Continued from Travelogue - Tajpur Trip - Part-One
9 am. Same day. Mecheda
“Madamji, how far have you got?”, I asked Aish over the
phone.
“I am still at the station at my place. The train is one
hour late.”
“Whatttt? We are already at Mecheda!!”
“One hour? Means you’ll come after two hours! OMG!”
“Girls!” Piyush and Gokul sneered together. I gave them
another of my famous scorching looks.
“What will she do now? The train is late. Any other
alternative?”, I bombarded Piyush with my questions.
“No. There is nothing else I guess.” He seemed a bit lost
too. “Can she get a bus?”
“Can you get a bus?” I yelled into the phone.
“Bus? I don’t know. Okay, let me check and call you.”
“Fine. Shall we pack breakfast for you?”
“No. Leave it. It’ll be late for breakfast when I reach.
I’ll call you back.”
We were now truly in a soup. There was still a long way
to go.
The best therapy in troubled times is food. Hence we
decided to chill for some time and have a proper breakfast.
Our guide for the day took us to a wayside restaurant
called “The Park Point”. We decided to drop the “Point” immediately and stick
with “The Park” (for those who don’t know, it is a five star hotel in Kolkata. Which
means beyond our aukaat!). After all
there were Facebook updates to be made!
It was quite a decent café. Six of us, including our
driver Indrajeet, munched on bread, butter,
luchi and alur torkari. Aish had
confirmed she had boarded a bus. As per the instructions of our revered guide
(respect!), I asked her to get down at Mechogram near Panskura, where we would
pick her up. After having our round of morning tea, we resumed our journey
after forty-five minutes. This time we were going back, towards Panskura.
~*~
Around 10 am. Same day. Mechogram
Aahh! There she is!
Aish had already spotted us in our red Scorpio and came
with a big smiling face.
Thank God! All six
finally in one car!
“Guys! Please get acquainted with each other”. “And oblige me”, I added mentally.
“Yes yes! Get acquainted! Okay, we have got acquainted!” Gokul
and his antics sent a ripple of laughter inside the car. This one had a very
energetic and unbridled sense of humour, which he often wielded as a weapon to
torture people and made them laugh till their jaws ached.
Unfortunately, that day I was his favourite target.
Gokul’s antics continued, well accompanied by Shiv, as
the grave and taciturn Piyush guided our driver through unknown routes.
After sometime, we realized we were going in circles
through villages. Normal people generally panic when there is a possibility of
getting lost. We crazy people had a good laugh first. Then Ms. Cashier aka our
Trip Organizer, Joyee, fished out a paper where she had neatly jotted down the
intermediate stops.
“We have to go to the Bypass “, she declared.
“Is there a map saying how to go by this road to the
bypass?, I asked.
“No.”
“Then put it away and ask that DaabKaku (a man who was selling green coconuts on the roadside) how
to go to bypass.”
Instead, our Ms. Cashier invested the time in taking
pictures of DaabKaku and several
other Kakus (“Kaku” in Bengali means uncle) in the backdrop of rural Bengal.
But we had nothing to fear in the presence of our able
Mr. Guide. He was there to steer us out of those rural paths. While, Mr. “Ice
Breaker” Gokul busily checked out the girls’ schools and colleges in the consecutive
villages and Mr. “Lazy Bug” Shiv lounged on the backseat of the car.
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