On The Lap Of The Silky way, Part - 11

On The Lap Of The Silky way, Part - 11

Silk Route Tour

As I approached the house, I noticed that a group of soft clouds, like thick fog, was moving softly all over me. These are dense clouds filled with water. The monkey cap  on my head got quite wet, the touch of these clouds were like dew on my eyebrows. It is like a small yard with two steps down the stairs, with many wide rooms beside it. The lady owner of this home stay  runs her  shops in these rooms. One is a small grocery store, rice, pulses, oil, salt, potatoes, onions,  including bottles of package drinking water, every belongings whichever is necessary for our daily living, are available here. The other is a small tea, biscuit, omelette shop,  house next to it is the only liquor store in this area. madam's niece who is the daughter of her sister and her husband run the tea shop. Madam manages both the grocery store and the liquor store alone. Towards this end of the day, in the dim light of the evening, I saw madam reclining in a chair inside the grocery store, and his sister's daughter was blowing air on her head with the cardboard of a torn packing box.

Silk Route Tour

I entered in the store after shaking off the water from my wind-cheater and asked them what had happened. Then I came to know that the lady was on a fast due to the worship of some local deity.  He had eaten only water and candy as prasad after her worship. I did not like the matter at all. Hurriedly I came to my room, took out a packet of ORS from my medicine bag, mixed  it in a glass of water, and came back  to them and gave that drink to the lady and  said, "It's a good health drink, you drink it, it will give you relief." The woman took a glass of lemon flavor ORS in my words with sad eyes and a soft smile on her face. I told her to take at least three more glasses of this drink till night.

At the dinner table, I saw madam supervising the food of the passengers with a smile on her face. I said why did you come up? Are you alright now? How is your dizziness? She took my hand and said, "I don't know that this holy water you had given me was of which god, but I have become quite strong after drinking three glasses of that holy drink." I said, "Your god was angry that you did not eat even after worshiping your god, so he sent that holy drink by my hand, from now onward you should leave all those fasting in the hands of your girls, otherwise your god will be angry again".

After dinner, everyone chatted for a long time. Our vacation is coming to an end; we have to return to Calcutta the day after tomorrow. Everyone's mind has become so heavy. This primordial undulating mountain lap, this sublime immaculate nature, these simple innocent people, we have no desire to leave them. Still have to go. Whoever has this feeling of love for just a few days, will have to go back for the next few days with life-giving sweetness.

Silk Route Tour

I don't know when I fell in deep sleep thinking about all this. I woke up in the dawn. It was a foggy morning. I removed the curtain from the window beside my bed and saw a small peacock-colored red-lipped bird swaying and whistling on the lemon tree. Before I could take out the camera, he danced from tree to tree, moving farther and farther away, but I couldn't see where he had gone, spreading a good feeling of sweetness for no reason and making this morning even sweeter. Maybe all the loves of life are fleeting like this. I quickly entered the bathroom with a brush, paste and soap.

After finishing our breakfast when we start today for our next destination from here, it was then morning nine o'clock.  On the way  out, madam and her niece put a piece of bhutia cloth of cream colored silk around our necks, painted a holy mark on our foreheads and said goodbye to everyone. The sincerity of this family has touched us deeply. We also said goodbye to this gentle lady and her family.

Silk Route Tour

Today we are going to Reshikhola. Although as a result of the very simplification in Bengali language, the name of this place has become Rishikhola, especially in the pronunciation of Bengali tourists. The word khola means river, i.e. a village situated on the banks of the river Reshi.

Silk Route Tour

Reshikhola is about 45 km from Rolep. The ascent path goes straight up from Rangli to the left. After a while the locality almost came down. The condition of the road is not good either. After some more distance only hilly path and jungle.

Silk Route Tour

Suddenly it seemed like the climb was over, we were going down. It was made a strange landing. Turning after turning, we just kept going down. It was absolutely rolling down. I can't express this decline in words. There was only dense jungle on both sides.

Silk Route Tour

The sounds of the crickets and somewhere of the beetles were only there. It's hard to imagine how our charioteer managed to bring down all of us with infinite efficiency by tilting about 45 degrees over the non-existent road in the middle of that dense downward forest mountain.

Silk Route Tour

As we were descending, the sound of a continuous river was reaching in our ears. It was hiding again in the thick vegetation for a moment with very little vision. This time the steep descent came straight and ended at the river bank.

Silk Route Tour

It was a very beautiful scene and a real 360 degree view was here, no matter how I turn my head; I am surrounded by thick green hills. Right in front of me, the river Reshi is flowing in a loud voice, what a roar of this river! Innumerable small and big pebbles are being pushed on the rocks, playing the loud music the cool current is moving on the mountain.

Silk Route Tour

To be continued............................................................................................