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Away From Home

by Soma Bose
(Pune, Maharashtra, India)

Like every year, this year too my family was desperate to spend a quality time on a travel destination. The fact that every year, travel with family was an important part of my life. It wasn't always that easy. Without any help of agency, it was not easy to fulfill any planned holiday. But this time, I finally decided to let that matter go and started not to be indulged in and with any tour operator. There was a real revelation for me.

In my early life, I used to wake up with my mother's voice, "Wake up, time is running out." In later years, upto now, an alarm clock or mobile alarm performed the same task. I came to understand that life has become more mechanical than manual or natural.

My morning routine never varied but life style has changed, even the mode of travel. This time, my first preferable destination was "Mukutmanipur." It was near by my village where I was born. I realised, I have kept so many years away to return to my village.

"Why should we spend our vacation there?" Rest of my family members raised a question in front of me.

None of them wanted to go there, specially my two sons. The fact that they visited the place when they were kids.

Now, they were grown up boys. It was not easy to make them agree. I shut their mouth with my strong words, "No way."

We took a flight from Pune to Kolkata.

Then there was of four hours train journey to reach Bankura district from where Mukutmanipur was few miles away. After reaching our village home, we took complete rest for a day. It was really a pleasant and peaceful day to spend there.

I lost my parents some years before and no one was present there to stay inside. But everything was fine and good there as my paternal relatives took care to keep it clean and tidy. Next day, after taking bath and morning breakfast we packed up our bags and started our next journey towards Mukutmanipur. I woke up in the morning to the sounds of birds, we all woke to the sounds of nature.

It was a tractor ride, one of our relatives drove us to reach near a bus stoppage from where a bus took us to Mukutmanipur. I and my family members really were overwhelmed with the sight of beautiful Kangsavati river dam. It was the conjunction of two rivers, Kangsavati and Kumari river. We enjoyed both Sun rise and sun set from hill top point. There was also a beautiful deer park.

We all were overwhelmed with the sounds and nature of trees rustling in wind, a stream of water. We reserved a cottage of local tourism to stay few days here. At last my family members came to understand the value in spending time here. Birds, deer, beautiful sun set and sound of flowing water- all were like our mental shower. We spent a quality of time there. We all felt a meaningful sense to spend there. We captured some beautiful moments with our camera.

After returning back to Pune, those who were unknown of our recent tour, asked us, "Is it foreign or any place in India?" I replied to them, "It is a fairy land in our world."

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