Memoires of another day - IX - by Arun Roy Mukherjee

IX :: It was a dull evening when the train left us at the Dubrajpur Railway station. Excepting a dim kerosin light in the station master’s room there was not even a flicker of light anywhere around us. Three horse-drawn carriages waiting for us at the station brought us through that ocean of darkness to our local residence. It was another surprise waiting for us. The building was a mud-built, thatch roofed two storied structure. There were two big rooms and a very wide varanda covering both the rooms on the ground floor. A flight of stairs, also mud-build, in between the two ground floor rooms, took us to the two similar rooms on the first floor. The kitchen with a wide space was a separate structure and the bathroom and lavatory was at the far end of the courtyard. But the most amazing thing was that two huge stones occupied the rest of the inner courtyard. There was an open space lying in front of the house. But more surprises were waiting us the next morning. In the morning I woke up at the sound of voices of young children and boys coming from somewhere nearby. To my astonishment I found that many boys and children assembled and sat on small mats and gunny bags on the ground in a huge structure covered by a thatched roof with books and slate-pencil and were uttering the multiplication tables in unison led by a senior boy. An elderly person was sitting in a pedestal made of bamboo and enjoying his hukka. I learnt from my mother that it was a "pathshala". A few days there after I was also admitted to that pathshala and started my learning under the guidance of the "Guru Mahasaya". But more surprises were waiting for us in Dubrajpur. The famous "Mama-Bhagne" was just a little distance from our house. We could reach it through a narrow path. Initially I went there with my parents but as I got accustomed to the environs of the place, I visited the place with one or two friends and also alone on many occasions. Mama-Bhagne was situated up at a place which was neither a hill nor a man-made structure. We climed upto it through a flight of stairs curved into the natural stone. The top was almost plain. There was a temple at the top, the Mama-Bhagne and some open space. On many a days, when I visited that place I found sadhus (or so they seemed) sitting there or preparing or cooking something. Later I learnt that those sadhus were known as Tantrik sadhus. .