Postcards and Chronicles

Of roads and reveries…

About

Hello people,

I am Sharmistha Dasgupta, a twenties-something girl who dreams of experiencing the most exhilarating adventures in life. I believe travel is not about simply visiting a place but trying to soak in the stories and the feels that the place is reeking of. I am thus here to write these stories and share frozen frames that I have captured through my lens. This space is a personal web diary of my travel chronicles. Come join me as we journey through learnings and perspectives that I believe travelling is all about :)

Parashuram Kund: Where tranquility meets transcendence

Being someone who had never travelled far and wide but always yearned for adventures, I was super excited to take this giant leap into the unknown! I boarded my first solo flight from Kolkata. Nervousness and ecstasy gripped me. I watched the sunrise from the glass pane of the airport lobby as I tried to soak it all in. Random strangers with their little acts of kindness made sure that I didn’t feel lost. Perhaps a reminder that being kind is the most classy thing that we can do!

Post-breakfast from our very serene property in Tezu, we embarked on one of the most fun rides I have ever experienced! As our tempo traversed through the winding roads of the eastern Himalayas, we danced to Bollywood songs almost throughout the journey. I have never really been the retro kid. Post-2010 Bollywood is what I have always had the fondness for. In that ride, I somehow found myself grooving to retro tracks unlike ever before! Perhaps there’s always a time for everything in life 🙂

Parashuram Kund is a very tranquil shrine perched on top of the valleys. Below, the Lohit river flows. As you walk up to the temples, the gushing sound of the water calms your mind, making you forget your troubles for the time being. There is something so transcendent about the place.

Like every other Hindu shrine, this one too is not without a lore. The site is dedicated to the sage Parashuram who was the sixth avatar of Lord Vishnu. It is believed that the sage, on the orders of his father Rishi Jamadgni, had beheaded his mother. He repented eventually repented the wrongdoing. Taking advice from great sages of that time, he arrived on the banks of the Lohit river to wash away his sins. Thus, the place is associated with cleansing of our wrong karma.

No matter how much the place may have reeked of a meditative vibe, the adventurous spirit kept getting the better of each one of us ! Guided by my fellow travellers, I managed to do my first rock climb (yes, too many firsts in this trip, hehe). And of course, I felt super proud of myself!

After paying our respects at the shrine, we headed down to the riverbank. Just as we were about to walk over the pebbly path, we were greeted by this adorable furball who accompanied us till the river!

The riverbank was one of the most tranquil places I have ever been at. The afternoon was all about listening to the gushing sound of the water and enjoying shared silences, followed by a delicious maggi lunch at a nearby tapri!
En route Golden Pagoda, Namsai

Being someone who had never travelled far and wide but always yearned for adventures, I was super excited to take this giant leap into the unknown! I boarded my first solo flight from Kolkata. Nervousness and ecstasy gripped me. I watched the sunrise from the glass pane of the airport lobby as I tried to soak it all in. Random strangers with their little acts of kindness made sure that I didn’t feel lost. Perhaps a reminder that being kind is the most classy thing that we can do!

The road journey leading from Dibrugarh airport to the Golden Pagoda in Namsai, Arunachal Pradesh was one of the most exhilarating experiences in my life. I was on my first solo trip with a bunch of strangers. And I didn’t realise until I said it myself when the asked me for an introduction that I was living my dream of being Naina Talwar!

Conversations kept growing. Everyone went out of their way to make sure I wasn’t feeling nervous. Most of them had done trips with one another before. But not for once did I feel like an outsider or unincluded. Before we knew, we were in our first stop for our trip at Golden Pagoda in Namsai.

The Golden Pagoda of Namsai is a Burmese-style Buddhist temple opened in 2010. It was my first visit to a Buddhist shrine. And yes, I was enamoured by how peace could feel so loud 🙂

It was a cloudy afternoon and perhaps that had a lot to add to the beauty of the temple courtyard making it all the more serene.

I was a little sceptical about asking someone to click a picture of me. Perhaps our trip leader Niyati could sense that. To make me feel at ease, she herself approached, asking me if I wanted a picture. Just little things that goes a long way 🙂

Despite being a History student, I had no idea that the curls on Lord Buddha’s head were snails. Niyati shared quite a few stories about the journey of Lord Buddha’s attainment of enlightenment.

The cherry on the cake of my visit to this pagoda was buying souvenirs from a handicraft store in the premises of the temple itself! From keychains, clothing, bags, the store indeed had a myriad collection of items. I bought a few keychains for my friends and family and a handicraft bag.