GOKHAPADA--DASAMAUJI DIARY

 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.