Miss you Farakka

Below is an excerpt from a letter written years back by my friend Manita Deo describing the place she was in love with and this is probably the best letter written by a 12 year old!

Manita wrote-“The Farakka I knew will always be like this:- When you get down the station from the train that is always late, you take a rickshaw and go down the ‘peeche-wali-road’ through the outskirts of the market and onto the bank of the canal. The morning dew and the river send down such an intoxicating perfume that so many of the fishermen (whose boats have been tied at the pier) take for granted. The tall eucalyptus trees line the road and there’s a hint of the barrage road on the other side of the river...It’s monsoon now and the river’s flooded and the roads have been eaten away. You go out, have a blast in the rain and you feel the temptation of the smell of rain on the brown and the green earth got the better of you!....You come to the 1st gate of field hostel and come to the ‘ghat’ and eat ‘gol-gappas’ like maniacs!..I miss those days!....”

I chose to start this post with her description because whatever metaphors I use, however hard I try, I won’t be able to match the innocence of her description.

So this is the place I belong to and owe myself to! The place where my father was posted and I spent 18 best years of life right from the day when I cried for the first time! Farakka isn’t exactly heaven but it’s greenery and the mesmerizing Ganges banks with it’s pleasant winds make you feel that heaven can’t be any better! Your soul is fed with the free flowing warmth of nature that you always crave for!

Not just this it’s the place to be if you are a ‘fishy’ person! You get endless varieties of fresh fish and it’s proximity to Bangladesh certainly helps you to find the best hilsas. Mango groves in and around this place are as much an eye-candy as they are a delight to your tongue each time you are captured in it’s spell.

The people here are warm and courteous and blame it all on the nature which has cast it’s spell. True that it doesn’t have CCDs or Baristas nor its own Pizza Hut but if walk into any of it’s innumerable parks or playgrounds you will know what it’s like to spend time with your friends beneath the sky free from all the artificial rules of sophistication that the society imposes!

Late at night when you go out for a walk near the canal you actually hear the sound of silence amongst the rumblings of the water waves which try to reach out to you and get lost as they hit the banks! There can be no better way to rediscover yourself. Isn’t it?

It’s been three very long years I haven’t been there and I don’t know when I’ll be there again. But even though my friends say I left the place believe me I haven’t left it! I simply cant!