Scorching

Usually I do not stay in Bhubaneswar on weekends. Last week, I thought that I would give a try. Saturday at around noon I gave up, it became impossible to bear the heat. Made a quick plan and started for Konark. Bhubaneswar to Konark road is not so great; full of trucks and buses which had clearly no respect to traffic rules. The advantage and beauty of the road is, after a place called Pipli (which is I guess the junction where the Puri and Konark roads divide); on both side of the road you get agricultural lands. The road is through many villages and those are different from villages that I have seen in west bengal.The roof of the huts are very low, almost all the houses have Aalpana painted on it. It is an art form of designs painted with Rice grain dust. I thought of stopping many times to stop and spending time with them. But left the plan; I would come back exclusively to study their lifestyle sometime later. We reached Konark at around 7 in the evening. The sun temple in Konark was really majestic in the evening light. I did not shoot much inside the temple, but the artwork is different from usual temple works in India. We were planning to stop at Konark and sit in Chandrabhaga beach. Somebody complained that Chandrabhaga was not safe at night and police would create a trouble for sure. We decided to head for Puri. Puri is a famous destination for Bengalis as well. For me, it was the first time. It took merely 40 minutes to reach Puri from Chandrabhaga. The first shock I got when I saw the crowd. The density was much beyond my level of comfort. People actually made it difficult to see the water. So many people, all the hotels were booked. We drove straight until we saw a STOP signboard. We went to the last hotel of the street. It was still fine because it was away from the crowd. The breeze from sea was charming. We sat outside for a long session of adda till 2.30 at night when a security person told us to go to the room. Morning, I woke up early when others had completed half of their sleep session. I Went outside to see the activities of the fishermen. They were coming with the day’s catch and selling directly to the local market dealers. Within couple of hours, it became very hot outside. We sat under big umbrellas on the beach and spend time watching people making all sort of funny activities. When the heat became intolerable, we started for Bhubaneswar again. This trip was not particularly a photo trip of mine, but I enjoyed a lot only because I did not try to spend 2 days by sleeping at Bhubaneswar.