Bikash Choudhury
Every day we receive hundreds of notification if not in
thousands in the morning in the social media about various facets of life in
the form of write-ups, photographs and even short video presentation a few of
them we normally open to take stock and majority of them we delete to save the
memory of the device and very few of them we download to reflect at leisure
largely decided by our taste and interest—I agree there is no rocket science
involved here; but, just to narrate a much bigger story of the formative years
of this writer. Cut to the chase I received a few minutes of video clipping of
a celebrated technocrat turned artist about his exploits from a sketching
workshop at Dhenkanal. I saw a clipping about an artist in knee deep water
sketching the beautiful landscape of a country side; that clipping triggered
hours of moving pictures deep inside about pristine and beautiful rural
landscape of childhood in the paternal village of Gokhapada of Karanja Gram Panchayat
in Mahakalapada Block in Kendrapara District. Our Gokhapada
Village is part of 10 contiguous
habitats encircled by the Luna River
named Dasamauji. Writer has spent many summer vacations in the area during his
childhood along with a brood of siblings from a close knit joint family that
remains intact even today. The beauty of this river island and simple and
unassuming lifestyle of the inhabitants wished to be screened for a larger
audience to experience rural landscape—rural lives—rural people. One misty
morning four of us set out for Gokhapada
Village otherwise known as Gokha
Khati in the archeological records about 105 kilometers drive from the capital
city of Bhubaneswar. Our drive and
driving was uneventful but my monotonous driving habits got our companions
little agitated and that brought Captain a former Indian Air Force man (Siddhartha
De-wild life and gentle life photographer) behind the wheels and he amused
all of us with his driving acrobatics keeping the safety of his co-passengers
firmly under his control taking a few pit stops to refill the lungs with
nicotine a few times and others were sudden stoppage at the sight of an
interesting subjects to capture in his AK-47 like camera lenses swiftly drawn
from the cabinet inside the car and positioned with precision as if it were
Kargil war in the offing; shorts taken and promptly behind the wheels to zip
past mineral loaded monstrous trucks heading towards Paradeep Port. We reached
the junction that connects the Dasamauji group of villages on the Chandikhole-Paradeep
Express Highway after a two and half hour drive.
We met a villager of our area with ‘chandan tika’ on his forehead sipping tea
in a stall protruding towards the village road and enquired about the road
direction for our destination-Gokhapada village and prompt reply was whose
house we are visiting? Since, no one lives in our village home after the demise
of father’s elder brother (Badabapa) I said Late Gangadhar Choudhury; he
immediately gave me a hug and said I would be his elder brother in the extended
choudhury clan with lineage spanning one and half centuries. He gave me the
exact location map with proper direction heaps better than the Google Maps that
was live by my travel companions. Captain was still behind the wheels and looking
at our banters with a poker face while deeply engrossed in a thought,
apparently questioning my credibility as the “curator” of the program who does
not know the way to his own village. Having read his mind I took my seat in the
front and slammed the door while giving information about roads to the venue as
politely as I could. We reached the house in front of the village cum family
temple that was looking speak and span with a fresh coat of parrot green color.
