The old man

The days are long now. Still I can't forget the vibrant everyoung boorish old man frequented every morning my home. He used to supply our daily milk from a miles away village, the name became familiar to us only from him. Unimaginably about 30 yers ago he was nearing his eighties, tall 'bout six feet and leaning forwrd jointly by his age and of course for the two heavy drums he carried. Never he he used any cart or van, neither he knew cycling. The funny thing was that he spent an hour almost during his busy schedule in our home, sitting flat on the floor and swirling the end of his soiled cloth attempting to fan himself while opening a pandoras box to a couple of teen listeners - me and my brother. We were so much used to his Hamlyn-like story telling skills that we just couldn't digest our breakfst without him.

Yes, he was our story teller and he also fonded this very much against much displeasure of our grand-ma. We understood it was her some paint-up displeasure, because she also joined the listening eagerly. The point of her objection was quite legitimate and feminine, why he too will accost her "grand-ma" along with us when he is surely elder than her!

A sunset at Koel in Rourkela

It is the sand pirates or the excavators wsiphoning truckloads of sand from the Koel.

The photos will show the beauty of sunset within cliffs of hills as viewed from the riverbank of Koel besides the Ispat College campus at Rourkela.

I am unable to fix phots what it earlier used to be as I didn't keep any photo of the scenes say about 10 years back. I just rue it on the ruins and the devastations done by the greedy promoters in excavating sands and particularly removing the gothic stones used to be strewn within the shallow river of heavy current. No doubt that added a magnificient picturesque appearance in the natural beauty there.

Further devastation is done by the state Govt. itself by erecting high tension lines and its supporting poles within the riverbed. True, modernisation and power is needed, but that at the cost of denudng and reducing the natural beauty to a shamble is simply a vandalism. Noted writer Budhadev Guha, I don't know will ever be able to write new episodes of romanticism & valour in a nice blend like before, if he just revisits the place in search of new themes.

Yeaterday when I was returning from my work, I saw a langur-kid electrocuted and the body already lying beside an electric pole. Some persons has made a joke or perhaps a ritual for the last rights of the baby monkey by garlanding the body and placing burning incense-sticks. The most curious thing was an empty earthen bowl ostensibly placed for collection of donations as few coins were already present there. I dinn't find anybody guarding the episode, nor found anyone in the act of flinging coins. I just wondered is the donation meant for performing the last rights as per Hindu customs or for sasiating greed of some chance seekers?
Besides there was no sign of the mother monkey or the heard of the langurs, which is usually the common scene with a crying and lamenting mother. The langurs are most social in behaviour and the mothers are very much affectionate to the childrens like us the humans and the angry male guardian always guards the folk.
Though the sight at the first hand much aghast, still for finding no exact answer it prompted me to register here in my first blog, with the loss of a photograph, I really miss it as I didn't have my camera with me.