Journey of a lifetime : From Godavari to Kosi

A journey begins with an idea. Idea is to reach somewhere, do something, meet someone. It begins in a vacuum but takes shape based upon the potency of idea. Journey, in other words is  the sum total of travel undertaken by a living being to fulfill a purpose/promise. 

Since, time immemorial, humans have been great travellers. It is no coincidence that some of the  great Indian thinkers e.g. Swami Vivekananda, Gandhijee, Tagore, Nehru, Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan,were great travellers. They institutionalized their ideas through travelling inside India as well as on foreign shores.

Imagine,Swami Vivekananda sitting several months in cramped and slow-moving Ships to reach Chicago to deliver “my dear brothers and sisters” philosophy.Now, Jet Airways can help you in eating breakfast in Mumbai and having dinner in Chicago on the same day.Isn’t this wonderful.

But, hold your breath for now, sitting /sleeping comfortably in Business Class and inhaling purified air along with packaged food/wine/water is not my idea of travel. I believe in philosophy of migratory birds. Siberian Cranes and Greater Flamingos are my ideal travellers.

 It is amazing that how these birds in groups travels several thousands kilometers just to escape the harsh winter in their homelands. The scientists among these birds need to invent Tree Heater or something similar to provide them cosy atmosphere. These birds always migrate towards Chilika or similar places when they perceive the tailwind to be favourable. But, once they start , nothing on the earth can stop them. Before proceeding, they also put on enough fat to provide them energy during journey as there are no  flying dhabas in the sky.Nearly, 100 species of foreign birds visit India every year just to get warm air in her lungs. So, I will dedicate my journey to these loveable birds.

Now you must be thinking that why I am talking about birds. But, I have my reasons to compare myself with these wonderful avians.03 days back, I started my journey to visit my native place Panchgachhia.

Presently, I live in  a small township in Simhadri which is nearly 40 Kms. in southern direction from Visakhapatnam situated on the Bay of Bengal. I breathe fresh air brought by winds from Indian Ocean on daily basis. This wind is exhilarating and far better than winds from filthy Yamuna which fills up the lungs of some of  my esteemed friends living in Delhi. Consider this blog as invitation from my side, you are free to dine with me in my lawn while my dog “Kalu” wags his tail and you eat food mixed with this salty air from Indian Ocean.

The primary reason why I decided to undertake this nearly 1700 Kms. journey was betrayal by Indian Railways. Indian Railways offered me a waitlisted Second  A.C. ticket having the prefix WL 39 and WL 40 in a train which travels from Kochi to Patna. 

This train also behaves like Siberian Cranes as it stores lots of fat in Pantry car and completes its journey by carrying few thousand Indians. It refused to grant me a place to sit/sleep under its wings as my tickets received final prefix of WL 5 and WL 6. I hate this WL word. It is not that I didn’t tried to remove WL status, I called up  my friends/friends of friends and their friends to cofirm my ticket through EQ. But, corruption in India has a well-defined and closed boundary, a common man of R.K.Laxman-type can not manipulate the ticketing system all the time.

But, I am a die-hard optimistic. I boarded the Patna Express at 1945 hrs. on 19^th March 2013 at Visakhapatnam Railway Station. Again, I tried to manipulate the system and convince T.T.E. that how crucial my journey is, but the fat fellow failed to get tricked by my persuasion and denied any vacancy on the train.

  So, I decided to get off from the train as she(train) has stubbornly refused to accommodate me time and again, at the next stop VijayNagram which was nearly 68 Kms. away  from Vizag. May be , the name of this city should have been HarNagram which was more appropriate in my case. During my 60 minutes spent on train, I met honourable TTE saab 5 times and he flatly denied my request religiously each time.

So, I de-boarded Patna Express and drank grape juice to lessen the pain of leaving the train. Bought tickets for Vizag and boarded Konark Express at 2100 hrs. to go back to Simhadri. Here, in this train, berths were un-occupied and TTE was nowhere to be seen.It seemed  like everyone was in a hurry  to go Patna that day and no one was willing to go Mumbai. If only 06 people, who had reserved their tickets on Patna Express, had decided not to travel that day, the theme of this blog would have been different.

So, now flight travelling was the other option but  cost of the tickets were prohibitive.It seems, all airlines were hell bent upon snatching my hard-earned money. I have a suggestion for CEOs of airlines in India, if you are trying to loot common people then why pretend of niceties, go to ravines of Chambal, join the gang of Daku Malkhan Singh and loot openly.Otherwise, why a one-way ticket to Patna from Vizag via Delhi should cost 20,000 per passenger. If people are still grabbing tickets at such prices, we need to ask our Finance Minister why there are only 41000 Indians having annual income of more than 1 crore.

Hence, no air travel for me…..no trains for me ….then what is the next option…………you guessed it right……….Indian Roads are lifeline of India….they circulate energy to all parts of India. Good roads literally translates in good living standard for people.

Now, I think of my Swift Dzire, which will take me places and let me explore the land. It will keep me grounded for next few weeks. So, I will tell you story of my travelling inside Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. I am inspired by Rahul Sanskrityayan, Father of Travel-literature in India. You  need to read “Volga se Ganga”to understand the intricacies of travelling. It is sad to know that Jeffrey Archer has replaced such great writers from our book-shelf.

But, again  Rome wasn’t built in a day, so I will stretch my narratives in few episodes……………you are supposed to visit my blog page again to know the journey. Waters of Godavari and Kosi are as different as chalk and cheese.

See you some other day……till then Happy reading.