Straight From A Story Book: Part II

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. In other words, I don't improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.- John Steinbeck

Photo: Dinesh Korday

The morning I left home I had high fever. It was a legacy of a recent respiratory tract infection. A kind flight attendant offered paracetamol and the  temperature was under control. Thankfully some some infections in life are still remediable or should I say medicable. Reaching Mumbai I was glad to meet my friend Dinesh Korday. While together we enjoyed coffee I showed him the book that was taking me back to Africa, once again after 3 years. Good coffee, a close friend and a good book; was certainly a lot more than I had asked for in those few hours in Mumbai. While all the 3rd or 4th generation antibiotics fought a courageous battle inside my physical system, my spirits rose high. I was ready for another adventure. Boarding the evening flight to Nairobi I could identify myself with what John Steinbeck once said, 'once a bum always a bum' and I was glad that this disease of mine was 'incurable'. 

The empty terminal

Reaching Nairobi somehow felt like homecoming. My flight to Mombasa was not leaving till next morning. So I decided to spend the night in the terminal ( Terminal 1-D) itself. Pretty soon, around 11 pm, the whole terminal became empty. The airlines staff, the janitors; everybody left. Only 4 security men and myself stood guard. I was in peace and almost felt that I could start living there in this terminal. The security guys were super friendly and after I spend a few weeks here I will be like Tom Hanks in the movie 'Terminal'. My thoughts must have been corrupted by the movies I watched on the Kenya Airways flight and the super dull food they served. I dozed off putting an untimely end to my 'terminal fantasies' only to be woken up next morning with the arrival of passengers and crew of the first flight to Mombasa. 

Arab style coffee near the old port of Mombasa

Afternoon football next to Fort Jesus, Mombasa. A glimpse of Indian Ocean beyond

Mombasa felt humid and suffocating. But my fascination for its history helped me keep walking through the lanes and alleys of the old town. The history of Mombasa is not without its vicissitudes. Egyptian idols, Arabs, Portuguese, British; everything of each period has left their marks. I was engrossed in these thoughts and even felt partly hypnotized while walking the by-lanes of the 'old town'. It was then, a stranger approached and warned me of dangers of walking alone in certain areas. I understood the threat was real. Activities of Al Shabab is yet to be eradicated from here. The scars and blood stains in people's mind here are still fresh. I took his advise. Other than this incident I could roam freely and talk to people near the old port area and Fort Jesus. 

Finally sitting by the bay and sipping aromatic black coffee ( with lots of cardamom, cinnamon and sugar I guess) I thought this must the 'death of distance'. Once it took people months to sail and reach here. And today, it took me just a few hours from the banks of river Ganga to this ancient port city of East Africa. I remembered, that it was at this very place, in 1498, the great Vasco da Gama, nearly lost his ship and life through the treachery of his Arab pilot, who plotted to wreck the vessel on the reef which bars more than half the entrance to the harbour. I remembered, that it was at this very place Shankar arrived with Prasad Das Bandyopadhyay to find a job at the Uganda Railway. 

Old Town of Mombasa

Like it? Keep reading. Watch out for Part III in my blog. Don't know when I will manage to write it though. :)

Straight from a Story Book: Part I

It all started with a story book. In 1937, Bibhuti Bhushan Bandyopadhyay, one of the leading writers of modern Bengali literature penned 'Chander Pahar'. It is a story of a 22 year old young man from rural Bengal who sets out to Africa on an adventure of a lifetime in 1909.

(If you have not read the book already you can read the plot summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chander_Pahar )

Like millions of Bengali readers I had read this adventure story when I was a kid and then as I grew up, as indicated by its publisher (juvenile literature); it became a thing of the past, a childhood fantasy for me.  It is only in recent years, after I climbed Kilimanjaro (2005), I picked up 'Chander Pahar' again. It is then, the book started opening new meanings and fresh directions for me. It is then I began to understand the meaning of the Swedish proverb- 'In a good book the best is between the lines'. 

My repeated readings of 'Chander Pahar' turned into a close inspection, followed by investigation and that lead to my re-discovery of many elements embedded in the pages of the book. Elements such as, names of people, places and incidents. I found that those elements mentioned by the author were factual. Names such as 'Ruwenzori' ( now spelled 'Rwenzori), Duke of Abruzzi, Harry Johnston, Rosita Forbes, were whispering secrets in my ears about their real life adventures in the last century. 

From that point on, the book became a coded guide to me. A guide that would inspire a journey in real life in today's Africa. A journey from fiction to facts. From imagination to inspiration. From a childhood fantasy to a curious, real life adventure. I wanted to see how far could this book, an adventure fiction, a juvenile literature; actually take me?

Uttar Banga Sambad (http://uttarbangasambad.com/), the largest circulated daily newspaper of North Bengal extended the vital helping hand and became part of this adventure. One fine morning I was all set to retrace Shankar's (the protogonist of Bibhuti Bhushan's novel) trail.  For the next few weeks I kept sending dispatches to the daily as I progressed slowly from ancient port city of Mombasa, Kenya, to the border of Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. 


I have shared two youtube links below, one in Bengali and the other in English. Here I try to explain why I felt a strong urge to undertake such a journey. Please do check them out. I am thankful to Dream Wanderlust team for their interest in this project and help in this recording.

I outlined my route in two stages. The first stage was from Mombasa, Kenya to the shores of Lake Victoria. Here my focus was the Uganda Railway. In the novel ( Chander Pahar) our protagonist gets a job in this historically significant railway in 1909. From the author's description it becomes clear that he first gets appointed as a store keeper in Tsavo ( though the author never mentioned it), works as an assistant to the engineer in charge. During this period he gets to taste the wrath of the man-eating lions of Tsavo. Later, he gets transferred to a remote railway station near Kisumu. After reading both Bibhuti Bhushan and 'Man Eaters of Tsavo'; it became obvious that the author of 'Chander Pahar' was inspired by the writings of Col. John Henry Patterson and his adventures in 1898 while constructing the Tsavo bridge. So in Stage-1,my prime interest was to see and experience the present state of the famous railway, how it is functioning and the condition of some its stations that are so much steeped in history.

The second stage was, entering Uganda through the Busia border and proceed to Kasese, the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains-Ptolemy's fabled 'Mountains of the Moon' and climbing Mt. Stanley massif.  Below are the two hand drawn route maps. They are not to scale.

Watch out for the next episode here in this blog where I outline the Stage -1 of my journey to the Mountains of the Moon-Chander Pahar. 

Stage 1

 

Stage 2