Bits of an eventful stay in Haldia- Part 2

I was always an over protected kid. My parents never allowed me to travel alone and hence I was a bit shaky. My first taste of freedom was when I and some of my engineering friends went to Haldia for our In-Plant training. I never knew liberty was so soulful. The sky looks more blue and the fields greener when we see through the pair of eye of a free bird. I felt I could fly, if I tried honestly. 

Haldia is barely a city, though it has all necessities of life, it lacks the glitter of metropolitans. Yet I was happy, chilling with friends by the river in the evening, or gorging on street food was sheer gaiety to me. However once we got stuck in the rain by the Haldi River. It was a scary evening. We had no idea that the river side was so dangerous, at least not before we were left by ourselves with the onset of the sudden downpour. But the sad part was, the patrolling police did not help us and we had to walk back completely drenched. What they did was to scare us on the adversities that the place can bring on us, as it had a bloody history of murders and rapes. Strange! A group of students cannot expect help from police; instead they are bombarded with questions completely irrelevant and are not difficult for my readers to guess. Another example of our bourgeois society and its baseless norms! As they say morning shows the day, our trip to Haldia was an eye opener for many ways, and that rainy evening was just the beginning.

That morning we felt lazy, none of us wanted to go for the training. The sky was cloudy as well, adding on to our laid back selves. Generally we were a bunch of so called boring nerds, but that morning exuberance spilled from our nerdy beings. And we decided to quit a day from training ourselves and indulge in fun and frolic. We randomly took a bus to a place, I forgot the name and from there we were supposed to take a country boat to reach Gadiara. A village in Howrah District, West Bengal and known to be a famous picnic spot. Rupnarayan, Damodar and Hoogli rivers had their point of convergence in Gadiara and hence it’s fame. Luck was really in the mood of tasting our survival instincts that morning. It started raining as we were on our way and to add the bus broke down. Four of us I, Koyel, Aniruddha and Monojit were stuck in a village completely unknown to us. But then, the bus moved but a lot of our time was wasted. And by the time we reached the desired bus stand, it was noon and we were damn hungry. We took a country boat which glided through the soothing waves of the river and took us to Gadiara.

The boat ride was lovely, but the rat of hunger jumped hard inside. Gadiara is indeed a village, with no evident hotels or restaurants. The locals stayed in mud huts and were mostly farmers or fishermen. The eateries were road side shacks and unfortunately by the time we reached all had winded up after lunch. Walking down the lane, we spotted one house which looked like a small hotel. So it was, we ordered egg curry, dal, rice and potato fries. But as we walked over to the basin, we saw a narrow lane, with rooms along it and soon discovered it was a red light area. We were just college going kids and were thunderstruck at the atmosphere around. Ugly looking men, walked around with awfully under dressed, pan-caked women. Infact the cook was also a sex worker. One of our friends did not eat, fearing if they drugged us atleast one should be in senses. I don’t remember if we actually ate anything but somehow paid and fled off.

That day was a day in my life, when I saw things I only heard of. But true tough situations make kids stronger. And today, I think I can face a situation like that with more courage.

Gadiara

Aritra Chakrabarty Sengupta