Collected the keys of the house from the temple priest, arranged our stuff in
the house that would be our laboratory for next three days and promptly changed
and washed ourselves of the travel fatigue if any and went inside the temple to
pray for the success of our program “Rural Photo Art Trail” that
would deal with rural landscape, rural lives and rural people with an objective
to explore and showcase opportunity for “Rural Tourism” in and
around Gokhapada and Dasamauji. The secondary objective was communities
connected with Art and Artist. Our puja was over within minutes having an
atheist in our team; the priest announced that food was ready for lunch. With
some quick calculations we decided to finish the food business and start our
tour to hunt down suitable subjects for artists and our gentle life
photographer. The priest who hails from the nearby village
of Karanja laid down our lunch on
freshly plucked and cleaned banana leaf with Arna Prasad, Dalma, two vegetable
curry, pampad and Khiri as dessert. Our travel fatigued body and hungry stomach
was just asking for such a treat in a mind blowing ambience of temple
Natyamandap. Food was simply
awesome; now, slowly my team incrementally believed that I could manage their
affairs for the next three days without much controversy. Soon after our team marched
the village street with their equipment and caps on their heads; you should see
the curiosity of the villagers craning their necks from village shops and women
stalking us with their half covered faces in the saree pallu to focus on our
looks with precision. We did not open our vocal chord waiting for a expressed
intention to know by a direct question; by that time we have put up our banner
in the western end of the village in front of the tube well and our assistant
curator cum artist Prabal Mallick had positioned his portable easel for
sketching while firmly ensconced in his little traveling folding chair with his
cap firmly on the top in a semi cloudy afternoon. It was about 4.30 pm in the clock and one lazy village
belle was giving her final touches to her afternoon wash routine near the tube
well. At a little distance I was appreciating the beauty of the place and the
village girl in off shoulder attire with long hair and water droplets
glistening on her fair skin. Our artist in residence
Er.Prabal Mallick deliberately gave this subject a miss to
avoid moral police if any. Women using public places in villages for their
washing and cleaning is an old habit with proximate security and comfort of
villagers not seen or feasible in little bigger townships or cities. Therefore,
Cities and Towns must learn and imbibe this aspect of Rural Culture to offer
security for women to do their own thing in their respective individual ways.
The climate was cool and cloudy. The sunlight was scantly filtered down on the
rural habitat making it adorable just like the horizon. I have taken the Gentle
life photographer with the acronym Captain deep inside village on its earthen
dam that protects Gokhapada-Dasamauji from the ravages of flood and to the
banks of River Luna to appreciate the vast open spaces with farm lands, flora
and fauna. Captain captured rare birds in his lenses and I spotted a few
jackals attempting to capture their prey on the farm land. The cool breeze set
sail from the river font and the scent of rural landscape with its own silence
making our experience intoxicating (our experience could be a sought out
page of Instagram to allure the City bred to return to their respective
villages for that elusive inner peace). Slowly the sunlight was getting
dimmer while the sun was about to set behind the Temple at the end of vast open
spaces and farm lands—this simple and daily aspect of Rural treasures could
attract city folks into the casual embrace of rural landscape; whose visions
have been tunneled by high rise monsters in concrete and sensory glands
overpowered by burnt fuels of automobile. The four of us sat down on the
concrete sofa on either side of the long veranda and enjoyed nature in its full
bloom when the darkness yet to take off. Now, we hear the sounds of now
mechanized temple bells of evening Aarati; while our hands spontaneously spread
upwards in gratitude to that almighty for completion of a very productive and
creative day. Surprisingly, villagers not seen in the temple campus except a
few children crisscrossing the temple courtyard in ecstasy. Here again sadly
petty village politics come against the earlier village social customs of
visiting the temple both in morning and evening as eloquently featured in the
R.K. Narayan’s novel “The Guide”. Now, the villagers congregate
at the village shop generally gossiping about farm issues, problems of cow
grazing in the farmlands, prices of corn in the Mandi, prices of fertilizers
and cricket scores and in between crackling noises emanating from typical rural
jokes. Soda was not available so we quench our thirst out of a few soft drinks
and refilled some unessential stuff and returned to our village abode—Gangadhar
Palace at a stone throw distance to continue our conversation about our
objective of the trail and our actual work and any missing links. Prabal
Mallick being former IITian kept his words with methods and process,
Captain—Sidhartha De being former Indian Air Force man remain tight lipped,
Kedar Nayak the baby among our group being a professor of Art College shared
his one liners followed by studious silence and at the end me being the former
marketing and advertising person done all the talking in response to Prabal
Mallick’s structured questions; though, after a hard day off in the rural topography
seems banal sometime to me; which stands corrected now after watching the short
film prepared meticulously by Prabal Mallick. After a delicious dinner prepared
by the temple priest we retired to bed as if drop dead under the intoxication
of a rural setting.
