Returning Home 3 of 3

 

 Its 0430 hours and today we head back , being in a village I am not the only person who is up at this hour,  there are folks who take care of our property who are up and going about there tasks.

Summer time every night has trees shedding and leaves to be cleaned, Morning lamp to be lit ,,,

The  local tea shop is open too, so I get a shot of tea and biscuit to start the day with.

An early morning start at 0530 hours were planned and just like it is possible only in a village still, As I packed my car at 0530 hours villagers came to see us off, there were was Mamata Di who came with 8 boiled eggs as a see off gift, and then Kunti who came with Drum sticks from her tree for my mom, and so on …  we had 3 bags full of supplies that were gifted by the villagers and there love was so comforting and unconditional I had a lump in my throat as we said our good bye’s  

 

 My cousin and his wife too were up to wish us Godspeed as we departed by 0605 hours a journey of 11 hours 43 minutes  awaited us and temperature was supposed to range upto 43 degrees all day, luckily we would be in the car mostly and be in Air condition,  so we were not too worried,

 

 

Along the way we came across a few places where truck lined on side of the road, traffic was mostly at a stand till, and the traffic situation easily swallowed a few hours.  Luckily for us, 3 times we had traffic backup for 3 to 5 km but from opposite side, thus keeping me inspired to not take breaks but keep driving on,  we made good time as travel Gods were kind to us is the only explanation I could think of .

 

Sometimes we have taken a break at Dumka in the past, having a friend here who has always been kind to feed us and hang out with us while we are on the road, but today was too hot to trouble him.

 

Once we hit wider roads we did stop for we watermelon break and cucumber break along the way. And we were soon in Asansol bypass.

 

And finally we stopped for lunch outskirts of Raghunathpur, We were famished and lunch of Dal tarka and Roti was like food for heaven and we scarfed down the food at Hotel Raj.

 

The hotel had no air conditioning and it was hot hot hot, and food was good good good, we ate and ran into the car m switched on the Ac in Haste.

As we exited Puruliya there were 2 roads we could choose from, one via Bara bazar which would involve state highway for most part, and 100 odd speed breakers along the way at the least( usually I take this road in the past)  OR take National Highway., We took the National Highway route as GPS said it was one minute faster, and well what do you know as we reached Chandil roads were terrible and we ended up taking another hour extra.

we took this ROAD

 

 

in hindsight this road would have been better.
 

Fuel in Jharkhand is cheaper then Bengal by almost Rs 7 per liter and we  decided to play Russian Roulette trying to take a chance that we could make it to Jharkhand and then refuel we were down to the last 50 km worth of fuel, and no Fuel station in sight, had I taken chance one too much. We switched off the Air-conditioning and rolled down the window too, but dust stalled that, so we were driving without Air conditioning and windows rolled up, sweating,,, my sister was a trooper and someone who cant stay with AC as such was game to the situation and did not complain, finally we saw a gas station on opposite side of road and heaving a sigh of relief we refueled and with a big grin on our face we proceeded for the last 40 KM,

 

 

Distance covered in this trip :       1215 km

 

Distance covered today 490 km,

Time taken 1130minutes

Toll paid : Rs 240

 

© Rajat Ghosh, available as stock image/footage

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