It is a small article on my visit to the Sundarbans this January. There is not any particular landmarks that you must see, but the atmosphere is very different from the places I visited so far.
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Author: Rajashi Mukhopadhyay
I had never been to the Sundarbans until this January. On my way to the place and after reaching the small islands, I realised what an exceptional place that is.
The Sundarbans, to me, is not a definitive place to call a place. There are small deltas among which rivers flow through and meet every now and then and the surroundings are so similar from every point of view, it becomes less differentiable compared to a cityscape. That makes every nook and corner of the place equally stunning. One will not find much of variations in colour, unless the eyes suddenly capture a magnificently colourful Machhranga (Kingfisher). The water is grey, the soil has darker tone of the same colour and the trees are mostly green. But with such little variation in colour, Sundarbans still looks very bright, mainly because of the glittering muddy soil, the reflecting sunlight of the rivers and canals and the finest bright green leaves of the evergreen trees.
Sundarbans span across the political borderline of the two Bengals, the waves from one Bengal sweeps over the shores of the other every now and then. Apparently, the place has quite a peaceful setup- the greeneries of Sundari, Garjan, Genwa tress, the gently flowing rivers, the chirping of birds, the nicely decorated boats and launches, all contribute to that apparent peace, keeping the hazardous and dangerous life of the Sundarbans hidden underneath. In Sundarbans, eyes cannot miss the root systems of trees as they are mostly exposed and at times quite big in size and complicated in structure. The soil is eroded at many places but the trees are still able to hang on by holding them with their gritty roots. During the day we used to take boat trips through the gently flowing rivers. In summer, the journey is possibly uncomfortable due to high humidity, but in January, it was very pleasant. From the boat, we spotted few Chital deer, wild boars and some birds and also managed to see a crocodile lying peacefully on the muddy shore in one afternoon. What I have not mentioned and have not seen is the brightest and the rarest of all, the overwhelming Royal Bengal Tiger…everything else around her must be getting blurred when someone, by one in a million chances, gets a glimpse of her. It is surprising how, before reaching the place, one dreams of seeing a Royal Bengal Tiger and coming back home with a story to be told hundred times, but how he forgives the tiger for not showing up as he comes home with a heart filled with the charm about the place, where failing to spot the beautiful animal hardly matters.
It is nice to listen to the stories the locals have to tell, one would not bother about the authenticity of those stories. Their dialect is smooth, and never interrupted by the English words. In one evening we watched ‘Banabibir Pala’, a folklore enacted as a skit by locals that showed how the endangered lives of the honey-collectors and fishermen are saved by the kindness of the goddess ‘Banabibi’. The group obviously lacked resources that may have been considered necessary for an urban drama company, but they overcame such shortcomings with their rustic and vivacious way of depiction through song, dances and acting.
The evening at Sundarbans are obviously darker than the midnight in a city; electric cables and connections are yet to reach the islands and resorts are to be run by generators.
An unforgettable atmosphere was created in the night before leaving the Sundarbans, comprising the moonlight, the line of dark trees with their huge root systems, the silver coloured span of water, a large deserted boat, the surrounding calmness and the uncanny possibility of sighting a pair of diamond-bright eyes of a striped animal!
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