March 14, 2005

Back from Prantik ...

Though this is perhaps not the most important piece of news on the planet or even on the web, the fact is that we have just returned from our "place in the country" at Prantik. I hate to refer to it as Shantiniketan ... because that is what the Calcutta chatterati is always talking about .. being so very Rabindrik and artistic. For me, Prantik and Bolpur ( and of course SNK) is more interesting because of its proximity to the Shakti piths of Birbhum : Kankali, Sainthia, Fullora (Labhpur), Nalhati and Bakreshwar. Then of course there are the famous kali temples of Tarapith made famous by Bama-dev and Akalipur/Bhadrapur, the ancestral home of Nandakumar.

Anyway, to each his own.

We had a grand time at Prantik and the neighbourhood. We visited Kankali and Bakreshwar where we had a dip in the hot springs.

I have a particularly strong fascination for Bakreshwar because of it very strong Shaiva links. The Akhshaya BaatBriksha ... a truly gigantic banyan tree that covers a a large part of the hot springs is very, very auspicious ..... a kind of eerie auspiciousness that can make your skin crawl.

Shall write a more detailed account of Bakreshwar in future.

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