My first houseboat experience

-

 Durga Puja 2023 has come to an end and a 'Subho Bijoya' to all my readers. It has been a wonderful Durga Puja. I don't want to write in detail about all the five days of Puja and how I spent it because there is nothing new in the joy of pandal hopping, hanging out with friends and having good food. However, Saptami this year was special. Mother and I had a lovely time in a houseboat that we booked for a day in Mangaldhara Lodge, Barrackpore.

Early morning, we set out for Barrackpore. We reached our SBSTC bus depot in City Centre, boarded a bus at 6:15 am in the morning and reached our destination at 1:00pm. It was our first time in Barrackpore.The check-in time was 12:00pm. After completing all the formalities we headed towards our houseboat. There were two houseboats placed one beside the other. We crossed the little bridge to move to the front area of the houseboat. From there we took a left and passed the common drawing room area and entered the narrow hallway of the houseboat and finally we moved to room 3 of houseboat 1. It was a beautiful cozy room. It had windows to the right of our bed that opened to the Ganges and it's panoramic view. Tall buildings or 'New Kolkata' as they termed it, lined the borders of the river from as far as our eyes could reach. The room had a small table and two chairs placed near the window that opened to the river. Complimentary welcome kit was made available to us along with an electric kettle, tea and coffee. The room had a television which neither my mother or I had the plans to switch on. Immediately after we reached our room we switched on the AC and drank tea and watched the river from inside our room which was floating. It was a lovely view outside and we were both happy to witness such a lovely view. We ordered our food and quickly freshened up. The bathroom was small but a neat one. We headed for lunch in the lodge cafe at 3pm. The food was in abundance and was extremely delicious. Worn out by the journey, both mom and I decided to take a peaceful nap in the afternoon. After lunch we reached our room and we slept for two hours straight. After waking up I made coffee for both mom and me and we savoured the taste amd watched the sunset from our little window. The sky looked all pink and blue and so did the water of the river.

Soon after we decided to head to 'Annapurna Mandir' which was a ten minutes Toto ride from within the premises of the lodge. The temple was old, beautiful and looked aesthetically beautiful against the dark blue backdrop, with the moon shining bright in the sky and the stars twinkling. We came back within the premises and went to the cafe to have some snacks. Onion pakodas were what we ordered. Dinner time was nine and we still had an hour to kill but it passed smoothly as we headed back to our houseboat and enjoyed the beautiful view of Ganga from our windows:  The little movement in our room because of the boat floating, the moving river in all its glory, the town lining the water from distance, the lights and the peace and calm that I was in need of for a long time now added delight to this little tour. After having our dinner, we came back and immediately went to sleep. 

On Ashtami we woke up early morning and headed for 'Anjali' to a nearby Mandap. Anjali is a Bengali custom of offering prayers to Goddess Durga ( or any concerned deity )with flowers while chanting mantras there times. After Anjali, we came back to have our breakfast and enjoyed the remaining time clicking pictures and enjoying the sunlight and the river. At 11 we checked out as our Uber driver arrived. And we left for Kolkata where we spent the next four days. 

Glimpses of the same:











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kadambari Devi's Suicide note

-
A few days back i finished reading 'Kadambari Devi's Suicide note',by Ranjan Banerjee and though it struck odd notes in many places(my opinion),it definitely falls into the category of the must read books,especially if you want to explore Tagore's world.Most intellectuals or want to be intellectuals, appreciate Tagore for his modern outlook,but appreciating the modern aspects of a character or mind is vastly different from experiencing it first hand,and the process can be painful,like a morbid pleasure,it can be so addictive,that one does not want to come out of it, rather can't come out of it.This is exactly what happened with Kadambari Devi.A dilemma she was in because she was sapiosexual and was in love with her husband's brother,ROBI(Rabindranath Tagore).She was an exceptional talent but failed to realize it not just because of the environment that surrounded her but also because she loved Tagore with all her dreams and not just her life.An exceptionally unc...
Read more

Who says English is easy?

-
Who says English is easy?I honestly did not know how to pronounce Freud-it was confusing,until one day one of my schoolmates corrected me,indirectly and since then I know that I need to pronounce it as FROYED and not FREEEEEUD.Lets take an easy example-COW;a person not knowing the English alphabets may pronounce it as CO,because the W in itself is a two syllabic word(if we consider it's spelling),so people can be mistaken and they can pronounce it as Co and then W but it's real pronunciation is CAUU.Another simple example can be the word MORE.Judged from the spelling,it should sound as MOR-E,with a clear emphasis on E,but in English we don't do that because the E becomes silent.The same goes for the word LATE because we don't pronounce it as LATE-E.Confusion persists in the pronounciation of A as well.It becomes difficult for us to contemplate if we should pronounce A as we normally do,when we follow the English alphabetical chart or should we pronounce it as Aaaaa.So w...
Read more

Ranting is allowed

-
Image
Ten years since 2013. The year when I stepped into my college. A new world, a new culture and a completely new environment with new faces. College felt numb and so did my P. G. Always thought of holidays, felt happier when got them. Three months at a stretch sometimes. Holidays always meant an escape to my hometown, to my family. Now it's my mother and me and the idea of hometown does not excite me anymore. It's just a place where I survive and try to thrive. There is no escape even when there are plenty of options. Think I already know what hell might feel like.  With a deeper understanding of life, universe and humans, my mind has almost given up on the human civilization ( not to forget I don't like the street dogs crying and howling at night and continuing with it for one hour to say the least. Cockroaches and flying cockroaches appearing from almost nowhere). Elders bless us with a long life but they always fail to mention a blessed, carefree long life. Who wants to li...
Read more