MoAnRa Travels

Enjoy our other Blogs -  MoAnRa Stories  |  MoAnRa Speaks 4 day trip including journey dates By Moutushi Ghoshdeysarkar Day 1  || Day 2 || Day 3  || Day 4 We decided to do the farthest first.  The next morning, a foggy one, we hired a taxi, an ambassador! I just love the car; the space, the height and the nostalgia. It has been ‘the car’ through most of my growing up years! The target was to cover as much of the surroundings possible in a day. As the car rolled out of the narrow streets on to the highway we zoomed past many ruins, reminiscence of once a glorious kingdom. Bahulara, the first destination is a village 25 km north-west of Bishnupur. The nearest railway station is Onda. We crossed the railway tracks to reach our destination, trains excite me so much whether am in it or just watching it. ................You mighty beast on track, ................Long or short, shiny or dull ................Your whistle at night,...

Enjoy our other Blogs -  MoAnRa Stories  |  MoAnRa Speaks 4 day trip including journey dates By Moutushi Ghoshdeysarkar Day 1 ||  Day 2  ||  Day 3   ||   Day 4 Twenty four structures including temples, ruins and a museum in town; a temple 25 km to the north-west, another 10kms to the northeast, a village 22 km to the south-west and a popular pilgrimage 43 km to the south-east; that’s all we had planned for the 4 day trip to one of West Bengal’s hottest tourist destination in winter – The temple town Bishnupur. Bishnupur town is around 200kms in the northwest direction from Kolkata located in the district of Bankura (one of 23 districts of WB) that is included in the area known as ‘Rarh’ in West Bengal, India. ‘Rarh’ popularly means ‘land of the red soil’. Bankura finds a mention in Mahabharata where it is called as ‘ Suhmobhumi ’. We started on a Wednesday, last December, early in the morning and boarded a train from Shalim...

Enjoy our other Blogs -  MoAnRa Stories  |  MoAnRa Speaks a  mémoire by Moutushi Ghoshdeysarkar It is more than two months from the day, memory is failing me but I have a databank, whom I can rely on for filling me up with the details, she remembers everything that happened in class 6, well almost everything. She claims so and since no one else remembers, it might as well be considered as fact. I am Mota, a name coined in school; am Zen, a title earned by virtue of my 'know it all attitude' and am going to take you through a journal of three stupendous days of my life spent with two extraordinary individuals.      An exemplary scene, if I may call it so, of this mémoire, would be the one where am screaming, “Rums dare you fall asleep!” “Am not sleeping, it is just the eyes, you continue...” says Rums feebly, visibly half asleep completely tired from the day’s ordeal. I continue with the same zeal amidst my cough, finish the monolog...

Enjoy our other Blogs -  MoAnRa Stories  |  MoAnRa Speaks "A palace which gave the original a run for its money" by Rajib Deysarkar Often skipped by tourist in favour of its more popular cousin the Faluknama palace, the Chowmahalla palace which was built as a replica of the Shah's palace in Tehran, Iran, was rumored to have surpassed the original in it's grandeur. Recipient of the prestigious UNESCO Asia Pacific Merit award for cultural heritage conservation in 2010, the Chowmahalla Palace whose restoration are still going on, is one of the must to visit tourist spot while you are in Hyderabad. Though the older Southern part of the palace is still undergoing renovation but the Northern courtyard and "Khilwat Mubarak" which is open to public is enough to make you understand the splendor of the palace in it heydays with central fountain and pool and the adjoining greenery and buildings which were mirror image of each other. The "Khilwat...

Enjoy our other Blogs -  MoAnRa Stories  |  MoAnRa Speaks by Moutushi Ghoshdeysarkar Singapore was once a small fishing village, then Singapura (Lion City), then an important settlement in the 14 th century (evidence from archaeological excavations) and finally “great ruins” by the time the Portuguese came in the early 16 th century. Sir Stamford Raffles identified Singapore as a natural harbour with not more than 150 people living at the mouth of the Singapore River and merely a 1000 in the whole island, as he landed in 1819. The Dutch and Portuguese dominated the ports on the trade route between China and British India levying high tariff. As Opium trade was vital for the British, Sir Raffles planned to replace the dominance of other countries and establish a port in Singapore. He declared Singapore to be a free port and soon traders started flowing in. By 1824 Singapore was an important trading port surpassing the earlier established ones by trade v...