"3 Banjaare" on astonishing expedition into Seven Sisters's Land from Bangalore - 2

March 12, 2017

This is day 3 of the journey and Mr. Tarzan had planned to start the engine by 5 a.m. Though Mrs. Tarzan initially didn't like the idea and wanted it to be a smooth and relaxed journey from here, she was convinced by the counter argument that they would be stuck at Odisha-West Bengal border if they lose even couple of minutes and moreover they would be reaching Siliguri by late night. Siliguri being the starting point of their actual adventure they both did not want to be late under this tight schedule.

However, due to tiredness from the journey followed by a deep sleep it was a tough to open the eyes in early hours of the morning that after multiple shrieking alarms on both the cellphones within an interval of 1 minute, they could finally leave their bed an hour late. After a quick walk Mr. Tarzan was ready to start, but with a worrying mode as expected. Mrs. Tarzan on the other side was little bit worried but more relaxed knowing that Mr. Tarzan had a sound sleep that even after her repeated trials she could not make him open his eyes as per the schedule. It was only then she got positive signal for her trials when in his sleep he had demanded tea and somehow he could manage to sip his cup of tea once it arrived with a doorbell.

They could start for the day after checkout only by 6:30 a.m after skipping breakfast.

Anyways, Mrs. Tarzan was on her navigation to find the junction of this town road on the highway and they were on highway in a couple of minutes. This highway continued to be rough as previous day having bigger potholes enough to sink a titanic. Seemed that Mr. Tarzan was put on practice with a demo ride before his actual ride to the majestic North East Indian States. His mouth was twitching while he was drawing the path for all the four wheels through each depression which continued till they reached near the border. He was anticipating loads of truck on the road by then but almost all of them were resting off the road, so they both started thinking that the check-post is still at large and it is going to be crowded soon as they noticed few trucks had started their engines while a few were crawling on the road. In couple of minutes the crawling trucks were dead slow making congestion on the road and finally made Cheetah almost crawling like snail. Remembering the border-crossing trick, Mrs Tarzan started looking for a depression in the divider and in couple of meters she found it, however it was more like a marsh. Mr. Tarzan found a smoother surface as they crawled a few feet ahead. The next moment they zoomed out in the other side of the divider and continued till the congestion on their left vanished, after which they switched back to their left lane.

In next few mins Mrs. Tarzan noticed a small post and said, “Is this is the post?? So we have crossed the border??” Mr. Tarzan was doubtful. Not fully accepting it he said, “How can it be so quiet and smooth, it should be farther.”  But as they moved ahead the trucks became even more sparse indicating they had already crossed the post at Lakshmannath which turned Mr. Tarzan’s worried face into a smiling one for this achievement when they had beaten the expected jam after being behind the schedule by an hour yet still on his calculated schedule after paying first toll at Lakshmannath, covering a distance of 60 km in around an hour .

Now Mrs. Tarzan was also relieved seeing Mr. Tarzan’s twitched face back to normal. She had put on the music as they were moving among woods of Bengal while nearing Kharagpur.

It was now the time to decide about the route and she looked at Mr. Tarzan curiously thinking about what calculations he might have running in his mind. They both were skeptical about travelling through the main highway NH 16 going via Kolkata which is much nearer to Bangladesh owing to the disturbances reported and wanted to be as much less as possible in Bengal. However, according to current condition this highway could be better route due to road/traffic issues in the longer route which avoided West Bengal. Mr. Tarzan at once decided, “Let’s get out of here, we have ample time to reach today’s destination.” Mrs. Tarzan immediately went over her map in phone, zooming in and out, and jotted down all the diversions she thought would be the best route and probably with better road. She navigated towards Jharkhand taking NH 14 from Kharagpur and after 320 kms they were entering Jharkhand via Asansol towards Dumka.

It was already noon and she started feeling hungry but Mr. Tarzan and no signs of hunger but he did try to make Mrs. Tarzan to wait until they find some good halt. As they moved further they could witness more of bushes and trees and very less of humans but not good eatery. So, while Mrs. Tarzan was hungry Mr. Tarzan was filling his belly with tea. He doesn’t need food when he drives and can survive only on tea. On the contrary, Mrs. Tarzan needs proper food 3 times and she feels more hungry in the journey however she will eat only less amount leaving rest to hand over to Mr. Tarzan to finish.

