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 Terracotta or baked earth art is extensively in use in West Bengal, from temples to jewellery, decorative sculptures to tiles and everything in between. The rest of India and abroad also adores terracotta, for its pliability which helps give form to a plethora of ideas that is bound only by one’s imagination. The sun was shining bright negating the weather forecast and we set out to shoot all that we could at will. 24 temples was a bit too over the top sort of a target but one must try. This time we started from the nearest one. Rasmanch. You got to buy a ticket, Rs.15 per head, it also pays for two other temples maintained by ASI, Pancha Ratna and Jor Bangla. Rasmanch is a raised platform for displaying the idols of Radha and Krishna from temples around on a particular occasion...

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...