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Down Memory Lane Traveller's Diary United States

A visit to the United States of America

Our member Mr. K. Roy used to visit his daughter, staying at Atlanta, USA, every year till 2018. He reminisces some fabulous moments and a few wonderful places that he had come across while staying there.

When last time we visited USA, we could witness the Independence Day celebration of US. They had organised an air show to celebrate that day. It was a marvellous celebration. A red carpet was spread out till the sea beach. It was really a sight to watch people of different communities walking in harmony, peacefully to the beach. People of all ages, caste and creed were present. Even the Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians walked together without any bitterness. There were Africans and Chinese too apart from the natives. It was a fantastic sight.

As people gathered, at the appointed time, the former air force personnel began the airshow. Unfortunately, during the performance one of the pilots had suffered a heart-attack during the show and died. Nonetheless it was a great show.

Apart from this experience, we were fortunate to have visited various other places, such as the Niagara Falls, Alaska, Chicago etc. Niagara Falls, a group of three waterfalls, is one of the best, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The cascade of water plunging deep into the gorge, was really an unforgettable experience. I noticed the presence of a lot of South Indians there.

Alaska on the other hand is an extreme north west state of America which has many National Parks and museums to visit. One gets to see grizzly bears, wolves, reindeers, and elks in the Denali National Park along with ice capped mountains which heightens the experience. The Kenai Fjords National Park offers some of the best sightseeing. The water around, with the ice capped mountains in the background, is a sight to behold.

The Museum of Alaska University is a house of millions of artifacts and specimens, which represent millions of years of biological diversity and thousands of years of cultural traditions.

Yellowstone National Park is a wilderness recreation area atop a volcanic hot spot in USA. It is situated mostly in Wyoming, the park spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho too. Yellowstone features dramatic canyons, alpine rivers, lush forests, hot springs and gushing geysers. It’s also home to hundreds of animal species, including bears, wolves, bison, elk and antelope.

Our experience of Chicago was quite different from the others. This is one of the largest cities of US, and has a skyline punctuated by skyscrapers. This city also has numerous fantastic museums.

Apart from visiting these splendid places my general observation was that there were many Indians staying in Atlanta. Many are Gujaratis and influential people who have set up their business there. There is another place called Jackson’s Hide which is also called ‘Mini Bangladesh’. A lot of Bangladeshis have settled down over there and have built their own community.

It really feels good to see the Indian subcontinent residing over there. Overall, spending some time amidst those pleasing places, itself had made me feel delightful.

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Down Memory Lane Traveller's Diary Uncategorized

Nostalgic Delights: Childhood Joy During Rath Yatra

Our member Mr. A. K. Gangopadhyay, had a delightful childhood in the pristine atmosphere of Shantipur. He shares the wonderful experience that he had there which cannot be recreated.

During my childhood, I was brought up in a place called Shantipur. A place in the outskirts of Kolkata, nearly 100 km away. It was well known for the sarees which the weavers made there.

As villages used to be, it had a lot of greenery, open spaces, ponds and a lot of trees around. We, as children had a splendid time there.

A main attraction in those days were the Ratha Yatra. Unlike other places where Lord Jagannath is worshipped as the main deity, in Shantipur Lord Raghunath was the main deity worshipped. I was never keen on knowing why it was so, but enjoyed seeing the big idol of Raghuvir, which looked more human than the rest.

The weavers had started with this festival and every year religiously it was followed. Initially the Ratha or the chariot was built with the wood of discarded weaving machine. Every one of the weavers used to donate whatever old, unused wooden parts of the weaving machine they had and the carpenter used to put them together and skillfully make the chariot. The chariot was big and was of two tiers. It was almost 24 ft in height and was square in shape, each side being almost 10 ft. The idols were made to sit at a height, from where they could be visible to everyone easily. The chariot was decorated with garlands of flowers, and looked beautiful. Thick ropes were tied to the Ratha and people thronged in huge numbers to pull it.

We as small kids enjoyed watching this from far. For us the main attraction was the Rather mela or fair which used to be set up every year. We enjoyed the papad and jalebis sold there.  As a child I never used to get pocket money, likewise even my friends didn’t. In the mela hand fans used to be sold and were in great demand. We too went and asked the stall owners to let us sell. Whatever money we earned from selling them we used spend in buying papad. Jalebis were expensive, so we were satisfied with papad. We had a wonderful time for a week or seven-days till the Ratha Yatra was celebrated.

Those were such nice and innocent days. The simplicity amidst which we had grown up, has no match with the changing times, and fast paced world. But even without too many facilities, we had a splendid life.