Day 2 – 9th July : While me and my wife felt lazy, others went ahead for a morning walk through the village streets. After some time, I joined them too! The weather out there was cloudy and we enjoyed the walk through red pathway of village. Later after coming back, Mr. Birbal came up and served morning Tea and asked us to get ready as he’d be serving breakfast by 9 o’ Clock.
Today being our checkout, we already had planned to explore the sightseeings around such as Kalyaneswari Temple, Maithon Dam, Panchet Dam, Garpanchkot, Joychandi Hills etc. Our train being at 4:20 PM, Mr. Birbal informed us to start by 9 AM to avoid last minute rush.
Finally after having our breakfast, paying up all the bills and bidding Goodbye to Mr. Birbal and other staffs, we started for our first destination of the day – Kalyaneswari Temple. Truly speaking, it seemed more of a Business Hub instead of a Temple. At every step there’s one person asking for money (so called donation) to allow us proceed further. Although we skipped through them and finally went inside for Darshan. The business is more strong in there, and they would demand more money (more donation) for offering your prayers. Believe me, this is the only reason, I avoid going to temples and putting in money to these Businesses out there.
Anyway, after Kalyaneswari Mandir, we proceeded towards Maithon Dam. Interested tourists can opt for boating, but we were not at all interested for such, and thus we skipped the same.
Don’t get me wrong, but personally neither of these actually seemed attractive to us. Yes the view was nice, but nothing special.
Anyway after spending some time over there we proceeded towards our most awaiting destination, Garpanchkot (actually spelled as Garh Panchkot). I really wish we all could have managed one more day, as I always had this urge to stay at WBFDC Lodge at Garpanchkot for a night. The place is actually the ruins of Panchkot Palace resulting in from Bargi attack. The way to Garpanchkot was splendid!
The first thing we did after reaching Garpanchkot was ordering our lunch. 2-3 shops are there which serves lunch and might prepare the same after your order. Our driver informed us this beforehand. Then we proceeded towards exploring the area. Two aged grandmothers approached us for helping us explore the place and being guiding us. Though we well understood their intention, but didn’t resist keeping in mind their age and scope of employment at such region. Not only that, the positive side is their enthusiasm at such age and believe me, Bong Grandmothers are an expert on telling stories.
They really walked us through each and every spot around the ruins and explained things in details. The simplicity and personal touch in them really fascinated us. We happily handed over a note of Rs. 50/- to each of them, although we never discussed any amount beforehand. You see, I personally feel, paying them (whatever the amount is), is much worthy over paying the same amount at such temples like Kalyaneswari. One can definitely argue, temples too put the money for good cause or betterment of the needy, but by their attitude it doesn’t seems so. And if that’s the case, the priests would not have behaved as such greedy. There’s a huge difference between asking for donation and asking for money and it means a lot
Anyway, we decided to skip further destinations, as it was like rushing through them and instead we made ourselves seat under a Banyan tree enjoying the cool breeze, the so called natural air-conditioner of Indian Villages. Finally after some time, we were served lunch. Not each and every item, but one of the vegetables was so tasty that he failed to serve us! Overall it was good and we were hungry too!!
Finally Mr. Lakkhikanta, our driver drove us to Adra railway station as per our plan. We went ahead towards the platform after bidding him goodbye.
The return journey was mostly uneventful, except that, we were not aware that Rupashi Bangla Express takes 5 hours from Adra to Howrah which made us bore throughout the latter part of our journey. However we enjoyed chit-chatting among ourselves and enjoyed the rain on the way. After reaching Howrah, we booked Uber for ourselves over a smoke and went back to our daily life with memories of Baranti and Garpanchkot.
Baranti