We got up to a morning of inclement weather and the weather
forecast of heavy rains did not dampen our spirits. By 6.30 a.m our artist duo went out in search of a perfect
subject in the given weather conditions and our captain photographer on his
errand for suitable visuals returned after a few shots due to poor lighting
conditions. Fortunately, after a few hours’ sky became clear and the captain
returned to farmlands on a bird trail and captured some rare birds. I was surprised
to find Gokhapada village being such a good habitat for birds. We observed a
very large sighting of Barn Swallow, Wire Tailed Swallow, Cormorant, Cattle
Egret, Hoopoe, Sparrow, Sunbird, Asian Koel, Golden Oriole, Red Whiskered
Bulbul and Red Wattled Lapwing. Birding photographers can have a field day
in capturing the acrobatics of various species of birds in their natural
habitat. While returning along with Captain we sighted the artist duo firmly
ensconced in a barn giving final touches to their water color art work and
simultaneously managing an impromptu art exhibition with all kinds of villagers
surrounding them with their inquisitive demeanor. We had a rich conversation
with them about art and their lives. We have also managed to show them the rich
and bounty full life they are living amidst nature through our visual art.
Villagers felt honored because we found their subjects important enough to
capture in our art. While truth was we four of us were enjoying our time in
village and our encounters with the villagers with the medium of photo
art--absorbing new perspectives, appreciating emotions of villagers for us and
our work and also filing million frames of seer excitement, joy and happiness
in our internal memory card that we could play in our me time to cherish those
happiness again and again. In the process we could establish a communication
network and build trust with the villagers of Gokhapada which would stay
immensely valuable for all of us. Earlier in the day we had a date with the school
children of Gokhapada U.P
School; Captain taught the children
about the basics of photography as mobile cameras are now ubiquitous with
village children. Children were shown a slide presentation on different genres
of photography and some knowledge about the art and science of photography. To
our surprise these school pupils displayed rare chutzpah in absorbing things
and their illuminating faces made our journey in the photo art trail immensely
rewarding and satisfying. Amidst the pandemonium of school children Prabal
Mallick took over the reins with a simple question—will you learn art? There
was a pin drop silence and Prabal in his unassuming style gave a brief lesson
on how to draw sketches with the help of lines and filling the drawings with
crayon colors. Children later encouraged drawing and coloring with their own
imagination; the outcome was fantastic to say the least. The crowning glory was
the excitement of village children to learn new things and the interest of
their teachers to expose them to the outside world.
The day next was our final day at the photo art trail. Early in the morning we
drove towards Ashram Balikuda near the Paradip Express
Highway in search of a perfect Rural Tourism Site
in the Dasamauji area. On our way we stopped at Badakul village on the banks of
the river Luna and discovered a site near the river spur with vast flat
landmass suitable for pitching tents for tourist and river at this point is
wide and deep suitable for a Jetty to facilitate “River Cruise” in and around
Dasamauji River Island as scenic as Majuli River Island on Brahmaputra River in
Assam. We spoke to villagers about the job opportunity that would emanate from
Rural Tourism managed by the village community, a very successful model that
works elsewhere in the State. Villagers understood the importance of job
creation and nodded towards their co-operation. Ashram Balikuda was our final
site for sketching and photography. We reached there after a pit stop for
breakfast at the village sweet shop on the way. We also liberally joined the
banter with villagers and tried to understand local problems. Flooding was the
common problem and the distance of Tehesil office was another issue that
agitated the minds of the villagers. We had a brief Darshan at the Ashram
Temple and moved to a nearby river
bank for our photo art trail. We took an interview of a young woman worshipping
at the trunk of a vast Peepal Tree with stones of all shapes and sizes. The
dark colored but immensely beautiful woman with head covered on her saree said
“childless ladies worship at the tree for an offspring”. This belief,
right or wrong, has given hope and peace of mind to many such unfortunate
ladies who live at the receiving end of village custom even today. Our last engagement
was at Gokhapada U.P
School to distribute some gifts to
school children for their effort and interest in learning photo art and display
all our art works and photos captured in three days. Village elders and
visiting journalists were appreciative of our efforts to connect to the mass of
villagers in the medium of Visual Art and create awareness about their own
habitat. Four of us chilled through the night at the grand success of our
mission of Rural Photo
Art Trail
organized at very short notice deliberately to surrender to the forces of
“Serendipity”. We were happy to have worked hard to play harder to enrich our
treasure trove of life experience. Will this “Inspire” other like minded
people? Not sure.
