বহু দিন ধরে বহু ক্রোশ দূরে
বহু ব্যয় করি বহু দেশ ঘুরে
দেখিতে গিয়েছি পর্বতমালা,
দেখিতে গিয়েছি সিন্ধু।
দেখা হয় নাই চক্ষু মেলিয়া
ঘর হতে শুধু দুই পা ফেলিয়া
একটি ধানের শিষের উপরে
একটি শিশিরবিন্দু।
– রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর
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Introduction.
I woke up in the morning due to the beep of message-alert on my cellphone. It was an invitation from a friend who stated that I need to write and contribute a few articles for/to a website named Story-Mins. The obvious first question I had for my friend was around what kind of an article he would be expecting me to contribute, to which my friend said that since I have this knack of travelling to various parts of the country, read a few paragraphs about those places I visit and take a few photographs after I have received the permission to click them, the article had to be a part of a section called ‘Travel’. I assured my friend that I would try my best to come up with such articles, however I was not certain about a place to start with – Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim or somewhere else.
So I had a word or two with my little daughter (My Friend, Philosopher and Guide) about the specifics of the inauguration, whereby she kept it simple by saying – “Start here.”
“What about my preferred language?” – I asked her.
“Any!” – She had an even simpler solution to most complex of problems.
“And what kind of images do I share?”- I asked her.
“Flowers!” – She knew pretty specifically of what she wanted from that first article.
A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. – George Moore
The reason why I am here and am about to share nothing much but a few images of flowers clicked in a city that’s located by the side of Mahananda and beside the Himalayas. Along with connecting the borders of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and China and being known as the gateway of the North-East India, the city connects a few States and Districts, undeniably making it a place of great strategic importance. A major chunk of tourism in India is dependent on the doorway that the city is and quite obviously it’s one of the fastest growing cities of Eastern India. Yes, the flowers belong to the adjacent areas of – ‘Siliguri’ (My Hometown). They are the outcome of the environment friendly initiatives that the Government has come up with (Hats-Off).
From the very next article onward I’d be sharing the details of my travel to various parts of India, along with the images that I had the opportunity to click, of those appealing destinations, as a ‘Photographer by Hobby’. My preferred language would either be Bengali or English. After all irrespective of the medium we choose in order to express ourselves, the messages remain pretty similar due to comparability of our day-to-day experiences.
Thanks for time.
Flowers of Siliguri…