Day II in Bhubaneswar-India trip 2025

 The long arduous wait in dark was finally over as dawn gave in to early morning on my second day in India. Getting slightly better at my fight with jet lag, woke up at 4 AM instead at 3 last night. Following a night of broken sleep, I walked over to our balcony facing the street to take a look around and inhale lungfuls of fresh morning air. The eastern sky grew brighter, turning crimson red as the light morning light strived to drive away the darkness hiding under the trees and bushes, fighting a losing battle against sunshine. The bright sunshine melted away the slight mist, disbursing it like a dissipating crowd after an event gets over.

Couple of houses down I could see a woman tie her untidy hair into bun while yawning and stretching her arms. Down below another  lady quickly dragged branches of our "MANDARA" Hibiscus and TAGARA (Pinwheel) flower hedges using a crooked stick and rapidly plucked away flowers before any one could notice. A man leaned over our fence and pulled down flower tree to surreptitiously stole the low hanging flowers. When he saw me noticing, he pulled away and moved on to the next house. But not every one notices my peeping Tom eyes. In one of my earlier trips I saw a man stealing flowers looked left and right to make sure no one was noticing before he bent pressing his paunch and letting out a painful, bombadistic fart creating ripples through his white "Lungi" and audible 20 feet away to me standing on balcony to hear. Pokhran II Nuclear blast happened right in front of our house.

You must have heard about Sand mafia, Land mafia etc. Have you heard of Flower mafia ? They come at wee hours of the morning, steal flowers from the frontyard gardens and sell them off to the larger market segment. My senior citizen father can hardly do anything to stop them. By now the early rays of the morning sun sprinkled the trees with a golden hue, giving their dust covered leaves a shining copper coating. The chirping of birds grew louder as the heavy metal sound of GHANTA from the nearby Bengali "MATH" (Monastery) slowly melted away. It was followed by the morning session of prayer. Amidst the banging of GHANTA wafted in a Bengali Bhakti (devotional) song through the dust laden mango, jackfruit, coconut and betel nut trees. I could grasp the following stanza - 

JASHODA JANANI DAE, 
BAL KRESHTO KHAE RE.
SONAR NUPUR BAJE,
HARI JENE JAE RE. 

Roughly transliterated... 

Mother Yashoda gives,
Kid Krishna to eat.
Golden anklet makes sounds,
Wherever God goes around. 

Our never aging gray colored gigantic local Bull never stops placidly chewing cud on his bed of a big mound of sand in front of our house, with his head drooping in an up and down motion. Couple of mongrels sleeping nearby noticed the tectonic shift in their surrounding as the giant Bovine suddenly stood up, shrugging off sand from his body. The doggies shifted further off to a nearby semi-broken concrete culvert perceived by them as a more secured, safer location from the big bully Bull. 

Two pariah dogs were indulged in a face off, their protruding mouths barely a feet from each other. The bigger, aggressive one about to prounce on the other like a dragon in fury. The smaller doggie in a defensive, crouching pose was snarling at its bigger opponent with its tails well tucked within the hind legs. The barking and snarling continued for a few minutes until they made a truce and went separate way. 

From a distance approached our local Newspaper walla (guy). He swung and threw the newspaper past our main gate with immaculate accuracy and moved on to the next house. A stray dog tiered from last night's Kawali sessions woke up, sniffing his way near to man walking, holding a milk packet only to be rudely shooed away - HEY HEY JA JA (Hey, hey, go away). The doggie nonchalantly walked away. Well began is half done. It was a day well began in Bhonsar, the way locals pronounce Bhubaneswar.

Sitting on our balcony with my morning cuppa tea I scanned through the largest circulating Odia newspaper "Sambada". The first page had no news. It was filled with commercials (Advertisements as called in local parlance). On the next page, the frontline news was - "Enamored with love for his Saali (sister-in-law as wife's sister) a man shoots his wife and son in Dhenkanal. Folks from the undivided district of Dhenkanal, also snubbed as DHENKUs are simple folks supposed to have wit as dim as tubelights on a low voltage night. He or she has a reputation of being naive, slow witted. Only difference - unlike the Sardars, they are not known to be dangerously go crazy with madness at noon. We live in different times when simpleton Dhenku runs amock with gun.

In bathroom I turned the faucet on to brush my teeth. Prrrt... Prrrt.. it farted twice before emitting a thin stream of water which slowly got thicker. Through the skylight I could hear a Koyal's sweet recital on a mango tree. The weather has turned a lot salubrious since last night's rains. The morning breeze felt so nice and cool. I went to the local bank to withdraw some money due to the upcoming long weekend - Saturday and Monday being local holidays. Pray for some ex-CM/PM or an ex-President to die on Tuesday in which case you will get 4 consecutive days of paid holidays. Please understand such a job for me (transliterated from MO PAI EMITI GOTE CHAKIRI BUJHI DIA).

Remembered this scene from a forgettable Hindi movie, when Comedian Johny Lever tries to rob Kadar Khan at gun point, telling the later to withdraw money from his bank account and pay him.

Kadar Khan : How can I withdraw money as today is a Bank holiday ?
Johny Lever : Then go tomorrow
Kadar Khan: Kal (tomorrow) Gudi Padwa Hai.
Johnny Lever:  To Parson Jao (so, go the day after).
Kadar Khan: Parson Good Friday hai.

(Day after tomorrow is Good Friday)
Johnny Lever: Then go next day ?
Kadar Khan: Koi Neta Marne wala hai.(some politician will die, hence holiday).
Johnny Lever : So next day ?
Kadar Khan: Sunday thodi bank khulta hai (You expect bank to open on Sunday?)
Johnny Lever: ABE JAB ITNA CHUTTI HAI, TO TERA CHUTTI KARWA DUNGA. (If so many holidays are there, I will make you leave this world). 

More later...