Poroborti Station: Dakeshwari Mondir!

It is the time of the year when Durga Puja is just round the corner. The Kolkata Metro trains are plastered with posters of ‘Sharod Shubhecha’ . The sweet and soft version of winter has started to seep in and the milieu of whole city has got drenched with intoxicating fragrance of Durga Puja err… Pujo (to put in true Bangla perspective).

Amid the exhilarating excitement of Durga Pujo that has just started to get the city under its mesmerizing thrall, I board the Metro Train at Mahanayak Uttam Kumar Station (aka Tollygunge) to go to my office.

I work with a private company and to attend the office, I travel every day from ‘Mahanayak Uttam Kumar’ Station to ‘Central’ Station. Generally, I carry an English book with me that I pretend to read sometimes during the journey. Actually, in the Kolkata metro, I have seen professors (teachers) checking exam papers (and that too of statistics: which is enemy of my (this) incarnation, I hope that in my next life I would be able to understand Binomial Distribution et al.), and others reading English books. I have seldom seen people reading any Bangla or Hindi Novels for that matter. Actually, the English novel creates an impression that you are erudite and polymath that Bangla and Hindi novels fail to create. So, to make the impression of a well- read guy, I also carry an English novel. However, the truth is that I find it difficult to read in a moving train, I feel giddiness. But only to create a façade of intelligence for the people, whom I don’t even know, I carry English novels.

Anyways, as I have already boarded the train, in a few seconds, I get a seat to sit. And I open my book to pretend. Some minutes pass by, the metro train announcement system blares: Poroborti Station: Rabindra Sarobar. There boards a throng. And with this throng boards a girl. She is wearing a pink Patiala suit and a captivating smile (Of course she is not smiling at me but at her friend, though I wish she would have smiled at me). There is everything right about her personality. She is chubby and she is cute. 

Incidentally, our hypocrite society, that always wants things according to its rules, finds it difficult to digest that being chubby is also about being part of the grand nature and being chubby is by all means being beautiful as well. I remember one incident that happened some days ago, where the society proved that its evolution is still sketchy. One Vlogger had posted a vlog with his wife and the still- to- be- evolved society taunted his wife for being fat. This is other story altogether that how a befitting rejoinder the society got from the supportive husband that shut its mouth!

Moreover, while I was doing my post-graduation, I had seen girls, who were on chubby side, suffer from crude and insensitive jokes from other students (who were supposed to possess a rational ounce of grey matter, given they were doing their PG). I had seen girls running in the morning to lose weight in the college lawn and squeezing lemons in spoons in college canteen to shed the flab. I mean it is okay if the doctor has advised you to lose weight for health reasons, but to lose weight to satisfy the societal yardsticks of beauty or to get married, shows how rotten the system of society is that takes pride in its self- acclaimed sacrosanct canons without caring about how the jeers and jibes affect the psyche of the girls.

Frankly speaking, I like girls who are plump rather than girls who are skinny. So, this girl has certainly caught my fancy. I am stealing glances at her while feigning to read my book. The announcement system again blares: Poroborti station: Kalighat. The station name Kalighat conjures up the image of the fierce Goddess Kali. When she had got furious, the male god had to be under her foot to calm her. And here we males miss no opportunity to belittle the women. The announcement system again blares: Prorborti station: Park Street.

The girl in Patiyala suit with unforgettable smile descends at Park Street. The train, again, chugs along leaving me only with reminiscence of her cherubic smile. I bury my head in my book to pretend and to spend some time till my destination.

Suddenly, a whirring noise occurs and the lighting of the coach starts fluctuating. Next moment the power supply of the train shuts down. The train stops and so does the AC of the coach. People start complaining about the metro management. After five minutes or so the power comes back and passengers take a sigh of relief.

After sometime, the announcement system blares: Proroborti Station : Dhakeshwari Mondir (Next Station Dhakeshwari Temple)

“What? Dhakeshwari Temple…but how is it possible? It is in Dhaka, Bangladesh,” I wonder.

The announcement system next says: Ei shesh metro station, ekhane niche pete, daya kore (This is the last metro station, Please get down here!)

I am in complete bewilderment. 

Everybody in the train starts getting down as if they had boarded the train for this destination only. There is no sense of shock or surprise on their faces. They get down as if it is routine for them.

I also get down as left with other choice, because the metro cleaning team has got on the train.

I see the board on the station building…it is exactly written Dhakeshwari Temple Station (In English and Bangla). I come out of the station and see the same ambient and same familiar faces that I experience in Kolkata. I hire a hand pulled rickshaw with whatever broken Bangla I know for the temple. The rickshaw-puller reaches me to the temple in ten minutes.

The temple is quite a site to watch. Today, it seems to have overcome the painful past of 1971 destruction. It is teeming with devotees as Pujo is round the corner. The serene environment with chirrups of birds; the humming of mantras; the garden with riot of flowery colours; the translucent lake:  all make a soothing ambience for a spiritual refuge. 

The wooden doors with floral motifs; marble- alter for proffering worshipping articles; the spandrel of arches of temple building decked up with lions:  all are telling the story of a respect that a national temple must have. 

The Idol of Goddess Dhakeshwari is a wonderful replica of the power of womanhood with all ten hands spread to impart succor to humankind.

I also offer my prayers to the Devi and savor the Prasad. 

After taking a tour around the premises of the temple, I sit at the steps of the temple. I am not feeling as if I was in a different country. It seems completely own. The people, the language: everything seems familiar not foreign.

“Why the Aryavrata had to be dismembered into different pieces? Why Shaktipeeths and other Devi temples had to be divided among India, Pakistan and Bangladesh? So many sages have been born in the land of undivided India; couldn’t they stop the dismembering of the mother? If they were really God-sent people, why did they allow the partition of India? Or is it the God herself wished the partition because we don’t deserve 51 Shaktipeeths under the umbrella of one country, given we don’t hesitate to outrage the modesty of even 6 month old babies,” several ripples of thoughts keep undulating in my mind as I sit at the steps.

The day is melting into evening…I become worried as to how I will go back to Kolkata? First, I dither to ask Dhaka people about a metro train going to Kolkata as they might make fun of me, but then I remember the normalcy on the faces of passengers getting down the train. So, I ask the hand pulled rickshaw-wallah about the train timing and he replies without giving me a strange look that the train to Park Street will leave at 4’o clock from Dhakeshwari metro station. I feel a sigh of relief. I hop on the rickshaw.

As I am passing through the Dhaka traffic, I see a big billboard of Lufthansa Airlines’ Dhaka office. And I see a slew of people going to the office to emancipate their dreams from the borders of their own limitations to attain towering achievements in life. I hope someday our Shaktipeeths and other holy places will also get emancipated from demarcated borders. But for that we will have to evolve into a better human being (than what we are today), only then perhaps the Goddess will relent.

I come back to the station after exploring the world hitherto unknown to me and garnering an enriching experience of visiting the Dhakeshwari Temple.

The train comes to the station and I board the train. As I am merged in the thoughts of my visit to Dhaka the announcing system blares: Poroborti Station: Park Street! 

The tour to the Dhakeshwari Temple has been kind of a blind date for me. What are you thinking? That I am dreaming…for your surety, I inform you that it is 4:15 PM in the afternoon and I couldn’t go to office today, for where, I had boarded the train in the morning.

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