A few days ago, I had a dream. In my dream my cousin was getting married (she, in reality, had gotten married almost three decades ago). The house was full of guests. It seemed to be my uncle’s house that appeared to evoke a mixture of the memories I carry within me of my grandparent’s house and my uncle’s house. Among the guests, my (dead) mother was there, very well dressed for the occasion. My father was also there, well dressed. My mother and father hugged each other.  My aunt (my mother’s sister, whose daughter was getting married) was also there – she had passed away a week ago. The ritual of the marriage was going on. Before I realized, suddenly, the ceremony was over. Astonished, I said “how come the marriage got over so soon, I haven’t yet taken any pictures of it……” The other guests told me that the ceremony was already finished, but in the dream I neither saw my cousin nor her husband. What I saw was a group of seated women surrounding my dead mother and aunt (who were alive in the dream). While my aunt and mother had been talking to each other lying on a bed sheet, suddenly those women started wrapping up the bed sheet as they kept saying my mother and aunt were actually dead. In the dream at times I saw them both talking to each other and at times I saw them motionless. Then I ran to my elder sister and told her that though we know that mother is dead and I had just seen her talking to our aunt. I kept asking her in the dream to tell me the truth, is my mother actually dead or alive?

When I narrated what I dreamt to my elder sister the next day, she warned me and said this ominous dream would soon bring some misfortune.

Journeys had been more of a mental experience than physical during my childhood. I have travelled more through stories told by my aunt and their family, who were my immediate neighbours and with whom we shared a special bond. This aunt described to us the places they had travelled – telling us about Kolkata- its New Market, the Howrah Bridge, river Ganges, launches, steamers and boats running in its waters, the Alipore zoo, the Botanical Garden, the shops that sold mouthwatering sweets there and many such things. We had heard about these places with awe and had dreamt of visiting Kolkata one day. I come from Kharagpur and Kolkata is just a three hour long journey by train from my hometown. Still, we never got to visit this city that had created such a magical picture in my mind through my aunt’s  stories until I reached the 7^th or 8^th standard, when my music teacher started taking us to the Akashvani Bhavan to participate in children’s music programmes and competitions. Even during these several visits to the place, I was never taken to the Alipore zoo or the famous Botanical Garden in Shibpur, about which I  had heard so much from my neighbours. Even today, I have never had the opportunity to visit these places!

Having been born and brought up in a small town in West Bengal, my childhood was rather devoid of travels to tourist spots and other such places of scenic beauty, even though some of these were very close to where we lived. It was through my neighbours’ stories in my childhood that I had travelled to Puri, the Jagannath temple, the roaring sea of Odisha, through the photographs and picture postcards they showed me I had travelled to Darjeeling, the Tiger Hill, Kanchanjunga, the Taj Mahal, the Red fort, its “Light & Sound” show, the Qutub Minar, the Humayun’s tomb – through their eyes I had seen these places they had visited in Delhi! My aunt and her family, loved us so much, that they never forgot to bring back souvenirs for us when they returned from their travels. Every Durga puja Vacation, our neighbours would travel to hill stations and other tourist places in various parts of India bringing back souvenirs, picture postcards and stories of the places they visited and I as a little child listened to the stories they told and looked at the pictures they had taken of these places with awe. When they had come back from Agra, they gifted me a small milk white Taj Mahal encased in a glass box with lights. I had preserved it very carefully for years together in my house at Kharagpur. 

Perhaps my father didn’t have the time or couldn’t afford the expenses of such travels in those days.  All that we did during my childhood vacations were those several trips to our native place in Bihar to attend weddings  of my cousins or to mourn my Nana’s (maternal grandfather) death, whom I don’t remember seeing at all! 

The first time I had a chance to make a long journey for several days by bus was to the northern part of India that began from Bodhgaya and ended at the Dal Lake in Srinagar, when I was in the second standard in school in 1979.

