Trip No.6; To Rajahmundry

Exactly two years ago in this same month I was in Rajahmundry for a day. It was a semi-official visit. I had been asked to go to Kakinada and while there I learnt that Rajahmundry was only an hour away by train. I had always wanted to check out the fountain pen guys in Rajahmundry so it did not take very long for me to decide to pay them a visit. Of course, I bought a few pens there and returned happy. Last week I was there again but on an official two day visit. Sadly, this time I did not get enough time to pay the fountain makers a visit. However, I saw a great deal while visiting the villages around a place called Korukonda which is near Rajahmundry.

The first day I saw the temple on the hillock with steep step leading up in Korukonda, I decided I would pay a visit. The guys who were with me did not share my enthusiasm but I told them I was going up whether they came or not. Ultimately, they came along but that was on the second day of the trip which I will come to a little later.

It was the usual trip involving visits to small villages and meeting farmers. After four visits it has begun to get boring. On way to a village I saw a tractor that looked like a mountain of hay on wheels. It went up several feet high and several feet wide on the road. From the back it looked like a haystack was moving. But I missed taking its picture because I wondered what my companions would think of me if I asked the driver to stop to let me take a picture. They would think I was crazy. On the second day when I came upon a similar sight I stopped the car and took a picture. The hay isn’t so high but one gets the idea.

On my previous visit I had been on the Dowleswaram barrage early in the morning. The mighty Godavari river is wide and presents an imposing sight. Scores of men on bicycles with bunches of yellow and green bananas hanging on to the handles and the back carrier arrive from smaller villages into Rajahmundry. I had seen the same sight last time and this time too it was no different though I saw a few mopeds instead of the bicycle. A couple of monkeys hung around waiting to snatch a banana or two from the wary men. They sat on the pavement popping maize grains fallen on the road. Maize is grown in these areas and trucks carrying loads of maize pass on that road.

Another sight, a new one this year, was that of fishermen hurling their nets into a smaller canal. It was a pleasing sight but my camera has limited options so I couldn’t get Raghu Rai type of pictures. It needs a good camera to capture some of the wonderful sights one gets to see early in the mornings. Until I come into a fortune I have to make do with my faithful Sony DSC-40 that I picked up at Port Blair three years ago. Like me, the fishermen too did not have much luck with their catch.

Our hosts had put us at a nice hotel though a couple of cockroaches shared the room with us. As usual our generous hosts plied us with great quantities of food. I had fish, prawns and lots of spicy curries. The second day, after a final (and heavy) lunch, I told the guys we’d go up to the temple on the hillock. The temple would be open from nine to half past eleven in the mornings only. However I did not want to go back home without having been up that hillock. They tried to dissuade me saying the steps were narrow and were very steep but I was not in a mood to listen.

The steps were so narrow and so steep we had to stop, heart pounding and sweat pouring down the back, after just ten minutes into the climb. About half hour later we reached the top, breathing hard. The temple was an ancient one but was closed. But the view was stunning. I could see the mounds of earth dug out to build the canals for the Polavaram project in the distance. A lake shimmered in the distance, two hillocks just behind it. A lone eagle flew around the hillock. We remained on the top for a while and gingerly made our way down the stairs. At the entrance of the temple I saw a country toffee being prepared out of jaggery. They were off white cubes, laid out prettily. The smell was heavenly. We saw how it was being made on the spot. I was told it is called 'jeellu.'

It was dinner time when we finally returned to Rajahmundry. I had more than one reason to be pleased with the trip. One of the officers I met on the trip, a lady, was my classmate at Bapatla where I did my first year of graduation. Of course, neither of us remembered each other because we were in different batches but we talked about common friends we knew. I was happy to meet her and relive my memories of that place. It was twenty eight years ago that we had studied there. I have never met anyone after such a long gap. I don’t think I will come across her again.