Jharkhand is one of the states who is rich in tribal diversities and flora fauna. One can notice the sculptures depicting their culture at several occasions while traversing through its length and breadth.

This was a day of Holi(Holika Dahan) which is one of the major festival in north India and they were witnessing several households and people through out who were busy with festive preparations, be it hustling with household chores or cleaning or chit chats or buzzing around, one can easily notice the enthusiasm and vigor of the festival. Mr. and Mrs. Tarzan were experiencing Holi on vast scale and in different states, outside of their own homes but sharing the same gladness on watching people celebrating in their home with their relatives and friends.

In one of the towns near West Bengal border there was a bigger march of huliyares with a band, painted in various colors and dancing over the dhol beats. This is quite a common practice in North India where small and large groups roam around and dancing with DJs and bands. A part of Mrs. Tarzan at once already was dancing around and played with colors. She turned to Mr. Tarzan and asked to get some colors for holi but Mr. Tarzan prioritized about getting to the destination and told her to get it the next day.

Couple of hours passed but still they were roaming in the villages on the rickety roads and by then they realized they have to find some neat shack selling snacks if they want to have food however they could only find tea biscuits which was good enough for Mr. Tarzan. Jharkhand is full of bushes occasionally with flower bearing vegetation.

They were enjoying their ride in the villages with Mrs. Tarzan’s laddoo when they noticed a small bridge on a small river with a signboard which read that “this is the end of the Jharkhand State” below which few people were waiting for a transport to go to the other side of the bridge i.e. Bihar. They had already crossed Hansdiha and had no idea which village was in which state. Never seen such a small cute division of state. After crossing the river they were welcomed with another signboard of being welcomed in Bihar, though they were moving in Bihar the backdrops were painted with same colors and themes.

On this clear sky day, they saw several villages, the bushes, the canals, the bridges, the sculptures, more bushes and more cattles... the most rural traditional India where the households live peaceful life far away from the hassle of city, where the ladies were talking care of the babies while working outside of their homes,  guys were carrying their bikes seating their wives in vibrant sarees holding their pallus over their heads and with the other hand carrying toddlers or bags, kids were returning from school on their cycles. There were several small schools and then there were some students sitting under the tree in front of beautifully hand decorated building(looked like school) which was perhaps decorated and adored by these students themselves. This is my shining India !!

They were soon experiencing holi celebration in the center of Bhagalpur city which was perhaps the only populated place they had seen so far that day. As they entered the city they could see several piles of branches and leaves piled for holika at several places with loud music on the roll. There were women buzzing and shopping around, kids dancing on tunes hovering over the carts loaded with several pichkaris, people zooming in electric rickshaws perhaps visiting their friends or relatives or shopping around, while some men carrying long logs for holika crossed Cheetah a few men were already assembling the taller pile for holika... all of them were wearing festive vigor on their face !!

After some more time they were moving over the holy Ganga on Bhagalpur Bridge. An auspicious day with darshan of auspicious river when the sun had already decided to sink down also turning low its intensity making the weather more pleasant. It should have been around 5 pm in the pleasant evening. Mrs. Tarzan also captured this moment and couldn’t wait to post it to their friends on Facebook.

As the sun was sinking further down to let the moon slip in, they were nearing the Bengal border. They were hoping in the beginning that they will have surplus authentic North Indian food that day. Mrs. Tarzan even reminded Mr. Tarzan repeatedly that they should have litti (a bihari cuisine) as she also never experienced original litti taste though she had googled and made it at home in her own way but probably that could not have revived Mr. Tarzan’s taste bud of the taste of litti chokha which used to be fed to him by his late grandfather who would prepare it with his own hands specially for his grandson. Well, her litti also got great appreciation but it did not have that special taste of the grandfather’s love so she wanted to borrow similar taste for Mr. Tarzan that day through traditionally clay-baked litti, and at every tea break which Mr. Tarzan would take she would remind him of litti.