At the age of 51 in 2022, memories of that long journey have completely faded, though I remember names of some of the places we visited during that trip. This happened during the Durga puja vacation when the staff of IIT Kharagpur (my father was employed there in the Electrical engineering department) were provided with an allowance to take their families out on vacation. Such tours were called LTC tours.

We packed our bags, pots and pans and basic dry ration for cooking. An uncle took the whole responsibility of booking a bus and my parents with my siblings along with our neighbours started our journey to North India.

What we saw in our first destination at Bodhgaya were two gigantic feet carved in stone and we were told these are the real feet of Lord Buddha. I remember also seeing a pipal tree and being told Lord Buddha attained enlightenment under this tree. 

In Delhi, we spent a night at the Bharatseva Ashram and I faintly remember the taste of the Bengali style cauliflower curry I had eaten. I also remember two gigantic elephants in stone that I had liked very much. I remember the gushing water of the Ganges in Haridwar (where I had taken a bath), the shimmer of the Golden temple in Amritsar and the delicious halwa prashad I had eaten, loaded with ghee. 

We had also visited the Jallianwala Bagh where my father had clicked a photograph of me and my brother in front of the memorial with his Click -3 camera he had carried to take snapshots. 

Then I vaguely remember the Dal Lake in Srinagar, the house boats and shikaras, the Char chinar garden we had visited. That’s all I recollect from this long trip I had been on. My father took several photographs of important places and monuments, our family and friends to chronicle this trip. Later these were printed in black & white in tiny sizes and carefully pasted in an album perhaps by my elder sisters. 

We brought back souvenirs and walnuts from Kashmir that we relished for days-  putting them between the door and its hinges and breaking their hard shells! A set of colourful birds made of plaster of Paris (that looked very natural) and a wooden deer with real fur and glowing eyes that I had forced my father to buy me from Delhi and Haridwar were my prized possessions from this trip. I had carefully kept them along with other toys in our wooden showcase with glass doors. Every now and then I used to take them out and admire them. For many years they remained intact in this showcase and gradually started withering with time. 

Him being an amateur, many of the photographs my father had taken were blurred and out of focus. Some were also very dark. Still, we preserved these memories in our family album and often looked at them eagerly. This album was carefully locked and protected in a Godrej almirah for years. Me and my siblings would sometimes take it out and get nostalgic. Gradually, the photographs started chipping off from the album and mysteriously got lost. The last few that remained I have brought back to Baroda with me lately. Now the pages of that album are empty lying in some corner of my home in West Bengal. Preserving memories is difficult, they fade with time! 

When I joined the Faculty of Fine Arts to study painting in Baroda in 1991, we were taken for study tours every year. During these study tours we were taken to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, the Dilwara Jain temple in Mount Abu, Sashangir, Ajanta & Ellora, Saputara, Kutch, Bhuj, Anjar and Diu. These were memorable trips during my college days when I saw the sea and its roaring waves for the first time in my life. It was a thrilling experience. Water attracts me a lot. Though I can’t swim, I don’t like to stay away from the sea or rivers. If the water is not too deep, I don’t waste any time and just plunge into it! I have been warned by people to be cautious and yes, when in water, I definitely take care of myself. During my journeys to these places, I saw the desert in Jaisalmer for the first time in my life. The sand dunes were so fascinating and the camel ride experience is still fresh in my mind. I was just in my early 20s and it was so much fun to visit these places – the Ajanta caves, the sleeping Buddha and the gigantic sculptures in Ellora- “Ravan shaking mount Kailash” in the Kailashnath temple, the Gajalakshmi and seeing the white salt desert in the Runn of Kutch (about which I had read in my school English textbook in a story by KN Daruwala back in the 80s titled “Love Across the Salt Desert”) in front of my eyes was completely unbelievable. Those days, having a camera was a luxury and not being from a privileged lot, all I could do was to chronicle these visits in my sketch books or fragmentally write about them in my diary and when both of these activities exhausted me, all I did was to store them in my memory! Apart from these study tours, back in the early 90s, a trip with my college classmates to Udaipur was also a memorable one and coming back to Baroda I had executed a series of paintings fantasizing the beauty of its landscape. 

