today.

That day, the ocean seemed to be behaving strangely. The waves were coming rapidly one after the other, and the water was rougher than what Naru had experienced earlier. After some time Naru could notice that the number of rollers and their intensity was higher than the other evenings. The number of rollers was going up to eight breakers in one series, in comparison to two to three in a normal evening. The ocean water was creating awe in the eyes of the spectator.

That was the second trip of Naru to Puri. He and his friend hardly had the minimum amount of money to stay put at Puri up to the intended date of return. But that was not a limiting factor. They had enthusiasm beyond any limit. Till that time (late 1980s) the rudimentary hotels and lodges had the system of counting 24 hours of stay from the exact time of check-ins. Taking advantage of the system, it was not difficult to check out from the accommodation early in the morning and spend the whole day on the beach or on the streets and to check-in at another accommodation late in the evening. By using this method, one could save on the hotel expenses for a couple of days in a stay of say 5-6 days.

That day was one of those days when they were out on the streets for the whole day. By evening they were on the beach, away from the shorelines, leisurely reposing on the two bags which contained all their possessions. They had to spend many hours on the beach before finding any accommodation. The kaleidoscope of life was playing well in front of their eyes. Suddenly, at around 8PM, a dozen or so youths in their 20s rushed to the ocean and jumped into it. Till that time that beach had a good amount of freedom for the enthusiasts. All round vigilance was not in place like today. That was the first time when a few very tall floodlight stands were placed on the margin of the beach. They were only a handful in number, having a large area to be covered by each stand. Obviously, there was a shadow area in between every one of the two adjacent well-lit areas. Last time when Naru first visited the beach, that time those lights were not there.

Naru became alert. He learnt that it was possible to tackle such a rough ocean, and it was allowed to jump into the ocean waters in the evening. Naru could not resist the temptation. Some events announce loudly that they may not be repeated in the lifetime again. Naru alone slowly followed the footsteps of that large swimmer group. His very reserved father was his swimming teacher, but later he was unable to take Naru away from the water. Naru took whatever he could manage from that evening ocean. The mid-January water of the ocean felt considerably cold, but the thrill was fulfilling. By that time the big Moon appeared in the eastern sky.

That day in the afternoon Naru swam for a couple of hours in the pacified waters beyond the region of the breakers. That became possible because of two foreigners who were venturing again and again inside the sea. Naru followed them from a distance and learnt the trick. It took long hours for the thrill to be fulfilled. The ocean water felt cold that time too. He learnt the trick of coming back to the shores after a spell of swimming and soaking the warmth of the sun on the beach to get ready to get back to the ocean waters again.

The temperature problem generally is not faced while swimming in the water bodies of the plains in his home town. Most of the time the water temperature of those water bodies remained attuned with the atmospheric temperatures.

For Naru, a resident of the Damodar basin, in those just ended teen years the Puri climate of the winter season used to feel like spring.

The very old cottages with very thick brick walls on the northern side of the Chakratirtha Road used to feel very cold. The space inside the cottage rooms was very less. Those cottages reminded Naru of the Ray Chowdhury family of Mymensingh. Somewhere he read that the family used to visit Puri regularly. During those times, the journey had to be multimodal in its true sense, and it was not an easy task. A few of the old cottages on the Chakratirtha Road resembled the description that Naru had in his mind from the accounts he read about their Puri voyage. During Naru’s visit that area had become very popular among foreigners, probably for its secludedness. Those people used to go towards the sea after 10 o’clock in the night. Though he had a latent desire to follow their trail, but, ultimately, he remained unable to do so.

That day after the evening bath in the sea water, Naru got the long awaited chance of one-to-one meeting with the ocean in the depth of the night. They had all their belongings with them and had no predetermined accommodation to check in; those were the reasons that they were free from any encumbrances. Naru cannot remember about the dinner, but his companion who was a Punjabi by decent and from head to toe a Bengali by personality,

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Bildmaterialien: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Cover: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Lektorat: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Korrektorat: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Übersetzung: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Satz: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 23.12.2020
ISBN: 978-3-7487-6928-6

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Widmung:
ॐ श्री विष्णवे नम: (OM SHRI VISHNAVE NAMAH) Late Prithwish Chandra Majumdar and Late Shoilobala Majumdar My Maternal Grandparents Lived in Kayetgram, Mymensingh, erstwhile India for major parts of their lives Kayetgram has found mentioning in the book titled ‘ বাঙালির ইতিহাস ’ (Bangaleer Itihas) in the ‘ জীবনী গ্রন্থপঞ্জি ’ section