They say that ‘change is the only thing that does not change’. Nicely said, but when I look around us I find the catagory which actually keeps aloof from any change as such are our own people. I’ve had the fortune of touring around many places in India and I had watched out keenly during my stays at the various places or during long-distance travels that people, especially those from Bengal, love, or at least take some special pleasure in useless gossips! It doesn’t matter whether they are at home, or travelling in a train, or going on a picnic. Somehow, they would gather some of their sort, and endlessly go on talking, talking, talking utter trash! Surprisingly, while travelling, they would speak as if travelling is just an excuse for gossips.
As if it is not enough, they hardly take notice of others around them. Whether they are getting disturbed, or irritated by their loud chatter-chatter does not seem to be a matter of any concern to them. In trains, they would pretend as such they have reserved the entire compartment, in hotels they remain oblivious as if no-one else is staying other than them, in restaurants they pretend as if they have not eaten for a month, in shopping malls, they would shop as if they have won a lottery just the other day….I’d better stop listing them. I’d list a few of my experiences with these people, even though at the slightest mention of them I grow furious, but honestly I can’t help myself sketching out a merry picture of them.
- Long back, when I was a member of our local club, they arranged a trip to Uttarakhand. It was a joint tour, were all our members went with their parents including myself (The club members average age at that time was less than thirteen years, I was eleven at that time). I did not have much idea of how a joint tour would be like, because we never traveled with anyone before that (for some reasons that I now understand, my father preferred to travel alone, i.e only our family and no one else). However many of my relatives including my cousin have told me before that nothing actually equals the joy in travelling together. So naturally I was a bit excited about it. I grew mad spending two days on train and surrounded by sparrow-chirping of the people; also found out why my parents hated travelling together. Finally when we did reach our destination, my parents insisted on staying in a different hotel from the rest, the club volunteers said they have already made reservations in the same hotel. We stayed at Munsyari and luckily enough we had a decent room from where we could enjoy the beautiful scenic beauty. Evening time – the weather became chiller than ever. Soon the streets became empty, the shops closed down, and the distant snow begun to look better and better. The moonlight lit up and added to the eternal beauty of the place. We (me with my parents) were the only people sitting in the corridor watching and enjoying the beautiful view. Ask about the rest – they were enjoying DISH TV Channels, as if that is something we don’t get in our hometowns! The only time they came out was when they felt hungry and wanted to go downstairs for dinner!
- Last December, we visited Gopalpur-on-sea. We (along with many people) took a hotel right on the sea-beach, and fortunately again, we got a sea-facing room. On the first-floor there were a couple of rooms from which we could directly enjoy the sea from the balcony. Evening time, again, the sea looked alarmingly frightening, as the waves gushed against the sands of the shore and literally came to engulf us. May be it was magnified by three times from the sea we enjoyed (and bathed-in) during daytime. As I sat in the balcony enjoying the scene, the waves started to form nearer and nearer, the sound tuned louder and louder. The moonlight kept on forming the ripples, as if it had challenged the sun during the daytime. Helen Keller had rightly said – “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched” and as I looked far and far away into the horizon, the sea looked calmer and calmer, and voila! There’s a small ferry out there, maybe a fishing boat. As usual, I was the only person at that time sitting in the balcony of any sea-facing room in that hotel. (I longed to go to the beach, but my parents won’t allow it)
- Last year we visited Mayavati Ashram. Mere telling about the place will undoubtedly arise some interests to visit that place within any personality hopefully. The ashram is situated in the midst of deep and dense forests all around in a valley of hills. There are no colonies, residential areas, markets around, only the guest house separated from the ashram by a ten-minute walk. I was really excited to visit that place for mainly two reasons. Firstly I had never seen any wild animals in the open and Mayavati had the reputation of having wild animal-hubs in the forests. Secondly what also interested me was staying alone solicited from colonial life into the wilderness residence. Nobody – not a being lived around, as already said. The Ashrama was established by Swami Vivekananda for meditation purposes. There was an open platform to the right of the monastery for bird watchers, and, if you are lucky enough, you might get a glimpse of wild animals like maybe wild deer or even the leopards! Staying in the guest house during night-time was equally thrilling. My parents along with myself were the sole persons on that platform, waiting patiently, quietly for hours on-end, trying to see something, rather someone in the form of wilderness beings! The other visitors were busy in the ashram building grumbling among themselves about how their daughter-in-laws treat them at home! (Again, thanks to God, me and my mother were really really fortunate to have seen a leopard in the dense forests. Even after we told the others, all that they did was shift their chatting-room from the ashram to that platform, with that all our hopes of seeing something more got spoiled – thanks to their daughter-in-laws!)
Such experiences are far too common, and I’m really sorry if my readers feel uncomfortable reading the above write-up. The above list is in no way exhaustive, there are more, to be honest I distinctly recollect at least three more incidents, but I prefer not to pen them down over here. Sadly the picturesque view of our people do not look appealing. I want to stop over here and chuckle to myself about these folks, let them be spoilers in all sorts of company.