I have known people who travel to tourist places several times in a year and chill out. I don’t belong to that lot. These days, due to the social media I see on Facebook and Instagram posts of my friends visiting and chilling out at places of scenic beauty very frequently: people relaxing in swimming pools in exotic hotels, eating all kinds of food, chilling out in snow clad mountains in the month of December. My life is rather boring and devoid of such frequent trips to places of scenic beauty. I have also come across posts of people going to Sri Lanka for their honeymoon even during these covid times. My niece had her honeymoon in the backwaters of Kerala. I didn’t have any honeymoon at all. I never took my wife to any exotic place to celebrate this special occasion!

The trips I remember from 2000 onwards were mostly professional trips to cities – visiting art shows, art galleries and attending just a handful of art camps I was invited to. I really can’t afford the luxury of frequently visiting exotic places, basking in the sun wearing my hat and shorts, submerged in a swimming pool of sea green water, sipping my cocktail and eating exotic foods! Forget about foreign trips on my own expenses. Though I was lucky enough to visit the UK in 2004 and stay there for six months. This trip was fully sponsored by my sister who lives there. Ever since she left India and settled there, I had recurring dreams of UK and London. I wanted to visit that place. Even during my college days I had a strong desire to study at the Royal College of Art in London and finally, in 1997, I got admission there as well. But, due to lack of funds and sponsorship I couldn’t study there. 

My dream of visiting the UK was finally realised after six years. I was completely thrilled at that time even though I didn’t have any idea of how my stay there would be.

I was sitting in the airplane for the first time, I had dropped my boarding pass in the airport and luckily the lady whose luggage I had denied to carry till the airplane (as I had strict instructions from my sister not to carry someone else’s luggage, lest I be suspected to be a drug dealer or smuggler) gave it to me saying “you have dropped your boarding pass” and in a hurry I almost snatched it from her hand! All the formalities I was supposed to do in the airport were completely new to me; I had never done these before.

I was nervous and in a hurry to just sit in the airplane and fly to another world as soon as possible. I didn’t know how to fasten the seat belt and asked the girl sitting next to me to help me with it. My sister had instructed me to ask for a window seat and fortunately, I got one. Within eight hours I was transported into a completely different world, I couldn’t believe my eyes! 

In 2017, I agreed to be part of an art camp in Manipur only to relish the scenic beauty of the place. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity as I felt perhaps it could be the only trip to Manipur in my life. For that I paid the price as well. In order to reach Manipur first I had to go to Guwahati in Assam. There’s just one weekly train from Baroda to Guwahati. My train ticket was not confirmed till the last moment. I couldn’t wait for another week as I would miss the camp. Neither could I afford a flight ticket. So I decided to board the same train on the particular day I had to travel. I got up in the general compartment that was completely jam packed, not realizing that this would be one of the most torturous journeys of my life. For three days I almost completely kept standing in the train, unable to use the wash room. It was one of the toughest journeys I had ever experienced and the most annoying as well. With not much food and water, I travelled in the train as it took me across the states of UP, Bihar, West Bengal and finally to Assam. The people in the compartment sat and stood still inside while more and more people poured into the crowd. My mobile’s charge was drained, with no communication and, fatigued, I continued this journey only to see the scenic beauty of Manipur! This torturous journey never seemed to end, I felt claustrophobic, nauseated, hungry, irritated and angry inside. I finally reached Guwahati after three full days!

The only journey I have been making over the years religiously since my college days is to meet my parents and relatives during vacations. Every vacation, I would board the Howrah-Ahmedabad express from Baroda to reach my hometown Kharagpur in West Bengal. During my stay there, I usually visit my sister and relatives in Jamshedpur. If I have the time I also visit friends in Kolkata for a day or two. I have never liked Kolkata, though it’s a heart throb of many. 

