First things first
Wahida, Sunny, Hitesh, Poonam, Amlan, Masood, Reema, Kiran, Brijesh, Ankush, Swati, Shilpi, Nagarjuna, Kasturiah, Anjali, Kunal, Poulami, Santanu, Shyam, Ashish, Richa, Aneesh... Thanks a ton for letting me join the party and bearing me through out the trip. Needless to say it was one of my most fun outings till date. I felt a lot more welcome in the party than I had initially expected and a company of a few more made it worth remembering :) I had no idea that I will get to meet so many wonderful people at one go. You guys rock! ALL OF YOU!! \m/
Well... hello!
This year January, Bishan, Deepak and I were there at a place called Bakkhali, a beach nearby Kolkata. But we were there only for a couple of hours (detailed in the post Kakdwip, Bakkhali and Us) and were regretting the shortness of the span we got to spend. But a few days back, a whole battaleon from my office planned an entire day there and didnt mind counting me in. And about this post... well, this is my very own personal account of the outing.
To avoid being stuck behind at the queue at the NH-117 Namkhana ferry jetty, we started at the ungodly hour of 1 in the morning. 23 people, one minibus. It took us two and a half hours to cover the distance from Salt Lake to Namkhana. The empty roads helped us speed up but the sudden and frequent zero-visibility fog at made us slow down as compensation. Masood and I were in the front seats, he hammering the Kolavari di song on my eardrums and I giving him my shut-up gazes but at the same time we both were enjoying the opaque fog which would suddenly appear from absolute nowhere at regular intervals.
After many such ups and downs in our speedometer, we finally reached the Ferry ghat at 330 in the morning and to our surprize, we got to know that the ferry service starts at 7am and not a minute before. My camera performs remarkably poor in the night shots. Among the some dozing some loitering co-passengers, I had to wait for some natural lights to show up.
After it was 5 in the morning, I came out with my camera. This place you see above is the Namkhana Ferry Ghat. And the colour that you see here is close to the original colour that was there. I knew what was coming with some more light.
I waited over the jetty...
The small harbour comes to life even before the sun rays touches it. It gets filled with fish traders and their trawlers.
But as a single-day tourist (that I was that day), I could afford to overlook the daily hardships and concentrate on the scenic offerings. (Is anyone of you able to see the horizon?) Well... After a wait of three and half hours we were on the other side of the canal. The soothing sun from the window was doing a marvelous job in putting my night long awake eyes to sleep. I have never experienced this: Dragged to a comfortable sleep with the sun flashing on your eyes. Wow!
Aaa... I will shrink down the majority of our stay at the Bakkhali beach to just a summary. I wont detail much on how we were shocked to see the sea in its most tourist-repelling state (absolutely no waves, a visible piece of land after some distance in water and nearly a 6-8 minute walk on the sand to touch that waveless water) or on how the battalion of 23 accommodated in a single (15 x 20 ft) room or how we all took our beach-look avatars and first headed for breakfast and then hit the waves. I wont even start on how "yukk" it was to taste the first mili-litre of natually saline water after nineteen years or how devilish freezing the wind felt when we stood up in the water in wet clothes (and how damn good it was to just sit neck deep inside the relatively hot water). I wont try to recollect how badly I was hurting my own throat trying to shout in the water along with a few of those who feature in the first paragraph of this post. No doubt it was crrrrazy but I will tell you about them later... But what I will never tell you about is how cruelly funny the sea can become when it comes to someones favorite sunglasses...
Anyway, after the beach adventure and a good lunch, I headed for the beach again to capture something more. I had no clear idea what I wanted to shoot but I started.
They don't put small umbrellas in your drink but surely a lazy and relaxing evening at a beach goes hardly towards perfection without a Daab paani (tender coconut water). Although I didn't have one myself, but I found his silhouette speaking of the essence.
I don't know fortunately or unfortunately, I was alone with my camera (and the mp3s in my phone) when I was in the beach. While taking a short stroll and looking around to see things that wont be visible after its dark, I found these two little girls.
It is probably in human nature that nothing gives him more happiness than the belief that he is free. The very first look at a beach stretching from the left most corner of your eyesight to the rightmost itself implants that sense. People become poets, lovers, believers. And I guess, nothing matches the limits of happiness when a bucket full of uncorrupt imagination is thrown in the midst of a beach full of sand. Yes... he thinks, he creates, he is happy, he is free.
Ahhmm! :) I guess the beach does have a little magic... I don't think anything else made me (me!) write down the above paragraph. And just like the way I have told it a numerous times... You have to BE there to feel it. No way else you will know what exactly this blogger is trying hard to describe.
And once you are there, you wont need words to feel it...
Huh! :)
Till next time,
Cheers :)
P.S.: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :)
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