I love Cuttack though have been a frugal visitor to the Silver city. Never seen the two iconic institutes of the city - Ravenshaw College and the SCB Medical College as I never got the opportunity to visit both. Last time I was in Cuttack was in the year 2000. This was my first trip to Bhubaneswar's sibling city after a long hiatus of 23 years. Some pending works at the Government office of Land Acquisition Relief and Rehabilitation (LA R and R) Authority Court on Cantonment road near Barabati Stadium forced me to take the trip.
Cuttack and Bhubaneswar form a Twin city - like twin siblings me from Bhubaneswar and my friends from Cuttack fight a lot among ourselves. During my growing up days Cuttack was the big brother, a happening city and Bhubaneswar its poorer twin. The later was regarded as a city of immigrants lacking a coherent culture of its own, termed by many as GOLAM NAGARI (The City of Slaves) ascribing to the salaried class slavish people serving their SARKAR (government) masters vis a vis the DILADAAR and BOBAAL (Broad hearted and fun loving) KATAKIAs (denizens of Cuttack). We used to poke fun at KATAKIs for their squalor like SAHI (localities) consisting of unplanned houses entwined by narrow lanes filled with stinky, squalid drains compared to us housed in swanky, planned quarters in the squicky clean city of Bhubaneswar.
The denizens from Cuttack boast to be fun loving, considering the 5 or 6 Talkies (local parlance for movie theatres) they had, a decent by the standard of those days and far more than any other city in Odisha at that time. Prominent of them were Grand Cinema, Durga and Nishamani Talkies - the later which played only Hollywood movies. From the quality of mosquitoes (the famous KATAKI MASA is capable of lifting you for miles) to the movies the city sandwiched between the bank of giant Mahanadi river and its tributary Kathajodi river always had an edge over its newly built adjoining capital city.
In contrast Bhubaneswar had only 3 movie theatres, two of them named Kalpana and Rabi ehich were within a mile from each other, equidistant from my house. Both were arguably the biggest hatcheries of CHHARA POKA (Bed bugs) who galore under the seats of the unsuspecting audience and can bite chunks off your ass. This was apparent from the scenes of the viewers coming out of the theatre scratching their private parts in public.
We always use to tease my friends from Cuttack, they can beat us BHUBANESWARIYAs (from Bhubaneswar) in two aspects - MASA (Mosquitoes) and MIXTURE (a unique mixture blend of snack from Cuttack). Though critical of Cuttack of its fledgling infrastructure, its dirty drains, whenever the latest Hollywood blockbuster comes to Cuttack's Nishamani Hall, especially a movie of my favorite Brooke Shields, I lose no time to visit Cuttack to watch her movies.
On my way to Cuttack the car passed the Ratnakar Bag before getting on to the highway. I couldn't recognize the area which I used to be familiar before. Ratnakar Bag on Tankapani Road used to be filled with fruit laden mango trees, not far from the BJB Flats where my father was quartered in. In summer of 1981, as a 12 year old one evening I was at a friend's house near Ratnakar Bag when a sudden thunderstorm put out the electricity for few hours. It was already dark when the rain stopped. On my way back home I had to walk through in darkness of the densely forested Ratnakar Bag which was rumored to house ghosts and people heard sound of metallic anklets (Ghoongroo). Glad I didn't hear anything except the croaking of frogs after fresh summer rain. 40 years later the same place is covered in jungle where concrete has replaced trees. This time I couldn't recognize anything or make any head and tail out of the locality I grew around.
Suddenly my memory teleported me back to early 1990s to one of my rare trips to Cuttack.
Staying close to Dhenkanal those days I was accompanying a group of friends to attend a marriage ceremony inside the city. We were lost in the labyrinth of the lanes inside the city known for its BAUN BAZAARA, TEPANA GALI (52 bazaars and 53 narrow lanes) trying to find the Marriage MANDAP (venue).
We asked a bystander for the direction to the venue. The inquisitive bystander quizzed us - "Where are you from ?" One among us enthusiastically responded - "from Dhenkanal". "Oh, that explains. Now I can see why you cannot find the direction", the local guy replied followed by chorus of laughter from all bystanders and to the chagrin of my friends from Dhenkanal who were not so amused. (Folks from Dhenkanal district of Odisha, satirically snubbed as DHENKU are believed to be naive and slow witted like their Sardarjee counterparts at the national level. Only solace, unlike Sardars they don't have the reputation of getting dangerously mad at noon). The second part of my Cuttack trip will follow. Till then...
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