Bishnupriya Manipuri Online

Non-Fiction RK Rishikesh Sinha To a lost boy in journey, nothing on earth supersedes the happiness of being found. I got separated for 4-5 hours from my father without a penny in pocket and with no instruction to follow; the journey came as an appalling and horrific experience for me. We were tired and had not taken food and sleep properly since the day my father and I began our journey from Kashmir to Jammu by bus, than taking another journey from Jammu to Old Delhi by train. We were travelling continuously with 2 heavy trunks and a bedding. The size of the bedding was so big that it was half my height, and trunks so heavy that a coolie can’t take two in one go. We were at one of the platforms in Old Delhi Railway Station where the train from Jammu had dropped us early morning and we hadn’t taken anything to give energy to our tired body. Our stay there was not too long. A railway announcement swung us to take another travel in a train stationed at a different p...

Non-Fiction RK Rishikesh Sinha There are times when you are caught between two sets of people who think differently. What would happen if the task take place high in the mountain in a confusing, tensed environment between these two types of people. One such incident, I witnessed while travelling from Silchar to Guwahati. My nap broke when the Sumo in which I was travelling stopped high in a mountain. It was dark all around, and I saw a long chain of elephantine night super buses with number plates of Assam and Tripura in front of us. I came to know, the Sumo was stopped due to heavy landslide. I discovered from my co-passengers that we are in a landslide-prone area. “Hell to this landslide!” I murmured. Except women and children, and old people, who were on the bus, all men came on the road and started taking stock of the situation. Looking at the faces of the women, it seemed that they have surrendered their wish to reach Guwahati on time. In the crowd of people, ther...

Non-Fiction RK Rishikesh Sinha Relationships that build up between co-passengers in journeys are sometimes very funny that fails to go unnoticed. Journeys appear as a moving theatre of human behavior. I recently witnessed while coming from New Delhi to Guwahati, the simmering tension between two families got its ugly eruption at Maligaon. Both the families, including men and women, started abusing each other. I don’t understand why people fight in journeys, if there is no encroachment of reserved berth.  However, fighting does take place, and sometimes they are diffused.   One such incident took place during a journey between Silchar Railway Station and Lumding, which is considered as the most scenic train routes in India. As soon as the train had left Silchar, and we made our arrangement, a man in late twenties started conversing with other co-passengers. Something that was welcomed initially became a public nuisance when his constant chattering on different top...

Non-Fiction RK Rishikesh Sinha I get goosebumps whenever I recall the 1993-94 floods in Assam. The tandav of devastation by mother earth on the life and property of people is still fresh and it fails to go away. And in that time of flood, my father and I had to leave Assam. It was a tortuous, harrowing journey that we took from Silchar to New Jalpaiguri (NJP). View Larger Map Owing to flood, communication by bus between Silchar and Guwahati had been thrown out of gear. We started our journey from Srikona and boarded in a black-colour boat, usually seen in the Barak River and in its tributaries. Before me, I saw a vast sheet of water that stretched away out of sight. At that moment, I had a wish if I could see a friend of mine at the spot since everybody would come to witness the level of water. As if God heard my wish, few minutes before we began our journey, I met my school friend Rajesh Sharma who came to see the water level. It was painful experience for me...

Non-Fiction RK Rishikesh Sinha From the countless journeys that we undertake to travel from one place to another, some remains etched in our mind for various reasons — for being turned dangerous and fearsome, some becoming the theatre of human behaviour, and some just to brood over. View Larger Map One such travel that would have remained just a journey, in few hours of its beginning, turned dangerous. It was my journey from Kashmir to Jammu. The 300-Km long journey began early morning in the winter season from Panthachowk, a BSF transit camp in Kashmir. I was the only boy in the fully-occupied bus with officers sitting in the front and the rest seating according to rank. The bus was iron-fenced in the windows to thwart any attempt of grenade attacks by terrorist. On time, the bus started and it was accompanied with more buses and trucks and all left the gate. Like disciplined ants, all the vehicles were one after another and were on the wheels. As far as I coul...