Tale of a town, two lakes and a zoo, Tripura- Part Two, Wanderings in a dusty city

Exploring Agartala can either be a half day task or a week endeavour, depending on what one seeks.

If one seeks larger than life monuments and spectacular sceneries, then Agartala has none. Barring the not-so-imposing Ujjayanta Palace, nothing even comes close. But if one has modest ambitions (and sometimes having them is a virtue, especially when seeing new places, seeking newer vistas), then Agartala may absorb you for days to come.

Take for example roaming endlessly in the busy thoroughfares of the city, without much of an aim, eating at a roadside joint at a dirt cheap price and talking to a Bangladeshi rickshawallahs who crosses the border everyday to earn a living. It's indeed a relish to find a place where a rupee is called a taka. It's indeed a relish to visit the foreign goods market in the city, flooded by cheap Chinese imports- all smuggled from Bangladeshi side and sold at a dirt cheap price and see a casual approach of shopkeepers to sell their stuffs as against the aggressive styles of a Delhi merchant.

But when it comes to serious touring of the city, start with Purbasha and you would find reasons enough to come again and to end your Tripura visit with Purbasha. It is a hand-loom store managed by the Tripura Government, where you get wonderful things at prices that might make you blink in disbelief. I almost spent my entire money in the store and feel elated when somebody comes to my house and asks me where I purchased the bamboo lamp, the bamboo wall hangings and beautiful bed covers from. You can get all these from Purbasha's branch in Delhi or Calcutta, but the price differential may be a bit too much to digest. Remember, around Durga Puja these people give a whopping 25 percent discount, so just in case you can schedule your visit around that period, you are in for a even pleasant surprise.

Near Purbasha is another small little place worth visiting and spending time. The Maharaja Bir Bikram College is known not only for its educational standards in the region but also for its idyllic setting. It is situated on a verdant hillock besides a lake in the eastern part of the city. There is a good sports stadium, a good library and a wonderful cafeteria, even though a tad mis-managed. This is a place where you can see young couples hanging around and the usual energy levels of youth. The College was made by Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya and the sheer setting of the place makes it a must visit, though not on usual tourist circuit.

Then there is the beautiful Ujjayanta Palace, which stands elegantly in the heart of the city. It has been converted into the legislative assembly for the state. And to me it is an under-usage of the building that exudes grandeur. It should have been first and foremost a tourist place. But you need special permission to visit the place. Though, if the assembly is not in session, you can coax a guard to let you see the place without that special permission... tell him you are a tourist and might be flying out in a day or two, usually they oblige. The palace was built by Radha Kishore Manikya Bahadur in 1901. It has a beautiful Mughal styled garden with a musical fountain and wonderful tiles, probably of Chinese origin procured from Burma.

Then nearby is the government museum, not very big or even well-managed and yet worth visiting. It has a good collection of terracotta images, archeological findings from in and around the place, "kantha" art works. And if one doesn’t try to find the grandeur of an cosmopolitan museum in it, the place is a wonderful peep through the Bengali and Tripuri culture.

Then there is the famous Kunjaban Palace, nowadays the official residence of Tripura's Governor. This beautiful building was constructed by Maharaja Birendra Kishore Manikya Bahadur as his private retreat. It is famous for its association with Rabindra Nath Thakur. I couldn’t visit the place, so I believe that this place is out of bounds.

Then there is a Chaturdash Devata Badi or the house of fourteen deity, people tell me that it is a beautiful place. Again I couldn’t visit the place.

Once exhausted with the city, I hit for even pleasant place in the hinterlands of Tripura.

A fiction- Episode One

I have always been trying to write a fiction and this is my nth attempt at it... though could never take it to the conclusion because of my inherent inertia. May be the onus of updating the blog may keep on reminding me to finish it and thus drive me into doing the impossible. Comments and suggestions are solicited.

1
Her breathing was getting harder with every passing second.

Initially she felt an enormous pain, but with time, her body got accustomed to it. Her body was crushed by tons of wreckage and heaps of dead bodies or bodies waiting for death.

At times, like every other individual, she had fantasized about the idea of death, but she had never imagined that the reality would be like this- stark and naked- even in her worst nightmares.

Help, she knew will take a lot of time to arrive. By that time she may not be able to live. Her senses were getting numb. The cries and the whimpers had faded, the sight of the gore was hazy, and the feel of the iron piercing her body was mellower. But her mind was working overtime.

With a responsibility comes this ability.

She started thinking.

Prithvi is his last hope, but how he comes to know, that he is.

Trails of evidences!
Not any she remembers.

Can Prithvi meet him?
Difficult without a clue or a motive. And he was lost for years.

Chetan received a letter from him, seven years ago, when he was in Rishikesh. Chetan tried tracing him, even went there met Paramarthaji, but all he could tell him was a trail too confused. Three years ago, Chetan and Ma also died in a mysterious accident. And since then she has been waiting for the same, a mysterious accident. After all, she was a mere human, when compared to "that" enormous power.

Why didn’t she ever tell Prithvi?

Why she always behaved as she is a common person?...With a common family- a father who died eight years ago when his boat capsized in Kolkata and a mother and a brother, who met an accident on their way to Ujjain. In fact a whole bus did.

They don’t stop at anything; human lives are just incidental for them and can be sacrificed at the altars of their beliefs, especially if it is to sacrifice a member of the "Clan".

But Prithvi was not from the clan, he married her, coincidentally and telling him about them would have endangered him, too. He would have been crestfallen to know they exist, and make or mar our lives so extensively, and yet we don't know.

**************************************

The rescue team arrived after seven hours, by the time she was dead.

2
Excel Technologies Ltd.…

A name which is readily recognized throughout the world for churning out the best softwares and software professional.

This has been my proxy home for last few years. To be precise, ever since Sneha's demise.

I am often dubbed as a genius over here, a fast track employee. Someone who graduated from being a Junior Software Engineer straight out of an Indian Institute of Technology into heading a Strategic Business Unit in a short span of seven years. Such wonders, according to the grapevine aren’t repeated time and again. The last time Excel saw such a star was in Romesh Mukhopadhyay. Romesh incidentally, is our Chief Executive Officer.

I got married to Sneha five years ago. She was my batch mate in Bombay. Our love emanated in the confines of those hallowed portals, which house perhaps the best of Indian brains, arguably though. It thrived alongside the Powai and Vihar Lake and reached its logical conclusion two years after both of us were selected by Excel Corporation through a campus interview. And then the tragedy occurred … Sneha died in a train accident

Something snapped in me, I lost all my rationales to live and yet had to live for the cowardice of other options. Since then I have tried finding solace in the confines of an artificial world, where I meet clients, often virtually, plan an execute software projects, almost worldwide- travel between timezones, for a modicum of peace of mind, but do not find it. Peace of mind is a mirage, as Sneha always said- for humans have a motive to exist, often unacknowledged- and the motive doesn't let you find that, peace of mind.

I always felt, that my motive is out there somewhere, but invisible- how am I to decipher it. I have an ability to read through the codes and data, but why life itself is so translucent for me. I am unsure

I am sure of only one thing, I am Prithvi, Prithvi Verma