The sun has risen an hour back
and I had to wake up midway in my sleep cutting through the soothing dreams thanks to the loud alarm ringing in my cell. It was a fine winter freezing
morning when we packed our bags and laced our shoes and eases into a rented Chevrolet
Tavera to head towards the mighty Chilika lagoon at Satpada. We were a group of
6 guys with nothing to do in trimester 6 of MBA course and the trip was the result
of our research paper on ‘How to kill time’, started by Subu with a long chart
of destinations in and around Orissa, along with frequent calling for formal
meetings and sending MOMs after each meet!
We planned to go at 7 AM. But thanks
to the driver arriving late, we started from Bhubaneswar at 7.30, with all
dressed up in jackets. We stopped at
around 8.30 in a roadside restaurant for breaking the fast (for past 8 hours). After
a long wait, we were happy to feed ourselves with variety of dosas, puri sabjis
and a tasty tea. Satisfied with the good food, we resumed our journey at 8.30. We passed through serene leafless trees on either sides of
the road as if they are welcoming us with a ‘Namaskar’.
Brahmagiri, one of the major
junctions during the last lap of the onward journey, amazed me with narrow
lanes filled up with cycles run by people ranging from school going fledglings
to the old-timers. It won’t be surprising if it has a nickname ‘Cyclegiri’. It
seemed as if the place is following the footsteps of Denmark in cycle density.
After a journey of 3 hours helped
by a delay of 1 hour for the mighty breakfast, we reached the shining shores of
Chilika at Satpada. Debu, the bhai of the team, recently promoted to Uncle,
thanks to his newly grown moustache, assumed the role of a treasurer. He pooled
in money from all of us, stacked up snacks, bought the ticket and there we go!
We took 1600 Rs ticket and got
into a seemingly old boat. The whole journey was around 4 hours across the
lake. It was an awesome experience to be in the midst of chilling lake for that
long period. Inside the boat, Deepu sat on the extreme front like the captain,
me and Puskhu were at the left side and Prati and Subu were at the right side.
At the back deck was the sleeping Debu, who wakes up intermittently, wears the
cooling glass and asks me to take photos proclaiming that in that outfit, he
looks like Don!
We 1st went to a place
where the boatmen showed us taking the pearls off the shell. Keeping the virgin
gem in hand was exciting. Then we went to a point where we could catch a
glimpse of dancing dolphins. The dolphin family got scared when many steamers
ventured into its arena and in no time, they escaped to greater depths.
Then we moved to pay a visit to
the Serbian guests, the birds flocking around a small ridge. We got down there
and the boatmen threw stones near the bird’s vicinity so that we could witness
the spectacular scene of them flying in groups forming colourful sketches in
the sky and move towards the other end of the ridge.
Later we moved to a lakeside
makeshift restaurant which was exclusive for those sailing across Chilika.
There were fishes, crabs and prawns in offer. The masala gravy prepared by
cook was extremely delicious to say the least, a must try for those who peep
into that area.
Finally we reached the best spot
in the whole trip – An island in the lake mouth where lake and the Bay of
Bengal joins. An isolated lake and a virgin beach nearby is as splendid a combination
as ‘kappa and meen curry’, a Kerala dish. Some of us took bath in the beach
followed by that in the lake to get rid of the sticky sands. I collected some
shells as a memorabilia. In the island, we saw moving shells and a big outer
shell of a dead tortoise. The boatmen showed us how to take a crab out of its
shelter inside sandy holes. The crab kept quiet even at his hand when it was
covered with sand. But it soon came back to action the moment it was dropped on
to the shore. I was not sure if it was its tactic to lie unmoved or it might
also be that it got fooled that it was in its own house when covered with sand.
Debu started experimenting the phenomena and the results proved the hypothesis
to be true. Debu even went to the extent of touching its chelipeds as if he is
shaking hands with it. Finally it was time to leave and the weepy crab bid
adieu to Debu hoping that he will come next time for a date.
Around 4.30 PM we started from
Chilika heading to Bhubaneswar. The return trip was boring when
most of us were busy resuming the broken dreams in the morning. I suggested
Deepu that we can have a tea midway, which was vehemently rejected by him
stating that we will reach there in an hour. And yes he was on the dot :p We finally
reached at 7.30 PM thanks to the heavy traffic.
The funniest part during the
whole trip was a caption in a poster in front of a midway hotel. It says: ’We
welcome guests and send back friends’!
Characters (In the order of appearance):
Author Nithin Gopinadh
Subu Pradeep Subudhi
Debu Debabrata Pruseth
Deepu Deepak
Panda
Pushku Pushkar Singh
Prati Pratik Ranjan
Date: 14th Jan 2011
Place: Too lazy eh? Read the article
to figure out!