The sun was now completely gone and sky was turning into shades of blurred navy blue which reminded Mr. Tarzan of taking a good tea break and possibly get something to eat as Mrs. Tarzan was turning up more and more quiet after consuming up all her energy during the day.

By 6 p.m. he noticed a small bunch of shops and parked a few feet ahead asking Mrs. Tarzan to relax only to return in 10 mins with a cup of tea. Usually Mrs. Tarzan is not that tea- freak but sometimes she nods to the offer, actually she rarely likes tea other than prepared by herself so Mr. Tarzan always get her tea if he feels it is good enough on her scales. They both had tea together at opposite side of the front door while Mrs. Tarzan was sticking to her seat with quick talks which were disturbed by swarm of mosquitoes. Mr. Tarzan then went and returned with pakodas and littis which he had asked if Mrs. Tarzan would like to have . Asking her to have them he took out glass cleaner and started cleaning the windshield, by when Mrs. Tarzan noticed the Moon peeping out of the nearby tree and got filled with enthusiasm. As Mr. Tarzan started the engine she showed him the moon and also revealed she would like to capture the Full Moon on holika dahan outside their home, but the bigger lense was lying in the trunk. Listening this he stopped in couple of minutes with a clear view of the moon shining in the dark sky, got out the lense from dikki and handed over to Mrs. Tarzan.

She was grinning and immediately took a few pictures as if she caught some gems, silently watching her Mr. Tarzan was also feeling the gladness in his heart. He was smiling behind the steering wheel saying to himself, “What an adventurous day”, which was further exaggerated by drizzling, but he got interrupted by litti in front of his mouth which came from Mrs. Tarzan’s stretched out hand once she noticed a lone road with no vehicles ahead. This made turned his smile into a grin !!

It was raining at the border city of Kishenganj infamous for huge jams where you can’t see any road and you don’t get where you are going unless you know this place well or you have a navigator. Well, Mrs. Tarzan was at her job again and she was trying to find a way out of it. Before they both could realize they were amid slow moving trucks and she was trying to see if they can switch to the other side of the highway. Luckily they got some broken but sunk divider, and the Cheetah roared and moved to that side of the highway. They were moving at an average pace till  the congestion was cleared and switched back to their lane. Again, at few hundred meters before the bridge from where an underpass goes towards the main national highway for Kolkata they took service lane which was a total mess. It was really stubborn and since everyone wanted to go first they had created a deadlock. Eventually they spent around half an hour while dragging for those few hundred meters and approached at the junction where they were at complete halt since a long trailor wanted to turn right at under pass towards Kolkata, with only positivity was the music on rocks at inside.This was a very congested place with market and hand carts on the road side, worsened due to mud and water logging due to rains. Here, anyone was free to move in any direction he was pleased to go. They both got worried hoping that no one hurts or scratches Cheetah. Finally some local guy came over probably one of the truck driver or helper shouted at those fellows and gradually made some way for the straight moving vehicles to move ahead. Mrs. Tarzan opened the window and monitored her side as they were moving only inches away from the street carts. They both took deep breath once they crossed that mess and speeded towards Siliguri. Both the music and speed went high for some time when there was good road else the whole day was spent on rickety road.

As it was late evening they were tired up for the day and hoped to reach their hotel soon. By only 10 pm they could reach to their night halt after finding their way on the narrow streets of the city, special thanks to the navigator from Mr. Tarzan. On reaching hotel, as expected Mrs Tarzan ordered nice dinner for them including Mr. Tarzan’s favorite fried rice and fish and crispy vegetable cuisine for herself while relaxing and watching TV. As Mr.Tarzan returned from his leg straightening walk, he was amused to see the food was served in next couple of minutes. It was delicious pre-holi dinner and they wished each other  again, “Happy Holi” !!
Route Map :

Distance : 767 KM
Toll : INR 335
Diesel : INR 2040
Hotel : INR 1362 - Balaji Inn (OYO)

Part 1 Part 3