For me Kolkata is a labyrinth where I get lost and trapped easily. I cannot find my destinations (Now please don’t tell me that in this age of Google maps and Google locations it’s very simple. Just stop preaching to me). It’s a disgusting feeling. I still continue to visit my hometown, Kharagpur, my relatives in Jamshedpur, and my friends in Kolkata during my vacations. Though now, in addition, I also visit my in-laws in Murshidabad district. 

Since 2020 this journey has also taken a back seat because of the Covid19 pandemic and the lockdowns. I also couldn’t attend my mother’s funeral because of this. The delta variant killed thousands of people in the second Covid19 wave. In this situation, I could do nothing but stay in Baroda with my family and take classes online by going to the University daily. By mid-2021, when things were slightly normal, we decided to visit my home and my in-laws by taking some risks. We both have completed our second dose of vaccination. Though we were worried about our little child. During my Diwali vacation, we boarded the train with masks on our faces and sanitisers in our hands. I also took a large bottle of sanitiser that could be sprayed on the seats inside.

After my mother passed away, my father moved to stay with my brother in Jamshedpur, occasionally visiting our house in Kharagpur. For the last few years, my father has been having mental and physical health issues. His fragile body and unpredictable mind needs to be taken care of. We first reached my elder sister’s home in Jamshedpur, two days prior to Diwali. We had already planned our journey by booking tickets for the places we had decided to visit during the vacation. Suddenly, my younger sister instructs me to take my father from Jamshedpur to Kharagpur as he is all ready with his luggage adamant to go back to Kharagpur.

We book a cab and with my father leave for Kharagpur, halting midway for some tea and snacks. This was the first time I was visiting home after my mother had passed away. The house looked empty- the big bed in the living room had been dismantled and removed, the T.V and dining table were also not there. All of these have been taken to Jamshedpur. The kitchen has become almost non-functional. Only the gas cylinder and the gas stove were there. The grocery shelves were empty. The masala and spice jars were missing. The house smelled of dampness and emptiness. In the front room beside the sofa on a stool was my mother’s photograph. The showcase in which I used to keep showpieces and toys stood empty in a corner of the room. Under the bed I saw fragments of showpieces that were very dear to me once. I realized it’s time to let go of things, we cannot keep holding our loved ones close to our hearts forever. Throughout the night I couldn’t sleep, I felt some kind of discomfort as this was the first time I stepped into that house ever since my mother passed away. I got some sleep only by early morning. When I woke up the next day, late in the morning, I saw two large fresh hibiscus flowers that my father had plucked from our garden and placed by my mother’s photograph. We had tea and some dry snacks. My father had some work in the bank. So we both left. The same day, by the afternoon train, I had to go back to Jamshedpur. My sister had instructed me to buy my father a walking stick as the old one was broken. So we went to Golbazar, the local market, and I bought him a walking stick.

By the time we reached home there was barely any time left to catch my train. So, I skipped lunch and hastily put all my belongings in my backpack, and telling my father that I don’t have any time and I am leaving right now, keep well, I went to my mother’s photograph, knelt and started weeping like a child. There was no time to devote to this emotion as well, so hastily I wiped my tears off and rushed to catch my train.

We woke up early the day after Diwali and boarded our train from Jamshedpur to Kolkata.

We reach my friend’s place by 2 pm, sanitise ourselves and our luggage before entering the house. It’s a very short but heartwarming visit. My friend and his family are very amused by my daughter. My friend cooks a delicious mushroom curry with coconut milk for dinner. 

Next day, in the afternoon, we leave for my in-laws’ house in Azimganj. Azimganj and Jiaganj are the twin cities on the either side of the Bhagirathi River (though the locals call it Ganga) in Murshidabad district in West Bengal.  

