Weekend Trophy

…But even in his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear;
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.

And the thorough discussion on the “Inchcape Rock” ends by the Saturday late evening with two minutes’ silent grave faces looking at each others. Sigh! Then with the next blow of wind as the quiet room is hissed up by the window side little garden, we decide to catch up the sunrise at the Chandrabhaga beach; near by the Konark Sun Temple and a tempting country plus marine side drive, if you take a bifurcation before entering the Puri town.

4:30 in the morning, chasing the last hour darkness of the night we drove down towards Puri singing along with Grandpa Elliot “stand by me”. Tearing apart the dawning sky we flew down the butter smooth road. But, alas!! The sun won the battle n it rose half a way our destination. “Doesn’t matter” we uttered together the tagline of this drive set the last evening “if u don’t catch the sunrise, catch it when it sets down..” sounds quite influenced by this Mousehunt game on the Facebook, where you catch mice at any cost.

Then, at “Bata Mangala” (the famous temple en route Puri, where you pay homage before entering Puri, quite similar to today’s tollgate concept) we had the morning tea, taken fresh n red-hot outta the burning charcoals. Refreshingly hot what you may call it, when you take the first sip of the thick milk coat. Just No adulteration, showcases the purity of the countrymen. And that’s the reason you end up paying them much priceless ovations and appraisals than the little price of Rs3 for a tea.

Then the drive ends up at the “Puri Hotel” after some time, where you get nice puri-bhaji in breakfast. What a sadistic breakfast it was having puri at Puri Hotel in Puri!! Jokes apart, when you finish up with the breakfast with the complimentary rassagolas the soul inside speaks nirvana. With a deep stretched smile on your face after this conquering breakfast your walk becomes triumphant towards the sprawling Puri beach. Sitting down there for an hour in the arranged tents and chairs on the sand for just a meager cost made us think of buying the beach forever and again “Inchcape Rock’s” lines hovered around;

“The Sun in the heaven was shining gay,
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds scream’d as they wheel’d round,
And there was joyaunce in their sound.”


Suddenly, burp!! The stanza stops getting repeated in the head. Ok, we gotta remove the vehicle from the parking because it was rather trespassed than parked.

And we head to the Chandrabhaga beach through Balighai village. And we missed the route to end up at the “Konark Sun Temple”. There the soul charging Guide Mr. Nayak comes to rejuvenate the otherwise ageing young souls, who narrates only in English (Coz by chance I was wearing this UNICEF Tshirt). OH MY GOD! Tremendous was the art and tremendous was the childhood memories restored with the sight of the Black Pagoda. But, the best part was Mr. Nayak who explained every rock of the temple n every position of the carved dancers. Oh! You the freaks expecting any prurient content, he answers “69; sucking licking no kids” and we were on the floor rolling like marbles. Hats off Mr. Nayak you are rightly nominated to be the president of the Sun Temple’s Guides’ Association. Even we would have voted for you.

Every bit of the carving was spicing up the right brain and raging the left one because, what we see is only the remaining dancing hall. The temple has been destroyed long back. The temple was carved to excite the otherwise war depressed Kalinga subjects taking up monk hood in large numbers, so that the population could be restored. As explained by our guide the “Lion-Elephant-Man” sculpture defines lion as power, elephant as wealth and man as spirituality or religion, which are suppressed respectively as shown. Though awesome, still I gotta find out the exact meaning.

And, the Sun Temple is over by the time the sun was exactly overhead. So we headed back to Puri again.. Ring ring ring, it’s lunch time… and when there’s a beer parlor near by and the sun is scorching while the Konark is still in discussion, then of course you should gulp one or two to boost the interpretation skills.


Accordingly, we sipped and had a great lunch at the Pantha Nivas. Post that we dived in the sea coz the weather has turned cyan blue. Then no look backs, the trip got its real taste as we added salt to ourselves. Around one hour in the water drenched, submerged, tide drifted and the bond goes more strengthened. The eyelids only uttered the unspoken trust as we were busy crying aloud our hearts out. For a day long after, we trailed back to childhood, we regained our carefree laughter.

And, finally the tagline again knocks us and we caught the sun when it was setting down; a deep saffron memorabilia it was. We drove down the route back home, but those 12 hours are engraved forever.