By the ferry boat one can go from Azimganj to Jiaganj and vice versa in ten minutes. These boats have the capacity to carry motorbikes and autorickshaws apart from the passengers. Usually, people carry their bikes, cycles, autorickshaws with them when they go from either of these cities to the other. This time when we landed here, it was the time of Kali puja that is celebrated grandly. Every nook and corner has a puja pandal during this time. 

My in-laws have built a house and shifted there from the railway quarters where they used to live earlier. An idol-maker’s house is just beside their new house.

I visit him with my daughter and go live on Facebook while I chat with him and watch him make the idols. I take photographs of him and his workshop. Throughout the day, he is busy with his son making idols of gods and goddesses.

Just outside the door of my in-laws’ house, on the left side, is a puja pandal with an idol of the goddess Kali. The next day in the evening my brother-in-law takes me and my daughter to Jiaganj to visit the major puja pandals. Some of the idols here are 20 to 30 feet tall. Many pandals have decorations on Covid19 themes, though no one seems to follow Covid rules at all!

People hardly wore masks. We also go to the famous Amaipara Kali temple where there is a huge crowd of devotees. A fair is going inside the premises of the temple where there are several stalls selling jewellery, items for performing puja and various food items.

The river Bhagarathi, which used to flow some distance away, is now just yards away from the Charbangla terracotta temples that I had visited before the pandemic. The Hazarduari Palace, formerly known as the Bara Kothi, is located in Murshidabad, West Bengal, on the campus of Kila Nizamat. It was erected in the 19th century by architect Duncan Macleod during the reign of Nawab Nazim Humayun Jah of Bihar, Bengal, and Orissa (1824–1838) and is also a tourist destination. 

During my previous visits to Azimganj, I had also visited this location. The palace museum is now the Archaeological Survey of India’s largest site museum (ASI). The royal family’s valuables are among the antiques on display at the palace museum, including a beautiful chandelier of the Durbar hall, which is the world’s second largest chandelier, after the one in Buckingham Palace. Queen Victoria had presented this chandelier to the Nawab.

My most recent visit was to the Statue of Unity in the Narmada Valley in Gujarat. Now the tallest statue in the world, this statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Iron man of India is 597 feet, facing the Sardar Sarovar Dam.

According to a survey, the daily average tourist footfall at Statue of Unity during November 2019 reached 15,036, out pacing the Statue of Liberty. 89.8 km from the place I live in Baroda, we reached there by 12 pm. The fields beside the road were white with cotton plants throughout our journey.

This was for the first time I saw such a dense vegetation of ripe cotton that never seemed to end. The areas around the Statue of Unity and the Narmada valley have been developed under the Gujarat tourism project over the years that attracted lots of tourists even in these Covid times.

Apart from the gigantic statue, there is river rafting, a cactus garden, a children’s park and many such attractions for the people. As the driver parks our cab in the parking, he points to the direction where there are buses that would drop us to the Statue of Unity destination. We board a bus and reach the place.

Within a landscape of hills and water, the statue stands tall, attracting tourists. People were posing at the perfect view point to take photographs and selfies. The Sardar Sarovar dam could be seen as we headed towards the statue. It was quite a long walk to reach the statue. By a lift, we climbed inside the statue till the chest of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The inside has a corridor with grills through which the sardar sarovar dam was visible along with the landscape around. Later we climbed flights of steps that took us straight to the gigantic statue where people were busy excitingly taking selfies and photographs by the feet of the statue and in the open space between two colossal legs of it. The lush landscape, the river water and the dam looked more prominent from here.

While I was looking at all these – the statue, the landscape, the water, the dam and the crazy crowd, I was constantly reminded of the pictures of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the numerous articles in the newspaper and magazines, the locals and the activists who struggled so hard to stop the Sardar Saravor project as it was never in favour of the locals and humanity.

The locals were fished out of their homes as the dam water gushed flooding their houses. All this beauty and showbiz and the excited crowd seemed to cover the carcass of a fierce past that the valley and its people had witnessed once!